Agents are stuck in a time warp and spend too much time making excuses for poor sales, serial entrepreneur and best-selling author Nigel Botterill told the Elite Travel Group conference.
Botterill, who is also a mentor for small business owners, said: “Most agents have a list of excuses including tyre kickers (customers who seek advice then book elsewhere), the economic outlook and competition from the internet.
“Most agencies have not undergone change – too many are carrying on the way they were doing in 1991. You can make money, or you can make excuses.”
He said agents were failing to make use of their database to regularly contact customers.
“Your database is the most valuable asset in your business and most of you don’t use it. This is a massive area of weakness. It’s stupid and lazy not to contact your customers.”
Social media is another area of weakness for the trade, he added. “I tried to connect with you on social media but most of you weren’t there. Thousands of your customers are on Facebook and Twitter, only an idiot would not be trying to connect with them.”
He suggested agents register on Google Places in order to appear on the first page of search results, and use separate telephone numbers in each piece of marketing activity to track its success.