Couple get off to flying start with The Travel Franchise despite no former industry experience
While many new franchisees run their businesses part time until they build up their business, others like Richard Goodwin and Ian Pritchard-Jones jumped in feet first from the get go.
Working full time since they launched their homeworking agency with The Travel Franchise on May 19th, there’s no stopping them.
Based near Wrexham in North Wales, the couple are already shooting up our ‘success career ladder’ having sold over £85,000 pounds worth of holidays in just eight weeks despite never having worked in travel before.
Like many travel consultants, they have passion for travel and plenty of transferable skills having a combined 40 years in hospitality. All they needed was expert support and training.
Says Ian: “We joined the franchise because we wanted to do something we were really passionate about and when Richard and I looked at what we could do in travel with no previous experience Google brought up Not Just Travel as the company which takes on people who don’t have any experience in travel at all because their training’s so good.”
It didn’t take Ian and Richard long to invest in the company’s most popular Elite package.
“We compared Not Just Travel with other franchises and they just kept coming out head and shoulders above everybody else. So we did our homework and jumped!”
The guys found the company’s five-day virtual training tough but enjoyable.
“It was intensive, but because we could do it at home at least there was no travel involved. It was really good fun and interactive – every day was different with different Business Development Managers (BDMs) training us but I admit by Friday dinner time, I needed a glass of rose!”
Richard and Ian took their first booking within a week with some help from their BDM (everyone gets allocated a personal BDM for support).
Like many new to travel franchisees, Ian and Richard were worried that they’d have to be ‘world experts’ but during training the penny dropped…
“It suddenly hit home that the franchise’s suppliers are the true travel experts and you can go to different ones for different parts of the world. The suppliers will feed you with information and you just get to know these things over the years.”
Ian looks back and laughs at the time he wasted prior to training…
“All those weeks going to bed at night with the Atlas…. we didn’t need to do that!”
Initially enquiries were a little slow but that soon changed.
“All of a sudden we started taking more and more bookings and then our first customers actually booked a second holiday with us.”
And most of their business has been through word of mouth and Facebook – without a penny spent on marketing!
“Every booking we had, we asked clients to put something on their socials to say: We’ve just booked with Ian and Richard from Tailormade Escapes!”
And while some consultants invest in a franchise in their spare time to raise some extra cash or top up a pension, Ian and Richard have big plans for their business.
“We want to get to the top, to reach a million pound turnover a year.”
But first their goal is to achieve our infamous Money-Back Challenge, one of the biggest incentives offered by The Travel Franchise. If Ian and Richard make enough commission in their first year The Travel Franchise will refund their franchise fee!
The couple believe it’s well within their reach, especially as they love what they do.
“I don’t want to be corny, but if you work in an area you’re passionate about it doesn’t feel like work. Looking into people’s holidays, talking about holidays every day, well there’s a lot worse jobs out there!”