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The Side Hustle Show
670: $1000/mo Helping People Plan Trips: Inside the Travel Advising Side Hustle
01:01:49
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- [00:01]
Nick Loper
A thousand bucks a month helping people plan epic trips. What's up? What's up? Nick Loper here. Welcome to the side Hustle show. Because your 9 to 5 may make you a living, but your 5 to 9 makes you alive. Another thing that certainly makes you alive is travel and adventure and exploring and experiencing new places. And today I want to share how you can actually turn your interest in travel into an extra income stream. Today's guest has done just that on top of some other online businesses from.
- [00:30]
Bailey
Unlistedtravel.Com and make travelyourjob.com after a nine year gap.
- [00:36]
Nick Loper
Bailey, Richard, welcome back to the side Hustle show.
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Richard
Thanks so much for having me back, Nick. It's a pleasure to be here again.
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Nick Loper
I can't believe it's been that long.
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Richard
I know.
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Nick Loper
Of course, link up Bailey's original episode. We're talking about building an online course business at that point. But stick around in this one to.
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Bailey
Learn how travel advisors make money, how.
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Nick Loper
To set yourself up for for success in this field, maybe some scams to avoid and creative ways to market your services to go out there and get some business. And I want to start with the.
- [01:03]
Bailey
You know what is possible, what one.
- [01:05]
Nick Loper
Trip can make you because you mentioned I recently planned a trip for two people going to London. And between advisor fees and commissions, we'll get into all this. It was over $600 to you for something that I take you enjoy doing anyways.
- [01:21]
Richard
Absolutely. This is a particular trip I planned for two individuals, man and wife travel, traveling six days, five nights to London on a romantic getaway. So to start off, we have the planning fee. So the planning fee is an upfront fee that travel advisors will charge their clients to cover the cost of planning their epic itinerary. Some travel advisors choose not to charge a planning fee under some circumstances. Maybe you're serving your friends or your family, but it's definitely becoming more common to charge your clients a planning fee. Now this isn't something outrageous. It could be $50 a day. It could be $20 a day of trav. But it could also be a fixed fee, you know, maybe a hundred dollars a week of travel for up to, you know, two people, three people. You were the one that gets to determine your planning fee. But that's approximately what we're looking at. So for this particular trip, it was $100. Now this was a little bit earlier on in my travel advising journey. So today I probably would have charged maybe even $200 for this particular trip. But we're going off the numbers that we used here. So we've got a $100 planning fee upfron, non refundable upfront planning fee from the client to.
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Nick Loper
You. Got it.
- [02:35]
Richard
So then after the client pays the planning fee, you are going to get started planning their epic itinerary. There's going to be some back and forth between you and the client to make it perfect. But after they've approved it, you're going to book all of the elements of their trip. So you're going to book their hotel, their tours, their rental car, their airport transfers, all of the things that make somebody's trip actually happen. And how you get paid through that is by commissions. The travel vendor or supplier, like the hotel, for example, is going to pay you a commission. So, for example, in this case study we're talking about, I booked the Flemings Mayfair hotel in central London, and the commission on this particular booking was 15%. Now, this is a little bit higher than average because this particular hotel is a preferred partner with my host agency. Don't worry, we're going to get into all of that, but you can expect anywhere between 8 to 12%, typically on a regular hotel commission. But if you are going to book with some of these preferred hotels where your host agency might have a special connection or relationship, you can get commissions that are even higher.
- [03:49]
Nick Loper
Got it.
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Richard
In fact, I have seen a few hotels within my host agency have up to 20% commission, which is pretty crazy.
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Nick Loper
Yeah.
- [03:58]
Richard
Because on a trip, the hotel is usually what you spend the most on. It's important to make sure you're looking at that commission number. So in this particular case, the commission value or the total amount that the client paid for the hotel for which you can Earn Commission was $2,442. So 15% of that is $366. Now, your host agency is going to take a small portion of that. How much you earn is dependent upon your relationship with your host agency. It might be a 70, 30 split. 80, 20 or 9010 if you're starting out as a travel advisor. 70, 30 is pretty common and that's what I was earning at this point.
- [04:43]
Nick Loper
Meaning they would give you 70% of the 360.
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Richard
Exactly. So you would be earning, as I did in this case, 70% of the 15%. So in this case that was 256.
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Nick Loper
Okay.
- [04:56]
Richard
We already have a $100 planning fee and $256. So that's $356 already on this trip. And so far the only thing I booked for them is the hotel right now, for this particular trip, I offered them a private airport transfer. That wasn't something they were interested in. They're pretty frequent travelers. They wanted to use the tube, the Gatwick Express or the Heathrow Express, whichever, and things like that. They didn't need a rental car. But I'm mentioning these things because you can get commissions on these as well. Your job as the travel advisor is to be thinking about all of the different elements that someone is going to need on their trip to make it actually happen and also to make it enjoyable. It doesn't mean that the client is going to take everything that you propose. That's why you'll go back and forth with them on the itinerary to see what they want, what their budget is. But at the end of the day, you can be earning commissions on all these different things.
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Nick Loper
Okay, so I could set up shop today and call myself a travel advisor and help book these itineraries and, you know, do the travel planning part for this upfront free. But if I want to get commissions, then I have to go through some registration. I got to find this host agency. And this is in lieu of becoming a certified travel agent. You know, going through hoops and requirements like to do that myself. This is kind of like a. An easier barrier to get into earning those types of commissions.
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Richard
Basically, yes. So essentially, in order to book on behalf of a client and get paid your commissions, you're going to need something called an accreditation number. The most famous or most common is something called iata. Iata I think it stands for International Air Transport Association. But the reality is this particular number is something that you are going to use at time of booking to let the vendor, like the hotel, know that you're a travel advisor or travel agent. We use those terms interchangeably and you're booking on behalf of a client, and this particular accreditation number is linked to the organization that's going to get the commission. So you have two routes here. You can either choose to become an independent agent and go through the entire process yourself of becoming accredited, which is going to take many months and quite a significant amount of money and it's a very long process, or you can do something else, which is what I recommend to all of my students and friends, which is that you should join a host agency. So a host agency is a company travel agency that's already gone through the time and effort and paid the fees to become accredited. They have one accreditation number and they share that accreditation number with all of the travel advisors that come to work for them as 10, 99 contractors. Essentially, you'll be able to use their accreditation number when booking, when they go.
