Agent Diary: Is it good for specialist operators to diversify to new destinations?

This week I am a swan, attempting to serenely glide across the surface of my life while trying to pretend my little legs aren’t frantically paddling below the surface, just to stay afloat. 

If you ask someone why they went into homeworking, the answer is usually work-life balance. But no matter how long you’ve been doing the job, that balance is a delicate thing, and easy to send off-kilter. 

“You’re at home, can you just…” is a phrase that regularly has me squeezing other tasks into an already busy schedule. I manage my travel business alongside a smallholding full of animals, and two holiday cottages. But the life side of the scales also includes caring for elderly parents and wonderful, though exhausting, grandma duties. Put it all together and I am spinning so many plates that one little push will have me smashing more crockery than a traditional Greek wedding. 

My pet theory

This week’s little push was a poorly pony and a poorly sheep. Six home visits by two different vets over five days and all the extra TLC required for the animals concerned – I can almost hear the sharp intake of breath from those of you with pets, well versed in the expense of vets’ bills. I’m certainly not looking forward to those invoices at the end of the month! 

So here’s the thing. A farm vet will treat your sheep, but not your dog or pony even though they also live on the farm. And an equine vet, despite being a vet first and an equine specialist second, won’t treat anything but a horse. And while that’s proven extremely inconvenient and expensive for me this week, I find myself admiring their unwavering courage to keep rigidly within their speciality. 

If you work in travel on the high street, you likely have a team who each have their own favourite places to sell. As a homeworker, you work alone, and the key to delivering the perfectly designed trip for your client, if their destination is not your own speciality, is to know exactly which tour operator can offer you that expertise. 

This week I booked a honeymoon to Antigua. I know the island well, but the client wanted boutique and had a checklist, so I went to Caribtours. I noticed on their website they are now selling Lapland, and it struck me how many tour operators are straying far from their traditional home. 

Specialist subject

A China operator can now sell me South America, a Greek operator can sell me India, and an Italian specialist is selling Spain. All excellent companies doing a sterling job, but if market pressures are forcing everyone to stretch themselves, it may not be long before every tour operator is selling exactly the same thing. Are tour operators diversifying products or diluting product knowledge? 

I’m not so sure it’s a good thing – a company can only employ so many staff across its entire portfolio. So despite the temptations of a one‑stop shop, I’ll continue to stick with a farm vet for my sheep, an equine vet for my horse, and a purist operator for my clients.

Hard truths of homeworking

Being your own boss is great, but here are some things I wish I’d been told when I was starting out 20 years ago:

• The buck now stops with you, including out-of-hours emergencies, and emails that can’t be left unanswered even if you’re on holiday.
• Put your desk in a room with a door that shuts or you’ll sit at it every time you walk past.
• Working when kids are home is much harder than you’d think.
• If your commission is not paid until just before the client’s departure, you can be waiting a long time for your money.
• Don’t get disheartened: it takes time to earn a decent living with any new business, so the first years can be tough.