The Travel Agent Guide
The Travel Agent Guide is a podcast created for travel advisors at every stage of their journey.
Each episode shares practical tips, real-world experiences, and honest conversations about building a successful travel advisor business—from client boundaries and workflows to marketing, growth, and sustainability.
Whether you’re new to the industry or looking to refine how you work, this podcast is here to help you work smarter, feel more confident, and grow with intention.
The Travel Agent Guide
The Numbers Every Travel Advisor Should Know
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In this episode of The Travel Agent Guide Podcast, we break down one of the most important—and often overlooked—parts of building a sustainable travel business: knowing your numbers and understanding what it actually takes to become profitable.
Booking more trips doesn't automatically mean making more money. If you're not paying attention to your commission percentage, fees, hours invested, and overall profitability, you could be doing a lot of work without building the income you deserve.
Join us as we discuss practical strategies for increasing your earning potential, protecting your commission, and approaching your travel business with a more intentional, numbers-driven mindset.
⏱️ Timestamps
00:00:00 Introduction
00:00:43 The Numbers Travel Advisors Need to Know
00:01:23 Setting Your Commission Goal
00:03:03 Why You Should Aim for 15–20% Commission
00:03:45 Stop Waiting Until the End to Calculate Your Earnings
00:04:09 How to Build Commission Into a Trip
00:06:03 Building a Profitable FIT Itinerary
00:08:31 Making Lower-Commission Cruises More Profitable
00:09:19 Adding Pre- & Post-Cruise Travel
00:10:04 Why Full-Service Travel Planning Matters
00:12:06 Using Planning Fees to Increase Profitability
00:13:51 Adding Commission Without Getting Price Checked
00:15:25 Why Packaging Makes Price Comparisons Harder
00:16:42 Why You Shouldn't Feel Guilty About Charging More
00:18:49 Understanding Take-Home Pay as a Travel Advisor
00:19:28 Tracking Monthly & Projected Commissions
00:20:25 Working Backward From Your Income Goals
00:21:47 Calculating the Hours You Invest in Each Trip
00:23:19 Client Red Flags That Can Hurt Profitability
00:24:30 When to Charge a Higher Fee—or Walk Away
00:25:39 Learning From Low-Commission Bookings
00:26:33 Choosing Products That Support Your Income Goals
00:26:56 A $40,000 Booking With No Commission
00:27:52 Using a Spreadsheet to Protect Your Profit Margin
00:29:44 Making the Numbers Work for Every Trip
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That's the reality of it. So I I'm very excited to kind of dive in. So the bar that I set for myself is typically the minimum of about 15%. You know, an excellent trip. Everything works out beautifully. Top tier commissions, it's gonna be 20%. Clients who are, you know, niching down on a very specific trip. Maybe that could only be 10 or 12, depending on the supplier or DMC. Welcome to the Travel Agent Guide, the podcast pulling back the curtain and what it really takes to be a travel agent. We're talking real life: the challenges, the wins, the money, the mistakes, and the growth. Whether you've been in the travel industry for years or are new to it, we're in this together and you're exactly where you need to be.
SPEAKER_01All right, welcome this week. We're super excited to talk about a topic that is just really integral to whether or not you stay in this industry long term. So we're here to talk about the numbers that you really need to know to get to profitability. Can I tell you how many travel agents I talk to that are just, you know, they've been in the industry for a year, two years, three years, and they're still not making real money at the end of the day. So, what I am going to promise you is at the end of this episode, you're going to have a really good understanding on how to get to profitability. And I'm not just talking profitability, but the profitability you deserve. Too many people are out there working for eight and nine percent commission, and I think it's insane. Um, Haley, let's dive right in to understand your bar because I think your bar is gonna make everyone gasp and it's gonna make people be like that greedy bitch. So let's start there.
