Once you have identified the sort of things you wish to get out of life, you will then need to create a plan of action that helps you achieve your goals and personal desires. Once you have written down a tentative plan on how to go about accomplishing your goals, you will need focus in order to stay on the path towards your shining glory and rewards. After setting goals, you need to manage these pursuits, as well as maintain motivation through an effective plan of action.Throughout society, the pressure to stay thin, maintain an attractive appearance and exhibit a perfect picture of health, as well as continue fitness goals are common personal goals. In this day and age, sticking to health and fitness goals are pretty hard with all of the enticing restaurants lining the streets of even the smallest of cities. Exercising often takes a backseat to the other goals you have set for yourself, such as getting that raise at work or finally sealing the deal on your first home.Eating on the run as you race to pick up the kids from soccer practice or shop for weekly groceries becomes a common habit for those who feel they cannot take the time to prepare a well-balanced meal. Finding the time to stick to health and fitness goals is becoming an increasingly hard task to accomplish in many households, which not only affects adults, but also trickles down to their children. What kind of example are you setting for the little ones looking up to you?Whether you are forced to focus on health and fitness goals because your doctor has suggested it or you are unhappy with your appearance, finding the time to devote to this life-changing goal will prove highly beneficial in the long run. One of the first things you should decide upon when entering this personal challenge is why you wish to pursue any health and fitness goals you may have set for yourself.Knowing why you want to tackle these goals will better help you achieve these desires. For some, improving their appearance is ranked number one, while others wish to lose weight for a specific reason. Athletes set health and fitness goals to increase their flexibility, physical skills and strength, as well as endurance. When achieving these goals, more than just a better body and physique is obtained, confidence is built and a renewed sense of mental and emotional health is felt.How to Set Realistic Health and Fitness GoalsOne of the most important aspects of achieving health and fitness goals is setting realistic goals, which usually involves focusing on reasonable time frames (in regards to seeing results). If you expect to reach your high school weight in a month, this is highly unlikely. If you believe you can increase your benching weight from 100 pounds to 300 pounds in one week, you are seriously mistaken. Setting realistic health and fitness goals increases your chances of completing the milestones you wish to achieve.Take weight-loss goals, endurance goals and speed goals one step at a time. You won’t become a speed demon overnight and you can’t squeeze into a dress three sizes smaller after one day of working out. Achieving health and fitness goals takes time and you need to be willing to give as much as you wish to get out of the process.Record Keeping HelpsWhen you write down personal health and fitness goals on paper, they become a real mission to accomplish. Jot down smaller goals, such as run on the treadmill for 30 minutes straight without stopping or leave the sweets alone during the weekdays. Once you accomplish these smaller tasks, you might be well on your way to losing 10-15 pounds during the winter season. Crossing out each goal you’ve achieved is also a great way to keep motivated.Don’t Get DiscouragedAccomplishing health and fitness goals can be a frustrating journey, but with a positive attitude, patience and persistence, you will see results even if they don’t come in time for the high school reunion.
6 Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Online Travel Business
Travelling is one thing that you may find common in everybody’s hobby nowadays. In fact, it is a passion for many. People are getting busier and stressed out with each passing day. And traveling is the only thing that can help them to cut off from their busy schedules and get a bit relaxed. As a result, more and more people are in continuous search of online travel businesses that can help them plan their dream holidays. This has led to a massive rise in the competition in the travel business industry. You have to be distinctive to make your online travel business a success.
A considerable amount of work goes into setting up your travel business, enhancing the showcase, and getting the desired number of customers. And a few mistakes here and there can ruin your venture even before starting.
Here, are the most basic mistakes that you must avoid or it might kill your online travel business even before it takes off:
1. Not offering complex travel services
People can easily plan their routine point-to-point tours or trips with the help of the Internet. What they need is someone to help them plan their trips with varied & complex requirement combinations. You must allow the customers to create and plan their travel packages as per their convenience. Providing regular travel packages will do no good to your online travel business but will instead lead the customers to continue planning their trip on other travel websites.
2. No prompt support
Customer satisfaction is the first & foremost requirement in the travel business. You should be within your customer’s reach at any point of time. Yielding prompt support to your customer’s queries & complaints can save many of your customers from moving on to other travel portals. Try giving quick solutions and clearly mentioning all the instructions can help your business from getting bad reviews on Google & other social media platforms.
