Work It Like A Mum
Work It Like A Mum
How One Woman Built a Flexible Home-Based Travel Business Around Her Life (That Pays!)
In this episode of the Work It Like a Mum Podcast, we chat with Hannah Fleming, founder of Ocean Bug Travel, about her journey from running a stressful homewares business to creating a thriving, flexible travel business and network marketing venture.
Hannah shares her honest experience of pivoting her career, building a business around family life, and breaking through industry stereotypes.
What We Cover:
- Hannah’s journey from law to entrepreneurship and key lessons from her first business.
- Discovering the travel business and why it was the perfect fit.
- Running a travel booking business: client types, logistics, and insider tips.
- Understanding commissions and strategies to maximise earnings, including cruises.
- The network marketing side: myths, the real model, and uncapped income potential.
- How this industry empowers women and contributes to closing the gender pay gap.
- Opportunities from global expansion and being an early adopter.
- Practical advice for starting a flexible, low-risk business.
Key Takeaways:
- Experience Matters: Skills from previous ventures are invaluable, even if that business didn’t succeed.
- Flexibility + Income: A travel and network marketing business can offer flexible work hours, low startup costs, and uncapped earning potential.
- Personalised Service Wins: Clients value expertise and time-saving services, especially for complex travel bookings.
- Network Marketing is a Business: Success depends on effort and commitment—not “get rich quick” schemes.
- Women Thriving: Industries without glass ceilings enable ambitious women to earn, lead, and close the gender pay gap.
- Low-Risk Entry: With a small monthly subscription, you can start your own travel agency without high upfront costs.
Why Listen:
If you’re a parent, aspiring entrepreneur, or someone looking for a business that fits around your life, this episode is packed with insights and inspiration.
Show Links:
Connect with our host Elizabeth Willetts here
Connect with Hannah on LinkedIn here
Find Out More About Ocean Bug Travel Here
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Hey, I'm Elizabeth Willis, and I'm obsessed with helping as many women as possible achieve their boldest dreams after kids. And helping you to navigate this messy and magical season of life.
SPEAKER_01:I'm a working mum with over 17 years of equipment experience, and I'm the founder of the Investing in Women Job Board and Community.
SPEAKER_02:In this show, I'm honored to be chatting with remarkable women, redefining our working world across all areas of business. They'll share their secrets on how they've achieved extraordinary success as children, the boundaries of balance, the challenges they face, and how the both of them find their own version of success. Shy away from the real talk. We cover it all. Think of this as coffee with your mate. Mixed with an inspiring TikTok, sprinkled with the career advice you wish you'd really had at school. So grab a cup of coffee or a glass of wine. Make sure you're cozy and get ready to get inspired and chase your oldest dreams. Or just survive Mondays. This is the Work It Like a Mum podcast. This episode is brought to you by Investing in Women. Investing in Women is a job board and recruitment agency helping you find your dream part-time or flexible job with the UK's most family-friendly and forward-thinking employers. Their site can help you find a professional and rewarding job that works for you. They're proud to partner with the UK's most family-friendly employers across a range of professional industries. Ready to find your perfect job? Search their website at investinginwomen.co.uk to find your next part-time or flexible job opportunity. Now back to the show. Hello, welcome to this week's episode of the Work It Like Month Podcast. I am chatting with the gorgeous Hannah Fleming. Hannah is a former lawyer who turned a multi-business founder. She's a passionate for helping women create more freedom in their lives. Um she began her career in corporate law before stepping away to found her first adventure. I'm just pulling a person. I'm going to start again actually. Is that all right? I feel like I've got something on my um my lip. You know, and it's um I think it's my um lip music is like plump. Sorry. Oh no, no, so I was like, I was looking over here. Right, let me start doing that again. Hello, and welcome to today's work it like a one podcast. Today I am chatting with the gorgeous Hannah Fleming. Hannah is a former lawyer-turned multi-business founder. She has a passion for helping women create more freedom in their lives. Hannah began her career in corporate law before stepping away to found her first adventure, which is an online retail business. She built this from the ground up while navigating the early years of motherhood. Um, Hannah, you are definitely a woman to my own heart because I also built a business with a toddler and a baby. Um, she most recently founded and now leads a fast growing travel business. Love it. Combining her love of travel with a mission to empower women and build a flexible, sustainable income streams online. Through this work, she's invented women from a wide range of backgrounds, helping them design careers that work around family lifestyle and personal ambition. I can't wait to chat with you. Love it. I'm like obsessed.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I know I've been really excited for this chat ever since we had our first call after I reached out to you on LinkedIn, and we realized very quickly we had a lot of things in common and a lot of things to say about those things. Yeah, talk to your business, what should your business do? Right. So, as you mentioned, I've got an online travel business. So it's actually like a really simple business model. Um I run a home-based travel agency, which means I'm an independent travel agent. Yeah, but I use a fully accredited host agency to run all my back office systems. So this includes like supplier partnerships, um, all the compliance stuff, booking systems, admin support, customer support, all that kind of thing. So rather than setting up my own travel agency from scratch, which would require things like um accreditation and the legal protections, building the supplier relationship, setting up the booking systems, all that kind of thing, I get to plug into an like a ready-made platform, essentially, um, that already has all of that in place. And I just pay a small subscription fee. It's like 32 pounds a month to essentially plug in to those support functions, um, which leaves me free then to just focus on the income-producing um area of the business. So just building my client base, booking travel, um, and ultimately earning commissions from booking that travel, just like any other travel agent would, but