We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Marie Paul a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Marie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How do you feel about asking friends and family to support your business? What’s appropriate, what’s not? Where do you draw the line?
When I decided a few months ago to start a business as a travel advisor, I was still working my regular job, so it was a side gig with limited advertising. I wanted to leave my regular job and run my business full-time, but, seeing that I wasn’t getting much traction, I reached out to all my friends and family for support and increased my presence on social media. I quickly learned that friends and family must be handle with care when asking for business support. To be clear, friends and family can be helpful to your business, however, there are pitfalls to avoid. Although my friends have supported me and were among my first customers, I quickly realized that I needed to treat my friends as any other customer.
The first pit that I fell into was to think that all my friends who travel will endeavor to support my business. Some friends will wholeheartedly want you to succeed and support as much as they can, others will try to take advantage or even undermine your business. After I reached out, one of my friends quickly asked me to help her with her plan for a family European vacation, I was eager and excited, I thought this was going to be my first sale, when I finally got her on the phone, she was very vague with what she wanted, but I was a determined new business owner with something to prove, so I spent time and researched what I thought were compatible itineraries. Months later I realized that she only wanted to use me to compare prices and made her own arrangements, Reality number one.
Next, I fell into the pitfall of offering discount or waving fees for my friends. I faced reality number two. Treat every customer, friends and family the same when it comes to business. Do not try to lure your friends and family to support your business by cutting prices. Those that want to support you will do so regardless of prices. Travel advisors are compensated on a commission basis and fees. Excluding airfare, the price that customers pay for Cruises and accommodations include the travel advisors commission whether you use one or not. When a friend asked me to plan a multi-destination South American trip for himself and his wife, I was willing to discount the multi-destination fee that I charge because they were my friends. After 4 months of constant itinerary changes, he decided that the budget was no longer what he intended and opted for a short visit to her family. The commission for the fare that we ended with didn’t come close to the amount of time I spent on the itinerary, so, I decided to charge them my regular fee, which honestly still didn’t account for my time. One of the most common questions that I get from friends and family is what discount can you give me? Or do I get the friend and family discount?
It is a delicate balance when asking friends and family to support your business. You must keep the business and your friendship separate. It requires courage to explain again and again that you don’t have a friend and family discount. If you are tempted to do so, consider that this may break your business. It is necessary to clearly articulate the services that you can provide, the pricing, whether or not a payment plan is available. As tempting as it can be, do not pay for your friends and family hoping that they will pay you back. In addition to sending supplier receipts, I also send each of my friends a business receipt. By doing so, I want to emphasize that this is a business not a friend and family game. Asking friends and family to support your business will reveal a lot about yourself and them, you must determine to separate your relationship from your business. At first this may upset some but in time the message will be clear that sentimentalism has no place in business.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
My family did not take vacations. School breaks were TV times. When I turned 19, I took a bus trip to New York and months later a Caribbean cruise, then, I promised myself that every year I will budget to include a vacation. I hold a part-time job during my college years so my budget wasn’t much, so, I used to search the internet and travel sites regularly for deals that I could afford. I realized that a vacation was a need and not a luxury. I also intended to explore as much of the world while I still could. My reasoning has been that life must be experienced. This is how the CanaryXplore Travels motto started, at least once a year I was going to escape my daily routine, explore a part of the world, and acquire new experiences.
I made the best use of living in South Florida in finding affordable getaways. I was always finding places for my friends and I to visit. We visited the Bahamas, Jamaica and many other islands those early years, with budget trips. That is how my ‘travel agent’ years began, it was just something that I did for my friends, ‘finding us a place to go at an affordable price.’ As I started my professional career in healthcare, I started to explore bigger itineraries, my friends and I organized a European trip to France, Switzerland and Italy. We learned the art of packing so that we didn’t have to check our bags. We obtained Euro pass for transportation and had the experience of a lifetime, river cruising in Switzerland with the mountains in the background is an experience that I should never forget. Sleeping in the trains from Switzerland to Italy is a youthful experience to cherish. Since then, I’ve added destinations in Asia including my goal of visiting China’s great wall, Australia, Africa and South America. Antarctica is the sole continent that I have yet to explore. My bucket list is everywhere when it comes to travel.
