A man I much admire, and that I've never met in the flesh is rather unusual for me, Pumpkins, because
it's difficult to size up a man – I mean, his character – unless you've
actually met his flesh.
In any case, the man is Richard
Earls who writes an advice column for travel agents, sort of like Dear
Dicky, and he's been harping on about travel agents selling
themselves rather than selling a trip. And I must say, hear, hear, Richard. Consumers can buy a trip in a million places, but what they really want is
advice on what to buy. It's so simple, really.
And as I well know, dahrlings, selling yourself is the key to a successful
business proposition.
The thing of it is, once you've sold yourself a few too many times, people tend
to call you names. And then there's the whole problem of scalability. (I once
tried to dress an employee like me and he ran away.) So I'm not saying there aren't a few bumps in the theory, but now with Google turning trips like Lindsay Lohan at a Hugo Chiapas coming home party, trying to compete with booking engines is a losing proposition.
As Dicky says, seduce them with your expertise, dahrlings. It keeps them coming back.
