Your Travel Biz Source

If you go to the YTB web site and click on Investors, you come to a web page that provides Your Travel Biz Press Releases…Their latest press releases cover 2nd quarter financials and YTB’s franchise business model changes for next year. Why aren’t there Press Releases addressing their legal issues and claims of innocence?

As a former YTB Power Team Leader, I can’t understand why they don’t address YTB’s current legal problems. At the very least case, it’s only human to defend yourself if you’re innocent of legal charges or any personal accusations….Otherwise, questions arise that boggles the mind as follows:

When you consider that Your Travel Biz provides an MLM home based travel business with legitimate products and services, how could they get into this situation in the first place? After all, they are a publicly traded company and aren’t selling fruit juices that cure cancer, or gas pills for your car that will get you 10 more miles per gallon. They have never stated how much money you’re going to make if you purchased a YTB RTA home travel agency, or that YTB provides the cheapest travel available…So, where’s the rub?

I think the answer is quite simple if you follow this logic…Those who have a YTB online travel agency making money are not complaining, and those who aren’t making money are complaining. Since YTB provides the same home based travel agency to everyone who joins, why isn’t everybody making lots of money? It’s because they don’t know how to run a home based business, don’t know enough people to sell to, don’t have the time to dedicate to an online travel business and should not be involved with any MLM company regardless of what they sell.

If you agree with half of these reasons for failure, you can see why 85% of people in network marketing MLM’s fail. Check it out, because the Internet provides every statistic that supports this issue…

So, how can Your Travel Biz defend themselves against a former YTB online travel agent who did not make money at selling their products? First of all, I would put out a series of Press Releases that confirms YTB makes no committment, or promises on how much money anyone is going to make…In fact, it’s the law to do so….Secondly, any successful MLM online travel agency must work extreemly hard, put in long hours and have access to a large number of people to contact about their home travel business.

They should also stress the need to take advantage of all of YTB’s training, nightly conference calls and local weekly meetings. Most people that fail do not keep up with training, don’t understand the business, clueless on how to sell, or even describe the compensation plan. They depend on others like their upline to do their work, because it’s easier that way..After a period of time, their upline get’s smart and blows them off, because they are a drag to the spirit of an MLM business model. These people are “takers” and can never become “givers”, which is critical to the success of an MLM downline.

On the other hand, YTB is an Internet based company….Successful people must have very good, basic computer skills,and know how to promote their online travel agency over the Internet..Yet, YTB frowns on using Internet marketing tools like blog sites. In fact, this site…. YTBSource. Com….. is a blog site where we have recruited over 100 YTB affiliates.

Since YTB doesn’t allow custom YTB blog sites, we resigned from YTB two months ago because we don’t know enough people that are interested in any MLM opportunity. As a result, we would become another failure statistic…..No thanks…….

In spite of YTB’s “policies and rules”, we use Internet marketing business tools instead of YTB business cards, brochures, magazines and dragging people to weekly meetings, which is a recipe for failure with any MLM organization.

If anyone thinks otherwise, please respond to this post so everyone can benefit from your wisdom on this question…..”Why doesn’t YTB defend itself if they are innocent as charged?”

Technorati Tags: Home Based Travel Agency, Your Travel Biz, YTB, home based travel business, home travel agency, online travel agency, home based business, online travel business, online travel agent, online travel agency, home travel business

As a former Power Team Leader at YTB Travel, I find YTB’s mounting legal problems predictable and boring because 85% of people who join any MLM fail. This failure rate statistic is well known, and widely accepted by MLM industry analyst. As a result, MLM’s like YTB are blamed, investigated and sued on a regular basis as follows:

People join MLM’s and Network Marketing companies because of the products they provide, percieved product demand and “all that money they’re going to make.” Any MLM’s basic “sales” strategy is to sell everyone you know, and they will sell everyone they know. After a short period of time, they aren’t making money, blame the company and quit. When enough people blame the company, the State’s Attorney Generals and BBB’s get involved because that’s what they do for a living. The movie “Ground Hog Day” comes to mind when I see this happen to MLM’s over and over again…..

How does this happen so often and why? To keep it simple, any MLM can provide legitimate products, have a great compensation plan and provide training for those who want to learn. The problem is that this business model attracts the wrong kind of people who lack the ability, experience and skills to even get started. For example, I have attended large YTB, Your Travel Biz,  training meetings where 95% of the group had no previous sales experience, limited computer skills, little or no understanding about the Internet, do not know enough people to sell to, cannot implement the training, and don’t have the time required to be successful in any home based business. In addition, they aren’t committed to really learning the product line, have great difficulty in understanding the compensation plan and truly believe that their downline is going to make them rich. Most importantly, they don’t realize that they will have to work harder than they have ever worked before to become a successful home based travel agent.

To make matters worse, they are constantly reminded of all the people making lots of money that are doing the same things that are causing them to fail…Now they are sensing fraud and deception. It’s time to put on their legal pants and march straight to the local BBB.

On the other hand, there are many YTB Reps who aren’t suing YTB, or complaining about their home based travel agency to the States Attorney General. They won’t because they have a successful online travel agency and are making money. They often use lead generation systems, have good computer and Internet skills and understand the art of sales. They also work very smart and put in the long hours. They usually take advantage of real sales training and know to sell outside of their friends and family. They use business tools to grow their business. They do not depend on their downlines to make them rich, but rely on themselves to meet that goal. They take the time to learn the business, and don’t rely on their upline to give simple presentations….