I get to do it obviously for myself rather than working for someone else. Um, there's also an optional business building side to the business, which is a network marketing model, which I know we're going to talk a little bit more about. Um, so through this side of the business, I get to mentor other people who want to start their own travel businesses like I do. So I have um essentially an affiliate link that I can share with people who are interested in joining the business. Um I help onboard them, I help coach them, mentor them, get them thriving in their businesses. And then in turn, I can I've started building like an additional passive income stream from that side of the business. So that's it in a nutshell. There's kind of two great sides to the business, the travel booking side and the network marketing model that's attached to it. I suppose it's just like business coaching, really, isn't it? The network marketing. Do you know what? It very much is. And I was like a lot of people that join our opportunity when I started it. I mean, I'm a travel lover, right? I always have been. When I came across this platform, I was like, this is a no-brainer for me because I literally love travel. I'm always recommending travel, I'm always booking travel. Why would I not do it through my own booking systems, right? And then earn commission back from doing that. I knew about the kind of other side of the business, the network marketing bit, but I really had no interest in it. I didn't know a lot about that industry. I was like, that's not for me. I'm just in it for the for the booking. And we find a lot of people join the platform with exactly that um, that approach to it. But over the time that I've been, so I joined the business like early 2024. And during 2024, I kind of tripped into the network marketing side a little bit because basically I was telling friends and family about my new travel agency business that I was really excited about. And they started saying to me, like, that sounds really cool. I want to do that. So, like within a week of telling my best friend about it, she'd joined, and then like my cousin's wife joined, and a neighbor joined, and all these kind of things. And I was suddenly like, hold on, there's something here, like this is really interesting. And it forced me to Did they join your team then at that point? They did, yeah. They joined me. And they didn't join. Like, this sounds great. I want to do this. And I was like, uh, I can actually help you with that. Like, I can do your own travel business. So I started like during the course of last year, just learning a bit more about that side of the business, which ultimately meant like educating myself on network marketing and how that works. And I was like, hold on, this is an amazing opportunity here. This is this is incredible, right? There's just there's so much on the table, like ready for the taking. And so I kind of went a bit further in and got really involved in building my team. And I suddenly realized actually I love this side of the business because, like you said, it's very much like mentoring and coaching. And I love that. Like, I love helping other people, I love mentoring people. I'd even thought in the past whether like a career in coaching would be something for me. And suddenly I found a way to do that through this travel business. And whilst working in the travel industry, so I was like, this is this is perfect.
SPEAKER_02:Love it. Yeah, it does. And um what was it gonna say to you? I think what's the beauty about network marketing, it's like a franchise, isn't it? Really? Well, it's so much more affordable than a franchise.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, I know, absolutely. And also, I mean, you mentioned that my first foray into entrepreneurship was my online retail business, right? It's a homewares brand. And it was actually tied to travel because um, along with my passion for travel, I've always like loved interiors and property, and I always had this little idea that one day I'd love to like source beautiful homewares on my travels and bring them back and sell them in the UK. So that was kind of my my first venture. And I did, I used to travel to India and Vietnam and places to like source these products um for my homewares business. But the thing about that business was, I mean, I had to build it ground up, like most businesses that people start. It was like brick by brick. It was like every little bit of it, not just the exciting, fun, glamorous side of it, like every little bit, like the legal stuff, you know, like the shipping and logistics factories, you know, all this kind of stuff. I had to build that brick brick by bit, brick, sorry. And that takes time and it takes money, right? Yeah. There's no fun, there's no funding for businesses like that. There's very little funding generally in the UK for businesses at the moment, anyway. So it was completely bootstrapped by me. Um, you know, businesses like that can take ages to become profitable. They do require constant pumping in of finances. They are very risky because the reality is like when you're dealing with a product-based business, you're buying products, you're keeping them in a factory, you know, you need help with all this stuff, which means you've got monthly bills that you've got to meet and sales targets you've got to meet every month. When I and that and that became stressful, right? That research take over my life. It became really intense. I lot of I know a lot of people find that about these kind of small businesses. Not to mention you're doing about seven people's full-time jobs, no, not just one, all these kind of things. So when I found this travel business, I was like Were you still running your retail business when you found the travel business? I was. It came along in early 2024 and I was still running my homewares business, and I was like absolutely not in the market for another business. I was like up to high balls with my homewares one. But it came around, and actually I can tell you the kind of longer story of this, um, because it was actually the second time that it came around to me, but this was the one where I jumped in. So, what happened the first time? So basically, when I was back in um it's COVID days, and I was still working full-time as a lawyer, and I came across this opportunity, this travel opportunity on Instagram. Oh, right. And I saw somebody talking about it, and I was immediately like, oh my god, what is this? Like as someone who loves travel, I was like, this sounds amazing. And I back then I was someone who loved travel, but also I had always, although I'd been a lawyer for like 15 years, I'd always had a little voice that kind of wanted to do something for myself. You know, I really wanted to work.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you can't if you I think you really some people just have it, aren't they?