- [07:44]
Nick Loper
Out and form the relationships with all of the hotels and tour providers and car rental services and all of the stuff. So you don't have to do that. And in exchange they take that 30% fee of the commissions.
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Richard
Absolutely. So the host agencies do so much work for the travel advisors up front, as you mentioned, forming those relationships is a huge part of it. But there's also things like bringing the travel advisors together in a community, hosting trainings about how to run your business, how to do bookings, but also about suppliers or destinations. They offer support and they also chase down your commissions. So it's a really great system because you are not going to be out sending invoices and trying to chase down commissions from all of these different suppliers. The host agency is going to do that for you. And then when it comes, you know, time for taxes, it's super easy because you're just getting paid from one place.
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Nick Loper
Got it, Got it. Okay. Any host agencies that you like or where. Where should people begin their search? Here.
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Richard
Hostagencyreviews.com is a fantastic website. I know, it's such a great name. It's such a great website. To learn more about the different host agencies available. The host agency I belong to is called Fora and I think they're a great host agency, especially for beginners, but that doesn't mean that's the only option. There are many things you need to consider when choosing your host agency. For example, what is that initial commission split? Are you comfortable with a 7030 to start or do you need something higher? What type of support does the host agency offer in terms of a community? Trainings, but also tech. Of course, you're running a business here, so there's going to be some tech involved. Your host agency agency may provide some tools for you, they also may not. You might have to get those separately. So there are many different questions you'll need to ask before you choose the right one for you.
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Nick Loper
And I'm on foratravel.com it looks like it's 300 a year to request, to join, to apply, as you know, under their host agency as a travel advisor. Is that fairly typical where they're charging an upfront fee to be part of their network?
- [09:51]
Richard
Yes, that's a membership fee. So to apply is free when you are accepted or invited to come and join them as a travel advisor. Then there is a that $300 is annual, but you could also pay Monthly. So there's a monthly or annual membership fee. And that's not just with fora. That's pretty much with most or any host agency. There's going to be that upfront fee to take care of the services they provide for you. In addition to the commissions, as we.
- [10:16]
Nick Loper
Previously discussed, there's somewhat common in the site oscillation Facebook group. It's like almost a network marketing pitch or a multi level marketing pitch. Like I book people's travel from home and make this amount of commissions. Like is there a network marketing component to this? Or this is something completely separate.
- [10:35]
Richard
With some host agencies there is. In fact I recommend that people stay away from those host agencies. Fora does not have a network marketing angle to it. They do have a sort of affiliate program where you can get a little bit off of your membership fee every year if you recommend a friend. But there is no requirement to bring in other individuals. There are some other host agencies that I shall not mention that do have these sort of requirements or a very hefty MLM type arm and you make.
- [11:07]
Nick Loper
A percentage of, you know, your, your referrals, bookings and a percentage, you know, just on down.
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Richard
That's one more thing you need to think about when joining the host agency. Is the focus really on supporting the travel advisors in their quest to start their cl? I believe at Fora they are. Or is it more focused on just bringing more people in? So yeah there are definitely some host agencies out there like that, but they're not all like that. Definitely not.
- [11:32]
Nick Loper
Okay, so this is helpful to know host agency love of travel. And now let's talk about the client getting side. I imagine everybody has somebody in their network who's like the travel person, the go to person who you know, knows about, you know, trips and hacks and travel planning. Like my sister in law is like the go to Disney person in our house and there's gotta be other people like that in your own network or maybe that's you to your own network. It's like well start out with friends and family. I imagine this kind of starts with organizing perhaps family trips and earning a little bit of referral commissions on that or planning fees on that. What happens after that like to get the client base spinning Here Bailey's response.
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Bailey
In several more creative ways to market.
- [12:15]
Nick Loper
Your travel advising service coming up right after this.
- [12:20]
Bailey
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- [13:31]
Nick Loper
The guy with all the gadgets?
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Bailey
Or data from Star Trek?
- [13:34]
Nick Loper
I think that's why I say data instead.
- [13:36]
Bailey
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- [14:37]
Richard
You're absolutely right. Pretty much everybody starts off either booking a trip for themselves or for their family and friends. And I think that's a great stepping stone because that's how you really learn. Even if you're someone like me who has decades of actual travel experience, doing it for other people and serving Clients in that way is a little bit of a different ballgame. But once you have done that, there are many different ways. So the first way I always recommend to people is by creating some sort of referral incentive. So as I mentioned earlier, there are these planning fees and you can waive those planning fees under certain circumstances for any clients. So for example, you could say to someone who was a successful client that might be interested in booking with you again, hey, you know, if you refer another person to me who ends up successfully booking a trip, I'll waive your planning fee for your next trip. Yes. For that particular client who's going to book with you a second time, you are losing a little bit of that planning fee. But in the long run, you're going to gain another client, which could result in many trips down the road, you know, if they end up really liking working with you. So that's the first thing.
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Nick Loper
Got it. Yeah. It seems like you almost have to target a higher end clientele or a more complex trip than somebody going to Vegas for the weekend where it's just, I just go, you know, book to the hotel directly or go on Expedia whatever whatever. The DIY part of travel over the last 20 years has become easier in one sense and like overwhelming with choice on the other sense. But there's, there's a sweet spot for, you know, helping somebody with a complex itinerary or it's got to be most of a higher end travel experience.
- [16:14]
Richard
That's a really great point. I think that there's a couple of ways to look at that. So I do think that there are lots of travel advisors who choose to focus on luxury travel because ultimately if a client spends more on a trip, you're going to make more commission. But that's not everyone. There are plenty of people who are just serving their, you know, friends and family that don't necessarily have $25,000 per trip budgets. But the reason they might enjoy working with a travel advisor is because they don't know anything about travel. They are unfamiliar with all of the DIY options. Like you said, they're a little overwhelmed. They want someone who's an expert. As you said, there might be just a go to travel person. I'm that person in my family and friends group. People are constantly messaging me, hey, you know, do you have any recommendations about this? I know you went to that country a couple years ago. What do you think? Ye, there is this desire amongst people to hire people they trust for something like this. And so I just want to Reassure people that it doesn't mean that if you don't know a very wealthy CEO to be your client that you can't do this or be successful. Because I certainly didn't start out that way. And all my clients are not wealthy CEOs.
