By Mary Brutscher
Former Host Agency Owner &
Travel Educational Instructor
cruisefacecruises@yahoo.com

How Can You Be a Success
at What You Hate?

Do you love it? Yes.
Sometimes you can begin to feel burn-out. It's only natural.

I am going to jump right into this little article and ask how passionate you are with the 'art' of selling travel. Do you love it? Yes. Sometimes you can begin to feel burn-out. It's only natural. After all, you have some difficult clients and some difficult suppliers as well and sometimes you end up in the middle acting as peacekeeper. Yet, if you haven't given up and you just keep hanging in there because you find travel exciting and something you just can't imagine not doing, then you, my friend, are a lover of travel. You should experience success based on the excitement you feel regarding the product and services you sell. That excitement will spill over to your customers and chances are there will be times they will make that final decision to travel just on the excitement they have felt talking with you about it.

I've used the story of our first cruise in past articles and I am going to touch on it again to help drive my point across.

We were beginning the planning stages for an anniversary getaway and a cruise was the last thing on our minds. We had never utilized the services of a travel agent before, but we wanted to do something special and get some new ideas. I visited two travel agencies and no one would take the time to even sit down and talk with me about options or ideas. The best I got from these two agencies were brochures and the advice that I should look through them and when I decided what I wanted to do, to call them back and come in to talk about it. Needless to say, I was not impressed with travel agencies at this point. If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that the travel agents at these two travel agencies did not have that 'love' of travel. It was simply the job they were hired to do, and without that passion, they weren't doing a very good job at what they were hired to do either!

I decided to try one more travel agency. This time I called first. I got a travel agent on the phone who was fairly new to the industry and, boy, was she excited about all of the opportunities and choices out there to explore with my husband and myself. I knew she was the one I wanted to assist us with our plans, so we made an appointment for that very afternoon.

When we entered the agency, she was waiting for us and the first to greet us. She was as excited at meeting us as we were to meet her. She began our meeting by qualifying us by finding out what we liked to do, past vacations, budget, etc. She next began to make suggestions and one of those suggestions was a cruise. Now, I have to pause here a moment and say that one of the reasons a cruise was the last thing on our minds was, in part, due to my fear of water. Yes, although I cruise a lot, I still have a little fear that stems from the drowning of my dad when I was a child (and yes, I did think of the Poseidon Adventure), but the love of cruising outweighs the fear by far.

It turns out that this particular travel agent had just come back from a three day cruise on a fairly new cruise ship, Carnival Fantasy, and she loved it so much that she practically sparkled when she talked about it. She painted a picture of us on this ship. We saw ourselves having the time of our lives. We felt the excitement. We booked that cruise!

You see, although she herself loved cruising and was able to share that enthusiasm for cruising with her clients, that wasn't the only reason she was so successful. She loved what she did. It was not just a job to her. It was a part of her life and her passion. It gave her excitement to create a perfect vacation experience for her clients.

Fast forward to earlier this year. Franz and I took a nice cruise on Celebrity. It was great. It was the time of year when the ship was mostly filled with adults, which made the cruise a little more relaxing and, after all, that was the main reason for the cruise this time around. It was because of this need to relax that we decided to go with any time dining so we could just relax and not have to worry about rushing to dinner. As usual, we met some interesting people at dinner, and, of course, some were more enjoyable than others.

On one of these evenings we sat next to two women who did not seem to be enjoying themselves at all. One of the ladies did not like the cruise line and was not happy to be there. The other woman did not like cruising at all and she certainly wasn't happy to be there. In fact, the more we talked about travel, the more I found that although she did her share of traveling, to include cruising, she really did not like to travel. She seemed to have a bit of disdain in regards to travel, in fact.

I began to wonder if these two women had booked the travel for themselves, or had gone through a travel agency. I thought that if they had not used an agent, they definitely needed to and if they had, they needed a NEW agent. Before I could ask, however, the woman who hated travel confided to me that she was a travel agent! I was speechless! I could have been a prospective customer sitting next to her! How could anyone who hates travel so much possibly have any success in the industry? Would you want to trust your vacation plans or other business matters to someone who absolutely hates the career field they are in? I think not. It's the same thing with our clients. If we are enthusiastic, we pass along that enthusiasm and create good relationships with good clients. It we come across as what we do being such a chore that we hate doing, we may get one sale (if we are lucky), but we certainly won't get repeat or good business.

So, I ask you. Do you love travel or do you hate travel? If it is not your passion and you have no joy or satisfaction working in the industry, maybe it's time to look at other options. If, however, you love what you do, let it shine through and be a success!