Are You an Agent, a Consultant, or an Advisor?
by Ken Hall

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Take me, for instance. You may call me a customer, a shopper, a prospect, maybe even a lookie-loo, but when I want to buy something from you I want you to think of me as a client -- a trusted and beloved client! After all, a client is usually looked more favorably than a shopper.

Similarly, how important do you think your title is to me? When I need advice, would I prefer to go to an agent, a clerk, an associate, a counselor, a specialist, a salesperson, a planner or an advisor? What are the images I see when I hear your title?

If you call yourself an "agent," I picture an insurance agent, someone with a limited product line, interested in selling me just one thing. It is an image of someone out of date, out of touch with today's world. I want someone up to date and current.

Thinking of a "salesperson" conjures up an image of a car salesman running across a used car lot to get to me before one of his fellow salesmen can reach me. He sees me as a mark, a commission, not a client.

"Counselor?" My old high school counselor was a nice person who meant well, but the term counselor still doesn't present a strong professional image.

A "consultant" is a step up, for sure. The problem with consultants is those I have known are usually more interested in giving advice they think I want to hear instead of telling me what I should hear. They are more interested in staying hired than in helping me uncover my true hidden needs.

But an "advisor," a real advisor looks at what I am trying to accomplish and gives me advice not only about what I have expressed but about what he/she believes is best for me. As an example, our family financial advisor sat down with us and asked us what we wanted to achieve financially well into the future -- all the way to retirement. We talked about education costs for the kids, buying an RV, IRAs, maybe a vacation home in the mountains, etc. Of course, our dreams and our salaries didn't exactly match, so the vacation home dropped out, the RV went onto our five-year plan, and based on some of her suggestions we re-aligned our stock market investments. We are now well on our way to financial freedom. The keys are she told us where our expectations were unreasonable and she recommended alternative actions.

I'm wondering why the same thing doesn't happen in the travel industry. Why doesn't my travel counselor become a vacation planning advisor and help us develop a "life plan" for vacations? There are a number of things my wife and I want to see and do before retirement - Easter Island, Antarctica, the aurora borealis over Nome, the Terra Cotta Warriors of Xian, Machu Picchu at sunrise, scuba diving in the Caribbean, just to name a few. Like a financial plan, it has to be flexible, but if a super deal comes along, she could call or email us and we could decide if we wanted to re-order our plans and take advantage of it. It would work for us and it would keep us tied to her for our vacation planning.

Yes, in my mind, the title of the people with whom I deal influences how I feel about them. We are ready to plan and invest in our future vacation plans, so shouldn't we work with a professional advisor?

Is it time for you to rethink your title?

Ken Hall is president of www.HomeBasedPros.com, a subscription e-letter with marketing and sales tips for the home-based travel agent. The e-letters look at the buying and selling process from the viewpoint of the customer. For more information, go to www.HomeBasedPros.com.