The Travel Agent Next Door celebrated its 10th anniversary with great fanfare this spring and followed up with a conference in Jordan that agents – and the industry – will be talking about for a long time.
TTAND has grown from just a few agents 10 years ago when it opened its doors to over 1,400 today. Some might find that concerning.
“You are never a just a number with us,” said Flemming Friisdahl, Founder and CEO. “We consider our primary agents to be our business partners and we call each and every one of our primary agents every three months just to check in and discuss how they are doing.”
Big has many benefits
For TTAND agent partners, being part of a half- a-billion-dollar company has its benefits. TTAND can offer more support for its agents, more marketing tools, more help with groups and just a whole lot more support than other host agencies provide including:
- TTAND is able to financially invest more than any other host agency in IT development and support
- TTAND has more support staff than any other host agency because TTAND re-invests its profits back into the business
- Because TTAND has the largest marketing department of the host agencies, it can produce the most emails and printed marketing tools for its agents than any other host agency
- TTAND provides its agent partners with the most advanced personal website that includes private branding
Peer-to-peer support is encouraged
At TTAND, there’s a real sense of community and one of the ways the Agent Partners support each other is with peer-to-peer support and training. Some agents who are successful with a particular type of business actually run sessions to train other agents.
These sessions are called business building sessions. Having such a large community of agents means there’s more knowledge in niche areas and more support for other agents in the community.
Suppliers pay attention
Size also allows TTAND agents to enjoy preferred status with a lot of suppliers. They have dedicated numbers to call if they have any issues and TTAND agents get invited on more fam trips and get more assistance whenever they need it.
- TTAND is able to ensure that its agent partners always get the most competitive commission
- TTAND agent partners are invited to more fam trips, including exclusive TTAND fams
- TTAND agent partners receive more training
- TTAND agent partners are invited to more supplier events
- TTAND agent partners can call their suppliers on dedicated numbers and get fast support to correct any errors
Keeping the personal touch while growing to be Canada’s largest host agency is what has made TTAND different from other host agencies. The one-on-one calls every quarter and the instant access to support are often what TTAND agents say is very important to them.
And the fact that TTAND re-invests in the company to create state-of-the-art technology and tools for its agent partners is a hit with agents.
