Becoming a travel agent sounds appealing, especially when you're burned out and looking for something that actually fits your life. But most people don't know what it really involves, how much it costs to get started, what you can realistically earn, or whether you can do it alongside everything else you're already managing.
In this episode of The Traveling Therapist Podcast, I sit down with Lindsay Dollinger, travel agency owner and host of the Passports, Profits, and Pixie Dust podcast, to get into all of it. Lindsay started as a travel agent in 2019 while still teaching high school Spanish full-time, and she now runs her own agency with agents working under her. She breaks down exactly what the path looks like, what it costs, and why it might be more doable than you think.
In this episode, We Explore…
Connect with Lindsay:
Website www.lindsaydollinger.com
Facebook www.facebook.com/lindsdollinger
Instagram www.instagram.com/lindsaydollinger
Connect with me:
Instagram: @thetravelingtherapist_kym
The Traveling Therapist Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/onlineandtraveling/
Signup to learn more about life as a Traveling Therapist: https://www.portablepracticemethod.com/free-training
Revolutionize Your Private Practice with AI Course: www.kymtolson.kartra.com/page/ai
Bill Like A Boss Insurance Billing Community: www.kymtolson.kartra.com/page/blab
Subscribe to the Podcast:
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Transcript:
[00:00:00] Kym: Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Traveling Therapist podcast. We have a very cool guest today. She's not a therapist, but she is a Spanish teacher who has traveled the world and has really turned her experiences with all of that in into a super cool like other career so,
[00:00:17] lindsay, thank you for being here. I'd love if you would tell everybody a little bit about yourself, and then we could just kind of deep dive into everything you're doing and your tips and your tricks and all that amazing stuff that you have to offer the audience.
[00:00:28] Lindsay: Thanks so much, Kim. I'm so excited to be here and to talk with your audience today. So like Kim said, I'm Lindsay Dollinger. I am a high school Spanish teacher by day is what I like to say. And then I am a travel agent and travel agency owner now. I just opened my own agency in January of this year, so still new on the agency side, but I've been a travel agent since 2019, July, 2019.
[00:00:50] Which was an interesting time to join as a travel agent because as soon as my business got going, then the pandemic started and the business quickly did not get going as well. Right. So I live in Ohio. I'm a dog mama, I'm a Disney adult. And yeah, I'm just trying to balance doing all the things and, having my love of travel, you know, play into that as much as possible has been something that's been a big, big priority for me.
[00:01:14] Kym: So what is the difference in a travel agent and a travel agency, like having a travel agency? Like what are the two differences there? 'cause I don't even know.
[00:01:22] Lindsay: so there's lots of terminology in the travel industry, which I'm sure you know, or even once people become travel agents, they're like, what are all these acronyms? What is it? So a travel agent just means, you know, you can book travel for other people and you get paid commissions.
[00:01:34] And then as a travel agency owner, I don't technically employ, but I, because they're 10 99 contractors, I have travel agents working for my agency who I train. You know, payout. And so, essentially, yeah, I'm an agency owner now, so I, I currently have at the time of recording four travel agents who are working for my agency.
[00:01:55] And so in addition to me planning trips for clients, I'm also, you know, managing and training the agents themselves, which has been really, really exciting for me. And getting to pay them as well to grow their businesses.
[00:02:07] Kym: Yeah, It's almost like in the therapist world we have like, you know, private solo practice clinicians, and then we have like group practices where then we just start bringing in therapists under us and sort of pay them out. And it's not, I, not a pyramid scheme, but just like, you know, it's like you kind of like get people working under you, you know, and then you, you pay 'em out and you bring in the resources and all of that. So that's very cool.
[00:02:29] I always wonder like travel agents, right? Because like i'm gonna use myself as an example. My mom's gonna the Dominican Republic, which I've been to a million times, but she's like, come down to this resort we're gonna be staying at her and her like best year are gonna be down there for like eight days.
[00:02:42] And I'm like, I want to, but it's like the thought of planning it is just like, I don't even want to think about it because I've got so much other stuff going on and I've actually had travel agents on here before, but part of me is like.
