After almost two years on the road as a Business Development Manager an opportunity to manage a larger team became available. Having already managed a smaller part of the Insider Journeys reservations team successfully I could not pass up the chance to manage three areas - Retail, Groups and Wholesale. I saw this as an opportunity to gain experience towards a career progression in line with the National Operations Manager role.

Becoming a BDM had been a goal of mine since joining Travel Indochina and even though the opportunity had presented itself a few times in my first few years I only took the position up once I was satisfied that reservations would be managed adequately once I left.During my time as a BDM I was required to proactively seek new business opportunities as well as drive existing business with key travel industry partners. The key to the role was to improve our market position and increase financial growth through meeting with key stakeholders in retail agencies while maintaining and/or growing existing relationships. Other duties involved networking and cold calling to gain interest from new agencies.There were two significant events during my time as BDM which saw a great deal of change within Insider Journeys and parent company Helloworld. Being involved as part of the National Sales team during the critically important re-branding period, ensuring that our key partners were across our reason for the change and ability to assist with any feedback regarding it. As well as providing feedback to the Helloworld State and National Managers about their own stores and identify potential ‘at risk’ from leaving the network stores.Was also enlisted during the trial roll out of Microsoft Surface Pro 3's which has given me experience with Microsoft suite including CRM.

Having applied for AMEX, Wendy Wu and Travel Indochina all in the same week, and being offered all three positions, I based my decision on the atmosphere I felt in each office during my interview. Travel Indochina swept me away with how friendly and enthusiastic the interviewers wereStarting in reservations and given basic training I had to draw on my ability to adapt to the use of different systems and use my own travel experiences in Asia and strong geography skills to successfully compete for top sales. This enabled me to finish my first full financial year in the top 3 for sales along with achieving several rewarding sales incentives.When a position in the Priority Reservations team became available I quickly made the transition so I could put my advanced customer service skills to best use. This was soon followed by a promotion to Priority Reservations Team Leader in January of 2012. Driving and maintaining my teams overall sales figures was the main goal I consistently achieved target. Other duties included monthly one on ones, bi-annual performance reviews, product training, rosters and helping out on the phones during peak periods.