Hi everybody, Cheryl Knowlton. Coming at you with your Ninja Road Warrior Tip of the Day. This is probably my most important tip out of all of them, and that is, have a travel assistant or a travel agent. One person that you hire to handle all of your travel needs. I have an amazing individual who does this for me, and if you would like his information, I would be more than happy to share his information with you. I cannot tell you the number of times he has saved my ever-living life, two very brief ones just to share with you.
An agent can foresee problems
Number one, he found out that it was very likely that a particular airline was going to be on strike, a week later when my teammate was going to be traveling. He got that individually totally rerouted on another airline before it even became a problem. I would never have known about that, much less have had the foresight to think a week out that, that might be an issue. Having somebody who takes a look at that is just so essential to keep things totally tight.
Knowing me, I would probably book my flight for the wrong location, the wrong airport. I did have a different assistant who did that to me, and that was not good. Philip has never done that to me, and I absolutely adore him.
An agent is locked and loaded into the travel world
Another great reason to use a travel assistant is they are locked and loaded into that world, and they can get you the best rates. Ideally, you’re going to want to get the best rate if you’re paying for your travel, and if it’s … you have an all-inclusive fee, you want to net the most money you possibly can from that speaking engagement. And, idea number two, if your client is paying for it, you don’t want to book at the last minute. Some of them actually say in your contract, by when you have to have booked your flight, and you don’t want to have them pay for the fact that you were negligent in getting that taken care of. So, align with someone who can help you get the very, very best rate possible.
An agent keeps tabs on the weather
Last but not least, if there’s a storm. Philip absolutely saved me. I was at Heroic Public Speaking for the very first time in New Jersey, and we found out from the staff there that there was going to be a gigantic, like momentous ice storm the next day. They gave us about an hour to take a break, and step out, and rehandle our travel. I completely freaked out, because my husband was going to be flying in, and we were going together then to New York City for our anniversary trip. We had tickets to see Hamilton, I did not want anything to botch this.
And so, Philip got on the phone with the airline, and without any additional charge rerouted my husband into JFK instead of flying into Philadelphia. Saved my life, saved my sanity and saved our trip, and our Hamilton tickets. All the priorities, right? That is my best Ninja Road Warrior advice of the year, is to hire a travel assistant to take care of all of your travel needs, line up all of your trips, and make sure everything gets done so you get where you need to be on time.