[00:02:53] That's not something a travel agent would do, right? Or is it, do I just call up somebody like you and I'm like, Hey, this is when she's going like, help me get there please. 'cause I'm just too overwhelmed. Really.
[00:03:03] Lindsay: Yeah. So it really depends on the person and and how much support they need. I do have people call me and they're like, Hey, I wanna go put someplace warm. I can go anytime in June, here's my budget plan it. So it can be as broad as that, or it can be like, Hey, I wanna meet up with my friends in the Dominican Republic.
[00:03:20] This is the day they're going, this is the resort. Can you, you know, work your magic, find me flights, book me a hotel there, I need a shuttle transportation, you know, all those pieces as well. So it can be you know, it's as specific as that.
[00:03:33] Or sometimes people are like, I want this exact cruise. A lot of times people come with me and they've seen offers directly from a supplier, so directly from Carnival or directly from Disney. And they'll be like, Hey, can you help me book this? And yeah, yeah, I do that. And sometimes I just have friends too, and these are the real VIPs who book it themselves, call me that night and they're like, Hey, can I transfer this to you so you'll get commission?
[00:03:55] And I'm like,
[00:03:55] Kym: Oh, I like that.
[00:03:57] Lindsay: even better. Exactly, exactly. Yeah. So we have, you know, kind of a range of things that we do, but absolutely.
[00:04:03] Kym: That's very cool. Yeah. Because I always feel like it's kind of like, I don't know why, but I feel like it's like a burden, like to like drop it on a travel agent, but really, I mean, you guys
[00:04:12] Lindsay: what we do.
[00:04:13] Kym: right? Because all these places pay a commission, but it doesn't come out of my like pocket or whatever.
[00:04:19] It's like the resorts have like these, these fees that they just routinely pay out to travel agents to
[00:04:24] Lindsay: Absolutely. So
[00:04:24] Kym: places.
[00:04:25] Lindsay: book direct. Basically that money is going to like their employees. So you know, the person picking up the call line at the reservation center or things like that might not be commission based, but like that's how they figure out, you know, their salaries. Then if you book through us, that commission then will go to us instead of the company directly.
[00:04:43] So like for example, with a Disney package, I get the same pricing that Disney gets. It's just whether you're giving the commission to Disney or whether you're giving it, you know, to a small business owner, which is nice.
[00:04:54] Kym: Oh, that's very cool. Yeah, of course we want the small business owner, the woman owned, small business owner for sure.
[00:05:00] Lindsay: Exactly.
[00:05:01] Kym: So when you say you're like, a Disney travel planner, does that mean you only do Disney vacations or you can like just do anything Because I mean, to travel, you just have a special computer where they just get like discounts to every single place in the world or
[00:05:14] Lindsay: Yeah, there's actually a lot of pieces that go into um, so you can do just Disney. I have some friends who do just Disney or do just Universal or do just cruises. I am registered and trained in a multiple, you know, in a variety of things. So no, I don't just do Disney. But I do specialize in Disney, meaning like I was an annual pass holder for many years.
[00:05:36] We go multiple times a year. You know, I stay very on top of it. So I advertise that because I want people to know, you know, like I'm the real deal. Like I'm gonna be able to help you get the lightning lanes and tell you the best places to go, you know, for dining. '
[00:05:50] Cause Disney actually, it's so intricate that if, especially a travel planner hasn't been in the past definitely like five years, but even in the past couple years, it always is changing so much that you have to stay on top of it somehow, either by going or reading up on it and things like that. So like, especially for Disney, I would almost say the same for cruises as well, because all the cruises are so different. It's so much easier to sell them and do a good job at it with a client if you've experienced it than if you haven't before.
[00:06:22] You know, I hadn't gone on a cruise. My first cruise was in 20. I think it was 2021. It might've been 20, late 2020, but I think it was 2021. And before that I had booked some people on a cruise and I had no idea. Like, I will not lie, like I did the training, but still I'm like, you know, it's completely different to experience one versus do the training on it, you know, a whole different ballgame.
