Your Stories: How homeworking helped to rebuild my life and career

Q. What did you do before Not Just Travel?
I worked closely with Scottish tourism and travel at Hostelling Scotland. I was headhunted to work in private healthcare and ended up as head of marketing for Bupa UK and global. But my undiagnosed ADHD made me self-destruct. Everything culminated in a total mental and physical breakdown. Being made redundant after Covid, I wanted return to travel, but not marketing. 

Q. How did you choose Not Just Travel?
I’d dabbled with freelancing. I think I manifested Not Just Travel because I wrote what I wanted: me and my laptop, working for myself in travel and talking about something positive. Social media adverts started popping up and I clicked on them. I spoke to Ivrie [Cohen, franchise recruitment manager] at The Travel Franchise [Not Just Travel’s recruitment arm] for about three months and to co-founder Paul Harrison. I started trading on Friday, October 13, 2023.

Q. How did you learn about being an agent?
We had pre-training, then five days’ online training, going through systems, laws, client care, the whole shebang. It’s intensive. Training never stops. You have webinars, suppliers, in-person coffee mornings, online stuff. When you join the Elite Package, which most people do, you go on two mentorship retreats.

 

First there’s the Millionaires Retreat, when you reach 10 bookings, and that was in Crete with easyJet holidays last October. Then you’re eligible for an Elite Experience. We went to Mauritius with Beachcomber in May, with Paul, fellow co-founder Steve Witt and business development managers. You get lots of mentoring. We stayed in five Beachcomber properties and visited all eight.

Q. What was your first booking?
It was £20k. I started strong. All the pre-work you do paid off because by the time I’d finished training, this woman I’d met three or four times on the side of our kids’ football pitch was my first booking. I couldn’t believe she was willing to give me a £20k family booking to Crete. I expected my first booking to be close friends or family.

Q. How do you find clients?
Networking has been big for me. I went to meetings organised by networking organisation Business Networking International for my first year. That was a great start. I prefer to be more relaxed; ‘netwalking’ is a good one, getting out walking. After the school mum booking, others followed – neighbours, friends and then people recommended me.

 

I’ve also had two massive bookings from my tennis club, which have definitely covered the £120 annual fee! In Mauritius, the Not Just Travel social media person really helped me with Facebook. LinkedIn has been good too. I tweak the message slightly: “I can help you put your out-of-office on, take a break, spend some time with your family”, that kind of message to working people. 

 

Q. You had a £96k booking. Can you tell us about it?
That was via an ex-colleague at Hostelling Scotland. Somebody she knows was trying to put a trip together for American ranchers who wanted to learn about breeding processes and markets here. I got the job and sorted flights, transfers, coaches, excursions, getting them to remote farms and sightseeing in Edinburgh. My previous event management experience came back. It was a colossal job: eight days with 26 Americans from Utah, Chicago, New York. So many flight connections. I accompanied them, it was awesome. They were so nice.

Q. What plans do you have for the future?

I’ve pivoted to focus on empty-nesters wanting to explore. I love booking bucket-list trips. I have a new brand: Travel Ever After. On the Elite Experience, I realised lots of people have their own brand. I’m badgering my husband to come on board. He is ex-RAF and is teaching at the moment. I’d love to do more walking and sports holidays, either playing sport abroad or watching. We have got two boys, nine and 11. We love going to Egypt and we do a lot of UK holidays.

 

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How is your ADHD now?

I was diagnosed in January and I took it quite hard. I’m in a better situation now. An ADHD coach helps me with knowledge [and] recognising things that I’m not good at. I work quite late, when everything is quiet and there are no distractions. At home, I don’t have to mask. Travel is great for somebody with neurodiversity. You’re getting your dopamine hit from research and finding stuff, but I also have Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD – a heightened emotional sensitivity to rejection) . 

 

You get a lot of knockbacks, so rejection can be painful. It’s just being aware that [when] they say yes, it’s a massive bonus; if they say no, it’s not about you. This industry is perfect for somebody with ADHD, as people care so deeply about their clients. They are creative, will think outside the box and are great in a crisis. I cried in Mauritius, in a positive way, because I wanted to say thank you. NJT and co-founders Paul and Steve completely changed my life and rescued my career. Anyone out there with ADHD or a neurodiversity should consider working in travel, as it really has given me my life back.