Written By: Melissa Land, Marketing Coordinator – Dugan’s Travels
In today’s marketplace, savvy agents must stay current on a wide range of factors to secure sales, offer excellent customer service, and increase referral business. This includes tasks like investing in technology to run and manage your business; maintaining knowledge of the ever-changing destination landscape; staying savvy with social media and innovative marketing tactics; and finding ways to express and showcase your value as a trusted ally to your clients. For the home-based agent, managing all these tasks can be overwhelming and downright daunting! Doing them all, on your own, can lead to business burnout; while to do nothing would most certainly lead to business failure.
Those agents who choose to be hosted by Dugan’s Travels now have a clearer path to success. Driven by our 4 core values, our host agency has enacted a series of affiliation benefits to aid our agents in growing their travel businesses in 2018 and beyond.
Family First
Jennifer Dugan started Dugan’s Travels in 1997 because she had a passion for travel but wanted a way to work from home while raising her children. When she began hosting agents 2 years later, her primary focus remained on the family. It is from this mindset that Dugan’s Travels has grown into a leading host travel agency.
When choosing to affiliate with Dugan’s Travels, an agent becomes a part of our host agency family. This relationship begins from the very first meeting, with our introductory welcome call. Once an agent has joined with us, they are granted access to our custom learning management system (LMS), from which they can access our premiere New Agent Orientation Program, as well as the training modules for an assortment of suppliers, destinations and trade organizations. All learning blocks are available on-demand, so that agents can learn at the times that are most convenient to them. There is never a need to choose between family or company.
In Business For Yourself, Not By Yourself
Agents hosted by Dugan’s Travels have access to exclusive ongoing support via our STEP (Support. Tutor. Excite. Prepare.) Mentorship Program. Comprised of both small-group web meetings and one-on-one chats, agents active in STEP can receive education and direct help with business-building and business support tasks. Information and feedback is provided from both the agency and from their fellow agent colleagues. Information and resources are also shared within our agent-sourced forums, which have platforms on our agent-only website and our private Facebook group. This is another vital benefit of belonging to our family of agents.
Dugan’s Travels also provides each of our almost 400 agents with access to a CRM program, SmartAgency. A web-based application purpose-built specifically for our agency, SmartAgency allows agents to manage their businesses in a location-independent environment.
Another critical component of doing business is marketing. Dugan’s Travels assists agents by providing graphics and resources created in-house, as well as educating agents on the tools provided by our trusted suppliers. Additionally, agents have access to a diverse range of free marketing services and an optional list of fee-based marketing services through our consortium, Travel Leaders Network.
Learn. Apply. Succeed.
Ongoing agent education & professional development are of high importance to Dugan’s Travels. Agents hosted by us are encouraged to pursue ongoing continuing education. New agents are given an additional incentive to learn: we have recently introduced a tiered commission scale that progressively advances agents to the highest commission percentage by completing learning blocks in the LMS.
We have identified agent education & professional development as the keys to agent success, and our programs and tools reflect this strong belief. In addition to our LMS, we also host 2 – 3 live events throughout the year through our Dugan’s University program.
Dugan’s University@Anaheim is our cornerstone Dugan’s University event. The primary focus of this week-long conference is to provide product updates in a classroom setting during the day, coupled with relationship-building informal networking events with industry representatives in the evening. All events are designed to foster a supportive environment for new and experienced agents to come together and learn from one another and our suppliers. Offerings of this event include a half-day focused pre-seminar workshop, four days of brand presentations by 20+ suppliers, a welcome reception, a supplier reception, a hospitality suite open each evening for informal networking, and two ship inspections. There is a 98% return rate from suppliers who want to present each year, and an 80% return rate for agents.
Dugan’s U Travels To… is an event that changes locations each year but moves through the eastern part of the USA. Like Dugan’s University@Anaheim, Dugan’s U Travels To… offers supplier presentations and networking events, but in a shorter format. Ship inspections are offered depending on the location.
Dugan’s U Bootcamp is an intensive, multi-day event focused on one destination or subject. Past Bootcamp events have been hosted at Walt Disney World and the Cancun/Riviera Maya region. Agents who have completed a Bootcamp event walk away with insider working knowledge of the destination and are poised to provide their clients with a better level of service as a result. The contacts and experience that they cultivate in-destination have been invaluable to their businesses!
Attitude of Gratitude
Jennifer Dugan’s vision was for agents to exercise their passion and skill for planning travel while remaining available to their own families and commitments. Over 20 years later, her small business has blossomed into a successful enterprise that transforms the hobbyist into a travel professional. Dugan’s Travels has retained the personalized attention and small, family-feel for which we have always been known – due in no small part to our active agent community. We are grateful to our agents for their continued affiliation, and tirelessly strive to deliver additional resources to aid in their success.
Join Our Family Today!
Our agent community is stronger than ever, but there is always room for another seat at our table. We would love to welcome you into our family of agents! For more information, and to schedule your welcome call, please visit www.travelathome.com.