SPEAKER_00I think first and foremost, everybody knows I was a bartender in the service industry for many years. So my standard was always that 15, 20%. Um, but not only that, I kind of follow from other suppliers. Like if you have good negotiated commissions with your host agency, you know, you look at some of these suppliers, you knowworld, you can earn 18%. So there's a reason these suppliers are paying out an 18% commission. How I feel at the end of the day, depending on my trip and kind of how I'm building it, I usually set my bar between that 15 and 20%. Yes, of course, there's gonna be trips that I cannot make 15%. And I think that's completely normal. There are some DMCs that don't go above 10%. And, you know, at the end of the day, it's the value you give your client. But I do reach for that because paying myself first and making sure I can sustain my business, I can pay myself, and I can wake up and come to this job tomorrow is super important. If I can't do that, then I'm gonna be back bartending sooner than I want to, right? So that's the reality of it. So I I'm very excited to kind of dive in. So the bar that I set for myself is typically the minimum of about 15%. You know, an excellent trip, everything works out beautifully. Top tier commissions, it's gonna be 20%. Clients who are, you know, niching down on a very specific trip. Maybe that could only be 10 or 12, depending on the supplier or DMC.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. So I'm I'm very aligned. I always, when I coach people, I explain like, we're going after 20% because it's not gonna happen every time. So you're gonna average somewhere around, I typically average around 18% for the year. A lot of that, to be honest, tends to be flights for me, where the flights just you're not gonna get 20% on a flight. My goodness, could you imagine back in the 80s? No. So it's like one of those things where, okay, if I go for 24% on most of my packages and I have to add on things that are non-commissionable or whatever it looks like, I'm going to be able to kind of hover in a percentage that I'm more comfortable with. I think way too many people out there simply wait till the end of the trip and they're like, I don't know, how much did I make off of that? And it's like, oh, hell no. Like completely flip the script. So tell us, how do you get 20% on a trip? Because I don't know that there's a ton of vendors out there offering 20%.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And to what you just said, Bird, I think you're absolutely right, right? You're going to get a quote, you're just looking to see what that is, and you assume that's what the commission is. Every single supplier in the industry allows you to add on. And I shouldn't say every, but for the most part, you can add on, you can work around that. You have to understand with whatever tour operator you're using, however you're putting together your trip, there are going to be several elements of the trip that is non-commissionable. So you need to keep that in as a factor, right? So the way that I work it, let's say for instance, I am, you know, building a $10,000 trip and I know my bottom line that I need to make on this is $1,500. I basically am setting aside that $1,500 in the sense because I know that is already going to be the commission that I need to make. So when I go to a tour operator or a DMC or I'm talking to them about getting a quote or if I'm FIDing it, I am mentioning that right from the beginning. So I think this is a very crucial part, right? If you're putting in a quote request, make sure you're telling them that my expectations are to earn 15% commission. My client has a budget of $10,000. Can we start with this and see where we get? And it's probably going to require a little back and forth to figure out until you get it right. Um, but that's how I do it, right? Because I will jump in for just a second.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I same same process, but I do not give up the information about what the commission is. I just tell the DMC, you've got $80,500 and this is what I need. And I tell them, I tell them it's a net price, but this is what I need net because they're doing the same thing. They're taking the $8,500 and they know that their percentage is usually around 5%. So they're taking the 5% and they're like, okay, now I need to work off of $8,000. What does this look like? I don't know if the math is perfect there. Somebody please don't check me. But you get the idea, is they're also taking theirs off the top to work it through. Um, when you take it off the top, and um, for easy math, I'm just gonna use that $10,000 number. But let's say it's a $10,000 trip, you're working with $8,500. Where do you go first? Like, do you go straight to the hotels first? If you're FITing it and truly putting it together, do you go straight to the tours? What do you do first as you approach this problem?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I would go right to the hotels. So for example, if I'm doing an FIT, I I mean a lot of times I use Rate Hawk beds online. I would go there and figure out properties and start quoting out what those look like. I put them into a package because you can bundle them in depending if they're um, you know, refundable or non-refundable. And I build that piece out to understand what that looks like, right? How much money are the hotel? They have to go, they need hotels, right? So I have a standard that I'm gonna meet for clients. I'm never gonna put them in a three-star to make my 20% commission. That's just not gonna happen. I'm gonna make sure that they are in amazing properties, regardless. So, from there, hotels, very important. Obviously, flights are another factor. So if you are doing flights, you can't change the price of flights. They are what they are. So you kind of really need to start with flights first. But that's if you're doing an FIT, you're booking flights direct, right? Then you move on to the hotels, then you move on to the transfers and the tours and so on.
