We were lucky to catch up with Enecia Miller recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Enecia thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Do you wish you had started you own firm sooner?
If I could go back, I don’t believe that I would have wanted to start a career in travel sooner. My father joined the Army when I was 5 or 6 years old. Just before I turned 8, he was stationed in Germany, so we took our first flight, 8 hours from Atlanta to Frankfurt on Delta Airlines. While living in Germany over the next 9 years, we took road trips when we could and our school field trips consisted of cool things like trips to Amsterdam, to visit the Keukenhof to see the tulips and the house that Anne Frank’s family survived in, after reading “The Diary of Anne Frank” in the fifth grade. If I had known THEN that having a career in travel was a thing, that would have been what I strived to do with my life. If I had strived for that, many of my most cherished experiences would have been missed. Parts of me wish that I’d started before the age of 41, but I’m not sure I would have the same appreciation for it if I had and I wouldn’t be who I am without the experiences that led me here.
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?
Being a military brat just scratched the surface of my travel experience. At the age of 19, I joined the Air Force and traded my first assignment, Alaska, for the chance to go back to Germany. I met my husband, Jay in Basic Training, but we wouldn’t reconnect and marry for 4 years. After my active-duty service, reconnecting and marrying my husband, I started working for the Federal Government, supporting the Department of Defense, while my husband supported the Federal Aviation Administration in Columbus, OH. We didn’t travel much then, outside of trips to visit family or family reunions, but we managed a family trip to Miami for a reunion, a couple’s trip to Kauai, Hawaii for my husband’s friend and frat brother’s wedding and another to Las Vegas to see Jay-Z at The Palm. We eventually took an assignment to Germany, with our sons, Jaylan and Justin, who were 6 and 3, respectively, when we moved. It was our desire for the boys to see as much of that part of the world as they could during our assignment, which lasted almost 5 years. We weren’t in a financial position to travel in luxury, but we were in a position to travel within reason, so, in that time, we took our children on several vacations.
The first “big one” was in 2013, an 8-day Mediterranean cruise, on the MSC Poesia, we call that our “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” trip because we flew from Germany to Milan Italy, on Ryanair (less than $200 round trip for the 4 of us), from Milan, Italy, we took the train to Genoa, Italy, from which we set sail and of course, the ship. On that cruise we stopped in Barcelona, Spain, Malaga, Spain, Cadiz, Spain, Lisbon, Portugal, and Gibraltar, where we went to the top of “The Rock of Gibraltar” and interacted with monkeys, including one climbing on up my arm and putting his butt on my neck!! We have a not-so-great picture to remind us of that one!! We also took a few other cheap flights over the years, visiting 2 of the Canary Islands, Lanzarote and Tenerife, as well as, Pula, Croatia, Milan, Italy (again), Rome, Italy, and Crete, Greece. On the road we went from Germany to Venice, Italy, Brussels, Belgium and because we were close to France, we’d cross over the border to go to their shopping markets on some of our weekends. My husband took me to a Beyonce concert in Amneville, France where I saw “Le Twins” for the first time, and then we took the boys on the ICE Train from Germany to Paris because they wanted to see the Eiffel Tower and the Mona Lisa. The two-hour train ride was an added adventure that contributed to the growth of our love for travel, as a family over those nearly 5 years.
In addition to our family travels, my solo travels also contribute to my love of it! Throughout my career, training opportunities took me to cities like Seattle, DC, Chicago and Atlanta and working in Human Resources, I traveled to Detroit, MI, Chicago, IL, Phoenix, AZ, Houston, TX, Hampton, VA, Atlanta, GA to recruit. Those experiences gave me opportunities to explore the cities and their histories and local hot spots and, yes, the tourist attractions! Of course, these aren’t the only places we’ve ever been, they’re just the ones I remember most, for various reasons, but they all contributed to my love of travel.
