The series of bitesize episodes will see one video released per week from Tuesday 21 April for six weeks and offer agents the opportunity to complete business-boosting challenges, as well as win prizes. Make a note of the schedule in your diary and register your interest now:
Tuesday 21 April – Episode 1: How and when to communicate your value
Tuesday 28 April – Episode 2: How to make connection convert
Tuesday 5 May – Episode 3: Your killer questions for initial conversations
Tuesday 12 May – Episode 4: How to set the agenda, and why
Tuesday 19 May – Episode 5: How and when to address the "B" word (budget!)
Tuesday 26 May – Episode 6: What are the do's and don'ts of powerful proposals?
The TTG Smarter Selling Series in partnership with Titan Travel will appear on the TTG Daily newsletter on the listed dates – to ensure you're signed up, go to your newsletter settings in your TTG account.
Who is Helen Roberts?
Helen is a leadership and sales coach. She is passionate about helping businesses build high-performing teams empowered to drive their sales strategy, deliver exceptional customer experiences and exceed their targets.
Her career at Kuoni spanned 20 years, starting as a personal travel expert and progressing to sales director, where she led the retail strategy for eight years. She developed and executed a highly successful sales and service blueprint, creating an award-winning customer experience through the development of an innovative sales and service philosophy and exceptional team engagement. This blueprint empowered the team to go above and beyond, showcase their personalities, and truly wow customers. She has since helped numerous businesses achieve similar success, also working with them to implement new sales processes and service models.
After a hugely fulfilling career, driven by a deep desire to help others, she has taken all of her insights, along with her passion for people engagement and exceptional customer service, into developing new leadership and sales coaching programmes. She now coaches founders, directors and sales leaders to maximise performance and deliver results consistently through empowering, inspiring and engaging their teams.
Video transcript
Pippa Jacks: Hello TTG community, I hope you’re well and navigating the current challenges as well as you can, looking after your customers really, really well, I’m sure.
We wanted to give you a sneak preview of something really exciting that’s coming to ttgmedia.com soon. Now, we’ve heard that some of you don’t always have the time to really focus on your selling skills in amongst everything else you’re trying to juggle, and that some guidance and inspiration on how to sell more confidently and more successfully would actually be really valuable.
So, we are very excited to have teamed up with leadership and sales coach extraordinaire, Helen Roberts, to bring you the new TTG Smarter Selling Series. Thank you, Helen, and welcome. Could you tell us a little bit about your career? You’ve been in travel quite a while, haven’t you?
Helen Roberts: Certainly. I started my career about 25 years ago at Kuoni as a sales consultant in Manchester. And then I’ve been really proud of my career progression throughout that time, almost 20 years. Started in sales and then I progressed my way to trade relations, so I was on the road training and visiting and developing sales for travel agents, which was probably the most favourite part of my career. I really mean that.
Then we opened stores, so I was behind the store openings – the 50 stores – and part of that role was really growing and developing the team within the network. I absolutely loved that.
I became head of sales, sales director, so worked with the retail teams, trade relations, and growing trade sales and the call centre there. So, really do understand what it’s like to be on the front line selling with customers, and absolutely loved it.
And then I recently set up my own business about two and a half years ago as a leadership and sales coach. So I work with sales leaders, founders, MDs of businesses to really look at their sales processes and implement a robust sales strategy to really help and support them create high-performing, really motivated sales teams, which I absolutely love.
And another part of what I do is sales training. So I work with all kinds of teams in the industry to really look at how we can improve sales and improve connection with customers by putting service at the forefront. So I absolutely love what I do, and thank you so much for having me, Pippa.
Pippa Jacks: It sounds so exciting! So we’ve got a series of six videos up our sleeves. What can agents expect from our series?
Helen Roberts: Oh, loads of practical tips. So we want everything – everything that we talk about – to be something that you can easily go and apply in your conversations with your customers straight away.
So from the B-word, "budget" – should we use it, should we not, when to use it, all of that. From how to make an emotional connection with your customer, how, why, and when to communicate your value, how to ask really deep, well-thought-out killer questions, and how to articulate and present your proposal in a way that really connects with your customer so they snap your hand off. Loads to look forward to!
Pippa Jacks: Sounds so invaluable. And are we just aiming this at new agents? Who should tune in?
Helen Roberts: Everybody. It’s honestly – it’s relevant for anybody who’s been in travel for just a few months or decades. Whether you’re in a retail store, whether you’re home-based, in a call centre – there’s something for you.
Pippa Jacks: Awesome. Thank you so much, Helen. So, as we said, we’ve got six episodes of the TTG Smarter Selling Series coming up. We’re going to be releasing one a week on Tuesday mornings, so we really hope that you will put it in your diary, share it with your team – maybe if you’re in a store, perhaps even build it into your weekly training if you can. That would be fantastic.
And our TTG Smarter Selling Series is brought to you in partnership with Titan Travel, with huge thanks to Shane and his team for their support. So as well as Helen’s amazing selling tips and lots of opportunities to sell more and make more money, there’ll also be some prizes to be won.
Oh, and there’s going to be a little weekly challenge, isn’t there, Helen? Tell us about the challenge.
Helen Roberts: Like we said, we really want to encourage everyone to have a go at some of the tips that we’re sharing. So yeah, there’ll be little tiny challenges that we hope you can go and apply and try out and really share amongst the team and see how you go and share your successes, please.
Pippa Jacks: See what works. Yes, love that. Sharing ideas and supporting each other – that’s what smarter selling is about. We can’t wait to get going. So look out for episode one of the TTG Smarter Selling Series coming to ttgmedia.com really soon.
Tricia Doe: Here at Titan, we’re really excited to be partnering with TTG for this training series. Being a support for agents is what we’re all about. We’ve built our team to be there for you.
Our mission statement is to be your most trusted touring partner and be a true support to you through all parts of that customer journey – be that before they travel, whilst they’re away, or when they come home. We’re here on hand for you for anything that you do need.
