30 November 2017
“Customers will never love a company until the people working with them love it first…”
Each year we treat our top Travel Counsellors in Ireland to a special event where we acknowledge their hard work and success over the year. It is a day that we all really look forward to here at Head Office as it is so packed with inspiration, good times and lots of laughter. This year we celebrated our Sales Support Executive, Ciara MacConnell’s and five of our Travel Counsellors tenth anniversaries in business. 16 of our Travel Counsellors attended along with our Irish Head Office team, our Global Sales Director Jim Eastwood and our sponsors Tara Magee from British Airways and Fiona Noonan from American Airlines.
We headed to the beautiful K Club in Kildare for an overnight stay and celebrations continued long into the night.
Sinead Lonergan started on our Travel Counsellors Academy Programme two years ago and is already one of the top Travel Counsellors in Ireland.
“Having started afresh with no experience & now two years down the line I can honestly say that for me / us/ my family what makes working with Travel Counsellors so special is being in control of how and when you work. Having a work life balance which I have not had in years & spending this precious time with my young daughter Lucy and watching her grow. There is scope to earn high, but I am totally in control of that… Rome wasn’t built in a day! Also, I have built great personal relationships with clients and colleagues and the support we receive from Head Office with admin, technology & marketing is amazing & this leaves me time to focus on my clients and build my business. Travel Counsellors means everything to me. It has been the best move I have made in my career life. My life has changed completely since I joined Travel Counsellors.”
Roger Barrett has been with the company for over 4 years and has reached Gold Travel Counsellor status.
“Life-changing is a much overused cliché, but coming from an office environment with by-the-book procedures with zero flexibility to being able to run your own business, at your own pace with no pressure on sales targets is an epiphany. I often say the previous 15 years was back-breaking, but I did excel. At Travel Counsellors I really don’t have the same desire to top the tables weekly, but achieving Gold status even with an entire family shift back home, house renovations, new school for my young fella, establishing a new work network where I now live whilst trying to maintain my existing Dublin network. In a word, Travel Counsellors, to me means flexibility. Early starts are the norm to clear the head (and backlog) and with no office hours holding you back. A client who left my office last night at 20.30 remarked that “don’t other agencies realise that I have to work myself to pay for this trip?” -meaning the fact that we can chat over his plans in the evening at his convenience. Flexibility with a personal life too - No more issues having to excuse myself for child afternoon/evening activities. Need a 3-hour spin on my bike in the mountains to clear my head? – off you go! Friends who are doing the usual 9-5 are envious and I wouldn’t blame them!"
Ciara MacConnell is our Sales Support Executive at our Head Office in Cork and is celebrating 10 years with the company this year.
"There is a strong will in me to help people which is why I love my role at Travel Counsellors. Each day my focus is to help our Travel Counsellors grow their business and convert bookings. My specialised area is airfares and I get great enjoyment when I can help a Travel Counsellors source the best airfare for their clients that no website could ever find. I love being a part of a company that really cares… everybody genuinely cares about each other. We care for our Travel Counsellors and each Travel Counsellor cares for their customers and that feels great. Within Travel Counsellors there is always progression and development within the systems, so I know that I am with a company that is leading the way in the travel trade. We are the future of Travel Agents. My advice for someone who is thinking about becoming a TC is to not be scared! The systems are not difficult to learn, and you will have our support from the start. If you love selling and want to own your own business, then Travel Counsellors is right for you. You can do it! I never believed in myself before I joined Travel Counsellors. After 10 years with Travel Counsellors I now walk with my head held head and feel good about myself and believe that I can achieve all the things I want in life."
We look forward to another great year ahead for our Travel Counsellors and our Head Office Team.
