Become a Home Based Travel Agent

A Sales Game Plan – Part 2 – Prospecting with Purpose
By Cory Andrichuk

Hi everyone… This is the second in a series of six articles that will help you establish a successful Sales Game Plan to grow your business.   My intention is to bring you personal, specific, and creative steps to grow your sales into better profits.  I want to emphasize how important it is to ensure you have a bigger plan in place before trying to improve your salesmanship!  Yes, I am talking about your business plan, your marketing plan, a vision, and your mission.  With a solid personal and professional plan in place, home-based travel sales are so much easier and profitable. 

In Part 1, I wrote about how critical a healthy sales mindset is to your sales success.  The first question I asked you was to define sales and take the time to write out what sales means to you and pick out key words that summarized your attitude towards sales.  If you have not done that yet, please take some time to write those thoughts out now before you go on so that you have a greater awareness of your own mindset as you take this journey to growing your business.   

A second question I asked you was why do your customers buy from you?  Do you know?  If not, simply call three customers today and ask them why!  It is so helpful to hear someone else reconfirm or put into words those special qualities that you have so that you can consciously cultivate the qualities that work for you.    

This month I would like to talk to you about Prospecting with Purpose.  First, I would like to ask,” What is prospecting to you and how often do you do it?  Do you prospect on and offline?”  Prospecting has been traditionally defined as lead generation, business development, creating your sales pipeline, and knowing and understanding your target market.  I believe that at the end of the day, it comes down to everything you do to get in front of your target market by selling, connecting and communicating you and your brand!  Don’t wait for clients to randomly seek you out.  Set goals for who you want as a customer and prospect for them with the purpose of attracting the client who fits your niche.  By not prospecting with purpose, many new home-based travel entrepreneurs, and also experienced travel professionals, looking to create a new niche with a specialization have limited success and never really get their business off the ground. 

In order to help you fast-track your business, here are some areas where you can find new prospects. 

Lists/ Directories:  A list or directory is a collection of names/ contacts of potential customers that an association, organization could provide you with.  You sometimes might have to buy them, earn them, create an alliance to collect them, or sometimes just simply ask for them!  For example, if you specialize in honeymoon weddings, I would recommend to you to get into the bridal community by setting up a booth at wedding and consumer shows.  Use a variety of cross-promotions with wedding photographers, caters, and event planners.  Cross-promoting your business enhances and multiplies your efforts towards building your business.  Scrap-booking clubs & quilting associations, health and wellness industries and organizations are also great possibilities.  Check out your local library or get creative and use Google to research such opportunities! 

Referrals:  We all started somewhere in this business right?  Whether you are new to travel or experienced and embarking on a new niche, you have a track-record from your previous experience that got you here.  My advice to you is to call upon those past connections, relationships, personal and professional contacts, and ask them for a letter of reference or recommendation.  (Check out my personal Linked IN recommendations from my past to see how I have leveraged such past connections into my future business and growth opportunities.) 

Current customers:  Once you are selling, your current customers are the best source of new business.  These special people in your life will help you because you take such good care of them… right!  You consistently stay in touch with them and do not give them a reason to go anywhere else!  ALL your business should be reciprocal in such a way – like a friendship right!  People do business with people they like, and more you service your customers, generally the more they will like you and help you in return! 

Online Prospecting/ Social Media Networking (SMN):   The emphasis here is all about connecting and communicating and not so much about selling your product and or service!  Are you one of the 400Million+ on Facebook yet?  What are you waiting for…? Using SMN connecting tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and You Tube, allows you to informally show another side of you that is not so stuffy, corporate, and brochure proper.  Most people understand that you are human outside of your home-based travel business and want to sometimes learn more about your human side.  SMN is perfect for the travel industry as most people who travel are very social.  People who travel, generally, love to share their travel experiences don’t they…The good, the bad, and the ugly!  Connecting with common interest is the underlying theme here!  If your target market is here, shouldn’t you also be here?  I recommend starting a FACEBOOK account and inviting your friends and family first.  Move on and upgrade, only when you are comfortable, to a Facebook Fan Page and begin inviting your clients to your page not only to learn more about you, but to discover  the value you can bring to their next dream vacation (travel related articles of interest, facts, tips, and updates that are relevant to your speciality!)  Keep in mind that there should still be some level of privacy in your world that you want to keep, so stay professional.

Finally, your message when prospecting with purpose needs to be clear, concise, and consistent.  Keep it simple.  Try and ensure that your message is on target, distinct, and separates you from the competition.  Start prospecting sooner rather than later, and begin building that pipeline of prospects today, everyday, all the time! 

Make it a great prospecting month!!!