Tag: Life

Are Travel Agents Obsolete?

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I am currently in the process of booking my families summer vacation.  I feel that I am very hands on when it comes to finding the best deals, especially in the summertime when deals are few and far between.  The amount of travel websites on the innerwebs can seem overwhelming.  These travel web sites have been very successful at facilitating travelers to book their own airline and hotel reservations online.  So with this huge push from the internet to take over the travel industry, one has to ask, “Are travel agents obsolete?”

If you have browsed some of these travel sites, you have observed that they are amazing in the diversity of travel options that they make available.  And it is impossible to deny that many thousands of people have taken advantage of these services.  Then, there is the business traveler.  The business traveler has needs that are somewhat different than the typical airline passenger.

There are some very specific services that a living and breathing travel agent can provide that simply cannot be replicated by an automated web site like Kayak or Hotwire.   Some of those services that a seasoned business traveler would be hard pressed to live without include…

  1. Focus You as a business traveler are not arranging this trip for entertainment.  You have specific business objectives in mind.  So if you must take time away from preparation for your business task to worry about travel itineraries, hotel and rental car reservations and the like, that is time that you are not being productive for your business.  If you can call a talented travel agent who knows your travel profile well and delegate those arrangements to that agent, they do their job in finding just the right accommodations for you and you are freed to do what you do best, focus on your business and the upcoming business trip.
  2. Economy It is difficult to find that balance between finding the accommodations that fit the demanding schedule of a businessperson on the road and is respectful of the companies travel budget as well.   If you use an automated online travel service, you may have to sacrifice convenience, schedule or location for economy.  A good travel agent will work hard to get you the right itinerary while getting as close the corporate travel cost restrictions as possible.  And they will do it without taking up a lot of your time.
  3. Back up. You don’t need help if your trip goes completely as planned.  But if you encounter problems on the road, you can find yourself in need or rescheduling flights and finding new accommodations to work around canceled flights, weather issues or other unexpected interruptions to your plans.  These travel disasters are not mindful of your tight deadlines to meet your business goals.  But if you have a travel agent who is dedicated to providing you service, he or she can find those alternative routes and resources to do all they can to get you to your destination so you can conduct your business on time.
  4. That personal touch. You may have travel preferences that you want to achieve with each trip you take.   A travel agent has your profile and your travel history so they can do what they can to accommodate your preferences.  But moreover, if you have specific special needs such as a diet limitation or a need for accommodation due to a disability, it will be a travel agent that sees to it that your needs are provided for and you are well taken care of on the road.

 

  1. Complications. If your travel itinerary involves making connections with other business partners who are traveling from diverse offices, complex travel schedules and itinerary challenges that just cannot be described to the generic screens of an online travel service, you can explain these complications to your travel agent and they can work with other travel agents working to organize the meeting and see to it that your itinerary meets your requirements.

 

While the online travel services do provide a valuable and affordable alternative to the general traveling public, it is easy to notice their limitations if you are trying to book a trip that is tricky or if you have specific needs that the screens do not anticipate.  That is why working with a human travel agent guarantees that this travel professional will dedicate themselves to the task of making sure your trip works to your specifications and that you get to your destination ready to conduct business and be successful in your achieving your goals.

Unsuspecting Work Stoppage

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Image result for mommy is sickAs a budding entrepreneur who has a 9 to 5, my weekends are sacred.  The weekend is the time that allows me total dedication to my craft.  I appreciate the weekend.  I love the weekend and usually can get so much work accomplished.

Except, for this past weekend.  Although, I have heard about this happening it never happened to me until this past weekend.

My whole entire family came down with a stomach virus.  We were ALL sick.  It started with my son on Friday night.  On Saturday night it was my turn.  I was up all night hovering over the porcelain throne for most of the night.  The husband’s turn was Sunday morning and my daughter was (hopefully) the last one Sunday night.

As much as I love working, the only thing I wanted to do was lay on the couch with a cup of ginger ale watching old episodes of The Love Boat.

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Bad mom alert

I laid in bed until 4 pm.  My kids had the rule of the house so it was a complete mess when I went downstairs and guess what, that is okay.  Sometimes it takes a stomach virus to slow down and take the time to think.  It crossed my mind to go and get my laptop and get some work done but I was so tired from being up the previous night.  Plus, I had not seen The Love Boat since I was a kid in the 80’s.  It was keeping my interest in all of its 80’s cheesiness.  I had a Skype appointment with a client early that morning, so I was especially tired and groggy when I took it.

Despite not feeling one hundred percent, I went into work anyone today.  I knew my stomach felt settled enough that I wouldn’t vomit on anyone today but I am still a little fatigued.  It is important to take time out when you need to, even if it unexpected.  Today I play catch up on all the work I did not get done over the weekend and guess what?  That is okay!

The 10 Steps You Need to Know in Order to Sell on Ebay

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Online shopping vector flat design illustration.Selling on Ebay can seem very intimidating before you get started.  Here is a simple, ten-step path to Ebay enlightenment.

Step 1: Identify your market. Take a while to sit and watch for what sells and what doesn’t out of the items you’re interested in. Any market research data you can collect will be very useful to you later on. You’ll probably see the ‘sweet spots’ quite quickly – those one or two items that always seem to sell for a good price.

Step 2: Watch the competition. Before you invest any money, see what the other sellers in your category are up to, and what their strategies are. Pay special attention to any flaws their auctions might have, because this is where you can move in and beat them at their own game.

Step 3: Find a product: Get hold of a supplier for whatever it is you want to sell, and see what the best rates you can get are – don’t be afraid to ring round quite a few to get the best deal. If the eBay prices you’ve seen are higher than the supplier’s, then you’re set.

