What are your New Year’s Resolutions? Most of us plan to lose weight, exercise more, eat wisely… but here’s one we can all keep that’s great for us personally and for the bottom line. It’s upgrading your skills.

We all owe it to ourselves to have a continuous commitment to learning. Your New Year’s resolution should therefore include setting aside the time to learn… at least once a week.

And guess what? You can do it almost anywhere. Turn your lunch hour into a learning hour. Listen to a seminar in your car or while doing household chores.

To get started, Travelweek has a learning centre full of free courses offered by destinations, airlines, hotels and more — even VIA Rail. Each can be taken at your leisure over as much or as little time as you want. (Maybe ‘binge-learning’ will become a trend!)

The benefits to committing to more learning and upgrading your skills?

• You’ll close sales with more confidence and more quickly
• You’ll have the most up to date info on that supplier (and as we all know, everything changes at the speed of sound these days)
• You’ll be able to add ‘XYZ Specialist’ to your online signature, website, social media and business cards
• If you’re planning to specialize or have a specialty already, learning will continually hone your knowledge and expertise
• You’ll sound more savvy when you use the terminology that the supplier uses to describe their services. For example, among the courses currently on the Travelweek Learning Centre there’s Saint Lucia (“the premiere romance destination”) and Italy (“famous for delicious regional cuisines”)
• Many come with credits from ACTA
• And here’s the really good news. Many suppliers offering these courses offer some serious prizes such as trips, gift cards and ongoing incentives for those who complete the training

Your next goal will be to promise yourself that you’ll set aside a minimum amount of time (I’d suggest two hours) every week to learn and improve your knowledge. Get set to make more money!

 Lynda Sinclair, CTM, is the Senior Vice-President – Leisure at Vision Travel Solutions, which has an ever-expanding and vibrant program for independent agents. With over 30 years in the Canadian retail travel industry, Lynda says she “lives and breathes what goes on at the front line.” She can be reached at lynda.sinclair@visiontravel.ca.