Jamie Biesiada
When an agent reaches financial success, it's time to focus on top clients and give the non-priority business to someone else, said Sharon Fake, director of operations at Travel Experts, a Virtuoso agency.
Whether it be an assistant or another advisor in the agent's network, it's a tactic Fake has seen successful Travel Experts agents use time and again.
"What they have done is, they've come to a level where they've become successful financially, and they realize that they have to have a focus, because you can't live a 24-hour [working] day every day," she said.
Oftentimes, those agents hire an assistant that they also mentor, Fake said.
"They are the people that are skilled enough to know that there are clients one through 20 that I have to handle, but clients 21 through 30 or 40, I can give to this assistant and mentor her and watch over what they do," she said.
In addition to helping agents prioritize their most important clients, Fake said this tactic also gives new agents valuable experience to get their career in travel started."She's moving up in the world in terms of her experience, I'm getting the most return for my investment of time," Fake said.
Sharon Fake
For instance, Fake said an agent who is a specialist in international FIT trips might choose to pass off family trips to Disney. While they don't necessarily turn their client away, they are giving that particular business to another agent and reserving their time for the trips they specialize in for priority clients, she explained.
In addition to assistants, Fake has seen the same strategy work with agents within the Travel Experts community, where independent contractors work out their own agreements amongst themselves on sharing business (some of those agreements include splitting commissions).
Those agents can internally post messages like, "This client has come to me, they want to do this group trip. I just don't do group trips... I'd like to perhaps hand off that business [to a Travel Experts colleague]."
"I think the people that can do that well are the ones that really succeed," Fake said.
It can be difficult for agents to give up business, Fake - who still keeps a handful of her own clients - admitted, but more business isn't necessarily good business if it means having to neglect top clients.
"It sounds a little crass to say it's about the money - and it's not completely, it's certainly about the service and the reward for putting all these trips together - but if you're looking at it from a business point of view, you want to choose how you have that precious time defined," she said.
In addition to knowing how to manage their time spent on clients, Fake said the best agents she sees are always thinking about ways to expand their business.
"They know that being proactive, putting themselves in positions where they're going to meet clients that will give them the kind of business that they want, is something that they do seven days a week," she said. "They're always out there asking for that business."