How Securing Your First Client Can Be a Launching Pad for Your Travel Business

An advisor, Rebecca, wrote to me a couple of weeks ago with a simple question, one that I’ve been asked in many different variations over the years: "What's your best advice on securing your first client?" It is a fair question, and a very important one, because that first booking is the moment the whole thing stops feeling theoretical and starts feeling real.

Let me be straight with you. There is no secret, no magic phrase, no single channel that reliably turns a stranger into a booking, and if anyone tells you they have one, hold onto your wallet. 

What does work, though, are a handful of ordinary things when done consistently and with sincere enthusiasm. Most of them require just a little courage, more than anything else. 
When you’re starting in this business and looking for your first client, here is how I would ask you to think about it:

Start With The Work You Were Given
Before you go looking outward, look at what you already have. When our advisors join our network, they get a Launch Checklist as part of their welcome. I know it can feel like busywork when you are eager to start selling, but every item on that list exists because someone before you learned the hard way what happens when you skip it. A ready buyer paired with a flustered advisor who cannot find the right booking portal is a sale lost for a reason that has nothing to do with talent. There are countless more similar examples.

Once you start learning, keep learning. Invest in your own education the way you would invest in any asset, because that is exactly what it is. Take the training, sit in on the webinars, attend the course, and earn the supplier certifications. Many come with perks, which are nice, but education helps build credibility and confidence. The more you genuinely know, the more confident you sound, and people book with advisors who clearly know what they are talking about.

Become The Person Who Lives Travel
Here is the part nobody can do for you, and the part that matters most. You have to personify travel. Live it, and let people see you living it.

Post the photos from your own trips. Share the place that surprised you, the hotel that was worth every penny, the small town nobody told you about. When friends, family, and anyone else you know think "travel," your name should be the one that pops into their head. That mental association does not happen by accident. It happens because you keep showing up as the travel person, week after week. You do not need a huge following for this, just enough visibility that the people around you know exactly what you are into. And since you got into this business because you love travel in the first place, none of it has to be faked.

 If this feels scary to you, please read to the very end.

Talk To Everyone About Where They Are Going
This is the most underrated skill in the business, and it costs nothing. Talk to everyone you meet about travel, whether it is the parent next to you at your kid's soccer game, the person in line at the coffee shop, or your dentist. Ask them two questions. Where are you going next? And where have you always wanted to go but haven’t planned? The answer is almost always your opening. 
If they light up about a trip they are dreaming of, you have found someone who needs exactly what you do. And if the answer is "nowhere, honestly, we never seem to get around to it," lean in, because that is the best answer you can hear. That person wants to travel, has no plan, and has nobody helping them make one. That is your in. 

The trip they keep meaning to take has stayed a someday because no one ever made it easy to start. You can be that person. Once you hear every conversation through that lens, you will be surprised how often the door is already open.

If they already have a travel advisor, great, enjoy the conversation about travel and them (not you). Leave them feeling heard. Share your business card with them and invite them to reach out if they ever need any help.

Lean On The People Around You
Whatever you do, do not try to do this alone. Start with your warm network, the people who already know and trust you, because they are far more likely to give a new advisor a chance than a stranger ever will. Tell them clearly that you are doing this now and that you would love to help them or anyone they know, since most people are happy to refer someone they like. Lean on the resources here too. Your suppliers want you to succeed and many will help you build a strong first itinerary. Our community is full of advisors who landed their first client not that long ago and remember exactly how it felt. Nobody in this network expects you to have it all figured out on day one. Just do your own homework, be respectful, look for advice and a hand-up, not a hand-out, and you’ll find that our network is loaded with helpful, encouraging folks. 

One More Thing, And Then Go
The first conversation rarely turns into a booking, so follow up. The advisor who circles back a week later with a thoughtful idea is usually the one who gets the trip, while the one who waits for the phone to ring is still waiting.

So here is what I would do this week. Think of one person you already know who keeps talking about a trip they have never gotten around to taking, and go ask them where they want to go. Your first client may be one good question away. 

Best Success,
Jason