A 2 minute chat with a winning Canadian travel agent who loves the biz—and it shows. Open Jaw recently chatted with Lesley Paull, President and General Manager of Paull’s Travel in Edmonton. Lesley was recently named the ACTA Alberta travel personality of the year. She has a staff of 15 and accepts new business by referral only. And she has never (not ever) advertised. For the secrets of Lesley Paull’s success, read on.
Lesley Paull,
How long have you been in the business? 33 years. I started in an agency as a part-time receptionist…and 12 years later opened my own agency. It didn’t seem as scary then as it would now! We’re now a staff of 16.
Do you have a specialty? We made a decision many years ago to go for the high-touch niche. We position ourselves as being here to take care of you no matter what you need. We’ve never advertised, ever. Not once.
How do you compete with the big chains and the discounters? We don’t. If a customer comes in and says they want us to price match, we suggest that if they’re happy to book it on the internet to do so. We’re not taking any new customers unless they are referred.
How do you deal with staff turnover? Five years ago I changed the way we work here. All my sales agents each have an assistant. The assistant does all the paperwork—I don’t want a topnotch salesperson checking documents. In this agency you don’t ever work as an individual. The system works really well - my top selling agent sold $4.6 million last year. So staff turnover is not a problem. And it means I don’t have to find a lot of really good sales people.
How do you motivate your staff? I’m a games person and we have lots of incentives where the whole office participates. The last one was an incentive where we pitted one side of the office against the other and the loser had to prepare and serve lunch. We go for weekends away and last year did a white water rafting outing followed by a massage and a motivational speaker who spoke about facing your fears.
How do you keep up on industry affairs? I belong to TAMS, a group of 20 independent agency managers from the US and Canada who have been meeting for 15 years. We meet quarterly to brainstorm and benchmark. We’re very open with each other. We discuss the future, where travel’s going. For example, we knew about commission cuts two years ahead and had a plan implemented.
Any time management strategies? We have teams here to make it as efficient as possible. Plus I’m a great believer in personality testing (such as “True Colours”) – I even test job applicants. Everyone knows what colour each of their colleagues is so we know how to handle each other. It can even work as great shorthand to describe a client and his or her needs. “Can you help her? She’s a blue.”
What was the best piece of advice you ever received? From Zig Zigler (who gives two-day “Born to Win” seminars): “You can have everything in life you want, if you just help enough other people get what they want.”
How many hours per week do you work? It’s a 65 hour work week. I’m trying to cut back to 50. I love what I do, I always have, and have a real passion for it.
What would you like to be doing 10 years from now? I’ll probably be here--still trying to cut down to 50 hours!!
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