SPEAKER_01So I flip the script just a little. I love doing this with you because it's fun to hear how you approach it versus I approach it. Um, I do the tours, so flights are always first because I can't I got nothing I can do with flights. But like tours and hotels, we have all the control in the world over, right? And transfers I always do last because worst case scenario, I'm like, what are your thoughts about taxis? You know, if it's truly like a budget situation, um, which I hate working.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_01Um, but I like doing the tours because, and and you kind of already know in your head, like I'm not gonna with an $8,500 budget, I'm not going after private tours, right? But I want to make sure the experience they get at the end of the day is the experience they came to me with. And then the hotels kind of need to fit in there. But you're right, I'm not gonna go after a four or a three-star hotel. Like you kind of have a bar with what it is. But I always try to fit in the tours that I know that I want to pitch that are gonna make it exciting. Cause when I do the proposal workshop, um, and we like to call it a workshop because they should be working with you on and making decisions, right? But when I do the proposal workshop, they are going to be excited or I tend to like lean into the experience of the tours. So I always like doing that. Yeah. Okay, let's back up, let's back up a little bit. Cause I think most people are like, we get it, you're adding on commission, good for you. I don't know that I could do that, right? And I really want to address like cruises, for instance, somewhere you can't add on any commission. So if someone is coming to me and they just want a Caribbean cruise and it's a Royal Caribbean, and yes, I get 16%, but let's be honest, after the NCFs and all the other nonsense, you're getting like 10% commission. And I don't know about you guys, but typically the cruises that I've seen, they're not very high and very expensive. So you're walking away with not a lot of money at the end of the day. That's a volume game for the people that do tend to be in that niche of the industry. Is there anything that can be done with commission percentages when it comes to stuff like that where I really can't patent?
SPEAKER_00I was we were just talking about this in our webinar today. I basically, I mean, with cruises, like we were talking about an Alaska cruise, for example. And with Alaska, let me get my client in two days early, get them into Vancouver, put them at the Pan Pacific, whatever that looks like. I'm building out that. So now to make up and offset some of that crappy commission, I may add in a little bit here where I need to, right? The other opportunity would be okay, let's do a Delta Vacation package and put together the flights with a preferred hotel there. And you can add on again some more commission as well to offset the flights if you're doing flights and again the commission with, you know, um, the crews that it's not the best commission, right? I when I take on a client bird, and same for you. And you know, we're taking on more than just the booking. Like we're not booking and handing it off. And I think it's really important to understand this. We are full concierge, we are providing uh a very hands-on experience as a travel agent. So making more than $200 a booking is it's necessary. Yeah, it's it's more than required for me to provide the service that I do to my clients. And and there's that. So I have to- I love that.
SPEAKER_01And I think a lot of people may be back there saying, like, oh, okay, I booked a $1,500 cruise. Yeah, I got one night in Miami, but okay, now I made an extra $10 and I had to put in all this effort. And I think you have to remember, like, things like that do add up. So if you're going to play in the volume space, just play in the whole space is basically what we're getting into. Don't just go and say, I'm gonna do the bare minimum because that's where the money is. I hear so often people that book river cruises. I mean, we get this lead, I'm not kidding, two or three times a week, we get a lead where they're like, Well, I booked my river cruise over here, but they told me they won't book my pre and post. And I need, I want help from a travel agent to do that. Um, and usually it's another travel agent that's like, chich-ching, river cruise commission. Oh, yeah, I'm not touching anything else. And that's a little mind-blowing to me because we win that business at the end of the day. We'll do your dinner reservations, we'll make your freaking hair appointment every night. You guys, I literally had a client ask for a hair appointment every night of her river cruise. That is mind-blowing to me. She had to look up for dinner. Anyways, um, to me, it's one of those things where I'm like, why are you giving up? Yes, it's more work, but why would you give that uh any piece of it up? Um, it just doesn't make sense for me at the end of the day. It'd be like going to my accountant and he's like, I do your taxes, but I'm not willing to reconcile your books. Like, why? That I'm just gonna find the other guy that does all the things and I'm going to use them. Um, so I think even the little bit of commission that comes from these add-ons is really important. And then talk to me about fees because I think a lot of people feel stuck at the 10%. But really, even a $50 fee sometimes can make a big difference to your commission percentage if you're playing in that volume game.