Technorati Tags: Home Based Travel Agency, Your Travel Biz, YTB, YTB travel, home based travel agent, online travel agency

  As a former Power Team Leader with YTB, I can understand why YTB Travel is not a good fit for many who have joined this program. As a result, their level of discontent has risen to the level where the States Attorney Generals of California, Missouri and Illinois are preparing lawsuits against Your Travel Biz. The following is a former YTB affiliate’s “inside” opinion about these recent turn of events:

We became an affiliate with Your Travel Biz (YTB) because of the large demand for travel. Since YTB is a virtual company that “sits” on the Internet, we used Internet marketing tools to grow and run our YTB business, set up custom web and blog sites for exposure, and used lead generation tools to drive traffic to our sites. The good news is that we were successful.. The bad new was that we were notified by YTB’s Legal Department that YTB does not allow its YTB affiliates to have custom web sites, or blog sites so we terminated our relationship with YTB in July, 2008.

As for others who joined YTB, their chances for success was limited from the start. Unfortunately, the demographic,  or segment of the population, that is attracted to MLM’s or network marketing companies are often from lower income levels who view companies like Your Travel Biz as their ticket to get rich quick. Obviously, most of the people they know seldom travel, don’t go on cruises, don’t sign up for golf packages in Hawaii, and don’t have the $500 to join the program. Once they go through all their friends, family or “warm group” they run out of people to talk to and quit the business. Tragically, it’s really that simple, and much has been written about this reality.

Since YTB does not advertise, it’s up to the YTB Reps to get the word out about their home based travel business. How many people can the average YTB Rep tell about their online travel business as compared to the endless TV commercials that run Travelocity and Expedia.Com commercials 24X7? At the end of the day, your family, friends and warm group know about your home based travel agency and may book travel with you if they can get a better deal. Two problems with this scenario…YTB does not provide the best deals on travel, the commission on any domestic airline flight is $3 regardless of the ticket price, and how often does your “warm group” travel? Business travel doesn’t count because it’s booked through their company. In this case, not enough people will ever know about your YTB Travel business, can’t find your YTB web site on the Internet, and YTB’s policy does not allow custom web sites that provide the exposure you need so people can find you on the Internet.

As mentioned, the airline industry pays very little commission to travel agents. Roughly, $5 per domestic ticket. At Your Travel Biz, a YTB Rep gets 60% of $5, or $3 in commissions for each ticket booked on their YTB Travel site. The commissions for cruises are much better; however, how many people do you know that are taking a cruise next week? Usually you find out about someone taking a cruise after they have already booked the trip. In addition, no one takes a boat from St.Louis to Kansas City..They drive, or fly…

Most every MLM or Network marketing company pays commissions on people you recruit and bring into the business. In the beginning it’s very exciting, but before long two drop out for every one person you bring in…The drop out rate is high because the failure rates in MLMs is estimated at 80%. This failure rate is documented by most MLM industry analyst Secondly, they target the wrong audience or people to bring into the business. For example, recruiting people who have limited or no computer skills, literacy issues, aren’t open to learning or taking direction, low committment levels etc….

Since the failure rate for MLM’s, Network Marketing companies and any type of home based business is very high, what are the reasons for this extreem failure rate? People do not have the training required to succeed, lack of information, don’t use business tools, have little or no experience, don’t know enough people to contact, aren’t committed to working extreemly hard, little or no understanding of the power of the Internet, have limited computer skills, are not comfortable selling things period, aren’t familiar with the benefits of their product offering, don’t enjoy or know how to recruit people into their business and so on and so on…..

Moral of the story? Many YTB Travel competitors are using YTB’s legal problems as a tool to recruit people away from YTB. Let’s say the YTB Rep leaves and joins their company. He’s still faced with the same challenges to succeed, because nothing has really changed that would alter his chances for success. In most cases, he won’t make money at his new company for the same reasons he didn’t make money at YTB. So, who’s to blame? Is it YTB’s fault, the YTB Rep’s fault, or a combination of both parties? I fall back to my statement that some people just don’t fit within an MLM, network marketing or home based business regardless of the type of company or products they offer.

More to come on this soon…

Technorati Tags: Home Based Travel Agency, Your Travel Biz, YTB, YTB travel, home based travel business, online travel business, YTB travel business

Yes, it is time for a change at YTB Source.Com…..Let’s look at where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re going.

It all began when a few successful entrepreneurs and a former business executive decided to join ranks, select a business out of a hat, and have some fun. The following year, we became the top volume producer for “Team Gateway”, which is a large group of YTB Reps in the St.Louis Region. As a result, other Your Travel Biz Reps were interested in how we work, so we developed the YTB Source web site to grow and share that information.

At this time, we are truly humbled by the thousands of people who have visited our site to learn more about Your Travel Biz, and articles we have written about starting, growing and running a home based travel business. Due to this following, we re-visted our goal and purpose of maintaing the YTB Source web site, and made the changes that are in line with our new vision.

Our new vision is to help others in business, which includes the YTB home based travel agent and a variety of other work from home opportunities. To be more specific, we will provide information about business development tools and techniques, marketing and sales tools, recruiting strategies, lead generation tools, and customer management systems designed to retain your customer base. Due to conflict of interest issues, we ended our affiliation with YTB effective July, 2008.

When we asked ourselves,”What supports our reason for change in this direction?”, we considered the fact that most of the
companies in the US are Small sized companies that have high failure rates. Many depend on existing contacts and customers to survive. Very few have business developments tools and proceedures in place. Once the cycle is broken, their survival rate hits a critical stage.

For example, only a very small percentage of YTB Reps are Power Team Leaders, and it’s not because all the rest are at the Director level. They simple do not have the information, business tools and techniques to change the way they do business. If you don’t change the way you do things, you can’t expect different results. Even in a good economy.

We look forward to sharing free information that will useful to your business. Most importantly, we welcome your questions, comments and recommendations that will be critical to making this site a success for all.

More to come…

Technorati Tags: ytb, your travel biz, home based travel agent, work from home, ytb travel