Holidaysplease Top Homeworking Agency

Posted on May 4, 2018 | Comments Off on Holidaysplease Top Homeworking Agency

A year on from Holidaysplease being named as the Top Online Agency, we have now won the prestigious Top Homeworking Agency Award at the TTG Top 50 awards.

Charles and Richard collecting the TTG Top 50 award for Homeworking Agency of the Year 2018. Photo courtesy of Steve Dunlop.

I’m sure there were a multitude of reasons why the judges chose Holidaysplease  😉

Announcing Holidaysplease as the winner Mike from Fred Olsen made particular reference to the close relationship we have with our team and the things we do as a company to look after and develop our people at HQ and our homeworkers.

Mike also highlighted the work we have done on our email marketing as part of our unique customer rewards programme which over 10,000 customers have now signed up to.

Each of these customers receives a regular communication from us which is individually tailored to the holiday likes and preferences they have shared with us.

The rewards programme and subsequent tailored emails has resulted in a significant increase in our repeat booking ratios….which of course has put lots of extra pounds in the pockets of the Holidaysplease Homeworking Team!

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Travel Homeworking Opportunity

Posted on April 18, 2018 | Comments Off on Travel Homeworking Opportunity

Traditionally travel is a business of peaks and troughs. With Holidaysplease, the Travel Homeworking Opportunity is a year-round one!

There are two key reasons for this :-

1) As the holidays we sell are mainly to long haul destinations with an average selling price close to £5,000 our customers tend to plan and book well ahead.

2) Via our thousands of effective online marketing campaigns generating new customers and the consistent smart marketing we do with our existing customer base, we create opportunities for the Holidaysplease Homeworkers to make sales pretty much every day, week and month of the year.

And there is the third, and perhaps most critical element. Attitude.

For every travel homeworker attitude is the real key to the door. Set high goals and believe you can achieve them and you just might do exactly that. Take the easy option and settle for second best and guess what, second is where you will end up.

So believing that we can create opportunities every day that can lead to a sale is engrained in the Holidaysplease culture and attitude.

Too many people in travel get switched on and busy for peaks or lates, then pretty much go quiet for the rest of the year believing that it is only in peaks or lates that customers want to buy. Wrong attitude!

If you are a can do travel expert hungry for a Travel Homeworking Opportunity with a partner that is switched on for 12 months of the year rather than 4, then we’d love to hear from you.

At Holidaysplease we are always switched on for sales!

Just give Agne a call or drop her a line on agne@holidaysplease.com

At Holidaysplease we don’t do peaks and troughs. We do consistent effort matched with a firm belief that our goals are there to be reached.

That’s what sets our travel homeworking opportunity and the Holidaysplease Homeworking Team apart.

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Travel Homeworking Support

Posted on March 14, 2018 | Comments Off on Travel Homeworking Support

Every successful Travel Homeworker will be self-motivated and super determined. They will be an action taker happy to rely upon themselves rather than others to get the job done.

At the same time they will value knowing that support is there when they need it.

Which is why we continue to invest in the Travel Homeworking support we give to the Holidaysplease Homeworking Team.

Last year our twin pillars of support became three when Michelle joined. Her energy and knowledge has proved invaluable to the team over the last 9 months.

We have always strived to provide not just support, but quality support. Our Holidaysplease Sales Team Leaders do not wait for our team to need them, they are pro-actively in touch with the team on a regular basis.

The leaders help with day to day issues, as well as addressing big picture challenges, and helping the Holidaysplease Homeworkers develop and grow their businesses.

To do this well, our Leaders need to constantly evolve and develop new skills of their own. Which is why our three Sales Team Leaders plus Natalie, our Head Office Team Leader, are currently in the middle of a 15-month Leadership Developing training programme developed by Reality Training.

Holidaysplease Leaders out on a recent day trip as part of their Leadership Training Programme.

The investment in the training programme is a significant one, and the demands that it places on our leaders are heavy. Still, the new skills and techniques being developed and learned will ensure that as a business Holidaysplease continues to provide the very best Travel Homeworking support to our team of homeworkers.

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Travel Homeworking Dream

Posted on February 19, 2018 | Comments Off on Travel Homeworking Dream

Many people are attracted to working from home because they see the Travel Homeworking dream as a perfect lifestyle balance.