[00:06:44] Kym: that does make a lot of sense. You know? Yeah, I could see that. 'cause it's like, yeah, you could. Take this excursion to see the sloths in Costa Rica, but I've never been. It could be really terrible.
[00:06:55] Lindsay: Yeah. Yeah. And like you don't know really whether to advise people if paying extra for priority boarding is important and stuff like that, until you have experienced it and been like, no, girl, the lines are two hour. Like you pay the a hundred dollars for priority. You know, like those sorts of things.
[00:07:14] And I think that's what. I try really hard to show, like in social media and in my emails, that like authority piece for people. I mean, it's just like that with anything you do. Like, you know, you're with therapists I'm sure as well. You're, telling people and showing people these things that you've learned and you've experienced to like get that credibility piece.
[00:07:33] So, yeah, that's how I started with Disney and then I've added on like cruising and now I'm like into river cruising. 'cause I've been on river cruises and I'm like, well now I'm a River Cruise expert. Like, let's go, you know?
[00:07:43] Kym: so do you have a favorite river cruise like brand? I went on a Viking one time and it was
[00:07:48] Lindsay: okay. Was it awesome?
[00:07:49] Kym: but it was so expensive,
[00:07:51] Lindsay: are, they are pricey. So I've only actually been on Amma waterways personally, and they're kind of like, like I kind of fell in love with them, you know? they also treat their travel advisors really well in regards to just a ton of trainings and really great support really great what we call fam rates as well, which are like familiarization rates across the board that different companies offer that are basically like a travel agent discount so that you get to experience their products so that you can hopefully sell more of it.
[00:08:20] But they're just really awesome. So I'm doing a group river cruise with them next summer. We're doing Southeast Europe, which I'm really excited about 'cause it's super off the beaten path.
[00:08:29] But I would love to do Viking too. Viking, you know, Vikings up there, Vikings like the king of the river cruises. So it's definitely on my list to experience as well.
[00:08:36] Kym: Yeah, it was so good. And I have celiac disease, so I have to eat gluten free and like. There were only a hundred people on the ship and like literally every place we went, the chef made me a meal that was like from each stop and it was just like authentic and it was just like, you don't get to do that really as somebody with Celiac, you know?
[00:08:55] Lindsay: Well, and, just the river cruises in general, you're never gonna have more than like 200 people on him unless like Amma has one ship that's a double capacity. So it's a little more, but. River cruises are so special. I think people are, you know, have this idea that it's like for super old people and I'm like, let's go, you know, I'm only 30 and I'm gonna, I'm getting ready to turn 39 and I'm like loving it. Like, give me all of, you know, give me all the river cruising.
[00:09:20] They get to know you so well. You know, they get to know what your dining preferences are and they get to know all these things that you don't get in an ocean liner, for example. Your chef may or may not know that you have celiacs and, go above and beyond for you that way. Right.
[00:09:35] Kym: Absolutely. Yeah. It's such an important part that, you know, it stops me sometimes from going places 'cause I'm like, I just don't even feel like dealing with it, you know? So it's cool if there's travel agents that like can understand those nuances that help you with that too.
[00:09:49] And the river, that Viking Cruise was amazing. It's like I would do those all the time if I could afford it. It was, and I did go with a bunch of, I went with like a bunch of 70 year olds. I was the only
[00:09:57] Lindsay: Cool.
[00:09:58] Kym: 70, so,
[00:09:59] Lindsay: Well, and that was part of the thing with Amma. So Amma Waterways actually partners with Adventures by Disney. and they charter. So for those, obviously it's family trips, but Amma is the youngest average age. I think their average age of their travelers, like 55 or 56.
[00:10:15] Kym: Oh okay.
[00:10:16] Lindsay: compared to other lines, and I just heard yesterday I of a brand I think it's called Talk Talc. and they are trying to get into the river cruise industry, specifically gen like Gen X and like family river cruising, which I think would be really cool. Is a really cool niche that they're Yeah. That they're starting to do.
[00:10:34] Kym: Very cool. so let's talk a little bit about How somebody gets into what you're doing. Like if they wanted to join an agency like yours, especially for therapists, they're so burned out and they're always asking, like in my traveling therapist group, they're always like, what else can I do?
