cover story
HOME AL OS NE TRICTLY
BL USINESS:
A portrait
of the
home-based
superstar
BY STANLEY C. PLOG
O ne of the more unexpected findings of a study on home-based agents recently
commissioned by Travel Weekly was the surprisingly low annual revenue
and net income of most agents who work out of their homes.
Even the majority of those who work full time at the profession take home a modest
salary from which they must pay all the costs associated
with their business, in addition to membership dues to various associations and trade
groups and, if they use a host agency, fees for those services.
However, the study also showed that a select few home-based agents clearly have
developed highly successful business models and earn incomes
well above the average for U.S. households.
So what factors differentiate the highly successful home-based agent from the vast ma-
jority, who earn less or just a little more than minimum wage? What models do they fol-
low? How do they exceed the norm, in some cases by wide margins?
As a follow-up to Travel Weekly’s previous two articles that reported on the results of
questions asked of home agents, suppliers and agent associations to get a better under-
standing of the characteristics and value of home-based agents, we decided to take a
look at this elite group of top-flight agents to find out what distinguished them from the
rest of the pack.