For others the Travel Homeworking dream is purely reward orientated. After all, with an uncapped commission opportunity to make the most of, the Holidaysplease Homeworking team consistently earn significantly more than travel agents working on the high street or call-centres.

Every time the Olympics come around I am reminded of how powerful a motivator having a dream can be. For some the dream is just to become an Olympian, for those at the very top of their sports only a medal, often a Gold one, will do.

For Britain Dom Parsons his Bronze in the Skeleton (the first British male medal in the event since 1948!) was the culmination of “10 years busting a gut.”

Holidaysplease top producing homeworker in January was also reaping the rewards of consistent hard work and pro-active effort since joining us.

Her sales exceeded £250,000 for the month and the commission earned on those sales was greater than what the majority of travel sales people will earn in a year!

A Travel Homeworking dream being realised? You decide….

“Four years ago I came to Holidaysplease after redundancy with no client base but lots of previous experience in the travel industry. This January has been the culmination of lots of hard work and a particular focus on building relationships with my clients. What was important to me throughout the month that despite achieving over 100k in the first week was continuing to apply the same focus right until the last day of the month in order to achieve my record figures. It means to me that this was the right choice and has enabled me to move recently and have my dream lifestyle of living by the sea.”

Fancy building a rewarding business and living the Travel Homeworking dream? We’d love to hear from you, give us a bell on 0121 200 5720 for an informal chat.

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Travel Homeworking Highlights

Posted on December 29, 2017 | Comments Off on Travel Homeworking Highlights

What an exceptional year for Holidaysplease. Here are just some of the Travel Homeworking highlights of 2017 shared by members of the Holidaysplease Homeworking Team….

Sonia A –

My highlight has to be my booking with £20k in commission, and of course hitting my £1million in sales for the year!

Kelly T –

For me starting out as a travel homeworker and being able to work from home as my children go through school, watch their sports days and school achievement assemblies without having to ask a boss for the time off. I have always loved working in the travel industry and to be selling holidays from my own home with no limit to my earnings is like living the dream.

Earning the extra income has allowed me to spoil my family at Christmas and hire a cleaner!

Gretchen K –

One of my main highlights was an Hawaiian trip for some local customers. He was a huge volcano fan and really wanted to see one up close. We started off with a £6k budget and I ended up booking them a trip of a lifetime for over £14k! This was their letter in our local magazine :-

As advertising managers for the Village Voice I thought I would let you know about the excellent experience we have recently had with one of your advertisers.

Gretchen from Holidaysplease.

We found Gretchen through Village Voice having virtually abandoned the idea  of having time to plan and book a windfall holiday between jobs ending and starting.
Gretchen’s unending patience and professionalism made the trip possible.
Having cross checked flight costs, Gretchen also created a less expensive holiday than we could have booked with the airlines direct.
A great result and two very happy Village Voice readers.
Thank you
Andy & Helen A

Paul S –

My highlight would have to be hitting my record £78k month while being on holiday and only working half the month! Dragging in the final £12k booking whilst relaxing in a huge pool villa by the sea!

Nichola L –

There are so many highlights this year! I think the one that stands out is a client who had arranged a total surprise wedding at the Rendezvous on her birthday after being together for 25 years.

We secretly arranged getting her friends, family and even the wedding dress out to St Lucia!

Amanda K-S –

I have a few highlights this year. Getting my Gold Award for sales having been silver twice in a row. I was really proud to finally get there, all the hard work paid off.

I had my best sales month ever in February booking over £100k.

I was lucky enough to go on two amazing FAM trips to Australia and Mauritius. And this years Conference in Portugal was a fantastic couple of days with great Suppliers and brilliant to catch up with old friends I now have after 5 years with Holidaysplease and make new ones.

Sarah Mc –

My biggest highlight was my FAM trip to the Maldives and Dubai with Pure Luxury, how could it not be!

Also my repeat customers, people who had previously booked once before that are re-booking. For me this is huge, it reinforces that they are happy with what I’m doing so will not only re-book but recommend me.

Andy E –

Homeworking with Holidaysplease is honestly the best decision I have ever made! I am over the moon with the amount of my customers booking and stunned by the amount of money I have been earning doubling my previous shop managers salary in one month and not even feeling the slightest bit stressed!

For team members old and new 2017 has seen many Travel Homeworking highlights and 2018 promises to be another exciting year.