[00:10:48] 'cause I'm so tired of being a therapist, they're just like burned out, you know? So if somebody, like, is it like a part-time type job or is it like a full-time job? Like how does that work? If, somebody wanted to just work for an agency like yours, you know.
[00:11:01] Lindsay: it's gonna depend agency by agency. And it's, it's really funny that you ask that because if you get into some travel agent like Facebook groups, they're like, it's always a full-time job. 'cause you're like, oh god, yeah. You know, that kind of deal. I work, I mean, I, I just shared, you know, I'm a teacher.
[00:11:18] I travel, I do these things and I'm a travel agency owner, a travel agent. I do it part-time. And I definitely think it's, you're, it is something that you're able to do part-time. You just get to be strategic and, you know, plan those sorts of things. So like, I purposely don't plan or take on trips that are like, when I'm gonna be outta the country, you know?
[00:11:40] So it's stuff that, and I will say the majority of quote unquote issues that might come up that you might need to tr you know, troubleshoot usually are before travel, and it's not ever usually like a quote unquote emergency where you have to be on 24 7. I think as long as you're able to have good boundaries, you have good planning skill, you know what I mean?
[00:12:00] Like you take the tools too from your agency. Like I provide my agents with email templates and you know, training and all that stuff. And if you build a business that, you know, with some systems in place, you definitely can make it more part-time than full-time. Now, the woman who just broke the record for the high, I think it was like the highest income of a travel agent last year, at least as reported by the American Society of Travel Agents was I think $4 million in sales. Now, obviously that woman is working full-time, right?
[00:12:34] Kym: Yeah.
[00:12:35] Lindsay: like you get to a certain point that yeah, this is your full-time gig, but it is also very easy to, you know, book for friends and family and maybe the occasional referral here and there for a trip or two a month and make some good income, unlock some travel agent parks, and then, you know, like you said, kind of decide maybe you start making enough that you can scale back your caseload so that you have.
[00:12:59] 10 patients you're working with, you know, you're doing both kind of part-time ish. And I think that's what I really love about it. There are some agencies who want you to commit to doing full-time. We're not like that in my agency, just like I said, 'cause that's not how I started. And I also know that had that been a requirement for me, I never would've been able to do it.
[00:13:17] So I'm very grateful for the fact that I am able to have that sort of flexibility to do kind of as much or as little with it as I do want.
[00:13:24] Kym: That's really cool. So what's the average like, investment to become a travel agent? Like, Timewise, like study and learning wise and like money wise. Do you have to like invest a lot of money to become a travel agent? I'm
[00:13:36] Lindsay: So that's again, gonna kind of depend on the agency. So for my specific agency the actual, just the agency fee, because I'm under what we call a host agency.
[00:13:46] So kind of the best way to explain that is that they have negotiated our contract with all the different suppliers so that we get, you know, the highest possible commissions that we're able to do.
[00:13:56] 'cause we're doing so much sales volume, so we have a fee that we pay to them. It's 20 bucks a month, so it's not a, it's not a ton at all. And then we have a fee for our CRM. So this is where the emails are where. Your quote forms will come in, you know, all that stuff is set up in there. And that's, like 39 a month.
[00:14:14] Now you can obviously add on some technology here and there, pay for, you know, your like a personalized email. There's, there's additional things, but you can get by running a very successful business with very low amount of fees. For sure. And then like my company, I don't do like monthly minimums or anything like that. You know, if you wanna do it, then you're in, you know, I'm not
[00:14:36] Kym: Oh, I see. Yeah.
[00:14:37] Lindsay: Yeah, some places
[00:14:38] Kym: have to do this much uhhuh.
[00:14:40] Lindsay: Yeah. Yeah. So like, some of my friends are agents and they have to sell like a hundred thousand dollars a year before their agency unlocks their ability to get travel agent discounts.
[00:14:49] And I just. It doesn't sit right with me. I'm like, I don't like that. So yeah, I don't do, I don't gatekeeper. I don't hold any of that stuff back from my agents. Now, time-wise, again, it kind of depends on how much you wanna do, how little you wanna do. So we do have a training. It's not required because as an independent contractor, we can't require anything.