My mother, whose life mine seems to parallel, also works in the HR field and owns a travel business, Mary’s Amazing Travel. She was our travel agent for a while and then she asked me to join her team. I was reluctant, initially, because I’m not, typically, a “people-person” or a very good saleswoman, however, I saw the benefits of it, for me and jumped on THAT aspect, with no real intention to pursue it as a side-gig. If you’ve ever heard the saying “Man plans, God laughs” it would be appropriate here. As I completed training after training, started learning the ins and outs of the travel industry, and saw testimonials from clients of other agents, I began to take it seriously. That was about 5 months in, that’s when I began to really invest my time and treasures to become a reliable trustworthy travel advisor. I know the misinformation that exists with regard to travel agents/travel advisors, so I was and will always be committed to educating the consumer. As such, I invested in the Certified Travel Associate program with The Travel Institute, which covers 15 critical areas of study designed to focus on skills needed to succeed as a travel consultant and requires continuing education to maintain certification.
What sets me apart from other travel advisors is that I’m me and I know that what is for me, is for me. This industry and the professionals within it are all so talented and helpful, but everyone has their own goals and dreams for their business and their own way of doing things. Many stress the importance of your social media showing YOU traveling, and that IS important, however, It’s not my focus. I want my clients to understand that much like a mechanic hasn’t worked on every kind of car that exists, a travel advisor should travel, but none have visited every place there is to visit. I want my clients’ focus to be on relaxing because they trust the experience that I’m designing for them will meet their expectations and then some.
My personal life and my business are two separate entities, even when they intertwine. I want you to trust the business that you hired to provide a service. We are a service of convenience and we’re trained in our field, like any other service provider. We are not doing anything that you cannot do on your own. The advantage of using a travel professional is in what you DON’T have to do! A great travel advisor is spending hours researching your destination using personal or client experiences, as well as industry resources. The resources available to us, such as other agents that specialize in the area, in-destination contacts for your transportation, accommodations and excursions give us an advantage over the large vendors with the cheap trips! It’s true that you get what you pay for and when you work with a great travel advisor, you will have personal service, one person to call, no hold-times, assistance with any issues as you travel, advice on travel insurance to protect your investment and so much more.
Another thing that sets me apart from other agents is that social media, in general, with regard to my business, is not my priority at this time. My priority right now, as I continue to establish the foundation for my business, is having my clients know my character and trust me with giving them an experience beyond what they imagined. I want my clients’ reviews to reflect my business in such a way that it grows organically, before it grows to the point that I choose to walk away from my day job and hire employees. Don’t get me wrong, if I had the TIME available to keep my social media updated AND focus on my family, clients and other business, I would do better with it. As a single advisor agency, however, I neither need or want an influx of clients that may cause me to reduce my level of service, so dedicating my time to social media would not benefit me or my business right now. I do expect that to eventually change, as my business grows and I do more group trips, but for now, word-of-mouth from my clients is giving me enough experience to ensure the foundation is solid before I take on more.
What I’m most proud of is my clients’ reviews of their experiences that I curated specifically for them and what they desired for their travels. When my clients come to me with their expectations for their travel experience, they entrust me with delivering on what they’ve asked for and thus far, I’ve exceeded their expectations and I want to continue to do that.
The main things I want my potential clients to know about me and my brand is that:
(1) I work for you with the same fervor and expertise that I want from those who provide services to me, in any capacity,
(2) I don’t overbook myself. I plan my schedule to ensure I have enough time to provide all of my clients with the same level of service whether a solo trip for three days or a group of 75 for a week, and
(3) While I am not responsible for, nor do I have control over travel issues that may arise at the airport (airline or transportation) or at your resort, I’m on the phone with the airline while you’re in line at the counter, getting you rebooked before the people in front of you get all of the seats on the next available flight, I’m on the phone with the resort’s manager while the bathroom in your room is flooding, so while the front desk is giving you the run around, the manager is giving me your new room number and I let you know the bellboy is on the way to get your luggage and move you to a new room. That’s what you get working with a great travel advisor.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
As a Black travel advisor, I’m familiar with the number of other Black travel agents that are out there, how much money these agents and their Black clients are contributing their Black dollars to the travel industry as a whole, yet, we’re underrepresented in marketing and real discussions about the travel industry and the changes that are needed within it, where we’re concerned. It is getting better, even since I’ve become an advisor (2019), but there is still room for drastic improvements. My goal is to be a part of the change, to contribute to it.
