The Power of Travel as a Motivation Tool

In my younger years, it was a long time ago, I was a department store buyer and experienced the power of a travel incentive personally.

Sitting at home one night I received a call about 10:30 PM from a salesman I had little respect for, or dealings with. I had ordered him, in an angry moment, to never talk to me again, to deal only with one of my assistants. Yet that night at 10:30 PM he called me!

“Bob, you have to help me, please!”
“Don, why would I help you? I don’t like you, I don’t even like to talk to you.”
“Bob, $6,700, just a clock order for $6,700 and Judy and I will win the contest and a week in Maui this February. It’s only $6,700, you won’t even notice it on your open-to-buy! It’s a week with Judy in Maui, Bob, you can’t say no. You can’t.”

He was right. I couldn’t, and I didn’t. And he and Judy went to Maui in February.

In my younger years I was, I admit, abrasive and unkind. In fact, if I met that young Bob Guerriero today, I wouldn’t like him much. In my defense I was young ... and I was scared. I hadn’t accomplished much to that point in time, and that frightening dread – will I ever? – was always, it seems, at the forefront of my consciousness.

I digress, it isn’t important, why I was so rude. What is important is the question: What power could compel a man to brace a hostile force; in it’s own sanctuary, in it’s private and personal time?

The answer: The power of travel as a motivation tool. I never forgot. And it is why, as a client, I ran one of the first major distributor incentives to Rome, Italy in 1964. And why I started The Journeymasters in 1968.

Bob Guerriero
Founder & President of The Journeymasters