Keen to join in the fun? Our recruitment team Gemma and Agne are ready to chat with you on 0121 200 5705 or email gemma.mcleod@holidaysplease.com or agne@holidaysplease.com

This time next year it could be your Travel Homeworking highlights of 2018 that we are talking about!

 

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Travel Homeworking Conference 2017

Posted on November 14, 2017 | Comments Off on Travel Homeworking Conference 2017

The annual Holidaysplease Travel Homeworking Conference is always a great mixture of work and fun.

After a year that has been nothing short of phenomenal we decided that our Travel Homeworking Conference for 2017 would be more about the fun than the work. So we all headed over to Club Med Da Balaia on the Algarve for what turned out to be a cracking weekend.

The team have earned a celebration!

Holidaysplease remains one of the most highly rated travel agencies on review website Trustpilot with 95% 5 star ratings from over 2,000 reviews.

Sales in the last 12 months have grown by 33% with net commission increasing by an impressive 37%. All this adds up to a fantastic 44% increase in homeworkers earnings in 2017.

And perhaps the highlight of the year was Holidaysplease being named TTG’s Online Agent of the Year beating off some seriously tough competition to take the crown.

Like I said….the team have earned a celebration, and celebrate we sure did!

Judging by just some of the posts team members put up on our intranet once back home they all had a great time….

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Travel Homeworking What’s Possible

Posted on November 2, 2017 | Comments Off on Travel Homeworking What’s Possible

There is a great football video doing the rounds on YouTube which caught my eye and got me thinking about Travel Homeworking What’s Possible.

The video is a clip from a penalty shootout. The penalty taker fiercely strikes the ball which in turn strikes the cross bar. Whilst the goalkeeper celebrates by running away from the goal, the penalty taker has his head in his hands. Until that is the ball comes back down to earth, bounces, and the spin on the ball takes it back towards the goal. The ball bounces again, and then again….into the goal!

The penalty taker is jubilant. The goalkeeper gutted!!

 

The change of emotions is something that a Travel Homeworker will face and have to deal with regularly. I’m going to get this sale! Aaaahhhh, the client has changed their mind. Wait…I might still be able to bag the business…..Sale made!

The key thing here is what is possible. A good friend of ours at Holidaysplease is Jamie Edwards. Jamie is a Peak Performance coach who works with international sports people and top business execs to help them perform at their best.

Jamie uses the analogy of a penalty to highlight the power of thinking about what is possible.

The penalty taker has practised his penalties ahead of the big game. Practice has been good and he feels confident that he will score. So, will he definitely score? Of course not. Could he miss? May be.

The key here is that it is possible that he will score, and it is possible that he may miss. When we think about what is possible, we are more able to deal with the consequences.  And that ability is what sets apart those who perform consistently well, and those that get carried away with short term success and lose focus or others who find themselves dragged down by failure.

Every Travel Homeworker will have days, weeks, months that don’t go well, even the very best! The important thing is to have the grit and belief to stay upbeat so that the sales start to flow again. It is just as important to avoid thinking you have it made after a good week or two. Do so and you may well find your effort levels drop and that results start to dry up.

In Travel Homeworking What’s Possible is the mindset for long term success. And always expect the unexpected, you never know which way the bookings ball may spin!

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Travel Homeworking Flexibility

Posted on September 22, 2017 | Comments Off on Travel Homeworking Flexibility

For most of the year the Travel Homeworking flexibility that attracts many parents to becoming a travel homeworker is quite easily achieved.

And then there are school holidays!

School holidays are challenging as a homeworker. Travel homeworking flexibility is hard to achieve because the kids are at home and demanding of your time, rather than in school for 6-7 hours a day.

Every parent knows that demanding and distracting kids do not help working in the consistent focused fashion that is required for anyone wanting to successfully sell holidays from home.

Should prospective travel homeworkers therefore expect to be not selling holidays during school holiday periods?

Absolutely not!

In July and August this year 5 of the Holidaysplease top 6 performing homeworkers are busy parents, with 3 of those team members each having four kids! That’s a lot of demand and distraction to deal with.

So how do such busy parents still manage to produce incredibly high levels of business during school holidays?

Well, they simply make the opportunity to be able to do so. They plan ahead, create a support structure, have laser like focus during the hours they have to work, and where all else fails, frantically juggle their family and work balls. This takes energy, determination and imagination.

