A Business Action Plan for Your Agency in 2014

This is the latest in series offering insights and advice from the president and CEO of Travel Agency Management Solutions (TAMS).

The annual December exercise of reflecting on the business lessons of the past year will have little impact on your agency’s bottom line if you don’t convert the lessons into action.

Here’s a recap of my top five business lessons from 2013 for agency owners and managers, followed by suggestions for turning the lessons of 2013 into action plans for 2014.

Lesson #1: You must find time to work ON your business, as well as in it.

Robert Joselyn

Action plan: Take an afternoon away from the office and away from the phone, with email and text messaging turned off. Set an objective to work on something that is vital for your business throughout the next year, not just for the following week or month.

Schedule this kind of planning time into your calendar regularly.

Lesson #2. Agency expenses are like a three-year-old child. Take your eye off them for a minute and they will run away from you.

Action plan: Give zero-based budgeting a try. Start with a zero budget for every item on the expense side of your P & L. For each item, ask yourself whether that expense is necessary. If the answer is yes, ask yourself whether the vendors you use are providing the best value. Justify the amount you anticipate spending.

Lesson #3. If you want new agency talent, you are likely going to have to grow your own.

Action plan: Keep your eyes open for opportunities to hire talent from outside the travel industry, including the next time you go shopping. You never know where you’ll find a talented and enthusiastic salesperson.

Yes, you will need a training program for interns and those diamonds in the rough you encounter. It’s an investment. The definition of investment is that it generates a bigger return.

#4: Consumers need and want quality travel advice, but not advice they can Google on their own.

Action plan: Think of each agent’s desk as its own business and of each individual agent as the owner of that business. Have your agents select a major and minor area of interest, as if they were in college, and ask them to commit to studying those areas in-depth.

Support your agents with training and familiarization travel. Require every agent who goes on a fam trip to come back with three great suggestions for clients that they can’t find on Google.

This will prompt your agents to focus on finding insider information that may have passed them by before. At the same time, your agency will build a database of information that you can use to surprise and delight clients who will pay for the privilege and come back to you for their next trip.

#5: Suppliers who gave you the cold shoulder when they were flying high will be back on your doorstep with flowers when things turn stormy.

Action plan: Examine your agency’s preferred supplier relationships. When a supplier dumps you and then returns on hands and knees saying they made a mistake, agree with them. Think very carefully about returning to a supplier who disowned you then comes back to court you when they need you.

Dr. Robert W. Joselyn, CTC. is president & CEO of Joselyn, Tepper & Associates Inc., a travel agency consulting firm, and of TAMS, LLC (Travel Agency Management Solutions).