So you love to travel? Love to share travel experiences? Want to travel and get paid for it? Love the idea of free travel and other industry perks? You’re in luck – the huge money machine travel industry has great opportunities for bloggers and great perks that come with the job. However, it takes time and effort to build your reputation and gain trust in this highly personal industry.
With so many travel writers and so many expecting a free or discounted ticket, potential clients are careful and sometimes skittish about hiring. The best approach is to build relationships and prove yourself with your work. Your track record and how you present yourself will determine what doors open to you. Here are four tips to help you enter the exciting travel industry market:
1. Be a Straight Shooter. Don’t approach an assignment thinking about the great free travel attached to it. Industry professionals can smell that kind of opportunism and will avoid you. Keep your integrity high and do not sell yourself out in exchange for free travel. Only accept jobs that allow you to keep your integrity. Keep an objective point of view. Prove yourself with your writing and build the right relationships. This will help you get future assignments. Do not take jobs where they expect you to sell out. Make sure your clients know that you will remain objective.
2. Be an Instant Insider. Treat perks as if they are just part of the job. People inside the industry do not start salivating because they got a free upgrade to the presidential suite. You shouldn’t either. Stay humble and thankful. Accept all the great treatment you receive as normal. Very nice, but normal. Don’t be aloof or ungrateful, but don’t get overly excited either. Stay in the middle ground so you can maintain an objective point of view and do your assignment well. Stay humble and avoid raising flags that you may be in it for the perks. Get on the track of being an insider by doing what you love, well.
3. Form and Maintain Relationships. Remember that people are hiring you and people make decisions based on experience. Get some work under your belt and build a reputation. Focus on your niche and approach people in your niche. Follow all rules and agreements to the letter. Don’t be pushy and don’t have expectations of perks. Follow up in a timely, friendly and professional manner. Be polite and outgoing in live social situations. Form relationships so you will be remembered. By forming and maintaining the right relationships, you are planting seeds for future opportunities.
4. Let Your Work do the Talking. As writers we are lucky. We get to put our work out in front. Our work represents us. By proving yourself with good writing you will build a reputation and find new opportunities. With some good experience under your belt, better and better opportunities will come to you.
By not selling out, avoiding expectations, getting on the inside track and forming a network, new roads will open for you to showcase your work. Be patient and get seasoned by experience. Focus on your writing. Before long you will be traveling to dream locations and making a living doing what you love.
[photo credit]
When Joe Hall isn’t developing computer software, hes usually blogging or annoying people on Twitter. But don’t let that fool you, he still enjoys the beach! Joe is the founder of Myrtle Beach Hotels.
TweetTags: advice, blog guide, blogger guide, bloggers guide, guide for bloggers, travel blogging, travel blogs