[00:15:08] So we have a training on just like the ins and outs of the industry of how to make a booking, how to get paid, you know, all those pieces. It probably takes start to finish like 20 ish hours if you're like really sitting down, you know, watching all of that. And then each company, which we call suppliers, the majority of them have their own training.
[00:15:31] So like, Disney has a training, carnival has a training, Norwegian has a training, all those different things. So I recommend to my agents, you pick your top three that you think you're gonna sell first, that you're interested in selling first. So usually a Disney, usually a cruise. And then sometimes I can all inclusive like a sandals or beaches or something like that.
[00:15:50] And start diving in with those. Now, the majority of them, you do not have to complete their training in order to actually book. So there are some of them that I have even, like, I just finished one last week for a cruise line that I didn't sell very often, but I started selling more and more of it.
[00:16:05] So I'm like, okay, I'm gonna finish this, but you don't have it, you know, right away. Now what a lot of them do do is they kind of dangle the carrot over your head and they're like. You can book with us without doing this training, but you can't unlock our travel agent rates without doing this training. So that's kind of where they get you.
[00:16:23] So like you want the perks, you gotta do our training. And a lot of the trainings are not that bad or that, and they can be really interesting, especially like I said, if it's something that you're not familiar with but you want to become familiar with. Like, you know, it's interesting to me to hear about the different ships that Carnival offers and their private islands and different stuff.
[00:16:41] You know, a lot of it. Especially if you haven't experienced it. Like you don't know who you don't know until you've done those things. So, you know, time-wise, I would say no more than like three or four hours per supplier, like tops for their training to unlock.
[00:16:58] Kym: That's very cool. So what's a travel agent perk Like what would be
[00:17:02] Lindsay: It just depends. So, yeah, it, it can vary. Some don't offer anything. Besides just your normal commission, right? So you can just book your own trips and get your own commission for it. Some might be free tickets to things, some might be a certain discount off. So like, Norwegian Cruise Lines, for example, offers anywhere from, I think it's five to 30% off depending on how much training you've done.
[00:17:23] So, yeah, it just kind of depends like that. Sometimes it is, you know, 50% off your room stay. Marriott's really good about that. Universal is as well. So it just kind of depends on the supplier, but they can be pretty awesome.
[00:17:35] And then, like I said, some companies do what we call FAM trips, which are trips. Sometimes they're specifically for travel agents. Other times it's a rate that a travel agent can do, just, you know, whenever they want in order to take pictures, explore the resorts. You know, maybe they, get a little tour while they're in there.
[00:17:54] That just kind of depends. And some suppliers set them up specifically for, you know, like, we're gonna tour, I don't know, four resorts in the Riviera Maya. It costs this much money. It costs 50 bucks a night, it includes meal, you know, different stuff like that too. So sometimes we get, we get really cool things like that.
[00:18:11] Kym: Oh, that's awesome. Is there like a chain or a brand that like every traveling the, or not traveling, every travel agent really wants to like book people through 'cause you get tons of great perks.
[00:18:22] Lindsay: Ooh, that's a good question. Well, you know, we were talking about Alma waterways. Like one of their perks is you, I think it's cell five sale free. So for every five state rooms you sell in a calendar year, then you get one free, which is really awesome. So they run and they, and other companies will do this too.
[00:18:41] They'll run different promos from time to time. So like, Amma right now has a really nice group promotion going on, and you don't even have to be a travel agent to do this, but travel agents unlock even more perks. so that's why I planned my group trip to Southeast Europe next summer because itself.
[00:18:58] Sale, sell, five sale for free for me. Plus the commission, plus everyone got like $2,000 off their room plus gratuities were included. Like it was just all these like bonuses that they were doing for select sailing dates. So a lot of the cruise lines especially run stuff like that too, where. You know, plus when you're, especially river cruising, cruising in general.