The easy option that some travel homeworkers may choose is to take a step back from work and find excuses for not being able to sell holidays and make money during school holidays.

Just don’t be fooled that the easy option is the only option.

Achieve a good balance of travel homeworking flexibility through school holidays and you can still give plenty of your time to your kids, whilst at the same time maintaining the momentum in your travel homeworking business that leads to sales and success.

Do so and like the top producing parents in the Holidaysplease Homeworking Team have done during this years summer school holidays, you can earn over £9,000 in commission.

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Travel Homeworking Systems

Posted on August 10, 2017 | Comments Off on Travel Homeworking Systems

The travel homeworking systems that the Holidaysplease tech team build are integral to the success of our travel homeworkers, and just yesterday the Holidaysplease Homeworkers Intranet was being enthusiastically viewed by a prospective team member.

Meeting with potential travel homeworkers to learn more about their ambitions and showcase all that we have to offer at Holidaysplease is always fun.

During these meetings our Recruitment Manager Gemma runs through the key aspects of our Homeworkers Intranet system. Whilst she can’t cover every nook and cranny in the time we have, the overview provided offers a good insight and prospective team members get a real feel for how we work at Holidaysplease.

People viewing our system for the first time are pretty much always impressed, and yesterday was no exception. What was different was that the person Gemma and I were meeting has a tech background as well as great experience in travel sales.

The person has used plenty of systems in their time. Helped to develop systems, and been involved in project management for one of the leading travel tech companies.

In short, this is someone who knows what a travel homeworker needs system wise to manage their enquiries efficiently, work their client base effectively, and have all the tools they need at their disposal to achieve the absolute most they can from their business.

When someone who has used and seen a myriad of travel systems in their time tells you that yours is the most intuitive and smartly designed they have ever seen, you know you have got it right.

The Holidaysplease tech team have incredible brain power 😉

The travel homeworking systems that we have at Holidaysplease are specifically designed with the user in mind by an inhouse tech team that it is in tune with what our Homeworkers need.

Of course systems don’t guarantee success, but they do sure as heck make it easier to come by.

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Travel Homeworking Awards

Posted on July 7, 2017 | Comments Off on Travel Homeworking Awards

In Travel Homeworking awards mean a lot.

As a business Holidaysplease has won countless industry awards including twice winning Online Agent of the Year at the Agent Achievement Awards and being named TTG’s Online Agent of the Year for 2017.

These company awards are great and the sense of achievement is shared throughout the team.

Of course the essence of being a Travel Homeworker is an individual thing, so in Travel Homeworking awards mean a great  deal when they come along personally.

So being a Finalist for Travel Homeworker of the Year at the TTG Awards is a pretty big thing for our team member Sonia Armitage.

Sonia joined Holidaysplease in early 2016 coming off a challenging period running a Travel Franchise business that had not worked out for her.

Sonia was determined to make a success of Homeworking with Holidaysplease and the fantastic results she achieved with us in her first year are a clear demonstration of that determination to succeed!

  • From a standing start with no client base Sonia sold £1.2million of holidays in her first 12 months.
  • In her 2nd month she set a new record for sales in a month of £148,772. She bettered that in April with £159,944, and again in May booking £167,361. This February Sonia set a new record of £179,644.
  • In Year 1 Sonia has built a customer database in excess of 3,000 and 52% of her customers have signed up to the Holidaysplease reward scheme.

So what’s Sonia’s secret? There is no secret! She just works hard and uses her time smartly. She has done really well building relationships with customers using the Live Chat facility on the Holidaysplease website and is often live chatting with customers late into the evenings.

In her own words “My service is 24/7.” On Christmas Day Sonia was helping a client in the Maldives who wanted to move as it was raining!

Of course the reward that Sonia is achieving for her hard work is substantial. What she has earned in just the first 6 months of 2017 from commission on bookings made plus profit bonus would take the average travel agent 3 years to bring home.

No wonder she has treated herself to a brand new set of rather smart wheels!

And the personal satisfaction of being a Finalist as Homeworker of the Year at the TTG Awards is immense and incredibly rewarding.

In Travel Homeworking awards are truly valued and I’m sure that whoever is named the winner of Homeworker of the Year at the ceremony in September will of course be extremely deserving.

Being just a little bit biased, I just hope that person is our Sonia A!

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