After 20 years in healthcare management, I revisited the idea of starting my own business, I was advised to consider something that I’m passionate about and so travel advisor was the natural choice. Thus, CanaryXplore Travels was born. The name CanaryXplore stems from my love of yellow as a color and the fact that birds are free to explore and fly away at a moment’s notice. I explain that I became a travel advisor because I love to travel. This is my biggest market differentiator, I don’t travel because traveling is my job, rather I am a travel advisor because traveling is a passion. CanaryXplore’ mission is to “eliminate the hassle and stress of travel planning, enabling you to explore the world and create unforgettable memories.” I realize that not everyone has the desire nor the time to plan travel and that’s where I come in. My vision is for everyone to explore more of the world while savoring every aspect of the travel experience. I think humans have a responsibility to care and protect our planet for future generations. This shouldn’t be a burden as there is so much to see and experience. The more we experience the world, we’ll realize that there’s much to cherish. CanaryXplore Travels specializes in creating personalized travel itineraries that cater to every aspect of your travel aspirations. Our dedicated team collaborates closely with clients to streamline the planning process, ensuring that all you need to do is embrace the joy of discovering new destinations.
With CanaryXplore, the world is yours to Escape, Explore, and Experience.
Have you ever had to pivot?
My company is less than a year old so as far as I’m concerned, there are many pages to be written about it. This is the first business that I have personally owned. My sister has had her days as an entrepreneur but I spent my professional in management as an employee. Soon after I started this business, it became evident that entrepreneurship requires different skills set than that of employee. I had to pivot in my mind set of what works versus what I thought would work. I had to learn to market my brand, something that I had no experience doing. This means getting out of my comfort zone. For example, until I started with this business, I didn’t have a Facebook account. The purpose of my Instagram account up to that point, was to look at inspirational pictures and seeing what my friends were doing. I assumed wrongly that advertising on social media platforms was going to generate lots of leads and clients. I didn’t have a specialized website, I was creating my own social media content using Canva, and since I was new, this took a lot of my time. I was neither productive nor efficient. For the first 6 months of my business, I only made 1 sale.
Something had to change. The business has monthly expenses whether or not it generates income. It is said that the definition of insanity is to continue to do the same thing expecting a different outcome. I couldn’t continue on the same course. I was paying for social media then Google ads with nothing to show for those expenses. How long should I continue to spend my money at this business? I resisted the temptation to say that the business is a failure but instead reassess what I was doing. If my business fail it should be despite all my efforts not because I didn’t put in the right effort. I decided to investigate and learn from successful travel advisors. The first thing that became clear is that I needed my own website. I took the advice of a fellow travel advisor and used Truevails to design my webpage. I also used my network to subscribe to professional social media content for my pages. I redesigned my company logo, created new business cards that I gave or sent to everyone. I even created mailing labels with my company name on it.
It took 7 months for me to finally get some traction. Many of my clients were friends that were reminded by our connections on social media that I could help them with their travel needs. Although I discovered that some were just wasting my time, January 2025 was my first profitable month in business after 8 months of nothing to show. I decided to expend my social media presence with a business LinkedIn account last month. I continue to watch out for things that work and those that don’t for my business.
How did you build your audience on social media?
Full disclosure, I’m still figuring out social media as it relates to my business. I am a private person so prior to this business, my social media presence was minimal. In my orientation as a travel advisor, it was made clear that I needed to be ever present on social media for my business. I attended many webinars discussing how the algorithms work. I started trying to post 3x a day but couldn’t sustain that. I still struggle to determine what content is social media relevant. I still don’t have the sense to post every single thing that happens in my life or my business for the world to consume.
It is clear that presence on social media is important for many businesses and for me as a travel advisor, it is vital. Many of my friends that contacted me for travel did so after they saw my content on social media. Yes, I had personally told them that I was a travel advisor but it seems that the message only went in after they saw it on my social media sites. It is as if social media legitimize my business.
As I have stated, I struggle with social media content. Since it is a necessary for my business, I still take time to create posts and engage on social media platforms. I found vendors that create professional contents for my industry and subscribe to them. While this is an additional expense, it saves me time and these professional contents in addition to my amateur contents legitimize my business to the viewers. My advice is if you’re not from a social media advertising background with a team that can create professional content, spend the money to find it. While many companies claim that they can turn you into an ad expert, think of the time that is necessary to create said contents in addition to the responsibilities of managing your business.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://canaryxploretravels.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/canaryxplore_travels/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61559946164769
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/canaryxplore-travels/
