纽约市律师宁愿成为旅游顾问
byRichard D’Ambrosio/
根据美国劳工处的说法,纽约大都市地区律师的平均年薪约为172,000美元,平均每小时约为82美元。相比之下,旅行社的平均年薪约为43,000美元,每小时率约为21美元。
These numbers don’t deter Tammy O’Hara, a lawyer who lives in Brooklyn, New York. For the last three years she has been building her business, Million Miles Travel Agency, to pursue her passion for curating memorable vacations, and to one day perhaps make it her full-time vocation.
O’Hara doesn’t feel following a career in travel means forsaking the prospects of a solid income. She believes that, through an effective use of technology and targeted marketing, she can have the best of both worlds.
“这是人们进入的职业类型,因为他们喜欢这样做,”35岁的奥哈拉说。“当他们被淹没时,他们有时会失去这种爱。我将专注于确保我聪明地聪明地聪明,不努力,使用那里的工具来帮助我。“
在她的第二年作为一个独立的代理人,O'Hara是针对她的总销售额的目标。她说,她在第一季度部署的浪漫旅行策略,她们必须增加她的目标市场的年度目标。
“我在年度销售中拍摄了200万美元的价格。你不能把它留给命运。你必须拥有一个计划,以及一种跟踪它的方式,“她说。
聪明地工作,不难
O’Hara is regularly on AppSumo, exploring and evaluating apps that can help her work smarter, and save time by automating manual tasks. For example, she is about to take on a new and more expensive customer relationship management (CRM) tool because it will eliminate a lot of administrative and communication tasks she performs manually now.
“一旦你这样做的分析,并意识到你节省的时间可以在其他地方部署,更有利可图,它为你做出了很容易的决定,”她说。
使用谷歌分析和她的CRM,奥哈拉侦破ermined that her ideal clients are women, 36-54 years old, with annual incomes over $80,000. “They are interested in food, want to go on retreats, and they are willing to pay a fair price to travel,” she said.
奥哈拉计划并根据她通过CRM追踪的分段数据管理她自己的客户营销电子邮件爆炸;并使用ConvertKit,电子邮件营销应用程序,用于构建电子邮件并跟踪其性能。
“I have my clients segmented, and I have something like 50 different tags. This way, I know who among my subscribers clicks often on my emails, what they viewed, etc.,” she said. The interests they express determines what kind of content O’Hara’s agency emails them.
同时,她的调度软件与她的Google日历连接;奥哈拉使用基于Web的待办事项列表应用程序,称为Trello,以跟踪行政和其他业务任务,以及季度和当前年度目标。
“我花了很多钱来建立我的代理,但我觉得它确实帮助我澄清了我的业务,而且我已经看到了结果,”奥哈拉说。
Catching the travel bug later in life
当她年轻时,奥哈拉没有太多旅行。她的父母的收入有限,所以旅行受到了最受限制在他们祖国的亲属,牙买加。
当她在本科和法学院休息几年时,奥哈拉终于“旅行臭虫有点。”在大学的高年级,O'Hara是一个狂热的Facebook用户,并将照片来自她的旅行 - 主要是游轮,加勒比海和墨西哥。
她的Facebook好友会发表评论和提出问题:“你要去哪儿?你总是去某个地方。哇。太棒了。你能帮助我吗?”她最近回忆道。
Traveling stopped during law school, as O’Hara buckled down with her classes, work and preparing for the bar. She earned her law degree when she was 27. And when she got her first job as an assistant district attorney in Bronx County, she turned back to travel to relieve the stress.
Then, O’Hara was traveling to places like Costa Rica, Belize, even Europe for three weeks, with a focus on going “off the grid,” and finding hidden travel gems.
The first time she had an inkling she might book travel professionally was in 2014, right after she planned a friend’s vacation. “I told myself, ‘This is a lot of work. I can’t imagine people NOT doing this for money.’ But in New York City, you can find someone to pay for anything, from walking dogs to doing your laundry. I Googled ‘travel agents,’ and one of the first things that came up was scam warnings about multi-level marketing companies.”
奥哈拉进行了更多的研究,“因为作为律师,我必须研究一切,从法律到许可,向保险。”但奥哈拉有学生贷款要偿还,所以她把她的旅行社梦想放在一边。
At the end of 2015, O’Hara performed more research, including host agencies, and determined she could, at a minimum, make a part-time career out of her passion with the support of a host network.
2016年2月16日,O'Hara加入了一个主办机构。她不久之后被提交为一个唯一的所有者,命名她的代理商“百英里到罗马”。(她最终将名称改为“百万英里旅行社”。)
完善她的比赛
像大多数新代理商一样,O'Hara接受了她遇到的每一个客户,所以她可以完善她的预订技巧。“学习所有这一切都很伟大,但我知道我想与那些没有过于关注定价的客户,如果我能证明他们是值得的,那么将超越预算的客户,”她说。
但在主办机构的限制中工作并不适合她所领导的地方。“你必须根据自己的规则定制您的业务。所以,当我想定位会支付费用的客户。我的主人不会让我。我也无法真正关注那些客户的首选供应商。“
参加旅行社Facebook集团,O'Hara了解CCRA以及他们的商业模式如何让她更加独立。经过更多的研究,她跳进了。
Initially, it was “touch and go for a little bit,” O’Hara said. “You have to do a lot more for yourself. I had to sign up again with all of my suppliers to start fresh because I had a new agency number.”
“但现在,我可以选择谁首选供应商将与他们匹配我的理想前景,”她说。
现在,O'Hara有一个收费的菜单,她提出前往前沿。“在我的初步咨询期间,我通过说:'我们谈到了你想做什么。以下是其余过程的方式。我收取费用。我会发票发票。发送付款后,我将在这一段时间内向您提供行程。“
奥哈拉说她在手机上获得前景的密切率为80%,即使在收费费用,她的代理也比以往更快地增长,到最近她需要带来第二个独立承包商的观点。
'我不是Expedia'
Today, Million Miles heavily books the Caribbean (especially Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico), Mexico, Central America (specifically Costa Rica, Belize, and Panama), Western Europe (Italy, Spain, Portugal, and England), and North and South Africa. Million Miles also serves destination wedding couples and honeymooners.
“我觉得我现在是一个成年人的业务。我已经完成了这一切。我已经完成了我的旅行申请卖家。完成了我的E&O保险。我也从占领了每个客户,选择性,“她说。
她经常拒绝客户,特别是那些在初始通信中过度专注于价格的人。“我向他们解释:我不是Priceline。我不是Expedia。但是你从我这里得到了什么,你也不会从他们那里得到。“
O'Hara与两个新IC运行,现在可以选择将价格有意识的客户传递给其中一个。“这是让客户在内部的一种方式,但知道我将对我需要的客户更加富有成效,”她说。
O'Hara仍然是兼职作为律师,她不能放弃法律职业 - 尽管她今天认为自己是“一半出路”。
Her plan is to be in a position to work solely on her travel business sometime in the next 5-10 years, but she plans on maintaining her license to practice law. She muses that she might even use her legal background to supplement her travel advisor income by offering legal services specifically for travel agents.