- [17:20]
Nick Loper
Yeah, well, that's another angle is like business, maybe not business travel, there's probably like built in processes for that, but some sort of incentive trips for companies. Like when I was working corporate, like that was a big part of it. Like how do we incentivize these people and organize these big trips that there was a whole agency involved with that. But like maybe for smaller companies there's a little niche or angle or to specialize in a specific location. Like I'm the go to expert on Vietnam or whatever it may be.
- [17:48]
Richard
Absolutely. I mean, getting involved with your local business community group, chamber of commerce, you're getting involved there and kind of letting local businesses know that this is a service you offer. Because surely that office desk down the road is not going to have an in house full time employee, you know, doing their, you know, travel for their organization. But they might be looking to do a company retreat for 20 people and you would be able to help with that.
- [18:11]
Nick Loper
That sounds perfect. Yeah, there's, there's a lot of different directions that you can go with here. So what else? As you're opening up your marketing playbook, we've got the word of mouth, we've got the referral incentive. Hey, I'll waive your planning fee on your next trip if you send me a new client and hopefully that starts to tap into your network's network a little bit. What else have you found effective here?
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Richard
Events. So both going to and hosting your own. So I know of someone who specializes in planning honeymoons and romantic trips all over the world and she loves to work with, you know, newlyweds and brides. And so she will actually go to these sort of bridal, you know, they have these bridal vendor shows where the brides are coming to learn about cake and other sorts of incredible things. But she doesn't even set up a vendor booth herself. Certainly that's an option, but you know, that's costly. So she literally just goes and mingles with all of these brides and talks to them and just tells them the truth that, you know, I plan incredible honeymoons and romantic trips. So going to places where your ideal client, if you really have a focused niche, can help, but also hosting your own sort of events on a much smaller scale, you don't have to host a gigantic conference or convention. But you could host, for example, a local, I don't know, let's pick a country, Japan. You could host a local Japanese themed evening where you serve foods traditional to Japan. And you could, as the travel advisor, advisor and host, give a presentation on a few interesting facts about the country. Highlight some places people might want to go, Highlight a couple of the interesting resorts or hotels that you could book for them and the perks you could get them as a travel advisor. And of course pass out your information, business cards at the end, something like that.
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Nick Loper
Okay, so I'm hearing the opportunity to focus on either a location specific niche like the Japan specialist, the Disneyland specialist, or the theme specific. Oh, I specialize in booking epic honeymoons to wherever you want to go. So that's a cool angle. I love the approach of going always. That's the marketing one on one question. Where are my target customers already hanging out? Well, these brides who are about to plan their wedding and eventually the honeymoon are hanging out at these bridal vendor shows. They're looking for photographers and caterers and DJs and venues. It's like, okay, here's a natural next step to get in front of those customers who love that strategy. And then this themed dinner or location specific event. We see people do this online, we see people do this offline. The online strategy would be the partner workshop type of person where if you try and find some organization that already is catering to people who might be interested in traveling to Japan or something, I don't know what organization that might be off the top of my head, but offer to host that workshop. Maybe it's that hour long webinar presentation or maybe it's that in person dinner with the sushi and sake sampling or whatever it is, and you've cut through the clutter and now you're the go to expert on that topic. And whether they end up hiring you or not, you've kind of jumped the line and say like, well, if we want to do this trip and you've got us all excited about it, like there's a natural person that they're going to call instead of going back to Google and looking for other travel advisors to help them out.
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Richard
Absolutely. And you know, you might be thinking, well, somebody who's going to be at this, you know, Japanese themed evening is maybe only considering planning a trip for themselves or their family. But that's not necessarily true. When you plant that seed of excitement, you might find that that person you were talking to is in a book Club and they just finished a book that was all about Ireland maybe or Scotland. They were reading about Outlander or something. Right. And so now they want to plan an entire trip for the book club to go. Naturally, you're the person that they're going to come and talk to about that. Right. So you never know, you know, where these things are going to lead to. But one thing I also want to mention, you said that as far as picking a niche that you could do, you know, the location based or you could do, you know, the activity based. There are other very popular types of niches as well. I know some people that specialize in only cruises. I personally don't really do cruises. I might add a river cruise or something to somebody's expedition. But if somebody wants to, for example, just take, you know, a weekend long, you know, Princess cruise or Norwegian cruise, that's not really my specialty because there is so much to learn about cruises. I mean, really it is an entire market in and of itself. And so going to somebody who really knows everything about cruises, which type of ship you should take and what the different routes are and what the best pricing is. You know, we were talking earlier about why you'd want to hire a travel advisor. I don't really go cruising ever. And so that's something that I, you know, would want to talk to an expert about as well.
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Nick Loper
Yeah, there's a lot of pressure if this is going to be a once in a lifetime trip and for a lot of people. I've been saving for years to make this happen. I don't want to screw it up. Like I want to make sure it is done right. And it's absolutely worth it to hire the expert for the planning fee and make sure you pick the hotel in the right location from somebody who's been there, done, that knows the area. It's a long way to go depending on where you're going, to not have a great experience. And so if you could spend a little bit more upfront, I think it makes a lot of sense on the client side. And come to think of it, I feel like I've seen these flyers at the library for, or, you know, come listen to our talk about exploring, you know, the architecture of ancient Egypt or something. And I got to imagine it's probably a travel advisor who's putting that on. We had a guy who was doing a tutoring business and it was like workshops, you know, hosted at the local coffee shop or at the library. Bonus points if you can have them promote it to their audience, their Email list. Absolutely. You know, here's the seven things you need to know about the new ACT changes for your high school student. And totally free to attend. But oh, by the way, if you need tutoring services, I'm your guy. It's a very similar strategy here.