3. Poor user interface
It’s very simple: “People buy what they look at and like”. So, it becomes necessary to have an attractive and engaging user interface. Customers should be easily able to traverse through your travel portal and get all the things they want. Your travel portal needs to have a simple yet classy design with an appealing call to actions, appropriate sorting filters and easy payment & checkout options. All these will help the customers to take up your proposal at the most opportune time.
4. Not having a Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
There are numerous travel websites on the Internet. Following the same strategies like them won’t do any good to your business. It’s tough to beat them & move forward. At this point, you need to have a Unique Selling Proposition (USP). USP is the thing that differentiates you from the rest of the crowd. This means that you need to deliver something that none of the businesses from your niche does. For example, you can transform your business message to sell expert advice & personalized services rather than some deals, offers & discounts.
5. No promotions or marketing
Promotions or marketing is the best way of reaching out to your target audience. Most of the travelers start searching online or on the social media platforms before planning their trip. Lacking marketing and promotions will make you lose some of your potential customers. You can hire an Internet marketing company to do this task for you.
6. Lack of personalization
People don’t like to spend much time browsing all the options. They prefer websites that provide them with relevant suggestions as per their needs and interests. In this scenario, personalization can help you. Personalization allows you to learn about each customer so that you can suggest relevant solutions aimed at their needs and interests like What is their budget? What hotel brand do they prefer? Are they flexible with their dates? etc.
By doing just a bit more than your competitors, you are sure to stand ahead of all the other online travel businesses and guarantee that you have a continuous flow of travelers for quite a long time to come.
How to Start an Online Travel Agency Working From Home
Have you noticed that there are not many store front travel agencies these days? I guess it may have had a lot to do with the fact that many people are using their computer to book their own flights online. Also, after the disaster in New York on September 11th, people were scared to travel and a few years ago, a couple airlines lay off their workers and caused a slow period in the travel industry.
However, I think the main reason is the comfort of booking a flight from your own personal computer that fascinates the consumer to a do-it-yourself attitude. In lieu of this fact, it is apparent that an online travel agency is a good idea for a business opportunity to assist these consumers with trip planning and other customer service issues that they may still need.
There are two types of home travel businesses:
· Referral travel agencies
· Booking and selling agencies
A Referral travel agent is the easier of the two because all it requires is a word of mouth advertising to guide the customer to the online portal where they can book their flight. It is also a relationship business because the referrals in most cases come from family, friends and associates first.
The referring travel agent is compensated with a paid commission, which is decided in advance by the agency to which the referral will go. It is easy to be an online travel agent because it only requires handing out business cards, flyers and maybe placing online ads. There is no immediate contact with the customer unless it is someone who needs additional questions answered. This can be done on a part time basis until the full time income is replaced, then anyone make the transition to a full time business.
The booking and selling agencies fall into a category of only one travel agency. Since we have already confirmed that these agencies are not so popular anymore, we will only concentrate on the referring travel agent.
A referring travel agent does not need to know too much in-depth information about the specific travel details. All they do is to direct people to the website where they book their own flights and get help directly from the airline. In the case of the booking and selling agencies, they have to do the hard work of finding out all the information for the customer, which can be quite time consuming.
If you are considering the opportunity that is open to being a referral travel agent, be sure to find out if the company is stable, if they provide adequate customer service, what the compensation is, can you work full time or part time, do you need any special training, and is it something I can recommend to others with confidence.
One of the perks of being a referring travel agent is that you can work from home, you work on your own time, you get free trips called FAM trips, you get to travel first class, you get discounted air fares and priority baggage claim.
Once you have decided to pursue a travel business opportunity, make sure you treat this as a real business. Get a business name, if possible and a tax identification number. Keep good records of income and expenses because this business is tax deductible. Your vacation trips can be tax write offs if you use it also to refer travel to others.
I would also suggest that you choose a travel category and learn as much as you can about it and specialize in that category. An example is cruises or honeymoon packages. With cruises, you can target the baby boomers who love to take cruises and for the honeymoon packages, you target anyone you know who is thinking or planning to get married.
Let your enthusiasm about this travel business be infectious to everyone you meet. Make sure you take some vacations that you can talk about or suggest to your clients. Educate yourself and take this business seriously.