By Sherry Kennedy

Someone once said to me, “Wow, what a great job you have to be a Home Based travel agent.” I thought for a minute and replied, “Why, yes I do! I can choose which 19 hours of the day that I want to work.”
Being a travel agent working from a home office is a wonderful thing. It affords the flexibility of your time management skills to encompass an entire day. If you wake at 3 a.m. worried about whether or not you purchased the travel insurance that was approaching the 14th day for waiving pre-existing conditions, you can head down the darkened hallway in your slippers, flip on the light and check for payment. You can’t do that in a brick-and-mortar outfit.
If you haven’t had a chance to call back the repeat client that books a luxury balcony stateroom every year but because he’s such a pain you keep putting it off, you can pick up the phone over the weekend and at least leave a voice message. You can’t do that from a brick-and-mortar.
It’s a beautiful spring day, the birds are chirping, the sun is shining in a Texas-blue-sky that goes on for miles. You pack up your current travel industry journals, a note pad and your iPod and head to the beach for a two-hour “planning” time. You definitely can’t do that from a brick-and-mortar agency.
Why, then, did I leave the comfort and convenience of my 14-year old Home Based agency and sign up for a hitch in a brick-and-mortar? Here’s the best explanation I can muster.
Back office paperwork. For years, I tried to come up with a workable system that would accomplish two main goals: to present to clients a professional and accurate booking confirmation and to simplify my accounting process. Over the years, I’ve joined Host agencies and travel accounting system companies in search of the quick fix — a non-redundant accounting process that looks extremely professional as well as maintains 100% accuracy.
The bottom line is that there is a learning curve, albeit only slightly sloping, but still a curve and still a redundancy in the input process that always seemed ludicrous to me. Guess what? There is no simple solution. So I designed my own simple paperwork system with the help of Excel and Word. Was it 100% error-proof? Of course not. I was inputting the information and the data was only as good as the source. I constantly worried that I might enter a faux final payment date and lose my client’s dream vacation — or worse yet, his money should he have to cancel. Maybe my addition wasn’t to the penny nor my self-calculated 100% penalty date on target. Always something to worry about at 2 a.m.

Structure. I needed structure. My 19 plus-hour workday was getting out of control. I worked mornings, afternoons, evenings and late at night. And not accomplishing what I set out to do every morning. I procrastinated, postponed and parlayed every free moment to do something unrelated to what I was supposed to do. I’d read about some great little restaurant in Cannes but neglected the request for a vacation rental in St. Martin. I’d decide at 11 p.m. that I needed an iconic logo but neglected to update my Web site. My worst lack of structure was evident in my ho-hum attitude in making call-backs and welcome home calls — something that I had for so long prided myself on doing.

Camaraderie. When I started my Home Based travel agency in Michigan and my kids were still in school, I had built-in friendships through my children’s activities. There were always other women to chat with, to go to lunch with, to discuss daily events. Eventually my girls grew up, we moved to Florida and suddenly I wasn’t a Girl Scout Leader, a computer teacher volunteer or an art helper. I was on my own and alone with my business. I missed the chit-chat, the brief conversations with other parents while we laced up our kids’ figure skates.
Suddenly, the cruise reservationist was my closest momentary friend. The grocery clerk knew me on a first name basis. I think most of us who are Home Based face this at some point or other. We remember the days of either working in an office, or a classroom or volunteer group. Being a full-time dedicated Home Based travel agent creates a sense of isolation that needs to be addressed and overcome, if one is to perpetuate the species, so to speak.

After much soul-searching and making the much over-rated pro and con list, I decided to accept a manager position in a well-established brick-and-mortar travel agency. Here’s what I’ve found to be true.

Back office paperwork: It’s doubled! It’s not only redundant, it’s “quadruply duplicitious” if there were such words! But, it’s accurate, professional looking and a no-brainer to complete. My clients seem to feel more secure with having a name-brand logo in the corner and my name typed in a matching font to the rest of the data. I don’t have to calculate penalty fees based on “59.3 days prior to cancellation.” It’s all done for me. Nothing is left undone. I can sleep at night.

Structure: Is there ever structure! There are dress codes, and desk codes and when we can work codes. My days generally are from 8 a.m. til 6:30 p.m. in the office. I take a one hour lunch and keep on going. My agents have a 40-hour work week. Clients constantly phone in or stop by or make appointments — it’s an endless barrage of communication. In those few minutes when there aren’t any clients in the office, we are furiously trying to catch up. I’ve never had such a long day go past so quickly. I have reports to complete, plans to prepare and events to schedule – all within corporate guidelines quite foreign to this Home Based convertee. But it’s a good thing. I am enjoying the structure of knowing that I have to complete a certain task before 5:30. I enjoy knowing that I have X amount of tasks to complete within a specific time frame. Maybe this doesn’t work for everyone. For right now, it seems to work for me just fine.

Camaraderie: There’s plenty of it in my office! The four travel agents I work with are all unique and interesting individuals, very knowledgeable and helpful. The constant flow of clients keeps us constantly communicating bantering with one another so as to relieve the stress. If someone is ill, we cover for them. No one “steals” someone’s clients or pending business.
I failed to mention the “B” word: Benefits. Unless one is connected to the small number of Host agencies that provide a health care plan, it is a necessary evil to pay exorbitant premiums for health care insurance. That is another reason why I chose to move “out” of my house.
Transitions. In the optometrist’s world, transitions are lenses that improve one’s visual acuity by adjusting and adapting to different environments. Transitions in the Home Based agent’s world transcend the accepted business model to adapt to new and more efficient applications, procedures and practices. Perhaps if I had persisted in learning new software accounting programs so that I felt as though I could compete with the “Big Guys,” I would have been able to better manage my business. Perhaps if I had developed stronger time management skills to better structure my work day, I’d have had less overlap of personal and business hours. And finally, perhaps if I had joined more chamber organizations or business networking groups, I’d have developed a larger social network to replace the one I had when my kids were younger. But I didn’t.

So now I’ve done the unthinkable: I’ve gone from being a Home Based entrepreneur to a corporate-based manager. I have set hours to work, performance goals to achieve and budgets to meet.
For me, this comes at a time in my life where it all seems to fall into place. This won’t work for most. And who knows how long it’ll last for me?
I am learning new skills and truly thinking outside the box, as I knew it. All I can say at the end of the day is that whatever venue we choose to work in to sell travel, the most important thing to remember is to strive to be the most proficient at what we do, to keep learning new technologies and stay as focused as possible during the work day. Achieve balance between your job and your personal time. Learn to close the door to your job and enjoy the reasons that you love this business.

Sherry Kennedy is the owner of the Vacation Shoppe, Inc., Home Based since its inception over 10 years ago. Sherry tries to stay on the cutting edge of office mobility technology, so that she can take her business “on the road” whenever she has to travel. She is the NACTA Florida Area Director and on CLIA’s Travel Agent Advisory Board.