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Richard
Absolutely. And you know, it's funny that you mentioned the library and those info sessions because one other strategy that I've seen people do is it doesn't even necessarily have to be location specific. It could just be focused on how to travel. You'd be amazed at how many people simply are not as familiar with the world of passport and visas and what is a WHO vaccination card and all of these different things. I have heard of people going to different countries, let's say Vietnam. I think you have to apply many months in advance to get your visa. It's not like just showing up in London where you can say, oh, I'm from the usa, I'm here for a week. I just want to be a tourist. The relationships with all countries are not like that. And so hosting some of these how to travel info sessions can be such a really great way to get clients. Because once people get into that info session and you're certainly not trying to scare anyone, but they realize that they just don't know as much as they need to know in order to have a successful trip, they're immediately going to think, I'm going to be a lot safer in the hands of this travel advisor who's hosting this session. It's not even an aegis thing, but certainly there are people as well that maybe are not as online as much. Right. So they don't know all of the different, you know, resources available to them. And so they would just benefit from doing, you know, work face to face with someone.
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Nick Loper
Yeah, the amount of information out there is so overwhelming. Where it's like if somebody could cut through the clutter and help streamline that process, it makes a lot of sense. I feel like my parents have gone to, you know, the Rick Steves info session and then they end up booking the Rick Steves tour. So it's like this is a strategy that, that clearly can work.
- [25:32]
Richard
Absolutely. And if you show them something that they don't think they could have found on their own. So going back to that Japan info session we were talking about, if you show them, hey, here's this incredible, you know, activity tour, private cook class, whatever it might be, they've never heard of before. Right. You're not going to give a talk and you're not going to name the top five spots that they can easily find by just googling what to see in Japan.
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Nick Loper
Yeah, the insider knowledge, the off the beaten path stuff.
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Richard
Yes, that's exactly what people want to know. That's what I based my business around. You mentioned earlier, unlisted travel. That is my bread and butter. I love, love, love to be able to delight my clients by saying, hey, I'm super excited you're planning a trip to London. Did you know that I can get you this, your private tour of Stonehenge. Did you know I can do this? And they're always what you can. I'm so excited about this.
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Nick Loper
Yeah, that's very cool. And then through Fora, you have a relationship with that private tour provider and you get your finder's fee, your referral commission on that.
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Richard
Oh, exactly. And that's one of the other great things about working with these host agencies is that it's not just about the relationships between, you know, the host agency and one hotel, but it's also these other companies, like 8 context travel, they're a tour operator that Fora has a relationship with and they do, you know, these really authentic guided tours all over the world, in all different cities, or eatwith.com, which is a really great way that you can get cooking classes or group dining experiences, private dining experiences with local chefs and things like that. And so we can book all of those for our clients and all of these different companies and suppliers and resources. That client that you're working with, they've never heard of these things. They're just not as plugged into the travel community. And also I mentioned community, your host agency likely is going to have something, whether it's akin to a Facebook group or some sort of online community where you're going to be able to mix and mingle with all of the other travel advisors that belong to that host agency as well. And it's such a great resource because if the host agency is doing a good job, they're going to foster collaboration. And so you can post in there, hey, I have some clients that want to go to Egypt. I've done my research, I found incredible things, but I'm just not really sure where I can find a private driver I can trust. Does anybody have a recommendation? Boom, boom, boom. You know, you're going to see lots of recommendations and that's, you know, it's a really great resource source.
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Nick Loper
This is inside of the FORA forums or the FORA Facebook group.
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Richard
Exactly, that's what they call it. They Call it the Fora Forum, which is such a great name. I love that.
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Nick Loper
Okay. Yeah. So be able to crowdsource a little bit of recommendation if it's a place that you don't have experience with on the ground per se. So that makes sense. One strategy that I want to highlight that just came to mind is Rob Ptingolo runs a walking tour company in Washington D.C. and the way that he drove business, I thought was really creative. Created a lot of Q and A content for future D.C. travelers, like how does the Metro work in D.C. or what is the best time to visit the Lincoln Memorial? He'd come on and say, hey, I'm Rob, I run this tour company or walking tours in D.C. and here's the answer to your question. Like fill in the gap with that and really well done content. But like all things in content marketing, a certain percentage of those people were like, I really like Rob, I want to book his tour when I go on this trip. And so targeting these like future, you know, high buyer intent type of keywords, like beyond what are the best things to do or just you could probably any number of different keyword tools or answer the public or something to figure out what questions are people asking on their way to. It probably works better if you're, you know, targeting a specific location like he was. But an interesting way to get in front of new customers. Customers.
- [29:12]
Richard
You're absolutely right. And again, it's about just building that trust. I mean, when it comes down to booking that tour, are you going to book with this individual who gave you all the answers to your questions and seemed super helpful and honest and trustworthy, or are you going to book with kind of a faceless company that you're not really sure if you can trust them because the Reviews are only 3.5. You know, it's a no brainer at the end of the day.
- [29:35]
Nick Loper
Yeah. How do you break down those know, like, and trust barriers as quickly as you can? Anything else you found found effective on the marketing side?
- [29:44]
Richard
Well, like you mentioned, there's always the online strategies as well. Creating a location specific Facebook group or, you know, you know, travelers or people who want to travel to Japan type Facebook group or things like that, or even online events if you're not able to do them in person, you can host these sort of online info sessions that you can record and then post on your YouTube, things like that. Creating this library of content are all going to ultimately, you know, help you.
- [30:08]
Nick Loper
Got it. Actually, we were just on the Reddit forums about Japan last night, like how do the train cards work? Can you get the kids discounted train card at the airport? And there's a lot of questions out there on the Internet that are probably ripe for you to answer and if it's a topic you're knowledgeable on.
- [30:23]
Richard
I have seen a couple people who are actually American expats who have moved to different countries and they're there for school or something, but they've ended up doing the travel advising thing on the side. I think because people want someone in the country they can trust who knows exactly how it works. So those are some people that choose the location specific niche as well.
- [30:46]
Nick Loper
Very good.
- [30:47]
Bailey
More with Bailey in just a moment, including the tools and tech that might.
- [30:50]
Nick Loper
Be helpful in running a travel advising business, the role AI can play, and.
- [30:55]
Bailey
How to potentially score your own discounted trips.
- [30:57]
Nick Loper
Coming up right after this.
- [30:59]
Bailey
Who not how. That's the unlock that transforms side hustlers.
- [31:04]
Nick Loper
Into business owners instead of business doers. You're always going to run into problems.
- [31:08]
Bailey
And problem solving is a really important skill, but I'm constantly trying to remind myself I don't need to know how to solve everything, I just need to.
- [31:16]
Nick Loper
Be able to find the people that do know how to solve it.
