Friday

Sales Tips for Travel Agent Success

Cultivating sales skills is worth the investment of time and effort.
 The more clients you can keep, the less prospecting you have to do.

Following are travel agent tips for success.

1. Listen, listen, listen
Find common ground – where they’ve been, their pet peeves when traveling. Make small talk, the
likeability factor is huge.

2. Profile your clients
Ask the right questions: What do they like to do on vacation, shoping, history, adventure, romance, golf, water sports, ect. What is their “vision” of the perfect vacation? No two clients are alike.

3. Identify emotional benefits
Agents should decipher the emotional benefits clients seek in travel. Travel can be an opportunity to re-charge or to celebrate a special occasion with a “splurge factor. The desire to travel can also be driven by guilt – “not spending enough time with one’s family.

4. Develop your sales skills
Be yourself, but be your best self. Agents should show genuine interest in their clients; keep their promises – even for the simplest things, and find ways to sustain clients’ excitement for their travel plans.

5. Follow-up
Very few people follow up with clients. There’s a big difference between saying "call me after your trip," and "You calling your clients to see how everything went." Agents can also garner valuable information by making follow-up calls after their clients trips.
Most clients have an idea of where they want to go on their next trip. Hold onto that information and be sure to follow up with them.

6. Become a life-long student
Product knowledge is critical to success. Agents should take advantage of tools and training, both from suppliers and other sources; tap their clients and third party experts for inside information; visit destinations whenever possible, and use the Internet to fill in gaps in product knowledge.

7. Develop Your Brand
There are numerous ways for agents to develop their own brand. Like seeking client endorsements, joining community organizations such as the Better Business Bureau or Chamber of Commerce, and billing oneself as an expert.

Specializing in a neach is also a way to develop a brand.

Find niches like adventure, family or health and wellness and promote your specialty. If you’re selling resorts that specialize in health and wellness anyway, promote yourself as a health and wellness expert.

Put that specialty out there on everything, including your business card and collateral materials.

8. Provide Value
Price isn’t everything. Focus on the experience and take ownership of value-adds. Agents should take credit for value-added offerings they provide such as complimentary breakfast and resort credits.

You have to assume that people are checking out the Internet. You can’t control what they do, but you can sharpen your skills.

Travel agent Jobs. Learn how to become a home based travel agent. Free website and training. www.HomeBasedTravelAgents.ORG

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