SPEAKER_00:And you can't let go of that itch. That's it. You can't, it's just in you, and you're like, I've got at some point in my life, I've got to do something about this. And I just for years I was like, I know I want to do something, but I don't know what it is. And anyway, I found this travel opportunity and I was like, this sounds um amazing and I should look into it. And I kind of watched a little bit on Instagram, not for very long, just like a week or two, and did a bit of kind of poking around. But like a lot of people, when it came to the network marketing side, I suddenly was getting skeptical, right? I've I'm from a really traditional background, like I've been taught that there's like one education. Scams everywhere. Exactly. And there's like a traditional education system, there's a traditional job, you know, you go, you you study to get a job of a certain type in a certain company, and like that's what success looks like. Yeah, and everything else is a scam. And so, of course, I not knowing anything about network marketing was like, um, I don't really know what this is. Yeah, it sounds dodgy. Sounds a bit dodgy, exactly. And at the time, I also we were in COVID, and I was like, don't know if that's the right time to set up a travel business. So it was lots of, there was lots of reasons why not, but the ultimate one was I don't really know what this is all about. I don't know anyone doing it, so I kind of left it. But I will say, over the years that followed, it was just in the back of my mind, this travel thinking, like, should I look that up again? Um, what was that about? Should I do more? Because one of the things that annoys me now about it was like I didn't really explore it enough then. I just kind of like let myself be put off by the idea and walked away from it rather than being like, why don't I explore it? Why don't I do my due diligence? Why don't I educate myself on it a bit more, you know, and make an informed decision. So anyway, it stayed with me over the years and I kept thinking, should I go back to that and find out more about it? What was it again? That kind of thing. And I was really lucky where early last year I actually went to a women in business event um in my local area, one of the cafes in my local area. And I went with my homewares business, and that's where I bumped into Sarah, who's my upline now in the business. Well, it's an upline, you'll have to explain what an upply is. Okay, so an upline in our business is the person who essentially like brings you into the business and they become your direct kind of mentor and help with the onboarding and just generally kind of help you to thrive in the business. So I met her at this event and she was talking to me about you know, which is what what our businesses were, and she said, I've got a leadership business and a travel business. And I was obviously like, well, tell me about the travel one because that sounds exciting. And uh as soon as she started talking, I was like, I can stop you there. I know exactly what you're talking about. I never nearly did this a few years ago. And I was like, I'm so glad I've met you. Can we go for coffee? And you tell me, and I think within two days we'd gone for coffee and I signed up straight away. So going back to what happened to your homewares business then? Were you what how were you feeling about your homewares business at that point? Well, see, at this point, I was like knee deep in it and it was it was busy, it was taking a lot out of me, but it was busy, and I was preparing for like my sort of new collection launch, which I was really excited about from India and stuff early next early last year. So there was a lot going on with that. So going back to what I was saying, I wasn't in the market for another business at all. And I really jumped into this one because I was like, I don't want it to pass me by again. There's a reason I felt like the universe had been exactly. And also at the time I was like, it doesn't have to be my main business. It was very much for me going to be a side fun project. I was like, I'm supposed to be. Yeah, I book travel all the time and I recommend travel. I can just do a bit of travel booking for my family and friends and make a bit of extra money through that. I can enjoy the perks of being in the travel industry myself, um, because you do obviously get some perks like being in the travel industry. So I was like, I'll just use it for that. I mean, the running costs are so incredibly low, like this will just be a bit of fun. Then during the course of 2024 was when I started learning a bit more about the business. Like I was talking to you about, and some people started joining me, and I suddenly was like educating myself on network marketing. And I was like, I started to realize the potential in this business, right? And at the same time, I was starting to feel unbelievably burnt out by my other business, by my homework business. And I was like, the reality of the homework business was as much as I loved it, and at any other point in my life, I might have really enjoyed the grind and growing it and everything. I had ultimately started it when I started it because I had a young family, I had a young kid, and I was after flexibility and freedom and all those kind of things. That's why I left law. And I'd ended up in this situation with this business that part of me loved, but the other part of me was like, this isn't giving me any of the things that I wanted. I'm like, were you on your own then doing your retail business? I was, yeah. I had like, you know, I outsourced stuff and use freelancers and things, but ultimately I was on my own. I did it on my own. And I was just like, this isn't giving me what I wanted, right? I wanted this is giving me stress. I'm working all hours, all that kind of thing. So as I started realizing about that about my homeows business, I was like, this travel business is the opposite of that. It is like low risk, it is low cost to run, it's like there's uncapped earning potential, it's truly flexible, like I can actually manage it around my family. I don't have to work all hours anymore, you know. And that's when everything switched for me. So by the end of 2024, I was like, I am doing it wrong. Like I've learned a lot from my from my online resale business, but this travel business is what's going to give me what I'm after, really. And that's when I kind of made the switch and earlier this year decided to wind down, you know, in the first half of the year, I started winding down my uh homework business and just winding up my travel business essentially.
SPEAKER_02:So the homeware business now no more. Yeah, it's no more, sadly. Oh, how was that? It was because you spent a long time building it. There must have been a period of like do I do it, don't I do it, and then grief and then absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think there always is, and it was really hard. I mean, there were certain points that were hard, like shutting down the website, you know, like setting down my chef, my sales channels like Etsy and the website and stuff, because I was like looking at all the it's just even seeing all the early stuff and you're like, oh, exactly, and all the beautiful products you put so much into and like the photography and you know, the just so there's so much detail that people don't even realize how much time and effort you put into all of it, you know. And that was really hard, just like they're gone, you know. Um, but there was also another part of me that was relieved. I was just so burnt out, you know. I was kind of, I think when I first took the decision, I found the decision making hard. You know, what am I gonna do? What am I gonna do? And then I and I think this is probably a really like typical, you know, process for a lot of people going through this, but you know, a lot of like heartache over what should I do about this. Then when I made the decision to close up, I felt a lot of relief. And then when I was actually going through the process of closing it, I felt a lot of grief. You know, I think it was just I think it's probably a very similar process for a lot of people. Um, but the great thing was I had a plan. I think it must be so much harder for people when they're starting a business, but they don't know what's next. You know, I was doing it partly because I'd found something else that I felt suited me better. So I knew where I was going to be putting my energy after that, and that definitely helped.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I get that. Yeah, and I've heard so many times that the most successful founders, it's not their first business. This is what I had to keep telling myself. You like learn so much from the homewares business, you wouldn't be here what so quickly where you are now and so successful so fast within the travel business if you hadn't done all that learning.
SPEAKER_00:It's so true though, and I'm actually telling myself that because it's really hard not to think, you know, I definitely had those moments of like it's all been for nothing, and like all those weekends and evenings and time away from my little girl when she was young and everything I put into it and the money and all that kind of thing. It's really hard not to regret all of that. Yeah, but I knew, like just on a really practical level, I was like, you have it, it's not for nothing. It might not be obvious to you right now exactly what it was all for, but you've certainly learned so much. I mean, before that, like I said, I've been a lawyer my whole career. I didn't know anything about even social media, you know, social media selling online, any kind of like online businesses generally. I knew nothing about any of it. And I knew nothing about what it felt like to run a small business, even. You know, even just that learning of like what it feels like to run a small product business versus, you know, now is more of a service business. You know, I've kind of learned all those things through this process. So I think, yeah, I'm absolutely um a different person now having gone through that. And I've certainly learned so much. So you don't you really can't regret those experiences. I think it's true what people say that you only really regret the things you don't do, not the things that you do do. And I really feel that quite, you know, passionately because I I'll never look back on Ivy Moore, which is my homework's business, really, and feel regret. I'll be like, that's really cool. That was something I had thought about for so many years, and I did it. And I worked out that it wasn't the right thing for me at that point, but I did it, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, love that. So talk us through the travel side of the business then. So, how does that work? And I'm just curious. So, how you know, so how do you gather potential customers?