SPEAKER_00Huge difference. Um, every cruise I book, uh, which is not a lot, um, I do do far more river cruising, right? But if I am to book any trip at this point, we already know Haley charges fees, right? But what with cruises specifically, I look at how low it is, and my fees may even be higher because I ask the client, like, what are they looking for? If they really truly don't want my service for what I provide, then I'll bless and release it. But if they don't want to pay my fee, that's fine. But I have to make that fee, combine it with the commission that I know to get to my percentage that I need to know I can sustain my business, right? Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Well, and think about it. If you're averaging our agents right now, I just pulled it for this year, actually, we're averaging $1,640 in commission. That's what we average per trip. So if I'm charging, I mean, let's say it's a $200 fee. So if I'm charging $200 divided by that $1,640, you're talking about 12% of your overall commission is a fee add-on. Like that's a that's a chunk of change. And it really does add up. So I know that fee conversation is probably beaten like a dead horse in this industry, but I just feel really strongly that even small fees, like genuinely charging $50, makes a big difference in the mindset of how people view travel agents. It makes a big difference in your take home at the end of the day. And it just all around kind of changes your world on if you take this professionally when you're able to kind of add that additional income stream. So I am going to constantly push you all to charge fees.
SPEAKER_00All the time.
SPEAKER_01All right. So talk to us a little bit more about adding on commission. I think that people get frustrated because they want to add on commission, but then they get price checked. How, when, where, why can I possibly avoid this very common scenario?
SPEAKER_00I think a lot of it, and of course we talk about this all the time, is in the process and how you are gaining the client's trust and how you're presenting to them. Um, I mean, I if a client price checks me, they price check me, there's nothing I can do at that point. I've already charged my fee to compensate my time. So I don't let it bother me if that's the case. Um, but at the end of the day, I've had clients who told me that, okay, this is I actually went and checked in how come I can get it for $400 less, right? My favorite line to say is I just want you to understand that I am a small business and I cannot compete with the pricing that Costco can give you. And and that's and if you choose to go with that to save your $400, I absolutely respect that. But I just unfortunately this is what it is, right? And that's kind of how I approach it, bird when I do get which very rarely happens. Um, I still remind people like we there's a reason why we have the ability to package pricing because we typically get far better rates than the public will ever see, right? So I don't know. I think there's a lot of strategy behind building out a vacation in a package that your clients aren't like, oh yeah, there's a huge that's kind of the piece that I was gonna go.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's the piece I was gonna go after. Is I don't think people often consider what a package could look like. So let's go back. Obviously, if you're doing a two weeks in Europe, that we all get how to package that. But let's talk about like an all-inclusive. I mean, I hear all the time like, oh, I just got price checked on this resort. And it's like, okay, but why didn't you pitch it as here's the flight, here's two tours, here's your private transfer, and here's this. And sometimes I'll hear like, oh, they didn't really want a tour. It's like, sell it to them, sell it to them in the consultation and be like, you know what we should do? We should, you got to get out on the water. You're not gonna go to Mexico and knock it out on the water. Let's just go sailing one day. Let's see what that looks like. And then when you're presenting it to them as something with transfers and tours and flights, it's a lot harder if they try to just go to the website and and price check you right off the bat. So even if you're not adding in a lot there, you might only be adding in $50, but they're not gonna really understand where it's from because it's coming in all these different places. And if you truly get price checked and you need to adjust, the easiest conversation to have at that point is flight prices change constantly. Great news, it's lower. Let's book it now, right? You're still locking it in and you got caught and it is what it is. But at the end of the day, I think a lot of people feel icky about this conversation about adding in commission. Haley, why should I not feel icky and gross about charging my friends and family more money at the end of the day?
SPEAKER_00Because I think at the end of the day, clients truly have no idea how much time you are spending on their trip, right? And I don't expect them to know. I don't want the, I mean, do I want them to know sure, but to a limit, right? I'm not telling them every time I'm touching their itinerary, rechecking things. It's a lot of work, right? And then throw in a pre-departure call, emailing the hotels. It goes on and on. On average, I would say at least 20 to 30 hours are spent on a trip. To me, that's almost a full work week. I better be making a thousand dollars off of that if I if it's worth it, right? So I think that is obviously really important, right?