- [31:19]
Bailey
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- [33:16]
Nick Loper
All right, that was a ton of different ideas on how to generate interest and potential clients in your services. I think those are great. I wanted to ask, you know, the percentage of people that you're serving, you know, remotely, is this like an online only side hustle? Are people coming over to your house or the coffee shop? And, and we're hammering out the details of this itinerary. What does it typically look like?
- [33:35]
Richard
I think in the beginning it can be a little bit more face to face, especially as you're working with those friends and family who likely live with, you know, within 10 miles of you. Probably at least that's how it definitely was for me. And I do enjoy that element of it. You know, working with my uncle who wants to go to Costa Rica, sitting down at his house and you know, going over in person all the different things. Because one of the greatest things we can do for our clients is help to get them excited. Right. And say, don't worry, I've got you. This is going to be so fun. Oh, I'm already thinking of all these great ideas. Right. And make sure again, you're building that trust. But naturally, if you want to really grow your business, you're going to end up working with clients who don't live within 10 miles of you and who are not related to you or that you do not know. And so that's when all of the online infrastructure really starts to come into play. And so for that, you're going to need things like a website, scheduling software, you know, tools to be able to really run your online business. And we can go into those if you'd like.
- [34:34]
Nick Loper
Yeah, if you're doing, you know, onesie twosie trips at a time, it's probably relatively straightforward to keep track of in Google Docs or Google Sheets or something like that. But if all of a sudden you're juggling multiple different itineraries, multiple different locations, now it gets a little bit More difficult to juggle in your mind anything you found useful on the tools, tech organization side?
- [34:57]
Richard
Yeah, absolutely. There's actually a large number of tools specifically designed for travel advisors. The most important one you're going if your host agency again doesn't provide something for you is a CRM, a customer relationship management software, which is where you're going to keep track of all of your clients information and where they're at in the process of working with you on their trip. And so a few famous ones are Travify, traveljoy or Tern T E R N. Super popular, very common. But it should be noted that not all CRM software for travel advisors have an itinerary builder component, which is something you'll definitely want to invest in as well. So if your CRM doesn't, you might need to get that separately. A really popular one is Safari Portal creates beautiful online itineraries where you can upload lots of pictures, show people what they're going to be doing day by day. Because when you deliver that first edition, that first version of the proposed itinerary, you really want to make it your best, you really want to knock their socks off and you want to make it visual, show people exactly what they're going to be doing. Oh, you're going to be going to an ethical no touch observatory elephant sanctuary. Well, what are you going to do? You're going to put pictures of these really cool elephants, you know, bathing in a local stream so people can start to visualize what their trip is really going to look like. So in the beginning when you're trying to do this all very inexpensively, I have even seen people build itineraries in Canva. Obviously that's not going to work at scale. You know, that would be very tiring to try to manage.
- [36:35]
Nick Loper
Yeah, if you're moving stuff around like it could get a little trickier, but visually it'll look nice.
- [36:40]
Richard
Yeah, exactly. Well, the CRM softwares and things allow you to have different features that you might really like. So for example, if somebody goes in and requests a change to a certain part of the itinerary, you can make that change and then you can ask them to approve it in the CRM software. So you have evidence that they approved the change. Right. So these are some advanced things that would be really nice to have if you're taking your business, you know, seriously and you're looking to grow and expand and you're trying to be efficient and keep track of all this stuff. In the beginning when you have less capital and you're really trying to do it inexpensively, use the tools that are available to you.
- [37:13]
Nick Loper
I imagine AI could be a helpful planning tool like hey, give me a five day itinerary to London that would be good for a honeymooning couple and fill in a few more qualifying prompts here. To what extent is AI a threat to the travel advising business? Well, if I just throw in a few prompts, it's going to tell me where to go, what time, where to stay, it's going to throw out all these recommendations and potentially they cut you out of the picture.
- [37:38]
Richard
It's possible, but I like to think that those people who are using AI are not really my ideal client anyway. The people that are going to work with me are either people that are not that tech savvy, people that don't have the time to organize these trips. So even if they had an itinerary, they don't know how or where to book it. They are not as experienced in travel, so they don't know everything that can fall through the cracks. They want someone to guide them through the process of obtaining all their travel documents and things like that. My issues with AI aren't that it can be a useful tool for people that want to discover interesting travel things. But it AI doesn't think it's not a human. It can only regurgitate the information that's already inside of it. And so if you are going to want to have, as you said earlier, the best trip possible because you're spending all this money, then you want to go with somebody who actually has been there or knows the area well or has all the connections. Because another thing that that AI is not going to do, just to give you an example, it's not going to say, oh, I actually happen to know the name and the WhatsApp number of a private driver who I've actually worked with before in Colombia. Totally trustworthy. I'm going to go message him right now. Right. The only thing that AI can really do is give you the name of a company that you might have already been able to find through Googling anyway. And again, how do you know if that person is trustworthy or not? Right. I use that example because I was recommended to somebody else to use a man named Oscar whenever I was traveling down, down in Columbia by myself and needed somebody to drive me around to show me the sites and who I could trust. And he was fantastic, would recommend him every time. You're not going to get that from AI, right?
- [39:21]
Nick Loper
He's not going to show up in a Google Search.
- [39:24]
Richard
Right. No, he does not have a website. Right. In all parts of the world, these travel services and suppliers aren't necessarily as professional or as formal as we might like to think. Sometimes it is really built on those relationships. Relationships?
- [39:39]
Nick Loper
Yeah. Those relationships are what can lead to hopefully recurring customers coming back for their vacation or their trip year after year where it's, you know, maybe you waive that planning fee up front to get some reps in and down the road that can turn into a. I imagine the lifetime value of a customer in this business can be pretty big if people have, you know, 20, 30 years of their traveling life ahead of them.
- [40:03]
Richard
Absolutely. And one thing we haven't really talked about yet as well, but really goes into why you would want to work with a travel advisor and making sure those clients come back is the support that you can provide to that person while they're traveling. And so one of the things that we as travel advisors do before someone leaves for their trip is try to prepare them in every way possible so they don't have to contact us as much because we want them to be able to resolve any issues on the ground immediately if we are not instantly available. But that being said, said, very often somebody will message us on the trip. You know, oh, my flight was just delayed. You know, I've already talked to the flight attendant or the person at the counter about it. But what happens when I get into country? Are they going to know my flight is delayed? You know, they just, they have these concerns and we give them documents, we give them phone numbers, we say, oh, well, if you need to call the airport pickup people, this is who you call. But so often they're going to come back to us because we are the ones that they trust.