SPEAKER_00:How do you make the bookings? Yeah, so I mean, as I mentioned, it's like obviously you're an independent travel agent, so it is your business, which is what's amazing about it for people that are looking for ultimate flexibility, right? And people come in to this opportunity um with tot with different everyone's got different goals and things that they want to achieve with their life. And the great thing about this platform with the kind of do different sides of the business and stuff is that it really offers something for everyone. So some people come in and they're like, I just want to make a bit of side income. Like I already have my full-time job and I'm happy in it, but I want to make some side income because we all know things that for anyone right now, okay? Like so many people like need a bit of extra income, they don't know where it's gonna come from. Um, so some people are like, Oh yeah, small side income. I'm just gonna do some booking for family and friends. Um, you know, save a bit on my own travel, which is exactly what my motivations were coming into it. Um, and other people come in and they're like, I'm on maternity leave, and it's becoming really obvious to me that I'm just not gonna, we're not gonna be able to manage with me going back to full-time working whatever I was doing before. And, you know, I'm an ambitious woman and I want something. I mean, that's a big thing. We have so many women, I mean, there's so many women in your community I know that are like, I'm ambitious, I want something from myself. It's not even just survival. It's like I have a brain, I want to use it, I want to build something, but I cannot see how my old corporate job is going to work around, you know, around family. So we have women coming in with those kind of goals to actually build a business, but build something completely flexibly. You know, I've got people who want to focus on the mentoring and coaching and the network marketing side, and some people who want to build huge travel age travel brands and travel agency businesses. So it's, you know, we can support on, you know, depending on what your goals are. And obviously, people's approach to building their businesses depends on what those goals are. So, in terms of finding clients, um, if you're somebody who's just looking for a side income, you're going to be looking at your warm network, right? You're going to be looking at the people that you know. And that's not just family and friends, that's like old school friends, old colleagues, you know, things like that. And just getting in touch with people and telling them what you're what you're doing. And you can find that the travel booking business can grow really organically just from doing that. You know, there's a lot of people out there that are really happy to hand over travel bookings and the time it takes to somebody else who's an expert in their area. Um, you know, it's a service they don't have to pay for because ultimately we get paid through the commissions from booking the travel. So if you say to a really busy mom or you know, career woman, uh, do you want me to book your family holiday? So you don't have to waste half a day or a day doing the research yourself and you don't even have to pay for it, like that's a pretty easy sell for somebody who's really busy, right?
SPEAKER_02:I was gonna say, why would they choose you as customer as opposed to going on like Jet 2 or 2e or?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so I think the way I always look at it is there's two people there's two types of people when it comes to travel, right? Most people love travel, but there are two types of people. There are people like me who love the researching and booking process, right? I'm always researching travel, I'm always thinking about it. I love finding places to go and I love booking it. They are obviously people like that are not going to be my travel booking clients, right? Because they love doing it themselves. But those kind of people you can obviously talk to about the platform. Because it's like, well, actually, if you love booking travel, you should be using this platform, right? You should have your own booking systems. You can make money doing this, right? And then there's the other type of person, which is a person I just mentioned, which is like the busy career woman or mom or somebody, or even older generations that aren't so good with um, you know, online and like researching and booking things online, and they don't really know how to do it and they don't want to do it, but they do know that they want to go on a three-month cruise next year. You know what I mean? So there's that there's that demographic as well, which is a really interesting client base. And so people like that love the idea of offloading just the time and effort that goes into actually booking something. They just want to enjoy the holiday. As an independent travel agent, you can obviously take that off your hat off their hands, but you can also give that kind of bespoke service. You know, they're talking to a person, it's like, what do you want from this holiday? What are you looking for? Are you a city person? Are you an activity person? Are you want to chill on a beach? And just give a really kind of personalized service for doing it. It also means that, you know, for these people, they've got a point person if they've got questions or anything goes wrong or anything like that, it's kind of they've got a point person to go to to help with all of that. And also ultimately, hotels like working with travel agents more than just people that book online. And so we have a better chance of being able to get you an upgrade and things like that. It's obviously not something you can promise, but we always like, you know, I know independent travel agents are always trying to get kind of the best treatment for their clients, and it often works. We will be the ones that are first in line for an upgrade if it's available and all that kind of thing for our clients. So we can just offer those kind of optional extras that give that really kind of personalized service.
SPEAKER_02:Because I remember we went to Turkey in half-term. Yeah, and it was like a lot of time because I was trying to find somewhere with a heated pool because everyone said you have to have somewhere with a heated pool at that time of year. And then somewhere with two bedrooms, you know, like a two-bedroom family room. Yeah. And it's not obvious when you go on like the two we website and you're faced with like hundreds of listings until you click in, then you have to, it does take a long time.
