Travel agents

[oceanlovin'ea]

My presentation

will be on Thursday night. I am preparing my outline now.

Roberts, yes the prices are about the same as Travelocity and Orbitz. But if your cousin can get people to book on his website then he gets the commission instead of Travelocity.Website fees are $49.95 per month unless you have 6 people under you and then its free.Commission rate is 60% of commission paid to company.

My client, Jane, came a couple of weeks ago and brought the man who got her in this company with her. He did most of the talking. This is a legitimate travel company, listed among top 30 small public companies.
When you sign up, you have a working website up and running the same day. When someone books a trip, hotel, cruise, resort package, etc from your website, you make a commission, which is 60% of the commision paid to the agency. You are supplied with business cards which you will give out to friends, neighbors, acquiantances, anyone you know. Tell them that the prices on your website are about the same as on Travelocity or Orbitz. So why pay the commission to these huge companies, book from your website and you will make the commission.Most people would just as soon have you get the commission as some big company. There is a $49.95 charge per month for maintaining the website. This is comparable to website maintenance for other companies such as Mary Kay, Home Interiors,etc. This could be all you want to do.Just have a website for people to book travel from.
The second part of their company is the representative part. You can sign up to sponsor other to also become travel agents. When you have 6 people under you (either 6 you personally sponsor or some that have been sponsored by those you sponsored) you no longer pay the website maintenance fee. So it makes sense to sign some people up so you don't have that $600 a year expense.You also make some commissions on the sales of those under you.
The premise is this is an ideal business because the baby boomers are turning 60 and will retire and begin to travel. Travel is already a huge industry and will only get bigger. You don't have to keep an inventory, buy any product in order to get your commission.So you have minimum expense.
The people that are making the biggest money in this are the ones that are sponsoring others. They are working at this 40 or more hours a week. They are contacting everyone they know. By working so hard now, they will have residual income in the future and will not need to work so hard. They do marketing seminars, training seminars, etc.
So what you make depends on how much time and energy you want to put into this venture.
I am satisfied that it is legitimate business and so I feel okay doing my presentation.It will be directed at the amount of work they put into it and what they need to do.

Any one interested in more info about the company and how it works can read the January 2007 copy of a magazine called Success from Home. The articles in here show that a lot of the people are working hard not looking for a scam.

Anyway, just thought I would pass on this information about the company. I'll post on Friday about the meeting and how that went.

Linda F

[Roberts]

You just described every multi-level-marketing scheme known.

The $600 in website fees is how you make money. Nobody actually sells travel services, they are selling website maintenance agreements. My cousin did this with Excel Communications. You paid an upfront fee to be a contractor and that's where the profits were at.

I've got an investment client who does the same stuff with air-purifiers. He's just about spent his entire retirement plan but every quarter he's just sure the money is going to finally turn around and he'll get over the hump.

[joanmcq]

Sandy Botkin has his own MLM travel co. as part of Cyberwise. I had a client that signed up for this. Its a classic pyramid. You make money off of those below you. The ones at the top of the pyramid are making bucks (and giving testimonials) and the ones at the bottom pay out in website fees and for 'coaching' and tapes and product and end up with nothing but losses. BIG losses that alot of them try to take. So your friends and relatives use your site. Who else would? What reason would I have to go to Joe Schmoe's travel site instead of Orbitz or Travelocity? The key to the original post is the '26 people below her'; the classic MLM setup.

[oceanlovin'ea]

Roberts

$600 is the maintenance fees that go to the company. It is an expense to the travel agent, not income. The company is the only one that makes money on the website fees.
The travel agent makes money if someone uses their website to book travel or they have people under them.
This company is different in that it doesn't require you to buy some product each month in order to get your commission check.

I can tell that most of you are not believers in MLM companies. I agree that there are a lot of them out there that people will never get any income from. But there are a few that are reputable. My mother has been in a MLM company for 30 years and she has been able to continue to live on her own and support herself. She will leave a nice business to me when she dies. But that won't be for another 14 years. The doctor says she will live to be 100 and she is 86 now.

I'll do my presentation and maybe I'll get a few new tax return clients from it. It will be good practice for me as I have never given a presentation before.

Linda F

[joanmcq]

Every MLM is based on a pyramid. If you are high enough up on the pyramid you make commissions off of those below you. Just do the math...she has 26 people under her. For each of these to get a 'free' website, they need 6 people. That's 156 people. Then next level is 936, then 5,616, then 33,696. That's only 5 levels down.