SPEAKER_01And and again, like that piece of that puzzle of we are full service. Like I am making dinner reservations and hair appointments, and actually, I'm not doing any of that, but I'm paying an assistant to do all of those things. So the service my client is getting is elevated. So at the same time, so should my commission. And anybody out there is like, well, I don't give all those services, so I'm not gonna charge those fees. I'm gonna argue again, you're leaving money on the table. Just like that pre-night stay in Alaska we talked about. Having white glove service in this industry is gonna be more and more necessary. AI is moving into our space, period. Dot, as it's moving into everyone's space, why would I use a travel agent that just basically at the end of the day is a booking agent? Instead, spin it off to them and be like, I'm gonna take it above and beyond, and this is what I'm gonna do. And all of our agents at Sava Travel get that option. You can work with our guest experience managers to do all of that work for you at any time. And for us, that's exciting because it's just necessary. If you really want to make a true living at this and you want to go full time, having a really healthy commission percentage is a big, big step in that direction. Um, and I don't think everybody's always thinking about that. Okay, Haley, I think the other big thing, I remember when you went full time, we talked a lot about your take-home pay and kind of your hourly rate. And these are these are normal things that you think of when you have a salary, um, but you don't have a salary in this industry. Um, tell us that's a lie. I have W-2 employees, but not everybody, typical travel agents don't have a salary. So tell me a little bit about take home pay, hourly pay. Like, why do I need to pay attention to any of that?
SPEAKER_00Because it's just it's part of being in any job, right? I always say you're here to make money, right? So you need to understand what your money is gonna be and how to make it and how to earn it. So it's super important. I think first is mapping out kind of your goals and always keeping track of what you're booking and how you're booking. Make sure you're running reports monthly to track your projected commissions, like commission earned. So the way that I do it is I look at my month to month and I look to see the amount of commissions that I put on the book. I look to see my commission percentage. Um, so I already know what that bottom line is. I know that's not the money I'm earning this month, but that's a goal that I need to make sure I'm earning the money into the next year as I'm building this out, right? So I think take home pay, you know, if we start getting into kind of the financials of a travel agent, taxes, putting aside banking money, um, you know, you have to look at what you need to live, right? You gotta make sure you're paying your rent, your mortgage, and doing all the things that you need to do and still putting aside the money for your taxes.
SPEAKER_01And we don't have time for this today, but one of the things I'm super, super excited to do um, where if you've been listening, we have an in-person workshop coming up November 6th, which I'm super jazzed. But we will absolutely do a webinar for anyone that can't come on this one topic of like forecasting out what that looks like. So if you're like, hey, I need to make 75 grand next year and that needs to be my take home, we kind of have this whole calculation where you work backwards from that into how many leads you need month by month. So you can always know if week by week you're really on track to hit those goals. I think a lot of people get into this and they're reactive and they just sit back and they hope the lead ends up in their inbox each week. That's a shitty way to do business. And if you really want to become a six-figure agent or a multi-six-figure agent like several of ours are, you've got to be more strategic about it. You've got to go into it saying, hey, next year I want to make $250,000, which PS is super doable in this industry. Super, super doable in this industry. I want to make $250,000. Here's what I want to do. Here's my average trip. This is my average commission. Da-da-da. And we can work backwards. And that's one of the uh one of the exercises we're gonna do in the workshop that I'm really excited about because I don't think most travel agents think of it in that way. They kind of just cross their fingers and hope for the best. And hope is a bad strategy. That's what I've learned. Um, okay, so I did want to talk about hours invested. You and I were talking before the podcast about this. And I think that hours invested is kind of hard to know what you're going after. How is it that you think of? That and like your hourly rate at the end of the day.