[00:19:21] But River Cruising is a really nice commission. We call 'em a commission with a comma. So if you're selling five rooms and you're getting yours free, right, like, it's just like all these things, it's like, like why not? Like it's, yeah. It's total no brainer.
[00:19:33] Kym: That's very cool. So yeah, so if somebody comes to you and they're like, we wanna take a cruise, but we don't know where you might be like, Hey, you know what?
[00:19:40] Lindsay: Yes, I have a group you can join. Exactly. Well, and that's the nice thing too with our agency. So that one is specifically like my group trip, but we also we're a part of this bigger agency who has a list of other group trips. So I can book say it, say like, Kim, you just wanted to go and you didn't have friends or family joining.
[00:20:00] It was just you. I could look at my list of other group trips running. And potentially put you in a group so that you get some of those discounts or onboard credit or things like that. And you wouldn't even necessarily know you're in a group. But that's how sometimes you'll see people advertise. Like if you book with me, you get an extra $200.
[00:20:18] In onboard credit, it's probably because they're tapping into some of those groups that their bigger agency has too. Yeah. So we have lots of resources like that to play around with.
[00:20:27] Kym: That's very cool. Okay, so shifting gears a little bit, just like as a traveler, a travel agent for Travelers? Do you have like good travel tips or like any really cool strategies that we may not just know like as the layman traveler, you
[00:20:42] Lindsay: Yeah. Okay. So lots of ways I can go with this. I feel like the, the biggest thing right now that I am trying to really educate people about is travel insurance. And I, especially in my early twenties, would travel internationally all the time and I wouldn't get it. I'd be like, no, I don't need to insure this.
[00:21:00] You know, whatever. And especially as I'm older, and especially as I tend to be more accident prone or ill illness prone, even if you're not worried about the delays and looking, losing your bags and stuff like that, which I wasn't really as concerned about when I was younger. You want the health insurance piece of it, you want the that added benefit of say, God forbid something happens to you and you need to be air lifted somewhere.
[00:21:25] You know, those things are so expensive and that sort of debt. Will ruin your life, you know, so why take the chance of it? And I think the thing that I've been preaching the most to people is like, it doesn't even have to be individual trip insurance. Look into annual plans, you know, they're almost the same cost as a individual trip. So if you're traveling more than once a year,
[00:21:48] Kym: Yeah.
[00:21:48] Lindsay: in the annual plan, right? It's just kind of a no brainer. So like just trying to really. You know, drive home to people. Just build that into the cost of your trip, and then we don't have to worry about it. Now, there are exclusions. You know, a lot of the plans, it's been in the news currently exclude acts of war.
[00:22:06] Yes. However, you know. Besides those first few days when things were were happening, you know, airspace is closed, so your flights most likely are not planning on landing in like Dubai currently right now anyway. Right. They've already been changed. So besides those first couple days, like. That's not gonna be a reason for a travel delay, like a, like a direct reason.
[00:22:29] You know, things are gonna be happening because of something else in some other part of the world and it should hopefully be covered. So the travel insurance piece is like the biggest thing that I'm trying to educate people on currently.
[00:22:40] Kym: Do you have like a company you recommend? 'cause at one point we were doing like, what is it? GeoBlue, I think is what it was called. And they had the annual plan. I was like, how is this even, right? Because I mean I've the trip itself.
[00:22:54] Lindsay: Long time ago.
[00:22:55] Kym: yeah, the trip itself was like, like 130, but if I did like two 50, it was like an entire year of coverage of
[00:23:02] Lindsay: Yes, exactly. Yeah. Now you do have to read because some of the annual plans it will cover you per occurrence. And some of it is like a one time, we'll pay this out. And then basically you'll have to buy another plan. Which even that I feel like I'm willing to gamble on because the chances of me having to use it, hopefully, knock on wood, is slim. Right. So I personally use and sell Allianz Insurance.
[00:23:28] I've made my own claims with them and they have paid me out within 24 to 48 hours. You know, they're not putting me around like, and some of them where I'm like, this is a stretch, but I'm gonna put this in anyway. And they paid it so again, knock on wood, I don't wanna like jinx myself, but I've had really good personal experience with them so that's who I use.
