This story has everything. A woman who tried making chocolates, selling CCTV and running an art gallery before finding her thing. A travel business built from scratch during COVID that grew into a proper family operation. A brand new Lite consultant who generated over £80,000 in sales in her first two and a half months. And the booking that had everyone talking, a £50,488 trip to Canada, Alaska and America that came through a LinkedIn connection and nearly gave Cath a few extra grey hairs getting over the line.
Cath Bracegirdle’s story is one of the best illustrations we have of what the Lite package really looks like when it is working exactly as it should. And it is worth reading in full.
How she got started
Cath did not find The Travel Franchise by searching for a new career. She found it the way a lot of people do, through a conversation she was not expecting to have.
During COVID she had been networking online and met people she would never have crossed paths with before. One of them was already in travel. They connected, had a one-to-one, things did not quite go as planned, and through that chain of introductions Cath found herself having a conversation with The Travel Franchise team.
She came away from that conversation thinking one thing: “Right, I’m going to do it. I’m going to do it for myself”.
She joined as an Elite franchisee, which was a significant investment. She found a way to make it work, committed fully, and got started.
The first few months were not without their challenges. But her first booking was a £7,000 trip to Mexico, which came through a Facebook Live she did to introduce herself to her network, completely out of her comfort zone, and was referred by her cousin to her boss. A real referral from someone she had never met, on her very first booking.
“It solidified that this works,” she says. “And it just built up from there.”
Building the business properly
Cath completed the Money Back Challenge on the last day, at eleven o’clock at night. She had started part time alongside a 20 hour a week employed role, fitting the travel business around evenings, weekends, and the one day a week she was not working. When things at her employed role became difficult, she made the decision to go all in on travel. Two to three months in, she went full time and never looked back.
The business has grown steadily and consistently since then. Repeat clients, referrals, a growing supplier network built on genuine relationships, and the kind of compounding repeat business that comes from looking after people properly year after year.
She has been on the Millionaire’s Retreat in Cyprus and the Elite Experience in Jamaica. She describes the Millionaire’s Retreat as arriving at a lull in her confidence and leaving re-energised, with a WhatsApp group of 30 consultants that is still active years later.
“We’ve all helped each other. Any questions, whether it be really stupid or just something complicated, we pop it in the group, somebody will help.”
The Elite Experience in Jamaica was where something shifted more fundamentally.
“The realisation that yes I can do this and yes I do have my own business and it’s getting somewhere. Up until then I think I had a bit of imposter syndrome. Not believing in yourself. It’s very strange.”
She has since been on a Seminar at Sea on Norwegian Prima, her first ever cruise, and has gone from not understanding cruises at all to actively selling them. She has done educational trips to Ibiza and a Riviera River Cruise. Everything she experiences feeds back into the business.
In February this year, she took on her first employee. Her 27 year old daughter, who had been helping in the background with social media and bits and pieces for years, finally came on board full time. The business is now a proper family operation and the daughter, as Cath admits with a smile, is probably slowly taking charge.
The Lite package and what it means for Cath
Earlier this year The Travel Franchise launched the Lite Mentorship Programme, a new entry point into the business that starts from the equivalent of £28 a week and is designed for people who want to build a travel business gradually, part time, without the full commitment of the Elite package from day one.
The way it works is straightforward. The Lite package is built around a genuine one-to-one partnership between a new starter and one of our most experienced travel consultants. From day one both parties work together, both are invested in making it work, and both earn from every booking that completes.
Cath is one of twenty experienced consultants chosen to be a mentor on the programme. She was selected because of what she has built, but also because of who she is. Patient, nurturing, collaborative, the kind of person who wants to bring others along rather than focus only on her own results.
“It’s the start of something new,” she says. “It’s a way for me to scale my business, with new income streams.”
Her Lite mentee is Jo, who joined at the end of February. In just two and a half months, Jo has generated 14 bookings totalling approximately £81,000 in sales. The commission on that, split between them, means Jo has already effectively covered her initial investment.
“She takes everything on board, she listens, she gets out there and tells everybody what she’s started and what she’s doing,” Cath says. “She’s been absolutely brilliant.”
The £50,000 booking
The booking that really illustrated what this partnership can produce came through while Cath was away at a training event for Lite mentors.
Jo had reconnected with someone through LinkedIn, a contact from her previous employment. He wanted to book a trip to Canada, Alaska and down through America. A six and a half week itinerary for two people, business class flights, nearly 20 hotels, internal flights, excursions, landing on glaciers, the Rocky Mountaineer, Nights Inlet. The kind of complex, high value trip that most people attempting to plan online would quickly abandon.
Cath called the client, built the itinerary, worked through multiple rounds of tweaks with a supplier who had been to the destination personally and suggested additions that made the trip even better, and eventually got it over the line.
The total? £50,488 for two people. Travelling this July.
“It was very stressful to deal with and just trying to get over the line,” Cath says. “And then it was a nice little message I sent her because I was working at the time and I couldn’t call. She was on holiday. It was a nice little message to send.”
Jo’s commission from that single booking effectively covered the majority of her initial investment. And the client, the kind of person who books a six and a half week business class trip to Canada, is exactly the kind of client who comes back and refers people like themselves.
What this means for anyone considering the Lite package
Jo came to this with no travel background. She is building her business part time, talking to people, and in two and a half months has generated over £80,000 in sales with a £50,000 booking among them. She has not done any of the complex booking work. She has simply done what the Lite package asks her to do.
The model works because of the people on both sides of it. Jo’s energy, relationships and determination. Cath’s knowledge, experience and genuine commitment to helping her succeed.
From the equivalent of £28 a week, part time, without leaving your job, you could be working with someone like Cath from the very first day.
That is what the Lite package actually is. Not just a lower cost way into the travel industry. A genuine business partnership with someone who has already done it, right from the start.
