6. Responsive Communications
There was a time when traveling away from home meant being disconnected from your normal means of communication, but those days are long gone. Customers, vendors and other partners who want to get in touch with you expect to be able to reach you wherever you are, and they will feel unappreciated and undervalued if you take a long time to respond.
It can be difficult to get back to everyone quickly, especially if you’re on the road, but you should have some goals in place to help you. Return phone calls the same day, even if just to say that you got the message and need more time to investigate the answer. The same goes for email: Try to answer emails within 24 hours. And if you’re traveling or otherwise unable to respond for a while, set up an email auto response that lets people know when they can expect to hear back from you.
7. Travel Savvy
If you’re branding yourself as a trustworthy travel expert, you need to be savvy enough to handle the unforeseen challenges and surprises that come about during trips. Customers and industry partners alike will expect you to know what to do if you encounter a flight delay, an oversold hotel or inclement weather that affects your plans.
If you’re traveling to a conference, a familiarization tour or other professional event, be prepared to handle the little inconveniences that come up along the way. Have your smartphone handy, and use it to change flights, book hotels, get driving directions, find restaurant recommendations and hail rides when you need to.
8. Operating Capital
In some ways, having a more polished, professional travel organization will mean running your endeavor like a business. And one thing all businesses need to be successful is operating capital. If you don’t have enough free cash available to get things done, you’ll have a difficult time coming off as legitimate.
Although group travel buyers often get complimentary trips, hosted meals and other perks and freebies, you shouldn’t take it for granted that all your travel will be free. Whether it’s paying for an airfare and an extra hotel night to attend a professional event or having some cash to get things done during an emergency on the road, keeping some operating funds on hand will ease the stress that comes with travel and help you appear calm and collected with your customers and partners.
9. Commitment to Commitments
When your professional brand is built largely around your personal reputation, whether you honor the commitments you have made is critical to shaping how people perceive you. Professionals value their time and resources, as well as those of the people with whom they work, and they don’t waste either.
If you have committed to doing something, to attending something or to paying for something, make a point of honoring those commitments. Keep an organized to-do list to make sure you don’t drop the ball on work you have agreed to do. If you have committed to attend a conference, a FAM or a professional event, do everything you can to keep that commitment, even if the circumstances become difficult or a more attractive offer comes up. And by all means, pay your bills. Because it’s not just your professional brand on the line; it’s your personal integrity.
10. Completed Business
At the end of the day, nothing will do more to bolster your reputation in the travel industry than running trips that take paying customers on the road. Conferences, FAM tours, site visits and other research can be incredibly helpful in gathering ideas and putting together itineraries. But in the end, if you can’t arrange a trip, sell it to passengers and execute the itinerary, people in the industry will stop taking you seriously.
To make sure you’re successful in this, focus your time and attention on the destinations and trips that have the most potential for success. Don’t be distracted by opportunities for free travel if they won’t lead to your bringing groups back to the places you visit.
If you can consistently and reliably produce paying customers for the people you work with in the industry, you’ll be one of their favorite people to do business with.
