According to recent data gathered by The Travel Institute, 44% of today’s independent travel advisors came to the industry after a professional pivot.
Christy Menzies, this year’s recipient of the Virtuoso Travel Week Rising Star award, is part of that group.
After nearly a decade on Wall Street, where she worked in fixed-income sales and trading, Menzies had an incredible set of skills — problem solving under pressure, managing multiple flows of information and getting to know customers among them. But adept as she was, the lack of flexibility in that world eventually nudged her out.
Now a mother of four, with a fifth baby on the horizon, Menzies is thrilled to have packed up her toolbox and moved to the travel industry. And she did so quickly, and with very prompt success.
She enrolled in Brownell Travel’s Mentoring Program in August 2021, graduated one year later, and has already received awards for her stellar sales numbers. Within six months in business, she generated $1 million in sales; after two years, she’s reporting nearly $4 million in annual sales.
In addition to her Virtuoso award, she is a top 50 producer with Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts and a recipient of the Milux Stars award for Marriott luxury brands. Combined with her previous work experience, Menzies says her Brownell education was foundational to those achievements — and Brownell couldn’t be more proud.
"At our core, we're all about helping aspiring entrepreneurs build successful travel businesses, and Christy Menzies is a prime example of what success looks like with Brownell,” said Kerry Dyer, chief development officer of Brownell. “We actively look for individuals with various backgrounds, appreciating and nurturing their unique ideas for a prosperous travel business."
Menzies is the owner of Menzies Luxe Retreats, an independent affiliate of Brownell. We spoke with her to get a more detailed picture of her quickly growing business.
After all those years in finance, how did you come to becoming a travel advisor?
I’m a numbers geek, but I never loved the content much on Wall Street. When I found out more about the business of this industry — the supplier side, the concept of Virtuoso, the business-minded people in this world — I was interested.
You have to come up with a full business plan, what your value proposition is, how you can differentiate, where you’ll get your ideas, what your expertise is.
I already loved traveling, and I took my kids everywhere. Then late in 2020, I was introduced to a Brownell advisor who might book our next trip. While on a call with him, I said, “I don't mean to be rude, but I’m really curious about how your business works.” By the end of our hour-long conversation, I was in.
He emailed my name to the hosting department there, and I just sort of did it. I applied in early 2021 [for Brownell’s Mentoring Program]; it’s serious and very selective. You have to come up with a full business plan, what your value proposition is, how you can differentiate, where you’ll get your ideas, what your expertise is. I started the program in fall of 2021 and finished in 2022.
What did your business plan look like at the start of the program?
Part of my business plan was focused on how people were coming out of the pandemic wanting to travel. At least in my network, people had kids who were now older in age, and they wanted to get out with them, but they didn’t know how to do it or where to go.
Restrictions were insane when traveling internationally, things were constantly changing, so there was a huge opportunity to be someone who knew the latest, someone who could be a resource in a rapidly changing environment.
It’s hard those first few times — you haven’t done much yet, you’re not legitimate yet — but what I found was that I entered my training with a list of prospective clients and trips. So business started immediately.
Even a month or two before I started the [Brownell] program, I made it a point to be bold, telling people face to face about what I was going to do. It’s hard those first few times — you haven’t done much yet, you’re not legitimate yet — but what I found was that I entered my training with a list of prospective clients and trips. So, business started immediately.
Your niche is luxury family travel. How do you differentiate yourself within that niche?
I knew I had something different to offer. I have four kids, I travel with them, and I don't take myself too seriously. I’m not looking for glossy, aspirational travel — I don't think that's realistic, and I think it's alienating. I do go to really nice places, but I’m realistic about what it’s like traveling with kids. That’s much more human, and I think that has expanded my client base.
Most of my clients are still working; they may make a lot of money, but they don't have a lot of time. So, the four weeks off they have in a year are important.
I dig into the details. What’s important to them? Maybe it’s room configuration so everyone can sleep. Some people can’t live without a great beach, others just want a pool. These impact the trip.
I know personally that Four Seasons properties are terrific for families. The food and beverage is fine-tuned, and there’s always a cool bar, super comfortable beds, and you know the kids are not a bother — there’s even something special in the room for them, from small robes to Diaper Genies.
Or maybe a villa is right for a client. I love the problem-solving aspect — finding the right island, the right villa in the right location.
How has earning awards early in your career impacted your work?
Having the awards is terrific, and it gives me that benchmark — I’m working really hard, and I feel like I’m doing a lot of business, but how am I doing against my peers? That’s what the awards tell me.
What I try to let it tell my clients is that I’m valuable to [these brands], and hence anyone who shows up at the hotel on my behalf is very valuable, too. There are real monetary benefits when you’re aligned with someone who the sales person cares deeply about. You can spend a lot of money, but that doesn’t guarantee a good trip. Work with someone who knows the hotels inside and out, and they can help you make sure it’s a great trip.
Your Brownell Mentoring Program experience was integral to your start. Can you share how so?
I look at it as an MBA in travel, honestly. It is a full year, and you start taking the wheels off as you go. The way they engage you with the existing community is an obscene wealth of information. We have specialists in everything, and they’re so generous with their time.
They also introduce you to the supplier community and provide terrific opportunities to meet the owners or operators of global businesses, who we rely on to take care of our clients. So, the first time we have an inquiry, we’re not just calling someone randomly; we’ve already been introduced, and that’s worth its weight in gold. You get attention immediately.
I look at it as an MBA in travel, honestly. It is a full year, and you start taking the wheels off as you go.
And it sounds silly, but we had monthly homework. I was in a group of four, and we learned from each other. My counterparts in L.A. and Chicago were serving different clients with different budgets and requests. We talked about our first trips together, and that allowed us to learn a lot more.
Beyond the mentoring, once you're full-fledged agents, Brownell is one of the most business-minded, business-forward agencies in the sense that they have a huge support structure you can tap into.
When my business got really busy, I was still in the mentoring program, but you can use services in the agency to offload things such as invoicing, accounting and marketing help. There’s even by-the-hour assistants you can hire, which I still sometimes use now when I have too many inquiries.
When my business got really busy, I was still in the mentoring program, but you can use services in the agency to offload things such as invoicing, accounting and marketing help. There’s even by-the-hour assistants you can hire, which I still sometimes use now when I have too many inquiries. That allows you to scale, even when you’re still figuring things out.
With so much support on the business side, you can also focus on growing your network and client base. What does that look like at this point?
Your network expands in ways you cannot predict, and they did say this when we started. You think it’ll be your best friends who are your clients, but it’s going to come from further out.
There certainly are those people you see every day; I might see seven clients at nursery school, yes. There’s also the network from my past work life, though I haven’t tapped into that much yet. I’ve had people from college, even people I haven’t talked to for years, who’ve caught wind of what I’m doing, and they'll reach out.
It’s honestly a joyful feeling, to be reconnected to someone who’s far away. And now we're talking about something so personal — how they’re going to spend their personal time with their family.
What words of wisdom would you share with a fellow advisor just embarking on their business journey?
Think through the way you want your business to be, and be authentic to your passions within the industry and carve out your niche. It's such a great community of people, and such a great career, and it’s a huge market with room for everybody. I don’t see demand for a good, established travel advisor decreasing. People who work hard at their business and are very good to their clients will continue to be in high demand.
