We were lucky to catch up with Kim Goldstein Founder of Journeys Inc. Travel Agency in Richmond, VA and we have shared our conversation below.
Kim, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Talk to us about building your team? What was it like? What were some of the key challenges and what was your process like?
I bought an existing business seven years that I have worked at since 2006. Over the years I’ve had many independent contractors, but decided to hire employees to support our travel agency’s reservations. I hired a recruiter to help identify the applicant pool, especially since this was during Covid & it was very challenging to find people who wanted to work. The recruiter did the first round of interviews and I did the final interview.
I finally feel like I have the right team through a lot of trial and error. I find it best to create a job description that really highlights the skills you’re trying to attract and then develop a contract for the employee to sign, so the expectations are very clear.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
Here’s my bio: https://www.journeystravelinc.com/kim-goldstein
I’m most proud of taking a long-standing travel agency and growing it to become a nationally recognized travel agency. Our knowledge and experience of travel helps our clients have amazing vacations and destination weddings. We pride ourselves in being experts of Mexico, the Caribbean, Hawaii and Costa Rica.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
As a travel agency, we get paid after a client travels. Back in March 2020, we came to the quick realization that we were going to have to cancel millions of dollars in travel sales for which we had already done the work and we would not get paid for them. We decided it would be in our client’s and our best interest to try to rebook them, which we did. Some clients were rebooked 4-5 times, which meant we did the work that many times and didn’t get paid. Each time we rebooked them, it became more complicated as we had to deal with hotel and airline credits in a manner that we had never experienced before. I’m proud to say we were able to retain our entire staff during this time and also come out of Covid with a substantially bigger book of business.
How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?
We have implemented a complex automated email system from within our CRM that regularly communicates with clients throughout the course of their reservation. It provides them with info along the way that will help them prepare for their upcoming vacation.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.journeystravelinc.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/journeysinc
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/journeystravelinc/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kim-goldstein-0ab40b79/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/JourneysInc
- Other: Blog: https://www.journeystravelinc.com/blog