Step 4: Start small: Don’t throw thousands at your idea straight away – get started slowly, see what works and what doesn’t, and learn as you go. Remember that it’s very cheap to try out even the craziest ideas on eBay, and who knows, they might just work!

Step 5: Test and repeat. Keep trying different strategies until you find something that works, and then don’t be ashamed to keep doing it, again and again. The chances are that you’ve just found a good niche.

Step 6: Work out a business plan: A business plan doesn’t need to be anything formal, just a few pages that outline the market opportunity you’ve spotted, your strategy, strengths and weaknesses of the plan and a brief budget. This is more for you than it is for anyone else.

Step 7: Invest and expand: This is the time to throw money at the problem. Buy inventory, and start spending more time on your business. Set a goal number of sales each week, increasing it each time.

Step 8: Make it official: Once you’ve made a few thousand dollars worth of sales, you should really register yourself as a business. Don’t worry, it’s not expensive or hard to do – a lawyer is the best person to help you through the process.

Step 9: Automate: You’ll probably find that you’re writing the same things again and again in emails or item descriptions. This is the time to give up on the manual method and turn to automated software that can create listings for you, and respond to completed auctions and payments with whatever message you provide.

Step 10: Never give up: Even when it looks like it’s all going wrong, don’t stop trying until you succeed. If you keep working at it then you’ll almost always find that you make a real breakthrough just when things are starting to look desperate.

10 Fabulous Ways To Find Low Cost Products to Resell on Ebay

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Products And Services Files Show Selling And Retail

This week I am featuring how you can use Ebay for your side hustle.  Although Ebay is not passive income, it is income nevertheless.  You will make money but you will also have to deliver products and provide excellent customer service.  Here is a guide on where you can find products to resell on Ebay.  


Garage sales. The chances are you’ve gone most of your life seeing ads for these and ignoring them. Start going to as many as you can. You won’t find good things at every garage sale, but when you find one person with good stuff, make them an offer for the lot – chances are pretty high that you can get a real bargain.

Flea Markets and Swap Meets. If your area has a market, then go there and look around for anything good. You could buy it there if it’s cheap enough, or try to make friends with the market traders and find out who their suppliers are.

Pawn shops. Pawn shops don’t usually know what to do with the junk they accumulate (unless it’s jewellery, of course). Generally, they put their stock out on the shelves haphazardly, hoping that someday someone with a little money will just happen to come in, search around and buy wildly obscure things. Get them to offer you a discount for bulk.

Real auctions. Go to a real auction, as the chances are that you can resell things for more than they will sell them. After all, they only have a few hundred people in that room – you have a few million people to sell to over the interwebs.


Local newspapers. Place an ad in the local paper that reads “I pay cash for [your item type]”, with your phone number. If you can afford it, make it a big display ad, so it’ll be noticed.

Ad boards. Get one of those little ads in the grocery store.

Friends. Ask your friends if they have anything they’d like to sell you, and ask them to spread the word to their friends.

Become known. Give out business cards, mention to people what you do. The chances are that you’ll come across someone who’ll say “Oh, really? I’ve got a load of [item] I don’t want”.

Shops. This might be a little surprising, but some real shops even sell things more cheaply than they sell on eBay. Take a look around your local deep discounter, and pay special attention to any shop that takes trade-ins from customers. The chances are they take a loss on trade-ins as a promotion, and are dying to get rid of that stock.

And finally: eBay! When you’re looking at the completed items view, you’ll notice the massive range of prices that items can sell for on eBay. Try taking the highest-priced item and searching for it on its own, then sort by lowest price first: I can almost guarantee that you’ll see an auction for the same item where it sold for almost nothing. The trick is to find these flawed auctions before they close, win them using a bid sniping service, and then turn around and resell the item.

The Beginners Guide to Finding the Perfect Hotel Room (at a reasonable rate)

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After finding reasonable airfare, it is necessary to find accommodations when staying in a city where I do not have any family or friends.  I believe I spend an unbelievable amount of time researching when it is time to book a hotel room. The number one factor for me is location followed up by value. I spend an embarrassing amount of time reading reviews on Yelp. Then I have to follow up to see if the reviews corroborate with TripAdvisor.

Regarding that value component, I hit the interwebs and Reddit to find the lowest rates. Through all that work I realize that my best option is to go to the hotel’s corporate website and join their rewards program.

Through that I found my latest hotel find, Courtyard by Marriott New Orleans French Quarter/Iberville in New Orleans, LA. This Marriott branch was conveniently located about two blocks away from Bourbon Street. The staff was very friendly and allowed us to check-in early! I was struck with how large the rooms were and very clean. The beds felt cozy and I liked how the room had a living area and sleeping quarter.

The bathroom was clean and the cleaning staff did a stellar job of cleaning the room daily. I appreciated that the staff was on point. Being that we were in New Orleans, we had several late nights and even later mornings (really afternoons). I was impressed that no matter what time we left, we always came back to a clean room.

The bathroom was stacked with plenty of white towels and standard shampoo/conditioner/soap if needed. Since I bring my own products, these were not sampled. The shower was hot and could get even hotter (which is always a plus to me).

The only surprise (I will not call it a disappointment) was the view. We had the perfect view of a pretty sterile looking courtyard. Another surprise was the entry to the hotel. You must come up from the street level on the elevator. Then you need to find the registration desk. Again, not a big deal but it did take some getting used to.

The television was equipped with Wifi and they even had Netflix. Full disclosure, I do not travel often so finding out that Netflix is now a “thing” to have on the hotel room television is a score. I was glad the location was away from the “activity” (read noise) of Bourbon Street.

I look forward to going back to New Orleans. I would stay at the Courtyard again but I usually try to stay in a new hotel everytime I go out of town.