SPEAKER_00:It does. If you've got really specific needs, like families often do. I mean, one of the bookings I did over the summer was for a friend of mine um and her family, and she has got three children, right? And I I didn't even realize until now how actually complex it is trying to book hotel rooms for a family with three kids. Yeah. Because you, you know, not all hotel rooms will allow three children or have the space to have three kids in one room. Um, then if you kind of have different room, you know, you have different rooms because one of the kids is they're not quite at the age where they can be on their own. So you're looking at having a parent in each room. Yeah, and that's not a holiday, which is not what the parents want. Um, you know, then you can look at suites and stuff. You've got to find places with like either interconnecting rooms or suites, but it's still got to fall within the budget. So things like that are time consuming and complicated, right? And so that's why I think a lot of people are really happy to like offload onto somebody else who does have that support. You know, we work, we have like around a hundred supplier partners in the UK. We work with all the like big brand suppliers, um, every like all the cruise lines, everyone from Disney to Etiad holidays, Jet Two holidays. We're partnered with all of them. Um, so we can work really closely with them to make sure that you know we can find the things that you need when you've got these really specific kinds of um criteria that need to be met for your holiday. Yeah, yeah. Is it more expensive to book through you? No, it's definitely not more expensive. I mean, I wouldn't also say that we're budget because nobody can promise to always beat every price where there just wouldn't be any competition in the market. But we can be extremely competitive. And the reason is, as I mentioned, we're kind of partnered with all these travel supplier partners. So we have really good access to most of the travel that's on sale, like uh in the market generally. And our host agency has its own booking engine as well that we can book through, and that actually scrapes rates from across the internet. So we can book booking.com rates and expedia rates and hotel bed weight rates and webbed and stuff. So even though we can't promise to always be cheaper, we can promise that we have a really good oversight of what's in the market to be at least competitive. And then there are absolutely times when we can find a client a much better rate than what they've been able to find themselves online.
SPEAKER_02:And you abtor, is it abtor?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, abtron atoll protected. Yeah, we are that, which is great because sometimes people don't kind of realize some of the you know other big holiday or travel companies out there, some of them aren't abturent atoll protected. And we've certainly have people come to us and say, oh, well, I found it cheaper on X website. And you sort of think it might be, but they're not protected. So if that company goes bust or the airline goes bust or something, you've lost all money that you put into that holiday. You know, so I do think people uh need to be savvy about that and kind of realize um how important that protection is, and we are so lucky to have it. And it speaks to the credibility of the host agency as well that we've even got it because it's not it's not something that every travel agency is, you know, gets essentially.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. So you get commission, don't you, on your own bookings? Tell me how that works then.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we do. So um we can obviously just book travel um ours, we can book travel for clients, but equally we can book travel ourselves, and because we're doing it through our own booking systems, we're then able to kind of claim back the commission because we're a travel agent on our own bookings. So although it's something that uh we're not supposed to sell the platform on technically, but that is obviously something that you are able to do. You have your booking systems, you can claim back commission, and that ultimately makes your own travel cheaper. So again, if you're somebody that's booking a lot of travel for yourself and recommending travel to other people, why would you not have your own booking systems to do it through? You know?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Well, see um so if someone booked a two, let's say a£2,000 holiday through you, um how much what's the commission on something like that?
SPEAKER_00:So the commissions generally range from sort of 8% to 20%, and they are dependent on firstly. That's quite a good commission, isn't it? Really good. And it depends on the type of travel that you're buying.
SPEAKER_02:I mean I've said two grand, which I mean I know that's a lot of money, but people tend to spend more than that, don't they?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. No, totally. People can spend, I mean, yeah, some of the commissions that people earn in this business are wild. I can tell you about a couple of them. But um, but yeah, ultimately, so it's eight percent to 20% uh is the kind of commission range, and it most typically sits within 10 to 15 percent because that's what hopes you tend to get for hotels and package holidays, which is a lot of what people book. If you are a savvy agent, like a lot of our guys are, you might focus on cruises because that's where you get the 18 to 20 percent. And obviously, they are very high value tickets anyway. So, you know, always recommend anyone who is interested in learning about cruise booking. I mean, we have all the training anyway, so you can kind of come on board and I like a cruise. Yeah, I haven't been on a cruise because typically that hasn't been, I I my kind of travel has been more like boutique kind of hotels, has always been like a passion of mine. But since I was in the business, when I realized that cruises got like 18 to 20 percent, and I was like, hold on a second, that's a really good commission. And it suddenly became very clear why some of our agents actually specialise in cruises, um, like doing just cruises and being a cruise specialist, which makes a lot of sense because, like I said, the high value tickets, um, I also think it's a really growing area. I feel like cruises are really coming back into fashion a bit. Do you know what I mean? Like more and more people are wanting to do them. And it's quite a tricky area to book as well. Like there are, you know, we have training on it, like so. We have quite a lot of training um to sort of become really good at cruise booking because there's a bit to learn. And so that means actually for some people, it is a bit of a, you know, they're not quite sure where to start when they want to buy themselves, when they want to book themselves a cruise. So again, it's where if you are a specialist in that area as an independent travel agent, you can really build a client base for yourself, very niche client base for yourself quite quickly and do really well out of it. So, yeah, that's the kind of range, like I said, typically 15, 10 to 15%, but it can be up to 20%, which is great. So, what's like the most commissioned people, if they're just focusing on the travel side, or what you know, if you want to do it.
SPEAKER_02:I know it depends, doesn't it? I suppose with how much like anything, it's what you get, you get what you put in, don't you?
SPEAKER_00:You absolutely do. I mean, it's this on the travel booking side, there's two things to think about, which is you know, what I always tell my kind of um my new team members when they start. And it's like, um, obviously how many hours you're gonna put into it. You know, is going to determine how much you're going to get out of it. Are you going to treat it like a side income and a side hobby, or do you want to treat it like a business? You know, and that's completely for that person to decide. And it will either pay you like a side hobby or can pay you like a business, depending on how many hours you put into it and how you work it. But also you want to think about your client base and who you're targeting, because the reality is it can obviously take a similar amount of time or the same amount of time to research, like a budget trip for five days somewhere in Europe, as it can to research and book a large family, you know, luxury family holiday to the Maldives for a week, right? They can take a similar amount of time to put together, but you're going to be paid a lot more commission for one of them. So you want to be thinking about what clients you're targeting, what area of travel you want to be booking. And obviously the most efficient way to make money is to be targeting the more kind of luxury end of travel because you will simply get paid more per booking if you do that. So yeah, we've had people, I mean Do you do business travel as well? That's a really interesting because that's an area that I actually personally want to get into. So I haven't, up to now, I have done generally But do some people in your business do business travel? Some people do, yeah. And it's an area that I really want to get into because again, I feel like um it's a really good way of kind of scaling earnings because if you you're suddenly booking, I don't know, hotel for numerous people for like a conference or something like that, then that's going to be a big old booking, isn't it? So it's an area that I'm starting to look into myself because I think there's a lot of opportunity there. Love it.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so you've got that side. So you've got the travel side, um, and you obviously get your own link. Um, how much is it to join and to run that?