SPEAKER_00It's hard. It definitely is hard. Some trips I will earn a $4,000 commission and I maybe work four hours on. Fantastic, right? Where I truly am going on the day, I'm spending 30 minutes on a consultation, 45 minutes on a follow-up trip. Um, I having a DMC put it together based off my 15-minute detailed email. And then everything's aligned, beautiful. They buy it. Then, you know, an email goes out 60 days before, where you know, my assistant spends maybe three to five hours on average to go through and do that. And what is the cost of my assistant? Um, so some trips you can make tremendous commissions and put in very little hours, right? Then you have some trips in where you're making, okay, it's a $5,000 Caribbean trip and you're maybe making $500 off of it, and it is just so time consuming. Um, and it really just depends on the client. So it's it's it's hard, right? I think those trips are the trips that you obviously want to avoid. Sometimes you don't get the red flags till later. But typically, if somebody is showing you the red flags in budgeting at the beginning, it's gonna be a good thing.
SPEAKER_01I was about to say, talk us through, talk us through the red flags. When you what is it you hear that makes you say, oh, hell no?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, okay. Um you're like, how long do we have? Yeah, exactly. I'm like, oh, where should I start? Um, I think it really comes down to the conversations that you have. I need that immediate trust. If somebody's trying to sound more educated in a destination than me, then I already know it's gonna be a lot of juggling and back and forth, which sometimes I can have a good indication bird, and then I can fly out like a $750 fee. And if they if they take it, okay, great. I'm gonna compensate myself for because I know how much freaking work you're gonna be, right? And I can usually sense it. Um, other people are just truly laid back where they don't care and they trust you completely, and that's where you're gonna make more um return in your right, you're gonna make more return on those and more profit.
SPEAKER_01So I always wonder at the end of the day if I'm the person that like my lawyer is like, oh yeah, we gotta charge her more. I think because I grew up in the service industry, there's I hope that there's no way I am, but I'm sure we're all high maintenance in our own ways. Oh, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00I mean, go chat, go chat with my husband and daughter right now. They're telling you.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01So I I agree with you. There are certain things that I hear in consultations that make me say, like, either I'm gonna charge this person a really large fee or I'm just gonna bless and release in in the moment. Um, I've had multiple people who I know, who are friends, who have been like, yeah, so right before we got on the call, I was looking at Costco and like immediately I'm just like, you should do that. You should absolutely go book with Costco and have a great time doing it. Um, I I think it's important to kind of start, and you know how you learn, you learn by getting burned. Like, sadly, that's how this happens, right? And humans are not good at learning from other humans' mistakes. It's just sadly part of our nature. We have to make our own. But I would tell you and challenge you, start keeping that list of like either huge fee or no-go really quickly, and and you will quickly start to narrow in on what you take. It's really hard to be desperate in this industry. If you're somebody that's like um just I'll take anything because I've got to get this built, it it's you're gonna wear yourself thin really, really fast. I mean, Haley, have you ever worked for like a less than 10% commission? Have you ended up there before? Oh, yeah. How did it happen? Tell us the story.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I feel like naturally year one and two, it's gonna happen more than it does year three and four, right? So if you're kind of in the thick of that right now in year one, I hear you. I keep doing what you're doing. These are all lessons being learned. Um I mean, I would I remember booking like the VRBOs off of Xpedia because somebody wanted to go and I just truly wanted to understand. I didn't know what I didn't know, right? So it took me that time to educate myself. I I mean, Disney was I was so like headstrong and coming in and learning Disney and selling Disney. I'm like, oh yeah. And then I got into, I'm like, wait a minute, why am I gonna sell this to make this commission when I can sell river cruising and make eight more percent, right? It was to me, it was a no-brainer. I just had to figure out how to position myself, how to sound like the expert at the beginning, right? Until I really truly understood it and it just worked, right? So find what you want to sell, find the products that are gonna have the best commission and go go market it, right? If you want to sell Uniworld, don't start marketing Disney on your social media just because, right? Make sure you focus on that product.
