Jo spent thirty years in the construction industry. Long hours, weekend work, emergency call-outs, the kind of relentless schedule that leaves very little room for anything else.
By her early fifties she had built a solid career, developed strong customer service skills, and run her own business alongside it all. After selling her business, she wanted to choose different priorities
“I really wanted work-life balance,” she says. “I’m now in my early 50s and I wanted to be in control on my working hours.”
She had two passions outside of work: Formula One and travel. Formula One, she quickly concluded, was too time-consuming and expensive to turn into a business. Travel, on the other hand, was a different story entirely. She had the people skills, the business experience, and a genuine love of exploring the world; all she needed was the right vehicle to put it all together.
That vehicle turned out to be the Lite package.
Why she chose the Lite package over everything else
Jo didn’t stumble into this decision. She researched her options properly, looked at various franchises and compared opportunities.
What made the difference was the Lite package and what it represented. The other options, she felt, were very much all in propositions. Full time, full commitment, full operational responsibility from day one. That was not what she was looking for.
“I chose the Lite package because I didn’t want to have a full-on 40 or 50-hour week job,” she says. “I’ve just finished working 70 hours a week for the past five years. I really wanted to bring my hours down.”
The Lite package is designed to fit around a person’s lifestyle and commitments. Rather than handling the full booking process independently from day one, Lite members work alongside an experienced travel consultant who manages the booking complexity while they focus on finding customers, building relationships, and learning the industry from the inside. The commission is shared, the pressure is lower, and the hours are entirely yours to control.
For Jo, that last point was everything. She and her husband run other businesses together. Their daughter had just opened a florist shop. Life was full and she wanted a business that could flex around it, not one that added to the pressure.
“I’m able to fit it around family commitments, other work commitments, and my social life,” she says. “Some weeks I might do 25 hours. This week I’ll probably do about 10. The hours don’t have to be the same every week.”
Six bookings in her first month
One month in, Jo has already converted six bookings from nine or ten enquiries. Not bad for someone who had never worked in the travel industry before joining.
The variety of those bookings tells its own story. An anniversary cruise for a couple travelling next year. A dual Iceland and New York trip. Family holidays to Lanzarote. City breaks alongside bigger, more complex itineraries. She has been working across the full range of what travel consultants do, learning as she goes, with her experienced mentor Cath beside her every step of the way.
Every single booking so far has come through people she already knows or people who have been introduced to her by someone she knows. She has been handing out business cards at birthday parties, planning a meet and greet at a local restaurant, and even plans on talking to her local garden centre about setting up a monthly presence. She’s also been building her social media presence, posting short video reels about destinations she has visited herself and practical tips for travellers rather than simply pushing people to book.
“You never know where the next customer is going to come from,” she says. “At a 40th birthday party the other week, people were asking what I was up to and when I told them I was in the travel industry they said, that sounds cool, have you got a card? Always carry your cards.”
What working with an experienced mentor actually looks like
The Lite package pairs every new member with an experienced travel consultant who acts as both business partner and guide. For Jo, that person is Cath, and she is unequivocal about how valuable that relationship has been.
“Kath’s brilliant. She’s got so much energy and she’s very good at what she does. She’s also very real and honest, which is great.”
They message every day and speak a couple of times a week. Cath handles the booking process for Jo’s leads, but the relationship goes well beyond that. She advises on social media, keeps Jo focused on the activities that actually move the business forward, and shares knowledge about destinations, suppliers, and how the industry really works.
“I’m learning so much from her,” Jo says. “Working with a travel consultant means you’ve got somebody there with a lot of knowledge to tap into. Use your travel consultant absolutely.”
This is the real value of the Lite model. You are getting a mentor who has already built the kind of business you are working towards, who can show you how they did it and help you avoid the mistakes most new starters make.
Her advice to anyone considering joining is simple and worth sitting with.
“Go for it… It’s what I call a “nice scary”. Think of it like starting a new job: it takes time to settle in, time to find your rhythm… but it is doable and it is enjoyable.”