SPEAKER_00:So the for the for the platform as a whole, it's£156 in your first month. That's just your kind of onboarding fee. You get your business in a box, basically. Exactly. And your IARTA license, which is your travel agency accreditation to be able to work as a travel agent in the UK, which is absolutely key. Um, so you get that for the£156 first month, and then it's£46 a month to run from the second month every month after that. And then you get both sides of the business for that. So you get your travel booking business, and you also get your affiliate link and your kind of network marketing administration, everything done for that as well. So it's incredibly accessible opportunity and incredibly low risk, and particularly.
SPEAKER_02:I guess if you don't like it, you just stop, don't you?
SPEAKER_00:And stop paying. Yeah, exactly. There's no there's no contract, you're not tied in. So if you want to stop at any point, you literally send an email and you know, you'll it's essentially like a subscription payment, and your subscription will just stop. But you, you know, while you want to keep having access to the business and the systems, you keep paying a subscription. If you don't want it, you stop paying a subscription. It's as simple as that, which makes it again also so low risk, you know, for anybody wanting to give it a try. But yeah, so the other side of the business obviously is your affiliate link, like you said, and your network marketing side of it, which I know you and me have chatted loads.
SPEAKER_02:We chatted about it because um yeah, so network marketing obviously can get a bad wreck. Why do you think that is?
SPEAKER_00:It's really interesting, isn't it? Because I can't, I mean, I have to say, when people get really nervous about it being a scam or starting to use the dreaded phrase pyramid scheme with me or something like that these days, I do, I can find myself rolling my eyes and I have to remind myself of the story that I just told you, which is that I had that feeling when I first saw this opportunity years ago, right? And I and I had that feeling, and I always think to myself, where did that even come from? Right. And I just think it is that we are so educated um and kind of programmed to feel like there's just kind of one route to success and financial stability and stuff. I think sometimes it can almost program us to think anything outside of that is naturally abnormal and we've got to be wary of it. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I get that, yeah. Which is but what I find really odd about network marketing these days is it's actually such a huge industry. Like it's massive. It's worth hundreds of billions of dollars globally. I mean, it's just enormous. And there are a lot of brands out there that have been around, network marketing companies that have been around a lot longer than we have. And and you know, people are aware of them, they're aware of these companies. It might not be something that they want to do, but I find it odd that in this day and age there's still so much skepticism about it because it's not it's not some kind of crazy new fad. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_02:I wonder, because obviously I'm in network marketing as well, and I hear that pyramid thing. And I wonder if it's I wonder if people have joined it and they've not really gone joined network marketing industry, realizing it's a business. Yeah, it's your business, and therefore you have to create the opportunities, and people have gone in and they've not made any money out of it, and therefore they've gone, it's a scam and told all their friends uh only the people at the top make the money, but it's because the people people make money in network marketing if they do the work. Nobody goes into it. I don't believe any network marketing business at any point apart from the bottom has to do the work to work up.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, I couldn't agree with you more. I think that's exactly the problem with that. I think a lot of people join with this kind of hope or belief that it's somehow going to be like a get-rich quick scheme.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, get rich quick scheme.
SPEAKER_00:And they just think I'm gonna join, and in a couple of months I'm gonna be earning what that top earner earns or something. And then they don't put the work in, and it does require work and it requires commitment, just like any business that you want to start, yeah, requires work and commitment. Any new job that you start requires work and it's exactly the same. And like you said, I think they do it for a month or two and just go, oh my god, like too much anywhere with this, it's too hard, it's not making any money. This is a total scam. And that's what they're saying. It's like it's not a scam, it's just that you haven't done anything like you've not given it enough time.
SPEAKER_02:And I just think I've because I've obviously got a network marketing business and a traditional business like you. I didn't pay myself in my traditional business for about six, seven months. And when I started paying myself, I paid myself about£700 a month, and I did that for about a year, and I kind of think people would have said that's a scam, that's a scam, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00:A bit of it, the amount of work I was putting in. Yes, totally. I mean, this is exactly it about running businesses, and it was the same with me with my home house business, and I was pumping money into that business, I was pumping a lot more money into that business than£46 a month. Do you know what I'm thinking? And it's like that wasn't a scam, that's part of building a business. Yeah, and the thing that people don't realize is like almost how lucky they are to have an available business model like this because it does make it more accessible. Yeah, I was in a privileged position that I had savings, that I was able to start my homeows business and pump money into it, right? Um, but it became the cost of it, it became even prohibitive for me. And like I said, there's no funding for those type of businesses or or anything like that, which naturally makes entrepreneurship um the kind of playground of the privileged without without models like this. You know what I mean? Because it's it's prohibitively expensive for most people. If you say to people you're gonna have to pump a lot of money and you're not gonna earn anything for potentially years, are you gonna do it? They'd be like, I don't have a choice, I can't do that. You know what I mean? And so what I love about these network marketing models is that it does make it more accessible for people. It gives everyone a chance to be an entrepreneur and to build the kind of life that they want to build, but they do have to see it as a business, like you said, it's not a get rich, quick scheme. No one's just gonna hand them something for no work. That's not how it works, that's just not how it works, right? So I do I think you're absolutely right, and then it all becomes a bit self-perpetuating because then people use the what throw around the word scam or particularly use the term pyramid scheme without again being educated in what a pyramid scheme actually is. I think a lot of people say, Isn't this a pyramid scheme? You could say to them, Do you do you know what a pyramid scheme is? And they probably couldn't really tell you what that was.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But the problem is they sort of say these things or they tell their friends that, oh, isn't that a pyramid scheme or whatever? And then people, people are always nervous at being scammed online. Yeah, yeah. They're always nervous about it. So all it takes is somebody who doesn't know the business um or doesn't understand what a pyramid scheme is to just say those words and it will just put someone else, it will put someone off otherwise being interested in the business, and then they'll say the same thing to someone else, and it all just becomes a bit self-perpetuating, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_02:I do agree, and I think it's a shame, and also I've got people in my team as well, and I think because it's network marketing like you, and they are embarrassed to say that they do this as well as whatever they're doing, yeah, because of the image that the poor image that the industry has.
