From CPA to Agent, She’s Got a Plan
by Cheryl Rosen /On Oct. 15, Jennifer Hand will quit her well-paid steady job as a CPA and take a leap of faith into the travel industry.
“I’m a licensed CPA but I don’t love it; it doesn’t fit my personality,” said the 48-year-old mother of two teenagers. “So I’m getting rid of my safety net and following my dream.”
That’s not to say that Hand is jumping in cold. After 20 years as an accountant, she is a detail person, a planner, a thinker. So she is following a carefully laid path she believes will bring both financial security and the joy of doing what she truly loves.
A simple question
Hand’s career change had its roots in a simple question from her dad, also a CPA, who in January 2013, at Age 70, was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
“When you are given a death sentence you start to think about things differently,” Hand said. “My dad asked me, ‘Do you love what you do?’ And I said no, but it’s steady work and good pay.
“And he said, ‘What happened to my fearless girl who packed her car after college and just moved down south?’ He just lit a fire under me.”
Hand was already working part-time as a travel agent, mostly dabbling in Disney trips and Mexico vacations for a church friend who needed help. After the conversation with her father, she started wondering if she could make it on her own as an agent.
Building a foundation
She started working until midnight and on weekends. She hired two career coaches to teach her how to sell like a pro. And she started building a brand on social media.
By the beginning of 2014 Hand’s travel sales volume had grown from $2,400 in 2012 to $9,960 in 2013.
She joined GIFTE, a host agency with a training arm; listened carefully to the advice of Meredith Hill, president of the Global Institute for Travel Entrepreneurs, and social media coach Sue B. Zimmerman.
“My business went kablammo because my mindset went kablammo,” Hand said. “I’m at $19,000 for this year, and it’s only August; I more than doubled my business in one year because of them.”
Taking the leap
Still, she knew that as long as she had the safety net of her fulltime job as a CPA she was never really going to make it in her own agency. So she and her husband sat down, took a hard look at the numbers, decided it just might work; then they set a date.
On Oct. 15, Hand will become the full-time president of Family Memories Travel in Alabaster, Ala.
Leveraging social media
Hand knows she cannot build a thriving business just from her personal acquaintances; she is, after all, a displaced Yankee in small-town Alabama.
“I’m not well-connected [locally]. I’m a working mom; I didn’t have time for a lot of social stuff. And industry knowledge is only going to get you so far,” she said.
“You’ve got to have a business mindset and sales training, and social media is the wave of the future.”
She is depending on social media to bring in customers, and so far it is working. Her last four customers checked her out on LinkedIn, on Twitter and on her professional Facebook page before they called, Hand said.
Investing in her future
Meanwhile, she already has signed Zimmerman on for a coaching session in January, as a refresher and morale booster when her own energy starts to lag.
“Sue ain’t cheap but she is worth every penny,” Hand said. “She says she doesn’t want to work with anyone who can’t afford her – you have to have skin in the game.
“If you put money down on excellent training you will force yourself to do what they say and make that money back. Otherwise it will stay a hobby.”
100% confident
Now, with just a month to go before her full time launch, she says she is “100% confident that within 18 months I will have replaced my salary.
“I’m happy and I’m energized – and I’m scared out of my mind.”