Snapshot Vs. Full Length Motion Picture

I recently wrote a letter to our clients about the importance of auditing continuously that I’d like to share as a blog entry.

"Often times I am asked by clients, “How long should we audit for?” This question holds an answer I am truly passionate about and I would like to convey my thoughts to all of you.

Think of your travel program as any other program within your business that is ongoing, expensive, and always evolving. Any program with these qualities, including a travel program, should be evaluated continuously. Travel is frequently the third highest expense in corporate business behind wages and cost of goods sold; the time put into employee review and supplier research, should be similar to the time dedicated to travel program evaluation.

Frequently we have clients who begin an audit due to a specific concern or issue such as, “Our average fares were above industry averages last month,” or “Our employees are complaining they can find lower fares on the internet,” or “We just changed TMC’s and we want to evaluate our new TMC’s performance.” These are all good reasons to BEGIN an audit, however, a useful corporate travel audit should not be based or timed around one specific issue or concern. Like any other successful program within a company, a travel program should be continuously evaluated as a responsible business practice and to obtain the most accurate data possible.
It is deceptive and impractical to audit for one or three months and claim you have truly evaluated your TMC. By auditing for a specific, short period of time you get an unfocused snap shot view of how your agency is doing in that moment. Everyday behind the scenes things are changing at travel agencies that you are unaware of – or some TMC’s may even throw additional staffing at a monthly audit to ensure high results. There are new agents on the job, or new management teams in charge of specific locations. Everyday things change in the travel marketplace, airlines are consolidating, and some airlines are becoming unavailable in the GDS; as a travel manager the best way for you to truly evaluate your travel program is by obtaining a full length motion picture of information throughout the year. Without a complete movie of data to investigate, changes to your travel program can’t be made that truly reflect an appropriate assessment.

At Topaz International we encourage you to evaluate your travel program continuously throughout the year. Don’t take a snap shot and try to analyze your program from a moment in time. You may be missing the whole story. Don’t take a few snap shots and try to guess what happened in the middle. Provide yourself with a continuous film of information to fairly and accurately assess your program leading to successful revisions and savings.

We look forward to working with you and developing a relationship in the months to come."

If you have any thoughts on this entry or would like to learn more about our performance measurement solutions, please don’t hesitate to call me at 503-651-4300 ext 317. Or write me an e-mail at jillian.walsh@etopaz.com.


All my best,
Jillian Walsh
Manager of Marketing and Business Development
Topaz International

Basketball, Business, & Life

Recently I’ve had the opportunity to assistant coach a girl’s varsity basketball team. The high school I coach at just happens to also be the high school I graduated from. I frequently have flash backs of my high school basketball days. It is weird coaching in the same gym I used to practice and play at. Before I started coaching I wondered how much I would miss playing. I’ve realized that coaching is just as addicting as playing. At times I wonder if I’m just as passionate about it as I was about playing. I find myself constantly thinking about the team and our games at all hours. I have come to the conclusion that I would’ve been a much better player had I coached before playing. It is amazing what you see watching and analyzing basketball players that you don’t see when you’re actually the one playing.

Throughout my experience so far I’ve also realized how much growing up as an athlete (especially as a basketball player) has helped shape me as a person. So much about the game and sports in general is relatable to life and business. The other coaches and I are constantly trying to help our team see this connection. In true marketing fashion I’ll call this connection the “5 p’s;” Practice, Passion, Pride, Preparation, and Perseverance.

Practice: We’ve all heard, “You play how you practice,” and “You practice how you play.” But how many people actually take that to heart? Over the last few weeks I’ve seen that this statement is more than true. You have to come to practice ready to play how you would in a game; when you get into bad habits, such as laziness, not hustling, and not boxing out in practice that DOES carry over into the game. Come to the gym on time, be mentally focused on basketball, physically, give it all you have. Practice is where you show your coach and yourself what you have. It’s also the place you can take chances and not be penalized. Try something new here, get creative, let your coaches and teammates know your ideas and thoughts. Practice is much like what we put in behind the scenes at work. Before any news stories are written, any awards are given out, any financial statements come out….practice is where it begins; the grunt work that leads to the recognition. Put in to practice, what you’d put into the game.

Passion: When a loose ball is on the floor, where are you? Hopefully on the floor too. Are you constantly giving your all and helping your team gain momentum? Are you the type of player that can’t catch their breath during time outs because you’ve been sprinting every second you were in the game? Passion is essential as a player, a coworker, an individual, in everything you do that you want to matter. If you aren’t passionate about something it is not only beneficial to yourself to not be a part of it, but beneficial to your team. Positive energy is contagious, so is negativity. Be the person people want to be around. As a coach, a colleague, and friend I want the person in the game, the one giving the presentation, or the one hanging out with me to be someone passionate, someone who truly cares.