SPEAKER_00:Uh totally, and I think that is one of the biggest mindset hurdles to people joining this industry. I think there are so many more people that would want to do it and that are desperate for the lifestyle that it can offer um and they don't do it because they're so worried about what other people think. Yeah, and it's such a shame because it's like regardless of whether this industry has a great rep or a bad rep or whatever, is it something you want to do? Because if it is, why do you care if it's not something that your mate would do? You know what I mean? Because ultimately, like I would never be an accountant. It just is not for me. It's just not for me, right? That doesn't, it's no shade on accountants. It's an amazing career for a lot of people who love it and find it really interesting. Say with network marketing, it's not for everyone, but it might be for you. Now, if you know, so why would you listen to a friend of yours if they said, Oh no, you you don't want to do network marketing? You know what I mean? You might be like, well, actually, I do. It would really suit me. It's gonna offer me the kind of things that I want. I want to try running a business. I don't have a ton of money to put into a traditional business, or I want flexibility, and I need to be able to work around my family, or I want an uncapped income. You know, there might be people that want that, but it's such a shame when they listen to the opinions of other people, and that kind of stops them from doing it because ultimately those people are not paying your bills. Work out what you want, you know what I mean, and what you want from your life and go after that and just block out the noise, you know, you've got to block out the noise. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:Love it. So talk me through the earning potential. What are some of the people? What's the earning potential then in the travel business maker's gel?
SPEAKER_00:But it's wild. I mean, I yeah, I can't make you jealous in that I'm not there yet, but I'm yeah, it's fully my plans. I mean, the amount of money that people are making now, I could have deep regret, let's put it that way, from not joining when I found this opportunity in COVID because the things that people have done in the last five years are quite incredible. I mean, we've got um, you know, we've got uh actually the our top income earner globally um for the network side of the business, network marketing side of the business is actually based in the UK. She's done incredibly well called Rachel Lauchy. She is on um a million dollars a year passive income, and she is within a hair's whisker of that doubling, um, which is just that's gonna be a hell of a pay rise, that's for sure. Um, we have got so many women now earning. And what I love about your business is it's women, mostly women, is it? Have you got any men? Yeah, it's women, and I think that's I think that's women like absolutely crushing it. Yeah, I know.
SPEAKER_02:And they're like putting two fingers up to corporate. It's just absolutely crushing it, living their dream from home, doing this. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:No, it's so true because I mean, you know, one of our um They are closing that gender pay gap one booking at a time. Thank you, and they're doing it. I mean, Rachel Laujee, who I was just talking about, has got four kids. Yeah. Right? Look what she's doing, like with her life, with her. And this is what I love about it, because I felt this deeply when um I had my little girl. I'd always been ambitious. I always knew I wanted to build something for myself. I had, like we talked about, that little entrepreneurial voice, just saying, like, build something. But the point was, I was really keen that having a family wasn't gonna necessarily stop me from achieving my personal goals, right? And I went into it with that view. And of course, you have a kid, and then you're like, no, I have no idea how this is gonna work. Like, yeah, it's difficult, isn't it? It's difficult. Totally. And it's like, but I didn't lose my ambition. I didn't want to lose myself completely. I wanted to find a way to have something for myself and keep building. And like you said, you know, uh, yeah, just have something for myself, close that gender pay gap, all those kind of things that made me so cross. Like, why are women always the ones losing out? I mean, this is just that's probably a whole other podcast that we could get into. But that's why I feel quite passionate about getting the word out about network marketing and trying to change like people's perception of this industry because what I've seen from it is a lot of women, like you said, who are smart, ambitious women coming into this business, like having kids, having a career break, and then being like, what is what's my next step? Yeah, and then just be like, What's my next step? And they find this and they're like, This is what I'm gonna do. I can genuinely run this around my family. Yeah, and it is totally uncapped pay. It's also the structure of network marketing, like me, and you have chatted about this before. If you hit the certain milestones in whatever network marketing company you're with, you automatically move up. There is no going to a boss and asking for a pay rise or asking for a promotion, or like you said, like we were talking about earlier, like waiting for someone to leave the company so you can move up. It doesn't work like that. You put in the hours, you hit the goals, you will be paid more as you go up, you will hit the different ranks as you go up. There's no glass ceiling in network marketing. None. It just happens automatically. No glass ceiling. Here we have an industry like that, and guess who's dominating and absolutely killing it? Like you said, it's women, yeah, right?
SPEAKER_02:When you have a gen an industry that does not have a glass ceiling, you are right, it's women that are exactly women that are just killing it.
SPEAKER_00:But you asked about men as well, and actually, it's really interesting watching how many men are starting to take an interest in this, and I think for two reasons. Firstly, because they just realized the business opportunity, you know, men that are straight down the line about this is an opportunity to make money and I want to do that. But there's also a lot of men. Why shouldn't men want the flexibility that women also crave when they have families and stuff? Because honestly, like the more men that can build that kind of flexibility into their working life, that is only going to benefit the you know, the women in their life and the kids in their lives, right? So I'm as passionate that men should also be able to find business models where they can work flexibly, and then you have a lot more flexibility generally within a kind of family environment, which is great. And we've certainly had some men who are doing really well, they've got their own personal stories related to their kids and stuff about why they found this opportunity and why they're doing it. And it's it's amazing, you know, that they they are recognizing as well that they, for whatever reasons, necessary or just from desire, want to be around for their kids and they're gonna find a flexible way of working and and you know, achieving that, which is brilliant.
