Course curriculum

  • 1

    Dedication

  • 2

    First Considerations

  • 3

    The Marketing Mindset

    • The Marketing Mindset: Introduction
    • Developing a Marketing Mindset
    • Authentic Emotional Appeal
    • Understand Your Clients' Needs
    • Building a Rapport and a Relationship
    • Staying Engaged With Clients
    • The Travel Profession and Storytelling
    • What Travel Agencies Can Learn from Other Professions
    • Eliminate What Stops You
    • Keep Learning Your Craft
    • Thinking Backwards
    • Consistently Persistent
    • Knowing and Doing
  • 4

    Branding Your Travel Agency

    • Branding Yourself as a Travel Consultant
    • Developing Your Brand Message
    • Positioning and Your USP
    • What's Your Story?
    • Communicating Your Brand Message
    • Maintaining Your Brand Message
    • Integrity and Your Brand: Promises Made
    • The 5 Psycholgical Shifts
  • 5

    A Business Plan Overview

    • Essentials for a Business Plan
    • Campaign Marketing
    • An Overview of Tactics for Achieving Your Goals
    • Budgeting for Your Marketing Tactics
    • Your Marketing Calendar
    • Pulling a Business Plan Together
    • The Importance of Action
  • 6

    Marketing Tactics

    • Understanding the Classic Marketing and Sales Funnel
    • A Marketing Funnel Example
    • Advertising for Travel Professionals
    • Advertising – Buying the Right Media
    • Advertising – Generating Effective Creative
    • Advertising – Great Copy and Graphic Design
    • Advertising: Final Tips
    • Advertising - What consumers Mistrust About Travel Advertising:
    • Public Relations - Media
    • Public Relations - Networking for Your Travel Practice
    • Public Relations - Speaking Opportunities
    • Public Relations - Events and Sponsorships
    • Public Relations - Writing for Travel Professionals
    • Public Relations - Blogging
    • A Year of Content Ideas for Your Blog
    • Cross Marketing
    • Word of Mouth Marketing
    • Implementing a Group Leader Program
    • Digital Marketing: Expanding Your Digital Footprint
    • Digital Marketing: Websites - Part 1
    • Websites: Part 2 - Creating a Professional Website
    • Digital Marketing - Travel Agency Newsletters
    • Digital Marketing - Social Media
    • Tactics - Market Your Way
  • 7

    Marketing and Innovation

    • New Mindsets: Blue Ocean Strategies
    • Niche Marketing
    • Guerrilla Marketing
  • 8

    The Sales Process

    • Deconstructing the Sales Process
    • Selling Like It's 1985
    • Essential Skills: Client Knowledge and Asking the Right Questions
    • Choosing the right setting for meetings
    • Visualization
    • Making Good First Impressions
    • Speak First to the Explorer Within
    • Speak to Walter Mitty
    • Speak to Benefits
    • Making Presentations to Clients
    • The Psychology of Closing the Sale
    • Dealing with Objections
    • Selling to Family and Friends
    • Why Consumers Book Elsewhere
  • 9

    Customer Service

    • Your Brand and the Promise of Value: Being Client Service ec-Centric
    • How accessible are you?
    • Training Your Clients
    • Demystify Travel for Your Clients
    • The Extra Mile
    • A Client Retention Program
    • Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty
    • Setting the Stage for Exceptional Customer Service
    • Know Your Clients
    • Respect Your Clients
    • Make Clients Feel Important
    • Educate Your Clients
    • WOW Your Clients
    • Sweating the Details
    • After the sale...
    • Active Listening
    • Problem Clients
  • 10

    Motivation and Essential Skills

    • Essential Skills: Persistence
    • Essential Skills: Enthusiasm and Confidence
    • Essential Skills: Empathy and Attitude
    • Essential Skill: Time Management
    • Essential Skills: Organization
    • Essential Skills: Establishing Supplier Relationships
    • Essential Skill: Picking Yourself Up
    • Essential Skills: Learning from Mistakes and Accepting Criticism
    • Essential Skills: Creative Thinking

Instructor(s)

Richard Earls

President, TRO & Travmarket

Richard Earls

Richard Earls has spent the last 29 years in the travel industry as an agency owner, a technologist, a publisher and a writer. A serial entrepreneur, Richard has sold two of his start-up companies prior to his current projects, Travel Research Online, Travmarket and Voyager Websites. Richard believes a new breed of travel agent is ready to emerge from the masses. The days of the casual travel agent are gone and only those who take the art and science of marketing and sales to heart will truly be in demand and succeed. The publishing credits to Richard’s resume are many, including Weissmann Travel Reports, STAR Service, Intelliguide, BTP24, Voyager Travel Guides and Travel Research Online. Articles about Richard have appeared in USA Today, Money Magazine, and Newsweek as well as numerous travel trade publications. His travel articles appear in both consumer and trade publications alike. Richard is a frequent speaker at industry events and a contributor to other industry publications. He is an instructor in The Travel Institute’s Professional Educators Program. He has authored travel agent certification programs for several tourism authorities, tour operators and cruise lines. Richard graduated from Wake Forest University with a BA in Religion and English and from Washington and Lee University with a Juris Doctorate.