Headquarter Happenings: Trevello Celebrates 30 Years with Annual Conference

Trevello wrapped up its annual conference Monday night with a gala celebration of its 30th anniversary aboard Ruby Princess after spending the week cruising to Alaska. During the seven-day cruise, some 210 advisors met with more than 50 suppliers for one-on-one meetings and multiple networking opportunities. In total, more than 800 meetings were scheduled, and that didn’t include the three themed party nights and numerous hosted lunches and dinners. It’s the largest number of suppliers Trevello has ever had participate in an annual conference and the second largest conference overall.

Taking inspiration from the trailblazing prospectors who headed through Alaska and into the Klondike in search for gold, Trevello themed this year’s conference “Trailblazers.”

“A trailblazer is a person that sets themselves apart, that does things a little bit differently,” said Caroline Hay, general manager of cruise at Trevello. “And that is indeed what Morris Chia set out to accomplish 30 years ago when he saw an opportunity to introduce the chance for people just like yourselves to turn their passion into a business.”

As with many trailblazers, Chia experienced a lot of resistance, Trevello’s CEO Zeina Gedeon told TMR in a sit-down interview during the conference.

“It took us a long time to get the credibility that we deserve,” she added.

Thirty years later, Trevello is firing on all cylinders.

Sales in 2023 were up 48% over 2019. Commissions were up 63%, aided by the fact that the average value per invoice was also up – by 31%.

This year is looking even better, with Q1 sales up by 11% YOY, the average value per invoice up by 10%, and commissions also up by 10%. All in all, Gedeon said Trevello expects to see sales up by 11% in 2024 vs 2023, and commissions up by 15% in 2024 vs. 2023.

One piece of the business that Gedeon expressed disappointment in was the growth – or non-growth of service fees. From 2019 to 2023, service fees went from accounting to 1% of all bookings to 12%, but since last year, that number has barely changed.

“I want it to be growing every year because that means more people are doing it,” she told TMR. She believes that those advisors that were ready to embrace service fees have already done so. What’s left are advisors who lack the confidence to start charging. And for many of these, they’re so busy nowadays that they don’t see the need for it.

“They’re so busy, they think, okay, money is coming in, why bother?”

New tools
Like the prospectors of yore, Hay said, today’s Trevello advisor is an entrepreneur in search of “that golden nugget,” which she described as the perfect customer, and “that perfect moment where you know that you have meet their needs and over-exceeded all of your business plans.”

To help advisors find their golden nuggets, Gedeon detailed some of the new tools that Trevello has recently introduced to make advisors’ jobs easier and, more importantly, make them more efficient.

(Ironically, Trevello attempted to kick off this year’s conference with some trailblazing use of artificial intelligence, having an AI-generated emcee greet the audience at the start of the show. It ended up glitching, the perfect example of why advisors don’t need to be worried about AI taking business away from them.)

“As independent contractors, we don’t want them to spend too much time doing the backend, the invoicing, the commission follow-up, all that,” Gedeon told TMR. “It takes away from the precious time that they can sell.”

By introducing centralized search and booking systems – namely Air Central, Cruise Central, and an AI-powered itinerary builder – Gedeon said they’ve enabled advisors to be 20% to 40% more efficient.

There’s still room for improvement and more training, though, Gedeon said, adding that they’ve found that most advisors are using the tools for research and trip planning, but then booking directly with suppliers rather than via the tools.

Other new tools include a commission tracker (as compared to pre-set targets), a supplier contract search, access to an extra-fee virtual assistant, and more.

Coming soon is a customized social media tool that advisors can use to build a larger following and create more engagement with current followers. A centralized hotel search and booking tool is also coming soon.

Training
Speaking of training, Trevello also recently hired a training manager to streamline its training program.

“We always had a training coordinator to do basic stuff,” Gedeon said, “but we have gone way beyond that.”

Trevello’s training programs are divided into new-to-industry training (the Launchpad program that debuted two years ago), and business training that helps advisors learn how to niche down. 

“The training is geared more to business. If it’s a tool, IT can train you on a tool. Our training is geared toward how to develop a niche,” she said.

It’s still too early to see the results of the niche and business training, but Gedeon said that the company’s Launchpad program has been very successful.

“We used to lose most of them [new to industry advisors] every year… Now, in two years, we’ve lost just one advisor,” she said.

Trevello today
Trevello currently stands at about 900 members, with 17 to 22 new advisors joining every month. (About 50% of these are new to the industry.)

Most of the company’s recruitment – some 80% to 90%, Gedeon said – is done via word of mouth.

The company will be expanding to the United States this summer and already has some advisors lined up to join.

“We truly believe we have a different model,” Gedeon said of the expansion into the U.S.