Believe in yourself because the dream can become a reality. That was the advice Cruise Planners CEO and Co-Founder Michelle Fee gave to hundreds of agents attending the annual Cruise Planners conference at the Intercontinental Hotel Miami over the weekend.
Hundreds of CP franchise owners and agents listened as Fee related her own personal story. Starting her travel industry career in 1981, Fee was a new entrepreneur, married and with a one-year-old child.
“I had no professional travel experience, nor any formal education,” she told the agency owners and staffers. “My paycheck was $100 a week and that's the God honest truth," she told the agents.
"I struggled and I didn't make a great deal of money but I loved travel," she said. "I thought, ‘if I work at this really hard it just might work."
Clearly it did, as Cruise Planners -- founded by Fee, Lynn Korn and Marvin Davis -- is today a top producer for all major cruise lines and this year received the Chairman's Award, the highest award by Royal Caribbean International for a travel agent partner and top seller.
Cruising was very different back then, she humorously related, putting up a photo of the 13,000-grt, 500-passenger SS Dolphin, a small ship built in 1956.
That was Fee's first cruise and "I think that the lifeboat on the Harmony of the Seas is almost that big," she quipped.
That first cruise ship wasn't so cushy either. When she arrived at her stateroom, as a young married woman, she discovered that her cabin had two beds on opposite sides of the room – and the beds were bolted down. Fee joked to the audience that it wasn't exactly condusive to a romantic aura.
When evening dinner time arrived, the ship -- which had no stabilizers -- began to violently rock and roll. She was soon heading for the cabin, a victim of seasickness. Thanks to her husband Mark, though, “we completed the cruise and won first prize in the beer contest," she said. If he hadn't talked her back onboard, "I wouldn’t be here."
“I’m a true believer that I am in control of my own destiny,” she said, noting that it's been 22 years since the inception of Cruise Planners.
Over the years, the firm has become highly successful. “I never lost sight of making this company successful,” she says. “I surrounded myself with smart, positive and supportive people.”
She urged agents to follow their own dreams, because “this dream can become a realilty.”
Fee's view on this tale?: “The reason I share this story is because I didn’t start career as being the CEO. I started like each and every one of you started your business from scratch -- one [training] class at a time.”
Fee's advice to agents or agency owners is to "think big," and don't let anyone tell you that you can't do something.
Yes, some days are tough, she acknowledges, but look at the rewards: “If you have heart, passion, drive and ‘Cruisitude’ that can only lead you in one direction – the path of great success."
This is Part 3 of a three-part story. Agents can go to these links to read Part 1 - Booking and Sales Trends and Part 2 - New Tools and Trade Features.