- [41:06]
Nick Loper
Okay. It's just a little bit of hand holding. Somebody called it a handler, where it's like I just want to show up and I want it to be the easy button where the person is waiting for me at the airport and just things work. And it's like a different kind of travel than the more adventure travel we're going to go figure out the public transport. It's like serving a different client base. So we mentioned the upfront travel fees. Either flat fee based on the itinerary, itinerary option to waive that if you want early on, or dollars per day, $50 per day will help map out your two week thing. The commissions on hotels, rental cars, tours, experiences, travel insurance, anything else on the revenue side that we miss or other opportunities that you see for travel advisors.
- [41:51]
Richard
Well, as far as the travel advising services go, that's pretty much the main two revenue sources. But I will say that some travel advisors branch out beyond that, like selling online guidebooks or, you know, travel coaching or something where they will actually teach or like charge for workshops about, you know, passports and all this sort of stuff. So there are other sort of tangential revenue streams related to being a travel expert. I'll say.
- [42:17]
Nick Loper
Got it, got it. Okay. If you're the go to expert for this particular location, you know, just, you know, download my guidebook. You know, it's. It's the Rick Steves playbook.
- [42:26]
Bailey
Yeah.
- [42:26]
Nick Loper
You could book the tour or you can buy the guide guidebook or watch the free content on PBS or YouTube or whatever it is. In this case, what kind of mistakes or what separates the people who pay the $300 fee to Fora and then never do anything with it versus the people who start to see success with this business?
- [42:47]
Richard
It really all comes down to being willing to put yourself out there and willing to advertise and market yourself and get those clients. So I do often see in the community that people will say, you know, I just started with this, you know, three months ago, six months ago, and I'm having a little bit of trouble getting some clients. And when you dig a little deeper and you ask them what have they done? Well, the truth is they really haven't done much. Right. They told their friends, they told their family, and that's kind of it. So they haven't bothered to set up any website, any social media pages. They're not posting regular content. They haven't tried to do any of these events like we were talking about. Maybe they haven't, you know, waived that planning fee and done a couple of trips for free upfront in order to get those testimonials. They don't have any systems, they're not doing any email marketing, you know, they don't have a free travel guide PDF for people to get on their list. And they, in some cases, not all, but in some cases people think that the host agency is just going to feed you the customers. And that's not the case. That's not what the host agency is there for.
- [43:53]
Nick Loper
Okay.
- [43:54]
Richard
Yeah, it is. It is true that in some cases, and this isn't for all host agencies, but it can be true that if you prove yourself to be one of the top earners, that sometimes host agencies get leads and of course they're going to give them to their best agents because they want to have the best reputation. So if you have just started and you've really not made that many sales. Ultimately, you know, you're not going to be getting a ton of leads from the host agency, so you can't rely on them. And that's an important thing to acknowledge.
- [44:22]
Nick Loper
Are they going to kick you out if you don't book anything or if you only book your own travel? It's like, oh, can I just get a 8 to 10% discount on my own stuff if I pay this money membership and spend more than $300 or whatever? The math is on the, on the commission on that.
- [44:38]
Richard
That's a really great question. And we call that self booking. Every host agency is going to have their own policy, so you're going to have to refer to that. It's not uncommon to book some travel for yourself, especially in the beginning. It's a stepping stone to learning if you are booking your entire family's vacation and you're going, of course you're going to be the one that's booking on your family's behalf. There's no problem with that, really. That's not a big deal. But if you are only doing self bookings, there's going to be some sort of issue. So there might be a policy that says, look, within the first six months of you joining, you have to book for at least one other person. It can be your mom, but it can't be under your name. My experience has been that the policies are not difficult to adhere to. So I just want to reassure people that might be thinking, well, I can't get started because I can't guarantee I'm going to have 17 new clients in the first month. We're not talking those big numbers here.
- [45:34]
Nick Loper
Yeah. Do you get to write off every trip that you take as, you know, legit research for your business, like, I'm studying?
- [45:40]
Richard
That is a great question. Now, I am not a, like, lawyer or tax expert, so I don't want to say anything specific, but what I can point you to is a really great guy. He actually has a website called taxesfortravelagents.com, his name is Andy Rude. He specializes in doing this and that. I'm in that Facebook group. He gets that question a lot. So you should definitely check with your tax professionals. Some of it may be. But I just want to let people know that if you are a frequent traveler thinking, oh, I can just write all of this off. In fact, Andy just shared a couple of weeks ago a blog post that he had written that was about an actual case. It was a Case study that is going through right now where a US citizen quit his job and went to travel around the world. I don't think he was a travel advisor specifically, but he was going to write books and sell ebooks and he really never really followed through with writing the books and making any money. But he tried to write off all these travel expenses and the IRS said no, because you weren't really running a business and it wasn't really, you know, part of it.
- [46:36]
Nick Loper
You're like, maybe I just suck at running a business. It's just, you know, there's some startup costs involved, some market research involved. I, I had the best intentions. I don't want to get anybody in trouble with tax lobby.
- [46:47]
Richard
The IRS really wants to know that you're, you know, you're taking your business seriously and not everything is going to be, you know, able to be written off just because it's travel and you run a travel business, I think is the bottom line. But you bring up an interesting point and something I did want to mention here, which is fam trips. So fam trips, that's short for familiarization trips, and this is something that a travel advisor can go on in order to learn more about a specific vendor or location. And so these are trips that are sometimes, I want to say sometimes free, but often it's usually that maybe your hotel gets comped or something and you still have to do the actual, like you have to pay for the flight and stuff like that there.
- [47:25]
Nick Loper
Sure.
- [47:26]
Richard
But ultimately these are going to be trips that you can take that are organized by the supplier or by something called a dmo, a destination marketing organization. You know, you've seen ads for like tourism, Cancun or whatever. Right. So those types of organizations that are trying to increase tourism to an area, they might host these types of trips. Sometimes they do them for cruises as well so that you can come and you can learn.
- [47:50]
Nick Loper
How do you get on the list for these?