[00:23:48] Now, I also am licensed to do travel insured Chubb. There's another one that is a preferred supplier of ours. I've heard okay. Things about all of them. You know, every once in a while you'll hear someone complain about any which one, and they didn't cover this and didn't cover that. So I stick with Allianz for now until I have a reason not to, basically.
[00:24:09] Kym: Yeah. That's really cool. So a travel agent can actually do that part for you too, or is
[00:24:14] Lindsay: Yeah.
[00:24:14] Kym: something you do? Oh, see, I don't even, I know nothing about this.
[00:24:18] Lindsay: Yeah. And travel insurance actually is a really great commission percentage depending on the plan, you know, bought, but it's anywhere, I'm trying to think the lowest, anywhere from like 16 to 26% is what we can get paid that I've seen. So, you know, that can be a really nice paycheck for not doing very much at all, to be honest.
[00:24:39] Kym: that's very cool. Cool to know. Okay, so shifting gears just a little bit so you're a Spanish teacher by day you're a travel agent by night. but you also have a podcast, right? can you tell us about your podcast, what it's
[00:24:50] Lindsay: Yeah. So it's called passports, profits, and pixie dust. It started in 2020, And I didn't even mention this part. I actually was in network marketing was my first like, real online business that I was doing. So it started as the social selling sisterhood in 2020. It's had a few name changes since then.
[00:25:12] Because that business switched into like a business coaching business, which narrowed down when I really got into my travel agency to coaching women who were travel agency owners or travel agents themselves. So it's kind of very much niched over the years. So now we talk it's really applicable usually to a lot of online business growth.
[00:25:34] But there are some episodes that are specific, like I just had on someone from the Cruise Business Blueprint, and we talked a lot about her program and planning cruises and booking cruises and things like that. But then. Next week I have an episode going out about entrepreneurial mindset. So, you know, just all these pieces that I'm hoping that I'm helping other women in our industry, you know, just be better at their business and just have a little fun.
[00:26:01] You know, we talk real life and stuff in there along the way, and I wanna share. The good and the bad and the ugly of business too, because I want people to feel like they're not alone. 'cause this can be a really lonely, you know, thing we're doing when we're working online and doing everything via Zoom all the time and not, you know, getting ready, you know, getting out and being around people as much as possible.
[00:26:22] So, yeah, that's kinda why I made it. And so I drop an episode every Monday. I put a lot of them up on YouTube as well. 'cause I, I really like repurposing. I try to do all the repurposing that I can and yeah, that's been really awesome. We're at like 400 and I think 46 episodes now, which is
[00:26:38] Kym: Wow. Oh my gosh. That's amazing.
[00:26:41] Lindsay: Yep. It's like the longest thing I've been consistent. Yes, absolutely.
[00:26:46] Kym: say, I think this one's like 200 episodes and it feels like I've been doing it forever. So
[00:26:50] Lindsay: I know it has. It's like I almost don't remember not doing it. Yeah, for sure.
[00:26:55] Kym: amazing. Oh my gosh, that's so cool. So how do people work with you if they want to, you know, book travel with you or talk to you about becoming a travel agent? Or, I don't know if you're hiring for your agency, how do
[00:27:06] Lindsay: absolutely.
[00:27:07] Kym: connect to the Oh, you
[00:27:08] Lindsay: Uh, Yes. Yes we are. I'm Lindsay Dollinger. All the places spelled with an a y. So you can go to lindsay dollinger.com, you can find me on Instagram. Facebook are the two main ones. I honestly, I'm a Facebook girl, like true and true. I do have a LinkedIn. I might not catch your message on there as much.
[00:27:23] And then if you go to that lindsay dollinger.com/travel, where like all my quote information is, there's also a link on there for info about being a travel agent in my agency. So if you fill that out, I'll send you over a little video and we can chat more about, you know, what that looks like. And yeah, go from there.
[00:27:40] Kym: That's very cool. Thank you. Thanks for taking the time today to fill us in about the travel agent world in life and what that looks like. I really appreciate it.
[00:27:48] Lindsay: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much. This was so fun.