Ali Raymer: Just Start!

I joined the Roadmap to Success podcast to talk about how I built a travel business from a teaching side hustle, survived losing everything to COVID, and eventually scaled by learning to lead a team.

How did I get into the travel industry in the first place?

I was a high school English teacher running our school's travel club, and my husband's aunt, who owned her own travel agency, noticed what I was doing with students and told me I could sell the same kind of travel to people who could actually pay for it. I learned the business by watching her work every summer.

What did COVID do to my business?

It wiped it out completely, right around the time I had my first child. I made almost nothing that year and went back to teaching temporarily just to keep our family financially afloat, trusting that travel would eventually come back.

What was the moment that got my business back on track?

A FAM trip to Cabo in 2021 changed my whole approach. I realized I needed my own personal brand rather than depending entirely on my agency's identity, so I built my own website and started marketing directly to the clients I actually wanted to work with.

Why did I eventually build a team instead of continuing to do everything myself?

Revenge travel hit so hard after COVID that I became the bottleneck in my own business. I had to learn to say no to the trip types that weren't my strength and bring on people whose superpowers filled those gaps, which is what let me actually scale.

What's my advice for someone thinking about starting their own business?

Be willing to do the unglamorous work for little or no payoff in the beginning. I made pennies an hour for years before this became sustainable, and staying relentless through that season is what separates the people who make it from the people who quit.