- [47:51]
Richard
That's a great question. So there's a couple different ways. So there are some websites that just specialize in doing fam trips. So I forget what the exact website name is, but there's like fam trips Mexico you can go to, and you can see the different vendors. And, you know, it might not be free, but it could be a reduced cost or something like that. And there's usually some sort of itinerary where they're going to do a hotel tour, they're going to show you all of the different things and talk to you about the hotel. And they might have One evening activity for you to mingle with other travel advisors. But you might also be able to get fam trips through your host agency. Again, do not expect this. If you just joined and you've not made any sales, you know, these are things that they're going to be giving to people who have really dedicated themselves to growing their business and proven themselves. But you can also contact the DMOs directly, so you can contact vendors and you can contact DMOs and you can tell them who, who you are and what you specialize in and that this is something that you'd really like to pursue. Even if you're not doing an official fam trip. You, as a travel advisor, you can often contact the business development manager, the BDM at a hotel or, you know, some sort of, you know, tour agency and you can say, I'm a travel advisor. This is my website, this is my business. I'm. This is my IATA number. I'm with host agency, you know this. And I'm going to be planning a family trip to Cancun this weekend just because. But I. And we're. You don't even have to be staying at their hotel. You could say, you know, we're staying down the street. But I know that you are a preferred partner with our host agency. I was wondering if you wouldn't mind if I came over and you could give me a quick tour. This business is all about building relationships. And so if you can, you know, establish yourself as, hey, I'm going to be the Cancun expert. I want to, I want my name to be known with all the hotels in Cancun so that when I call and I say I have a VIP client, what can we do for them? You know, they're gonna, they're gonna wanna up the perks and make sure it's a really good experience for them.
- [49:43]
Nick Loper
I like this strategy. Becoming known, becoming the go to person, you know, building relationships with the people on the ground. And even if it's not a tax hack. Sorry, that was a total tangent. But I was like, wait a minute, if I start an Instagram account about, you know, travel, family stuff like is, does that mean I can just write off everything?
- [50:02]
Richard
But yeah, if only.
- [50:03]
Nick Loper
That's the wheels, the wheels get spinning here. Bailey, this has been, this has been great. Anything that's surprised you the most over the last couple years of doing this?
- [50:10]
Richard
Well, to be honest, I was surprised you could get paid for doing this. I planned my best friend's honeymoon. I planned my dad's lifelong dream trip to Montana. I was with Engineers Without Borders for a while, and I planned three different trips to Kenya. I got to go on one of those trips. So truthfully, it was an absolutely, you know, incredible way to practice these skills. But I wasn't getting paid for them. I was just doing it because I love travel. And I just. I was like. You had kept saying I was the go to travel person in my friends and family group. Everyone always wanted my opinion because I was always. Even when I had no money, I was backpacking around Europe, and I was trying to do things to feed that travel passion of mine. And so it wasn't until 2023 when I really learned about the travel advising industry. I knew what a travel agent was, of course, but sure, sure. I always talk about my big Fat Greek wedding, where Tula is becoming a travel advisor or travel agent at the time, and she's, like, sitting in this little building with the big windows on Main street, and she's got this hu. Desktop computer, and she's wearing a headset, and she's, like, talking to people about cruise packages. And I was like, that's cool. That's not really what. What I kind of want to do. And so I had no idea that the industry had changed so much. Right. That we were independent contractors, not employees, that you could set up your own, you know, business identity even while you're a part of this host agency. So I get to be a part of fora, but I have unlisted travel.com, which is where I run everything in my business that could be fully remote, that I can work with clients outside of, you know, who's in my local town, that I can sell travel that I want to. That's what we call it sometimes, is that we're selling travel. You know, you get to focus on the types of trips and things that you're passionate about. So all of this surprised me because I basically was like, I could have been getting paid for this for 10 years. And I did, and I didn't know. And so when I kind of dived into it, I didn't know how the industry worked at all. You know, I have been an online entrepreneur for a long time, but this was a totally new field.
- [52:06]
Nick Loper
I think that's a great marker if you're already doing something for free for friends and family. It's like, wait, I can get paid to do this at no extra cost to the people that I'm serving? That's coming out of the hotel in a lot of cases, yes. That's always a Good sign for potential side hustles. Like what are people already naturally coming to you for help with? If it happens to be travel, this seems like a natural next step. So you've got unlisted travel.com if anybody wants help planning an awesome trip, go call bailey. You've got maketravelyourjob.com what's next for you? What are you excited about this year?
- [52:40]
Richard
I'm excited to keep growing unlistedtravel.com the truth is, that's kind of a pretty new brand that I've established because I was just kind of doing things inexpensively like we talked about in the beginning, serving the friends and family and realizing the niche that I'm most passionate about. So I'm excited to do more. I'd like to establish myself as a travel expert beyond my friends and family group. And so kind of teaching people a little bit more about travel through that brand and then bringing the world of travel advising to others through interviews like this, which I'm really grateful for, to be able to show people this incredible industry. I truly believe that there are other people just like me. I mean, I'm a millennial, so I definitely know that there are other millennials out there and gen zers especially that love to travel, wish they could travel more, maybe in their own lives. Lives. And would love to find some way to make it more a part of their personal and professional life. Even if they, like me, couldn't just, you know, up and change careers and just dedicate themselves to flying around the world like a, like a pilot or something like that.
- [53:40]
Nick Loper
Yeah. To be able to live and breathe travel without fully committing to a digital nomad type of lifestyle, realizing, well, there's constraints and commitments, you know, back here at home. But here's a way to still make money from this transition travel passion. Well, this has been awesome. Let's wrap this thing up with your number one tip for Side Hustle Nation 2025 edition. Then we'll take a trip down memory lane and revisit the 2016 advice.
- [54:04]
Richard
This one is simple, but I think it's a good one. Don't buy that premium domain. Don't do it. It's too expensive. I was looking over my books and I can't even tell you how many thousands, thousands of dollars that I have wasted. I'm not talking about buying like 20 domains that I ultimately didn't use. I'm talking about buying one or two or domains that were thousands of dollars. Four figures from GoDaddy that at the end of the day I either didn't end up using or it didn't really pan out or after I had bought the domain. But then I got to writing the website copy and sort of realized the angle that I was kind of going for isn't really going to work.
- [54:43]
Nick Loper
What was your most expensive domain?