And having a travel website 'Just like Travelocity or Orbitz' doesn't appear to make FAM trips ordinary and necessary business expenses (or any trips for that matter). When you went to a traditional travel agent, you might say, I want to take a Carribean cruise, and they would recommend cruises based on your budget and interests. There knowledge of the various companies and services and destinations would be useful in putting your vacation together, and if you were satisfied, you would get repeat business and referrals. The travel websites do it all, mostly based on price. The buyer picks the destination and the software does it all. When someone sets up one of these websites, its prepackaged. Yours is just like mine. Where does your client need knowledge of anything related to travel?

[Roberts]

I'll bet if you look closer, at least 1/2 of the website fee is flowing directly to the reps above. You never said in your information what the commission rate was for trips and travel tickets. Reality is that high service travel agents don't make a heck of a lot of money. Commissions get hit every year as airlines, hotels and cruise companies shift their sales to internet sights. Do you think they get 2-3%? If they are that lucky, who are their clients? As was said, why use the services of Joe Blow who put his card up at the grocery store to have the same product as a company well known across the world?

MLM schemes are ok as long as you realize it is what it is. 9 out of 10 people don't make any money but are given lots and lots of promises. Am-Way is a nice idea but when was the last time an Am-Way salesman knocked on your door selling product? Someones gotta buy the products to make money. In these travel agent deals - the product is pretty much the website site.

[oceanlovin'ea]

Must do selling

I agree that if people just booked off your website and you never talked to them your trips would not be of much benefit to you as an expense.
But you do have to talk to people and give them your card so they can book off your website. In those initial conversations you do your selling. If they are thinking of going on a cruise, you could tell them that you went on HA or RC cruise, which you liked better and why, what ports were the nicest, etc. They may even call you several times before they actually go to your website and book the trip. THIS IS JUST MY OPINION.
I think that a person would have to put work into this to get anything out of it. That is just common sense with anything you do.
I don't think that just giving your cards to people would generate business. You will still have to spend time cultivating those clients who will use your website to book.

There is no way to get money without some effort unless you have a rich relative that leaves you an large inheritance. Unfortunately most of us don't have one of those around.
So we have to work.

Linda F

[joanmcq]

Roberts just mentioned the fee structure as well. How many trips must be booked from the site before you make up the price of one vacation taken for 'business purposes'? On the large sites, the fee is about $30 for each booking. And part of that is paid to whomever you are under. So you've got to have a huge business before you can make a profit. The ones at the bottom of the pyramid will never make a profit, no matter how hard they work.

[oceanlovin'ea]

Presentation

My presentation went very well. Although I had to cut out some of the material I wanted to present so that it would fit into my 30 minutes, I was able to cover the biggest questions on auto expenses, travel, entertainment and business use of home.

I was complimented on my presentation by many there. The lady that invited me couldn't believe that it was the first presentation I had ever made. So I am very glad that I did it. Now I wouldn't be so intimitated to speak before another group if the opportunity arose.

I may get a few new clients from the evening. One man was looking for a new tax preparer as his former one is no longer in business. That is one thing I was hoping for.

I was asked to stay to answer questions so I heard the presentation. The real push is of course to get others to sign up to have a internet travel business under you and how much you can make. They also said their prices were comparable with Orbitz, Travelocity and Expedia. So I checked out 3 cruises and 4 hotels at Disneyworld. The prices were the same or slightly higher. So the jury is still out as to whether this is a good deal or not for someone to invest in.

BUT my real purpose was not to justify the investment but to inform the group of legitimate tax deductions and maybe get a few new clients. So all in all a good evening.

Thanks to all of you that posted your ideas for me to ponder and your suggestions for finding information. It was a definitely a learning experience.

Linda F

[Luis Mopeo]

my real purpose was not to justify the investment but to inform the group of legitimate tax deductions and maybe get a few new clients.

Isn't justifying the investment central to the issue of whether these expenses for cruises and travel and entertainment are legitimate in the first place?

[oceanlovin'ea]

Should have worded that

differently, I guess. My purpose was to stress to them that if they invest in this company and want to be able to take expenses for travel, entertainment, business use of home, etc. that they must have a sincere profit motive and run this endeavor as a true business and they must document their expenses completely and sufficiently to satisfy IRS if audited. If you don't work the business, you can't deduct the expenses of travel especially. If they put the time and energy into this business, they might make some money and get to take some deductions.

Linda F

[joanmcq]

The push is to get other people to set up websites under you. That pretty much says it all; without all those folks under you, you can't make money.

[Roberts]

Congrats on getting new clients. In reality - that was your goal and you achieved it (hopefully). Hopefully your presentation turns into 10 more presentations for you - they are a great way to advertise your services. Did you get the name and maybe addresses of the attendees? Send them a newsletter in October and January.

Does the group have a local newsletter you might write an article for them to include?

Good luck.