The owner of luxury agency Never a Wasted Journey has published a book in a bid to attract new customers and raise money for the hospital that provided care for his daughter.
Dan Salmon’s 86-page book, titled Never a Wasted Life, is an autobiography explaining how he got into the travel industry and sharing tales from his career.
Salmon, who has won two awards from Travel Weekly’s sister title Aspire, will donate £1 from each book sold to Great Ormond Street Hospital as a thank you for the care they gave his 18-month-old daughter after she was born.
“My daughter was born with a hole in her heart, which meant she had to have a six-hour operation when she was three months old,” he said.
“I was in complete panic mode at the time, but the hospital was so good with her and it made me want to give something back to them.”
He hopes the book, which includes some itineraries he has sold, will also help him expand his client list and “stand out from the crowd”.
“I have built up so many stories in my life and I wanted to share them with other people to try to drum up some business,” he said.
“About 70% of my bookings come from repeat customers, so I thought this would be a great way to get my name out to some new clients.
“I regularly get people coming to me and asking why they should use me, so I want to be able to give them a copy of my book and say ‘this is why’, with the hope that by the time they have finished reading they won’t want to book a holiday with anyone else.
“A lot of agents have business cards or brochures, but I thought a book would be a great way to stand out from the crowd. It will give customers the chance to get to know more about me, from when I started my career as a Mark Warner rep, to my time working in sales at Kuoni and my concierge work as a manager at Ten Lifestyle Group, to when I launched my business a decade ago.”
The self-published book is available on Amazon as a Kindle e-book and will also be available as a paperback by the end of this week.