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Tips for You from Dream Vacations Execs
By Paloma Villaverde de Rico
We had the opportunity to sit with three
Dream Vacations
executives and we asked them to offer you some tips on reaching your best “you” as a travel advisor.
BRAD
Brad Tolkin, CEO
“Pick a focus,” says Dream Vacations’ CEO Brad Tolkin.
“Don’t hang a shingle out there and say, ‘I sell everything.’ We find that our most successful travel advisors have a focus and that doesn’t mean selling only a particular destination or a particular product.
“It could be how you go to market. One of our most successful franchisees posts videos of cruise ships on his YouTube channel. He doesn’t care if it’s Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Holland America, Princess—he focuses on how he
goes to market.
“We also have franchisees that focus on the product. They only sell river cruising and they know that product [well]. One of our franchisees focuses solely on bridge groups, the card game, bridge groups on a luxury product.” Tolkin tells us that after that advisor completely shifted his focus to only bridge groups on one cruise line, now that advisor is in Dream Vacations’
Circle of Excellence
program, which recognizes agents for top sales achievement. What you shouldn’t do, he says, is try to “market everywhere and everything that people are doing that you’re reading about.”
His second piece of advice is that when “you start to grow, trust people and do what you do best in the organization.”
In terms of who to hire when you are growing your agency, he says, look for “someone who’s been in a disciplined, professional environment—such as a teacher or someone with a military background. [They prove to be] very successful. We find those attributes make a good future [Dream Vacations] franchisee.”
DEBBIE
Debbie Fiorino, COO
“Focus on what you’re good at, which is selling and servicing your clients,” says Debbie Fiorino, the organization’s COO. “Let someone else do all the other stuff that you don’t need to focus on.”
Fiorino agrees with Tolkin that advisors should “not try to be all things to all people. When you focus on what you’re good at, you’re going to see, you’ll get time back, you get energy back, and you get to focus on being more successful.”
She adds, too, that advisors need to set daily goals for themselves for education and development. “You need to learn stuff, whether it’s product, whether it’s technology, whether it’s how to market via social media, you have to keep up with all that and you have to set aside time,” she says. “Set aside a half-hour a day—I’m going to learn something about marketing. Whatever that goal is. Make sure that you’re doing that.”
DREW
Drew Daly, Sr. VP and General Manager
For those who are new to selling travel, Drew Daly, Sr. VP and General Manager for Dream Vacations, says that one of the most important things is to “start traveling. Go and experience a new product because that’s number one. You can read about it, you can study it and that’s great, but nothing beats experiencing it.” He, too, says you need to “focus. You should focus on one product or niche. Don’t cast a wide net—people do that, and they’ve been successful doing it, but it has been proven that if you focus on something, you’ll be more successful, more skilled and more of an expert.”
He says something he’s seen successful advisors do is “a ‘come along.’ I always say, book yourself on your bucket list trip and say, ‘Look, I’m going to go to Alaska two years from now,’ and start promoting it.
“[You’re the] travel expert. And then do something fun on board. Maybe the first
time you only have five couples,
but if you do it right, you
may have 30 the following year.”
COVER
SANDALS
Table of Contents
SANDALS SPREAD
Editor's Notes
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Advisor Speak: ‘A Desire to Get Out of Your Comfort Zone’
Industry Insights: Tips for You from Dream Vacations Execs
Cruise: Cruises Tailor-Made for Sophisticated Boomers
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AMERICAN CRUISE LINES
Onboard Review: Sun Princess Offers a Parade of Culinary Highlights
North America: Las Vegas—Selling the City of Superlatives
Tulalip Resort Casino Poised for Massive Expansion
CIRCA SC
CIRCA RESORT & CASINO
Onsite Review: A Cultural & Culinary Getaway in Washington, DC
Caribbean/Mexico: Down by the Sea—Perfect Getaways for Beach Baby Boomers
PALLADIUM SPREAD
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Onsite Review: Velas Resorts Raises the Bar on Luxury in Los Cabos
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