Ellie had no travel experience, no sales background, and a very secure teaching job she was about to walk away from.
Two and a half years later, she has built a travel business turning over significant figures in commission. This is how she did it.
Ellie spent five years as a primary school teacher. She was good at it and she enjoyed it, but it wasn’t giving her what she actually wanted, which was flexibility, a business she could shape around her life, and something she could grow on her own terms.
So she started looking for alternatives, when she came across The Travel Franchise.
“The Travel Franchise was just really brilliantly advertised in terms of the depth of information on the website,” Ellie says. “And the discovery events were really regular, so I started scouring the calendar for one nearby.”
She found one a couple of weeks away and booked herself on. Ellie didn’t tell anyone and came in alone just to see what it was about…
And came out excited.
“I thought, this could be what I want it to be. In teaching, it’s never what you want, it’s always just going to be a teaching job. I thought, I could really do something with this.”
Going all in from day one
Ellie chose the Elite package, and our Money Back Challenge was a big part of that decision.
“It’s a lot to invest, it really is,” she says. “But having that extra motivation, and committing fully to what I was now doing, really helped me. It also reshaped how people saw me. They weren’t seeing me as part teacher, part doing this. It was like “ no, she’s actually doing this.” And that gave me confidence when I was starting out.”
She handed her notice in, finished teaching at Christmas, and started training in January. She was nervous. She had never worked in travel, and didn’t have a sales background either. But before she’d even completed her training week she was already telling people what she was doing, posting on Facebook, asking family to share things, building momentum before she officially launched.
How she beat the Money Back Challenge
Ellie hit the Money Back Challenge and got he entire franchise fee, refunded despite taking two months off to welcome her new baby.
She puts it down to a few things: going all in from the start, treating the business like a real business rather than something she was testing quietly, telling everyone what she was doing before she even officially launched, and making full use of the support around her.
“You only know if you tell them,” she says simply. “That’s what I did and it worked.”
The retreat that changed her mindset
Ellie has taken full advantage of the training support we provide our consultants. She’s been on both mentorship retreats included with the Elite package. The first, the Millionaire’s Retreat, gave her the foundations. The second, the Elite Experience, she describes as a genuine turning point.
“It wasn’t really about guidance on how to sell travel,” she says. “It was more the business focus. The sessions on the CEO mindset. Coming back and working on business plans, focusing on the figures, taking my head up and looking at the bigger picture. I feel like I stepped up hugely since that trip.”
The numbers backed her up. In the months after she returned, her sales grew by 85 per cent.
“Hearing it from co-founder Paul Harrison and Ben, and being around other people hearing it at the same time – everyone just had this sense of confidence put back into them. It was a really different mindset.”
Where she is now
Two and a half years after handing in her notice as a teacher. Her average booking value sits at just over £6,500. She has a growing base of clients who refer their friends, who then refer theirs. She has a weekly planning meeting with her business consultant, Danielle. She is now looking at bringing someone on to help with the admin side as the business continues to grow.
