Become a Home Based Travel Agent

If you have already have one or two business mentors, you can answer this question in a millisecond. Sure, there are many people who have influenced our careers, but a mentor is that one person (or two in my case) who immediately come to mind and bring you a smile. Mentors help professionals grow.

Many people influence our careers and support and advise us. If we were to sit down and start a list of all of the people who we feel have influenced our business life, I suspect we would have a very long list. In fact, as I write this article I have made a plan to take a day next week to sit on the beach with my pad and pen and just start this list to see where it takes me. Certainly the exercise will bring back many memories.

If you do not have a mentor and want one, where do you start? Think about people you know or respect within the travel industry. This could be a fellow travel professional you admire or it might be a travel industry executive who you respect and want to know better. Think about people you know or respect within your professional field or industry, or just somebody that you think is interesting and open to sharing advice with you. Having a well-connected mentor keeping an eye out for you can open doors and accelerate the pace of your career.

Once you’ve identified a person or two, approach them to see if they would be open to chatting with you about your career. Keep it casual--don’t ask them to be your formal mentor. Ask for the opportunity to talk to them, work with them, meet occasionally for coffee, or whatever makes sense. Then be a sponge and soak in everything you can. Come prepared with things to talk about, and thank them for their time and advice. Finally, give back to your mentor as much as you take. A good mentor/mentee relationship is symbiotic, with each person feeling truly rewarded by the experience.

My mentors have passed this life but are with me everyday in my heart. My eternal thanks go to my father Robert H. Bensinger and my friend Joel Abels for guiding me through my life and career.

Joanie Ogg CTC MCC
Joanie Ogg Marketing Group
Editor

Joanie Ogg is a thirty-five year veteran of the travel industry and has been involved with the independent contractor evolution since 1988. She is the principal of Joanie Ogg Marketing Group, which specializes in consulting and speaking on the topic of Home-Based Travel. She also provides marketing and sales for wide variety of products under the umbrella HomeBasedTravelAgent.com.

A demonstrated industry leader, Joanie most recently served as the President of the National Association of Commissioned Travel Agents (NACTA) and TravelSellers. She and her husband Tom acquired NACTA in 1996 and sold it to The American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA) in 2000. Joanie’s tenure in the travel industry includes owning and operating one of the first successful host agency models. She has owned and operated several storefront travel agencies (both commercial and leisure), as well as a Hawaii wholesale tour company.

Her decades of success have garnered her numerous accolades over the years. Her accomplishments have been recognized by receipt of two Lifetime Achievement Awards from major trade groups, being named as one of the “100 Most Powerful Women in Travel” by Travel Agent magazine on several occasions, voted as “Travel Agent of the Year” by the readers of Travel Trade magazine, and has been recognized by many other industry organizations throughout her tenure in the industry. In 2008 Joanie Ogg was inducted into the CLIA Hall of Fame, an honor held by some of the most influential executives in the travel industry.

Joanie is a Master Cruise Counselor (MCC) and a Certified Travel Counselor (CTC). Joanie has co-authored two popular travel industry books for cruise specialists and home-based travel agents and has authored hundreds of travel trade articles. She has inspired tens of thousands of travel agents attending her presentations at trade events, cruise seminars, international trade gatherings and numerous local educational venues throughout the United States. With a time-honored background and forward-looking vision, she is often featured as a speaker at many of the travel industry’s major conferences and events. Joanie’s speaking talents are widely sought as a travel industry emcee by the most recognized travel organizations. She has emceed such events as Cruise-A-Thons, ASTA’s CruiseFest, The Trade Show, The Travel Institute Forum and all of NACTA’s National and International Conferences.


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