SPEAKER_01I love that. I love that. I think one of my favorite stories about coming in with commission too low, and she's gonna kill me for telling this. But um, one of the women on our team booked a $40,000 trip to Portugal and she was so excited about it, and she calls me and she's telling me all about it. It was within her first year of becoming a travel agent. I'm like, that's incredible, this is so amazing. And then she calls me like an hour later, just sobbing because she didn't realize that the DMC didn't include commission and it was a net rate. So one of those things before you pitch that price to the clients, especially DMCs, they're almost always going to be a net rate. Um, be very, very careful. Don't make that same mistake because man, that's a lot of commission to lose at the end of the day. And it's a heartbreaking um story to learn. All of that said, um, she is still in the industry, very successful, and and we're cheering her on. Oh, I've done that. I've done it, bird, too. All right, and pitched it. So it happens. Oh, it's so brutal when it happens. Yeah, be be very careful. And I think that's why it makes a big difference when I plan a trip on FIT, I have a spreadsheet that I work through. And something that I would encourage you to do is I kind of have a so there's a template and I use it for all of them, but you have a line at the top that you plug in the amount of the trip. So they and I always plug in whatever their scare point is. So we've talked a lot on the podcast about the budget conversation and you get their target, but you also get kind of the top end of their budget, right? So I put in the top end because we can always work our way down, right? So I put in the top end and then I have it automatically calculate a 20% commission, and then I have the difference, right? So then I am working the trip based off the difference, but I've got multiple columns. I've got the column for the component of the trip, right? So flight, transfer, hotel, tour, tour, tour, transfer, flight, you get it. Um, and then I've got a column for the actual price, whatever the rate is that I need to give a client, and then I have a column for the commission. So what's happening is I'm start adding the commission starts adding up, and I can see, hey, with the price I'm currently pitching, I already have X amount of commission built in. So I only need to add in Y amount of commission, right? So I'm not having to add in that full amount. And it helps me just kind of calculate quickly and see as I type in each component. So let's say I'm like, oh my God, you know, it'd be great. It'd be great if they had like a private yacht one day. Let's see if we could get that. So I'm like going through, pricing it, I drop it in there. It's of course non-commissionable. It's of course like $4,000. So I throw it in and then I see like, oh, that bumps it over their scare point. That's not gonna make sense. Maybe I still pitch it in the proposal workshop, but it's like, hey, we're already close to this, so this probably isn't a thing. But if you want, I've got a partner that's got a yacht, you know, like that's a very different conversation than I've included this and it's way over budget and you're gonna love it. That's not the way to go about doing it. Um, but is there a better way that you could think of to kind of protect that commission percentage?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think it's just really, you know, it comes down to it's all a numbers game, right? It really, truly is. Just figuring out what's gonna make sense, where can you give a little bit, where can you gain a little bit. Like you said, you don't ever want to compromise the client's trip, right? To make a high commission. That's really important to understand. Um but I think just going into it and knowing, okay, like I've had big goals, like, hey, I'm gonna make 18% off this. I've built out an FIT and I have to sit there and say, okay, I'd rather them stay at this property and I'm willing to give up a few hundred of commission just to make sure that they have this. I think that's perfectly normal, right? So again, like you said, it's just it takes there's strategy behind it. Like full disclosure, when I came into the industry, I did not do fits right off the bat. Um, it was I was leaning on tour operators and destination specialists to help me build out trips, learn Europe, and all of that. So I didn't know what I didn't know. Two years later, I started looking at pricing and getting a better understanding and saying, oh, wait a minute.
SPEAKER_01Um, and then wait a minute, that hotel in Europe Express is $2,000 more than it should be.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. Where at that point I wasn't really educated on looking. I mean, my clients were always happy and it it worked out great, but I realized there's a different technique that's that let's flip the coin here.
