Looking Beyond Sales with Travel Incentives

Creative
Travel and entertainment costs are one of the largest and most difficult to track leakage areas for any company. Often, despite writing and implementing strict travel policies, compliance fails to meet set goals. One innovative strategy companies are turning to is rewarding top compliance in a similar manner to traditional sales incentives, providing incentive travel opportunities to employees who stay within policy. For additional resources, you may be able to learn more at the The Traveller Inc. website.

Incentive travel takes many forms, ranging from pre-planned itineraries, to allocated travel funds and travel perks.

Pre-Planned Itineraries

The most commonly known form, the pre-planned itinerary, is typically a cruise or resort stay. By booking these in advance companies can great deals. Utilizing a reputable travel agency can also secure even lower rates by using group fares. This type of incentive is typically associated with a sales goal, for example, the top ten earners in a quarter. However, the model can be easily reworked as a compliance incentive by reviewing those individuals who saved the company the most on travel and entertainment costs. There are abundant tracking programs available for little or no cost where companies can track where an employee rejected a higher airfare in favor of a lower one, or used a cost comparison to verify if driving or flying would be more cost effective.

Allocated Travel Funds

Allocated travel funds can be rewarded with a similar savings goal model. However, these are not a specific, preplanned trip for top employees but rather a dollar to dollar point earning system. For instance, an employee saving the company 500 dollars on airfare may earn a 100 dollar air credit with the company’s preferred air carrier. This variation of policy adherence incentive works particularly well for larger companies where there may be individuals who, by nature of their job function, may not travel as often as others. This sort of adherence reward can be easily extended to include attendance or safety procedure adherence.

Travel Perks

Another travel incentive benefit often overlooked by companies, and at no cost to them, is working with a travel management company that negotiates with vendors (airlines, hotels and rental car companies) to allow the individual to collect travel perks such as upgrades if they book through the travel agency. Travel agencies have extensive quality control measures to ensure policy compliance. This sort travel incentive is of particular value to companies because it forces adherence and provides access to cost-saving strategies and reporting on exceptions in great detail.

Travel incentive programs have long been thought of a sales-oriented incentive only. However, with creative, strategic planning, a strong travel reward program can effectively lower leakage and promote company morale far outside of the sales team. For additional resources, you may be able to learn more at the The Traveller Inc. website.

Starting Your Own Creative Business

Creative

Essential Tips For Starting A Creative Business

The creative sector is a vibrant and flourishing field that plays a significant role in global economic growth and development. One of the biggest employment sectors in the world and one of the most active trade industries, the creative field is a promising industry that offers tremendous potential for the future. If you have ever considered starting up your own creative firm, here are a few tips that could be crucial in ensuring early success and quick growth.

Pay attention to industry trends
One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to limit your focus only to your specific niche. The harsh reality is that the creative industry is a pretty crowded one, and your skills and capabilities–no matter how valued they are currently–will quickly be devalued in the face of so many other competitors. By paying attention to industry trends and expanding your field of specialization, you will have a much better chance of remaining viable in a fast-changing and highly competitive market.

Establish your brand
Once you have determined your approach and your focus, the next step is to establish your brand. Your brand is the sum total of your creative ideas and your rationale for your professional approach. Although establishing a brand is one of the most challenging aspects of starting up a business, the good news is that the means for doing so are more readily available now than ever. Setting up a website can be done easily and inexpensively, and social media channels are accessible to everyone, so take advantage.

Get busy
At some point, you will have to actually produce something of worth that you can show to the world. The last thing you want potential customers and clients to see is a website under construction, so you should focus on that first of all. The next step–or possibly concurrent with setting up a website–is to produce a credible body of work. Aside from giving clients and customers something by which to gauge your capabilities, this will also help establish your company as a legitimate player in the creative industry.

Plan for the future
No company experiences smooth sailing all the time and you are bound to run into rough periods here and there. This is why it is absolutely essential to plan for the lean periods even in the midst of plenty. Even if you already have a solid client list right now, you should make a list of potential clients to consider for the future. This will help ensure the continuous flow of your operations even if–in the worse case scenario–you lose some of your current clients.

Make connections
No business exists in a vacuum. It is important for any business to establish professional relationships with other companies in the creative industry. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you should be best friends with other competing companies (although this might actually have some benefits) but you do want to keep an open relationship with other companies in the creative field. This will only help your company grow stronger and open up a lot more opportunities for you in the future.