- [54:45]
Richard
My most expensive domain ever was evergreenmachine.com and I loved it so much because of the cool rhyme. It was simple. And this is when I was doing Evergreen marketing.
- [54:57]
Nick Loper
Like Evergreen webinars and like sales funnel type of stuff.
- [55:00]
Richard
Uh huh, exactly. And it was a very. I don't even wanna tell you how much it was. It was so expensive and I did use it for several years but ultimately at the end of the day like I just, I could have built the same platform on something else and it would have been. Or I even could have just bought the non.com version. I could have just like bought the.net or.co which. I know, I know like we all want the dot com. I do too.
- [55:23]
Nick Loper
Yeah, it's like premium digital real estate.
- [55:25]
Richard
I know, I know. But I think in the beginning though, before you have proof of concept like before you're really bring. You don't even have necessarily a minimum viable product yet or you haven't tested the waters to like see if this is going to have you know, legs if it's really going to like actually stick with you for, for years or you're really going to be able to monetize it. So my recommendation is think long and hard about the name and try to pick something that you can either get the dot com version when it's not premium, 20 bucks, you know, a year's like of what it should be. Right. But if you can't, don't get so excited and buy that four figure domain before you've even ever sold something because now you're just starting in the red before you've even really got up and going. That's my opinion based on personal experience. I will not be doing that again.
- [56:10]
Nick Loper
No, this is great. That came out of left field. But we could talk domain names in the graveyard of godaddy registrations and it's like well that project never went anywhere or just never dedicated to time to that. My most expensive is not thousands but it was maybe 2 or 300 for startmysidehustle.com or something side Hustle related side Hustle Nation was already registered and so I had to pay. It was only like 100 bucks. Just approached the previous owner of it. But sometimes you get married to that idea and it is, it's digital real estate. So you know, hold onto it long enough, pay that registration fee. Somebody else with an Evergreen machine. I thought it was going to be like a machine shop shop in the Pacific Northwest. We have Evergreen fill in the blank name of company. It's super common up here. So somebody in the Northwest will buy that from you at some point. Yeah, 2016 tip was related to online courses and it was to provide value, make it a no brainer for customers. I think it was in the context of giving away so much value for free. Well, I can't wait to see what's behind the paywall. I've built up so much trust and authority and credibility that, you know, it's a no brainer for somebody to click that buy button and keep doing business with you.
- [57:19]
Richard
I stand by it. That's excellent advice. Pat myself on the back for that one.
- [57:23]
Nick Loper
Yeah, 2016 Bailey was smart.
- [57:26]
Richard
Well, I think it totally applies to our conversation here as well. You know, everything we're talking about, building the know like and trust and I'll just say this related to that. You know so many people I think in the travel advising space I have heard do get a little frustrated sometimes that now that they have been known as the go to expert for so long, giving away their expertise now they're going to monetize it. People still come to them and say, oh, do you have any recommendations for Cancun or something like that. And then the travel advisor, now a new business owner, it's kind of like, well I want to gatekeep because if I just give everything to you, you're going to book on your own and that's not how this works anymore. And I'm creating a new business model and I need people around me to understand that. Yeah, I totally get that perspective. Here's my view on it. I think two things. First of all communicate how your business now works, right? And say, hey, you know, I'm more than happy to share with you. I know about Cancun, but if you wouldn't mind, you know, could I help you with your bookings? Because this is how I get paid. Because I just think sometimes people aren't aware, right? So they don't realize how you as the travel advisor are missing out. So I think that's one thing. And then through that you can delight them, right? You can get them that perks at the hotel they weren't expecting. Put a welcome gift of champagne or something if the hotel will work with you on doing something like that. Inside their room when they arrive. You know, those welcome gifts can go so far and then make them realize how working with you in the future on every trip is a no brainer. So I think that's the first part. But the second part is it's just like advice I gave in 2016. Just give so much advice and value and make yourself known as the go to person. I think people get hung up, especially service providers on turning every lead into a client. Like they want 100% conversion rate. Right. And that in any business that's not how it works. But in this business it's not how it works works either. Some people are just ultimately, you know, not going to be a client. Give them advice anyway because word gets around. Right. So you want, maybe they'll refer you to somebody else and they'll become your client.
- [59:29]
Nick Loper
Yeah. And it comes down to tapping into your network's network in a lot of ways, especially early on or you can occupy that little sliver of brain space or if somebody's going to Cancun or Egypt or Japan or you know, they know like, oh, I know somebody who is great at that, they can help you and like trying to get those referrals or that word of mouth engine spinning in your favor. So I really like this call to have some semi well defined niche or specialization where it's like it becomes easy to make that referral and that goes for just about any service based business. Different ways we talked about to establish that trust and credibility and meet your target customers in their natural habitat, hosting workshops, going to these bridal events of targeting the host honeymoon crowd and then potentially targeting a higher end, potentially older demographic that doesn't want to do it themselves. They want that easy button. They want everything handled, taken care of. It's like I've been saving for this.
- [60:20]
Bailey
Trip for a long time.
- [60:21]
Nick Loper
I want to make sure that it goes well or it's you know, a complicated itinerary. Multiple family members coming in from multiple locations. You know, there's a lot of resources for the do it yourselfers but it also takes a lot of time as we've learned firsthand with this Japan planning trip, which thankfully my wife has taken most of the reins on that. But, but it's like every evening it's like more and more trying to chip away at it. So lots of different ways you can go with the travel advising business. We'll link up Bailey's resources in the show notes for you for this episode. Your listener bonus for this week is my Big list of 101 service business ideas that you can apply some of Bailey's tactics to. Maybe travel is not your thing. Well, hey, we just opened up the playbook for lots of different niches that you might be able to use some of these same marketing ideas for. You can follow the show notes, link in the episode description and it'll get over there. Big thanks to Bailey for sharing her insight. Big thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone. You can hit upsidehustlenation.comdeals for all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place. That's it for me.
- [61:20]
Bailey
Thank you so much for tuning in.
- [61:22]
Nick Loper
If you're finding value in the show, help spread the word. Fire off that text message to that travel obsessed friend of yours. We all know that person, right? Let them know. Hey, here's a way to get your next trip paid for. Until next time. Let's go out there and make something happen and I'll catch you in the next edition of the side Hustle Show. Hustle on.