SPEAKER_01Is there ever a time where it's justified to take more than 20%? I have strong feelings here, but you go first.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, I I can't. I I draw the line at 20%. Like really truly, I think my commission average is sitting between a 17 and an 18. Um, usually 18%. And that I do calculate my fees into that as well. So, no, if you're putting on 23, 25, 30 commission, the only time to justify this, and you know, I just thought of it, Bird, is if you are leading a group, right? I think this is really important. If you are a group leader, you're taking a group of 15 women to Italy and you're traveling in that trip, and I fully believe that you should be taking a much higher commission because you need to pay yourself at the end of the day for the time you're traveling. Um, not only that, weigh out a bunch of factors of flights and are your costs included in all of that. That is the only time that I ever feel like you can justify it. Other than that, um, no, if I'm just booking a regular trip. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we are fully aligned in that in every way, shape, and form. I think it's inappropriate. I do absolutely have advisors to join our team and I see a trip come through, and I'm like, dang, girl, that's a 30% commission. And and the conversation I have is very simple. That client thinks they're going on a $20,000 trip. But what's actually happening and what they're gonna show up to is they're about to show up to a what is that, $14,000 trip. That's a big difference at the end of the day. And if you think you're gonna get away with it and they're not gonna notice, you're gonna start getting called out on things like that. And it's it's pretty inappropriate at the end of the day. I think what I want people to take away from this conversation is it's absolutely important to pay yourself, make sure you're using your time wisely. You if you want to be full-time professional in this industry, you have to have a decent commission percentage all day, every day. But you also can't take advantage of your clients. You will not have repeats, you will not have referrals if you're taking advantage of your clients. So Haley was very clear like sometimes I take a cut because I want the I want the experience to be a little bit better. There's something that's worth it to me. That's fine. You just can't do it on every trip ever. You have to make sure that it's strategic when you do it, it makes sense. And at the end of the day, you are still walking away with what you need to survive in the industry. Um, I think so many people do this part-time that this conversation is kind of hard for them to have. And for anyone that is doing this part-time and doesn't rely on this as their main income to feed their family like Haley and I do, the reality for you might be different. And you might be saying, Oh, I can't believe they would add on commission. But it's like you do have to have a like a good base salary to survive in this. And it can't just be, well, I'll just book 18,000 more trips because then you have no life balance, right? You have to have some kind of balance to it. Um, Haley, any other numbers we haven't talked about today that you really think is important to kind of get out there and make sure we harp on?
SPEAKER_00No, I think I think today's episode is truly just about advisors who are new coming into the industry or maybe have been in the industry, just truly focusing on understanding net, understanding commission, understanding gross. Make sure you are pitching that gross amount to your clients, not the net on accident. Make sure you are getting paid. Um, understand what that commission percentage is. And if not, see if you can increase it somehow. Um, but I think I think we kind of covered it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Big takeaways are track your commission percentage overall. Not some some do it per trip, but overall pretty intensely, pretty closely each and every month, and track it year by year. You'll notice if you're paying attention to it, it will just naturally begin to increase. The other thing that I will tell you we do is we track commission percentage per vendor. Some vendors you have zero control over it, others you do. So when we track it per vendor, I track total sales and beds online, and then total commission and beds online. Commission divided by sales equals your commission percentage. I will be able to see, oh, beds online. We're at 20, typically with beds online, so you guys understand. And with rate hawk and those kind of ones where you can add on the chunks of commission. Um, those we typically hover around 30% because there's so many where we can't add it on. So, you know, you have we book a lot of direct flights, especially if they're basic economy. You're not gonna make a dime on those sort of things. So you'll see some of the vendors are very low, some of the vendors are very high. But my point that I'm getting at is, and and I only do this about once a year. This is not like an every month kind of thing, but I think once a year you should pull all your vendors, total sales, total commission, go through and see what you're really getting at. Um, we can do it per booking as well. So I can see average booking with Buds Online is X versus average booking with Viator is Y. Obviously, that's lower by the nature of what those vendors do. Um, but you can analyze are there some places I'm just continuously getting below the bar that it shouldn't be that way, or there's some vendors maybe I don't want to work with. It's also nice to be able to, you know what I do? I download that report and I send it to all of our vendors and I say, hey, Radehawk, this is what we did with you. Check it out. And I think it just helps kind of build those relationships. They don't always notice, especially if you're under a very large host agency, they're gonna see, you know, outside agents brought in 100 million with Beds Online last year, but they're not gonna see Haley DiCarlo brought in X. So I think that knowing those numbers, but also reporting those numbers out to your vendor partners can help build some of those relationships as well. All right, big takeaways. Don't mess up your commission percentage. It's gotta be done. All right, anything else you want to add before we wrap up here, Haley?
SPEAKER_00No, that's it. Um, thank you for listening and until next time.
SPEAKER_01Love it. Talk to you guys soon. Bye.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's a wrap for this week's episode of the Travel Agent Guide podcast. If you got value from today's conversation, do me a favor, hit subscribe, leave a review, and share it with another travel advisor. Your support helps us reach more advisors and continue growing this amazing community. Don't forget to join our Facebook group, the Travel Agent Guide. And until next Wednesday, keep taking action, keep growing, and keep chasing those big goals. See you in the next episode.