In Appreciation of Mentors and Mothers
byMelody Fee, OSSN Executive Vice President

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In fact, when she started her agency in St Louis, MO called, Let’s Travel in the early 1980’s, it became one of the first agencies in the US to build a strong, productive outside sales force selling millions of dollars worth of cruises! Their cruise selling staff was doing such a GREAT job, that they chose to show their specialization by calling that division of the agency by its own name—The Cruise Agency.

Let’s Travel and The Cruise Agency soon won the prestigious award of Carnival Cruise Line’s AGENCY of the YEAR in 1983! Let’s Travel and The Cruise Agency was the most popular agency in all of St Louis! They even ran cable TV shows to teach the public about the pleasures of cruising!

At this same time, something else was happening in our industry. The immergence of TRADE SHOWS was becoming a new and exciting way to gain knowledge and expertise. In fact, Ed and Ernie were two of the professionals that Mr Joel Abels of Travel Trade Magazine turned to when he was formulating his ideas for his first concept of the “Cruise a Thon.” He turned to Ed and Ernie because he knew of their great success and ask them to handle several seminars in those early shows that would highlight their many areas of expertise, including “How to Recruit and Train Outside Cruise Sales Agents!”

So as you can see, using outside agents successfully has been on the minds of successful agents for several decades! Let’s Travel used more than 40 outside agents who sold over 11 million in cruises in the 1980’s! To say that Ernie Fee was an “icon” in her industry back then….was, indeed, about as true as it can be! When Ed and Ernie sold Let’s Travel and The Cruise Agency in 1986, they, too, were hooked on teaching others how to be successful and this included teaching them how to use Outside Agents to increase sales.

So as Gary, (OSSN president AND Ernie’s son) and Ernie and I enjoyed reading all of these early “thank you” letters to her, we also looked back at the early beginnings of OSSN, which came about just a few years later in 1990, we realized that the real emergence of the information and expertise about Home-Based Independent Contractors that we had to offer was also founded in agencies like Let’s Travel that had the “know-how” to work with Independent Contractors. Those early agencies may not have realized yet that this new marketing force of self employed sellers of travel would have so many choices about their own business models, but they realized that outside agents could help them to be more successful as long as they had great ideas and great sales skills!

And I can just say that to me, one of the most wonderful memories that Gary and I carry with us is the real pride and excitement that his parents expressed to us as they watched how OSSN began to make such an impact in our industry. They were our earliest inspiration and our source of ongoing consultation and admiration. They were with us 100% as Gary formulated the goals of OSSN and they realized the need for this special organization that has set standards across the US for the Independent Contractor and the Home-Based Agency!

Ernie’s great ideas for cruise-selling success have been passed on to agents for 25 years now and will surely be practiced for decades to come. I am always excited to talk to agents who cruised with her and Ed for one of their “ Seminars on Ships” ( SOS) programs which were conducted on most of the major cruise line fleets in the late 80’s and early 1990’s! I am sure that when OSSN members read this, hundreds of them will have fond memories of a “Seminars on Ships” training cruise seminar that they previously attended with Ed or Ernie back then. Each memory that we sit and recall about those early days is just one more chance to develop a new and more creative endeavor to come. And we cherish the possibilities of each one. Hopefully , as we all share ideas and experiences as members of OSSN, at our chapter meetings or at our conferences or during our seminar at sea workshops, we all take home very special ideas for being more creative by really listening to the experiences of those that were successful before us. As we celebrate those successes of our “pioneers,” we hope that you, too are meeting special folks during your career that are just as inspiring to you!