SPEAKER_02:Love it. Absolutely. Do you know what I read about as well that work marketing? It creates more millionaires in the world by real estate or something like that.
SPEAKER_00:I know. There's some wild stats. I always say to people when people are like worried about I can tell, you know, somebody suddenly whispered in their ear that it's a scam or something like that. And I'm always like, honestly, get on Chat GPT, like educate yourself, do what I didn't do in 2021. It's like all you have to do is like give me some stats on network marketing, chat GPT, and you'll be like blown away by the size of the industry, the earning potential in the industry. Like it's absolutely incredible, you know. And our particular travel business is so lucky because we're we're in the early stages, you know, of this business. It is growing at such a rate. Um, we're opening in new global territories all the time. So many more to come next.
SPEAKER_02:So people that are joining now, like I was gonna say, they can join wherever then, because we got people that listen to this that aren't UK, they're um global. Obviously, people listen to the U.S. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:So the territories that we operate in at the moment are um USA, because that's where it all started. It's the American company um on both sides, USA, uh UK, obviously. Yeah, which I think is the fastest growing territory. I mean, we've just been killing it. Oh my god, we're doing something good. Yeah, yeah, absolutely killing it. I think we're um very we've got a very kind of forward thinking approach to it in this country, like within our travel business, because I think people are really leveraging social media to build in a way that I think the traditional network marketing model in the USA was very much kind of um face-to-face. You know, you talk to your networks face to face and you hold um kind of presentation mornings and stuff like that, which a hundred percent has its place. But I think the UK kind of ran with this opportunity leveraging social media to like make contacts and build awareness and stuff, and so it's just been incredibly successful over here. Um, so yeah, USA, UK, um, Caribbean Islands, Republic of Ireland at the moment.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, lovely, because actually we've got I get lots of people message me from Ireland looking for work. So yeah, that's good to do.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, Republic of Ireland absolutely is one of our is probably our newest territory now. And like I said, we've got Dubai coming literally in the next month. Oh my gosh, that's exciting, that will explode. It's gonna explode. So if anyone's listening who's in Dubai or knows people in Dubai, yeah, I think we do have Dubai people, yeah. Yeah, I think like getting now is the time you could be first to market and it's going to explode over there. And if you do when if they leaned into the network marketing side as well, they absolutely yeah, absolutely. I know, and it's so entrepreneurial over there. People, you know, it's one of the reasons I think that we're really kind of focusing on getting that territory open because there's already so much interest. So I would really urge anyone with who's in Dubai or with connections in Dubai or whatever to get in touch and chat about it because you're gonna want to be first to market over there. Um, and then we've got like global expansion through Europe, we're gonna be expanding into next through next year, and I know there's other territories to come as well. So we're very like early on in this business. I mean, we're talking about people earning a million dollars a year and two millions of dollars a year passively already, but our CEO always just says to us, like, no one's made any money yet. Like this is we are just getting started, you know, and you really can feel that. Even in the last year and a half that I've been involved with the business, I can feel how much it's grown, how the energy is changing, you know, we're moving so quickly. So yeah, it's a really exciting, it's a really exciting time. And if you want to be one of those people that finds yourself in the right place at the right time, I would suggest this travel business is the one to to have a look at because yeah, you drop, you know, you join now, the next kind of five to ten years are going to be really explosive, I think.
SPEAKER_02:I love this. And I remember when I first started my investing in women, I remember listening to a podcast and she was like, it was it was I used um I still listen to a lot of business podcasts, but I was obsessed when I first started, and this one was like, we need to normalize women, moms making millions of she's American, making millions of dollars from home on from the dining room table around the kids. And I think that I've hopefully we've done that today in this conversation.
SPEAKER_00:I really hope so. That is one of my I I get on my soapbox about that all the time. I'm like, women should be empowered to say, I want to make a lot of money, because no one judges a man for being ambitious or wanting to make a load of money, right? So no more should we have women being expected to, you know, I don't know, pin money or whatever. Yeah, exactly. Or pretend they don't want to make money, or feel like that their position is more like carer roles, you know, all that kind of you know, let's let's be ambitious, let's earn the money. Uh, let's start claiming more power and more influence generally through all of that. Like I'm all for it. So I am so this conversation.
SPEAKER_02:Because I also think we have the trickle effect then. More empowered rich women spending money on different things than rich men, you know. A rich man, yeah, and having influence in their community, in society, in our country. So um exactly. That's what we need.
SPEAKER_00:We need more women. Yeah, we need more women in in positions of power and influence. That's what we need. And then think about the society that we could build then, you know what I mean? But a lot of it comes back to money, and so like let's go out and claim it and build these things for ourselves and take, you know, take those positions.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. Thanks, Hannah. So, how can people find if they want to make a travel booking, if they want to join your travel business?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, where can they bat either or where can they learn more? So I am on LinkedIn, Hannah Fleming, and I've got my Ocean Bug Travel business page linked to that. But I'm not, I am going to be starting to build up my LinkedIn. I'm not as active on that as I could be at the moment. The main place to find me would probably be Instagram right now at Ocean Bug Travel. So please do give me a follow, reach out. I'm happy to chat at any point um to see if this could be something that you know could benefit you, or like you said, or give you just some help with some travel booking. Lovely. Well, thanks so much, Hannah. Perfect, so nice to chat. Speak soon, Liz. Bye.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you for listening to another episode of the Work It Like a Mum podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review, and subscribe. And don't forget to share the link with a friend. If you're unlinked in, please send me a connection request at Elizabeth Willett and let me know your thoughts on this week's episode. You can also follow my recruitment site, Investing in Women, on LinkedIn and Facebook and Twitter. Until next time, keep on chasing your biggest dream.