New travel agents joining the Virtuoso network of
luxury-oriented travel agencies are more quickly reaching million-dollar annual
sales figures and are doing so by using certain successful strategies, the
company said.
Virtuoso spokeswoman Misty Ewes Belles said the consortium recently
released research into the habits that lead to success for the new agents.
“Our instincts told us that we were
seeing new advisers ramp up to million-dollar producers in record time, and the
research supported our premise,” she said in an email interview.
The study focused on Virtuoso agents
new to the industry. It did not distinguish between home-based and office-based
agents, so Virtuoso was unable to shed light specifically on home-based agents.
Belles said a few things “really
stood out.”
“We had
conducted earlier research that showed the importance of client
follow-up. However, seeing how the dialogue after the trip factored into the online client reviews really
brought it into focus.”
The successful agents “had nearly
twice as many reviews as their counterparts because they left a lasting
impression and established a different level of trust with their clients.”
She added that the research “firmly
reinforced” that participating in the network's marketing opportunities,
engaging in networking and relationship building through the network events and
furthering their professional development all worked in tandem to help catapult
these new entrants to a different level.”
• The agents in the study were twice as likely as other agents
to attend Virtuoso's Travel Week conference that features meetings with
preferred suppliers.
• They took 75% more training classes than
the average agent and were more likely to participate in marketing initiatives.
• Over 90% of the group are active in multiple social media
channels and use them to communicate with and inspire their clients to travel.
• More than 80% of the agents in the Virtuoso study have an
online bio that features their specialties, countries visited and a
professional photo.
• More than 40% of agents in the study have clients who
submitted reviews and recommendations for their profile page. They averaged 26.2 reviews on their Virtuoso
profile page, considerably higher than the network average of 14.5 per agent,
according to the Virtuoso research.