Lisa Williams is a Better Sales Person Because She Sells What She Loves

What does a travel agent do to rebuild her client base after taking a few years off?

Lisa Williams has the answer – and it’s a strategy that will work for any agents who want to build up their clientele.

Williams has long been in the travel industry, first in hotel management, then, when she wanted a more flexible work style, as a cruise-only, at-home agent. But she took a break for a few years to work in a family business unrelated to travel. Then, last summer, she returned to retail travel, choosing Travel Counsellors as her host agency.

To generate business, she started working the consumer specialty show circuit – but not travel shows. Instead, she does shows that attract the upscale demographic she’s targeting. Based in Manassas, Va., she started out with a consumer food-and-wine show in Washington, D.C. She’s a certified gay and lesbian travel specialist, so a gay and lesbian tradeshow in New York City was perfect.

She’s done several of these types of shows, and found that she’s one of just a few travel agents attending – there was just one other travel agent at the Washington food-and-wine show – so she sticks out in the crowd instead of competing with a lot of other travel agents for business.

“People are willing to invest a little more time with you than when you’re one of many and you’re competing with everyone around you,” she says.

And she’s careful to build on that relationship, once it gets started, by remaining in constant contact with her customers. She says that Travel Counsellors is very focused on relationship-building and staying in contact with clients.

She sends people a followup postcard after meeting them, then adds them to her distribution list for a weekly newsletter that she writes. She describes it as a combination of a blog and an advertisement; she features trips and their prices, as well as travel tips. She stays on top of birthdays and anniversaries. When suppliers provide specials that fit a client’s profile, she sends them that. The end result: even if clients don’t book the exact trip she pitches to them, when they do think about travel, she’s top of mind.

She’s found the gay and lesbian market to be a viral marketer’s dream. It’s a largely untapped segment that does significant word-of-mouth marketing. 

“Word travels fast when you find someone in that network,” she says. She produces a separate newsletter for her gay and lesbian clients, but has found that she can put together very similar trips for both niches.

“The gay and lesbian market is no different when it comes to fondness for good food and wine, and that’s a market with much higher disposable income and the ability to travel to some wonderful food-and-wine destinations,” she says.

She also likes these specialties because she finds them personally gratifying. She likes customizing trips such as a mother-and-son’s food-and-wine tour of Italy that was a graduation gift, and a honeymoon in South America. She likes putting together an off-the-beaten track experience in St. Lucia and a safari in Africa.

Not surprisingly, Williams often books trips that she would like to take herself. “I really love the European areas that promote such great food-and-wine tours,” she says. “It’s nice that it’s something new and different, but it’s also something you love. It’s great to promote packages that take people to fantastic restaurants and to meet with chefs and go to vineyards.”

Williams, who has one daughter looking at colleges and another in middle school, is also aiming at the group market from a specific angle: education. These can be annual trips teachers take with their classes, trips by college educators, college sorority trips designed to build camaraderie, or school fundraisers. For one of her daughter’s schools, she created a travel package to sell, and donated part of the commission for each sale to the school. Her audience is motivated to book because it gives back to the school; this approach also builds her client base, and she gets goodwill for her efforts to help the school.

Williams has zeroed in on markets that she loves and has made them her niches. Not only does it keep her happy, it makes her a better salesperson. She finds that it’s much easier to promote trips when you love what you’re selling.