If you’re someone who tends to delay chasing your dreams, you might want to follow Dean and Simon’s advice and join sooner rather than later.
This married couple took the leap and trained with us in December 2023, completing their training and launching their travel business right before Christmas, while still running their existing company. Fast forward less than two years, and they’ve already booked over £1.1 million in holidays!
In their very first month, they secured an incredible 20 holiday bookings. Their story proves what we see time and again: those who join just before “Peaks”– the busiest time of year for holiday bookings – often see the fastest growth. Dean and Simon are living proof.
Watch their videos below to hear how they did it, and discover why starting now could be the best decision you’ll ever make.
“We wanted to take advantage of the Peak booking season when many people book their holiday. It means we’ve been forced to pick up the phone right from the get go,” said Simon.
That fast start paid off. By securing so many bookings early on, they quickly built momentum—clients began referring friends and family, while others came back to book their second holiday with the dynamic duo.
To help franchisees achieve success right from the start, we offer the Money-Back Challenge. The goal? Hit a set commission target in your first year and we’ll refund your £14,995 franchise fee.
The couple ended up achieving it in just eight months!
“We’re really proud of ourselves and we’ve been made to feel very special with Steve [[our company co-founder]] phoning to congratulate us. And it wasn’t just a quick call. He chatted to us for a good while talking about our business.”
So what made the couple join us?
The couple, who met more than 20 years ago as holiday reps in Greece, run a successful concierge service at airports for VIP clients and have a number of big-name film and TV production companies and record labels as customers.
And then one day it dawned on them that organising leisure travel was a missing piece of the puzzle.
“More and more of our clients were asking us for advice about where to go on holiday, so it really did feel like a natural extension to our core business,” said Dean.
After extensive research, the couple opted to invest in our Elite franchise, swayed by the support and training.
It proved to be the right decision because they soon discovered that leisure travel is a completely different ball game compared to corporate travel.
“Things are very different on the leisure side. For one, the booking systems are totally different. We were very anxious about making the first few bookings. But once we’d got 10 under our belts we felt so much more confident.”
That’s precisely why we give every franchisee a business development manager who has years of experience in leisure travel.
And while the couple are used to dealing with the cast and crew of well-known TV programmes as if they were a military operation, now they are focussed on developing more personal relationships.
While friends and family were their first obvious source of customers, Dean and Simon are re-establishing old friendships on Facebook and social media.
“We had people literally crawling out of the woodwork that we haven’t seen for years – like people we went to school with 30 years ago and haven’t seen since. Suddenly they’re getting in touch going: ‘I want to go to Mexico, can you help me?’ And I’m like: ‘Of course I can help you. How are you by the way?’
And getting in touch with old friends has been easy as we provided our franchisees with a free competition for their customers to win a holiday. All agents had to do was ring up potential clients to answer a few questions in order to enter.
“We’ve literally sent this survey out to all our contacts – and this leads to an inquiry without being pushy. If they complete the survey they stand a chance of winning a holiday – so there’s something in it for them too.”
The pair have found that they enjoy many aspects of the job including curating the holidays.
“I love researching destinations that are completely new to us. It really opens your eyes. Only problem is it’s making me want to go to all these places so we’re going to be spending all the money we earn on holidays if we’re not careful!”
But the great thing about this job is that Dean and Simon can continue to earn even when they’re abroad.
“That was a deciding factor for us. We like our holidays, we like to go away a lot. With this job, as long as you’ve got a laptop and a dongle, then you can work from your sunbeds.”
The aim is that their new leisure travel business will eventually take over from their corporate business.
“We want our Not Just Travel business to become as successful as our corporate one and for them to work alongside each other because then we’ve got a whole suite of services that we can offer across the travel industry..”
Simon and Dean are delighted they took the plunge when they did.
“There was never going to be an ideal time. We’d been thinking about this for years and just kept putting it off. So we just knew we had to throw ourselves in – and we’re so pleased we did.”
