In 2012, Adam Duckworth was a part-time travel agent who decided to strike out on his own. Within a few years, Travelmation, his new company, absorbed the company he used to work for. Today, Travelmation is one of the largest and fastest-growing travel agencies in America.
Along the way, he ended up disrupting the travel industry. Adam shares what’s different about his model, how he’s created a highly engaged team of 400 travel agents in a virtual company, and how he motivates his team to high performance.
Welcome to Episode 326 of the podcast. Listen and access the show notes below or search for the Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and listen for free.
Guest Links
Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Travelmation
Episode Links
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CONVERSATION LINKS
5 Disruptive Leadership Trends That Will Rule 2020
Leading Not Normal Volunteers by Sue Miller & Adam Duckworth
Travelmation Agent Application
3 Insights from Adam
1. 8 to 4 doesn’t work anymore
A lot is changing in the 2020 workplace. People want to be with their families more, they want to travel, and they want to work for themselves. These are some major shifts that Adam has faced head-on with his company, Travelmation. Their entire organization is remote, and all of their agents are commission-based.
Personally, Adam views the idea of working for someone and only having 2-3 weeks of vacation as insane. He could, and would, never work for a company like that again, and he doesn’t require his team to either. He even had a Travelmation employee take a 70-day honeymoon where they traveled the world and worked from the road.
2. If you want to thrive as a brand, you need your leaders to be on the same page
Adam’s biggest struggle in leading his organization is keeping everyone on his core leadership team on the same page. His team is filled with great leaders, and one downside to that is that most great leaders can envision a bright future of a company that might look different than their core vision. He has to keep their vision together.
He has learned that to do this well, he needs to bring all of his key leaders in, listen to their dreams and visions for the future of the company, and take their opinions into consideration when he is deciding on and casting the company’s vision.
3. Leaving employment at the local church is not an abdication of ministry
Adam thinks that the local church has, unfortunately, throughout its history, created a culture of guilt. Guilt, that if you don’t work in ministry full time, you aren’t living up to God’s calling and potential in your life. But you can think about it differently. Ministry is everywhere. It’s in every profession and every calling.
Adam knew that he was called out of the local church about 18 months before he actually left. He would encourage listeners that there are some of you that are like that. You know you are called to business, but you feel guilty for leaving. You can make just as much of an impact on the world if you are a Christian in the business sector.
Quotes from Episode 326
I think church leaders have a lot to learn from business leaders, but business leaders can learn from church too. @cnieuwhof Click To Tweet We live in an Amazon, Instacart world where we don't want to go do things, we want things to show up at our front door. @adam_duckworth Click To Tweet The amount of wasted time in a nine to five culture is unbelievable. @adam_duckworth Click To Tweet Working with independent contractors is exactly like working with volunteers. @adam_duckworth Click To Tweet I let the discontentment of an organization that I was a part of lead me into where I'm at today. @adam_duckworth Click To Tweet I've never been able to express how important it is for me to be my own boss. @adam_duckworth Click To Tweet You never know what can happen with a dream and a laptop. @adam_duckworth Click To TweetRead or Download the Transcript for Episode 326
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Next Episode: Lysa TerKeurst
How do you get your message heard by more people? Even 10x more people? Lysa TerKeurst shares the method she developed for writing that has helped her sell millions of books and build a deeply loyal audience. She also shares the three voices every communicator uses and why some are better than others.
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