Meet the travel franchisees selling million-pound holidays

Mark and Isobel McCardie invested have booked 10 million pounds worth of holidays. They reveal their secrets to success.

Married couple, Mark and Isobel McCardie, decided to open a travel agency by investing in The Travel Franchise.

Since launching their business, they’ve dedicated days and nights servicing clients, building a loyal customer base, and travelling to destinations around the world.

Now, the duo has established financial success and are en route to scaling their current operations. They reflect on what it’s taken to get here.

Mark and Isobel: It’s a bit surreal to be honest because I remember our initial five-day training with The Travel Franchise and seeing blogs about franchisees that had become travel consultants and done amazing sales and now that’s us. 

We’re very proud of what we’ve done, but it’s been extremely hard work. A lot of people ask: “What’s the secret?” And the answer is: Not much sleep. But it’s been a good journey so far.

You have 1,800 clients now but how did you find your clients early on?

In the beginning we went down the friends and family route and it started to build momentum. 

You’re not going to go from zero to 500 customers overnight, but if you have the right kind of practice and procedures in place, it grows over time. 

There’s no quick fix, but it’s important to gain good quality customers so that the repeat and referral business keeps coming in rather than clients that aren’t necessarily the right fit for you.

In what ways did The Travel Franchise’s consumer-facing company, Not Just Travel (NJT), help you along the way? 

If you join on the Elite franchise package you get invited to two (free) overseas mentorship retreats, the first of which is the Millionaires Retreat, held in a short-haul location. During the day there are workshops on how to skyrocket your business. 

The main takeaway for us was to get on the phone to potential clients and not quote without a conversation because, firstly, it builds rapport and, secondly, you can weed out if somebody’s just very price-focused and they’re simply asking 10 different people to find the cheapest quote. 

From that point on, it’s then about really servicing and nurturing clients.  

What have been your easiest and most profitable bookings? 

I had a flight-only enquiry once. It was business class flights to America for a whisky company and turned out to be just under a hundred grand. If we could have four or five of them a year, we’d be quite happy. We just booked it via Gold Medal and that was it. Very, very easy to organise! 

We’ve won various initiatives like the loan of a free car and I also remember winning the Money-Back Challenge. We were in Sandals in the Caribbean when we won so that was rather nice!

Have you chosen to specialise? And if so, why?

Our audience is very family-focused. It sounds a bit cheesy, but we get lots of emails and photos of families on holiday having a fantastic time. 

There are not many jobs where you get the satisfaction of creating something for a family that really makes them happy and they’ve saved up for a year to make it happen.  

Have you scaled the business?

There’s now four of us working in the business: Isobel and I, plus a concierge manager and a Florida expert. The five-year plan is to continue to grow, take on some more agents and build luxury and cruise. 

Has the franchise allowed you to travel more?

One of the main reasons for setting up the business and starting it was to travel. It’s effectively your research: the more places you go and the more things you experience, the easier it is to sell. All travel is basically research if you’ve got your own travel business.  

Is there flexibility in your career?

It’s hard work, but you can work from wherever you want. We work from the Canary Islands in winter and if we are on a ‘fam’ trip we do some work but get the balance right - there’s no point in going somewhere and being stuck in a hotel room for a week. 

What have you noticed about The Travel Franchise’s overall growth?

Absolutely. Everything’s just becoming more elevated. We had a business development manager when we started, but now the calibre is so much higher and everything like the marketing materials are more polished. 

Not Just Travel (which The Travel Franchise is a part of) has some great people now in key positions so it can only really go from strength to strength.

More companies are using AI. Do you think there will still be a need for travel agents in the future?

No, because this job is all about personal service. AI can only do so much. It can help make you more efficient and effective in terms of marketing and admin tasks, but at the end of the day, people still want to buy from people - not machines. I honestly don’t think that will ever change. 

Do you think franchisees without travel experience can make this a successful business?

Absolutely. But you have to be a people person - it’s all about communication - and obviously have a passion for travel but in terms of the travel knowledge, you’ll just build that up over time.