It already offers the highest level of commission in the trade but now travel agents will be able to earn even more – up to 85 per cent
250 members of The Travel Franchise attended the company’s first-ever, three-day annual summer conference this month at the De Vere Cotswold Water Park. During the biggest event of its kind for the company, The Travel Franchise members celebrated the company’s recent success, having won accolade after accolade and achieving record-breaking sales; yet co-founders Paul Harrison and Steve Witt announced multiple exciting initiatives for the company “to ensure they can rise to the next level by helping their franchisees earn even more”.
Members join The Travel Franchise to train as Not Just Travel travel consultants. Launching on 1 September, a “new” The Travel Franchise will enable its members to enjoy a raft of new added value benefits, tools and resources at no extra cost.
The event was hosted by Michael Heppell who also delivered a training event for staff and travel consultants. Described by The Huffington Post as the “UK’s number one success coach”, he is considered one of the top three motivational speakers in the world.
The Travel Franchise already offers the highest level of commission in the trade but now travel agents will be able to earn even more – up to 85 per cent - and will also be given the best ever rewards programme by benefiting from the growth of the company.
“While many businesses are cutting back, we have taken the bold decision to make a huge investment and take our vision of the business to the next level. By strategically restructuring, adding an additional £1m to its recruitment budget to expand its new teams and developing new online tools, we can deliver quality training and support for our agents to help them earn more money,” said Paul.
Steve added: “Our strategy is to bring in aspiration talent and experience. People who fit in with our vision and have great track records in their fields and can coach and mentor our homeworking agents.
“We are already well known for being number one for those new to travel, but many people may not realise we are also the best at helping grow very successful businesses too. We are making this clearer and showing how our travel consultants can grow from beginners to masters. We have created a structured career path to help agents progress and introduced incentives, such as higher commissions and shares, to help them make more money.”
Paul said: “We will offer the highest level of ongoing support, training and commission than any other UK travel franchise. What’s more, we are going to give top-selling agents the opportunity to earn from the future growth of the company — no other franchise does that.
“We have never had outside investment or borrowed any money so this is not about us needing to raise cash. We simply want our members to be involved, committed, and to share in our growth and the incredible vision we have for the future.”
Other pioneering announcements made at the conference included the launch of a new cruise division, with membership to specialised marketing, fam trips, training and trade support from leading cruise experts.
New investments and initiatives include:
· Over £1m of extra investment in permanent staff, more than doubling the support team for its members. The number of business development managers has been increased from four to nine — the highest support ratio offered by any UK travel agent franchise business.
· Access to even higher levels of commission (up to 85 per cent).
· The launch of the all-new Training Academy and career pathway with a syllabus of focussed training modules to help build agents’ skills and reward high achievers with the opportunity to access more training and marketing tools to grow their business and increase earning potential.
· Expansion of the international Mastery Retreat trips, giving members the chance to experience a specific product whilst being coached and mentored on how to be an expert in different specialist holidays including golf and skiing.
· A new social media team to help train, mentor and deliver a host of marketing tools — including video, customisable graphics and templates — to help franchisees increase clients and grow their business. Perks for top-selling agents include 20 hours of one-to-one tuition with NJT’s head of social media.
· A new app, Daley Deals, will be available to agents to drip-feed top partner holiday offers to their customers. Daley Thompson CBE, double Olympic gold medal winner is NJT’s brand ambassador. Paul said: “The Daley Deals app is an easy way for agents to communicate and push offers to their contacts. As the app filters impulse buys back to the agent, they earn commission from doing very little.”
· Significant investment into a range of marketing tools to make it even easier to find customers and grow a fantastic business. Includes new video marketing and social media tools.
· Expansion of its highly successful Climate Hero project as it looks to support even more projects and socially responsible campaigns.