Being who I am, I have a natural desire to defend the things I’m passionate about (I’m working that out in therapy) and travel is one of those things. It starts when I’m in social settings or on social media and someone asks for a travel agent, or even mentions a travel agent for that matter. Without exception, in my experience, has there ever NOT been a comment made such as “just do it yourself” or “travel agents are scam artists” or “travel agents are a waste of money” and things of that nature. Or the potential client that wants me to do hours of research but doesn’t want to pay my service retainer fee and wants to tell me why I’m not worth it. Those are the instances where I have to temper myself and extend the grace that I’d want if I was misinformed.
As a person that is big on respect, my resilience can be found in my strength and discipline to endure the disrespect that travel advisors receive in some places. I remain in those spaces because I truly enjoy them overall, but also because they are great resources when I’m designing an experience for clients. I get to use recent and first-hand experience to find the best vendors for the experience my clients desire, but some days, it’s difficult to not be frustrated at the misinformation and the way people just accept it! What’s interesting to me is that other service providers don’t get the same level of scrutiny, so it’s weird, to me.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
The lesson I had to unlearn was that I had to run after and try to please every person that wanted to use my services. When I decided I’d take being an advisor seriously, I wanted every client that came my way. I was excited and eager to get right into booking after my training. I’d get inquiries, spend hours on research and putting together options for the client, only to find out that they’d booked the exact options, on their own…for close to the same price, or not very much more or less. I’d been doing okay with booking but realized that charging a service fee would separate those who were serious about using my services, from those wanting to USE my services, with no fee or regard to the time and effort that went into what I did. Admittedly, it slowed the inquiries down quite a bit when the potential client got to the end of my quote request form and had to pay via PayPal before the inquiry could be submitted! But God is faithful, and I began to get clients who were serious, paid my fees with no issues and were going great.
A potential client reached out for my services and paid my fee with no issue. I told my husband, from the initial contact, that I didn’t have a good feeling about it, but I proceeded anyway. The timeframe is less than 2 months after my mother-in-law passed away, my father-in-law was ill and my son was leaving for the military, so admittedly, my personal life took precedence at that time. I thought that was the reason for my initial reluctance, but after communicating with her the reason for some of the delays, she was okay with it, so we went forward. After her initial quote, she changed her mind about the destination, and I was delayed in getting back to her. Due to the delays, I offered to credit the service fee she paid to her booking after her deposit, but now, we had gone from 7 to 9 to 5 travelers and changed destinations 2 or 3 times. I sent her a proposal with the options for the final location less than 5 minutes before I received a notification from the BBB about my business receiving a 1-star review from the same potential client. It was her version of what happened and her experience, so I provided my response and my version of what happened, refunded her fee and left it at that. 2-days later, I receive a notification from PayPal that she did a chargeback on her card and wanted me to refund her again, so basically pay her for not using my service. PayPal, fortunately, only had to respond to the credit card company that the refund had been issued. That was a lesson learned for me.
The lesson for me, was to honor and respect my boundaries. I knew that I had a lot going on personally and with my day-job, so I should not have taken on the task of a new client at that time. In this particular case, I do think that if I had been able to provide the same level of service to her that all of my clients generally receive, I would have gained a new client. As a result, and with therapy, however, I now close my client list when I am unable to accept new clients based on timing i.e., they need it in 24 hours and I cannot accommodate or I’m on a scheduled vacation, etc. Additionally, after receiving a quote request and prior to starting my research, I will reach out with follow-up or clarifying questions via phone or email. If during that time, if we don’t vibe or if you decide not to use my services, I will issue a refund, no questions asked.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://awakenyoursoultravels.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/awakenyoursoultravels
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/awakenyoursoultravels
- Other: TikTok: @awakenyoursoultravels
Image Credits
Credit for the dessert photos in Dubai: @dubaiphotographer on Instagram All others are personal photos taken with my own equipment.