Pride: Be proud of yourself, your team, and what you’re involved in. Show that pride. On game days, wear your jerseys to school, make a great warm up CD, go 100% in warm ups, ask your family and friends to come to your games. At the end of a hard practice or game, be able to be proud of how you played win or lose. The big document you have due tomorrow? The big presentation you have to give in a week? Be proud of it. Having pride in something means you truly feel good about something you’ve done. To feel good about it, you must feel like you gave it the time and effort it deserved, which is a good feeling. Be proud to have the opportunity to represent your school or company and run with it.
Preparation: This comes along with everything you do before the game. The way you practice, how many hours of sleep you got, how healthy you ate. Watching game tapes or scouting other teams, your plays, and your strategy. Preparation is key to any successful outcome. I think we can all agree we frequently do better when we prepare for things in basketball, business or life; whether it is a game, a meeting with our boss, or an important conversation with your significant other or a friend. It’s not always about how long you prepare, but HOW you prepare. How much do you know about your competition?

Perseverance: “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Simple, but true. When things are looking grim and you’re down by 20 points do you hang your head or do you run you’re hardest and box out even harder? When you have 3 losses and 0 wins, are you going to work harder or assume you’re not going to make the play offs? When you have a bad quarter are you going to assume your business is doomed or make adjustments? In my opinion perseverance is one of the most important lessons I learned from playing basketball. From recreation league basketball to college basketball there were so many times perseverance was necessary. Whether it was losing games, not playing well, coaches and teammates I didn’t get along with…there was ALWAYS something that required perseverance; One of the most important qualities in sports and in life. Always, always, always, persevere. And in the words of the great Jimmy Valvano, “Don’t give up, don’t ever give up.”

Happy Holidays-Ringing in the New Year

We’re right in the middle of the end of many holidays and New Year’s Eve. With the New Year coming up it’s a great time to reflect on the past year and to make plans for the year ahead. I know the older I get the more quickly every year seems to pass. I always find myself saying, “I can’t believe another year has gone by.” Some years nothing seems to change and some years everything seems to change. This year has been a year full of changes for me. It has definitely been eventful. Many things that I thought would remain constant in my life have vanished. Some new, great things have also unexpectedly come into my life. If there’s one thing I’ve seen over the last (just about 23) years, it’s the ebbs and flows of life. When things are going terrible, just wait a little while and they’re bound to turn around. When things are going great, just wait awhile and they’re bound to get worse. ;) To me it seems life is always in constant flux. I kind of like that about it, it keeps things interesting.
Well the New Year is a great time to reflect on the past it is also an important time to decide what goals you have for the year ahead and how you plan to achieve them. Over the last few weeks at Topaz we have been discussing our sales and marketing plans for 2011 and company goals. It has been helpful to put together a list of action items for 2011 and to have something to strive for. 2011 is going to be another interesting year in the travel industry, an industry that is changing constantly. Personally, I am excited to work with our clients this upcoming year to help them evaluate their travel agencies performance in an ever changing environment. I am also excited to help them reevaluate their travel programs to help them save on their travel spend. Recently, many new technologies are being used by the travel industry. Social media has taken off, like it has in almost all industries. I think this year the use of mobile devices will follow the trend of social media and become used more and more frequently for the searching and booking of corporate travel. I'm interested to see where this trend leads.
This past August at NBTA we gave out corkscrews with our logo to some of our clients. We gave them a card letting them know we appreciate their loyalty and that we wanted to toast to our relationship and to their success. I hope anyone who has a Topaz corkscrew takes a minute to use it this holiday season to toast to something special in their lives. Personal or business related, we wish you the very best.
I hope everyone is having a wonderful, healthy and happy holiday season. If you haven’t had a chance please check out our Topaz holiday greeting by visiting the link below.
http://sendables.jibjab.com/view/nCQOuG6lpkvd9Xoop2aT

Fitness For A Cure

Fitness For A Cure 2010

Photos by Emilie Inc
St. Jude Performance Team




Fitness For A Cure Gala


Sherri Sarrouf



During the holiday season I tend to think more about giving back to others than any other part of the year. I also tend to have those less fortunate on my mind. I want to take a minute to let you know about one of the best events for giving back; Fitness For A Cure.

Fitness For A Cure is an event started by the owner of SLS Fitness, Sherri Sarrouf. Sherri hosts this event to raise money for St. Jude Children’s Hospital. For those of you who are not familiar with St. Jude’s it is a hospital known all over the world for finding cures and helping to save children with cancer and other horrible illnesses. If a child gets sick the child’s family can bring them to St. Jude’s where all costs not covered by insurance will be taken care of. As you will read about on the Fitness For A Cure website, “In 2010, St. Jude was ranked the most trusted charity in the nation in a public survey conducted by Harris Interactive, a highly respected international polling and research firm. St. Jude was also named the nation's top children's cancer hospital in the 2010-11, "Best Children's Hospitals", rankings published by U.S. News & World.”
The Fitness For a Cure gala raises money for St. Jude’s, but most importantly will change you as an individual. I attended the event for the first time last year. I had heard numerous great things about it, but wasn’t sure what to expect. Needless to say, I walked out of the event a changed person. My perspective about how lucky I am to be healthy, the stunningly sad realization of what it must be like to have a sick child, the inspirational attitude of the children who are extremely ill at St. Jude’s, How much of an influence people can have on a great organization if they all work together. So many things were brought to my attention I had never thought about before. The event included performances by the St. Jude performance team, a family who had lost a child to cancer, BC football player and cancer survivor Mark Herzlich, and a special performance at the end by the lead singer of the once popular band, Lonestar.

Bring your tissues! This year's event is on March 26th, 2011 at the Lowell Memorial Auditorium in Lowell, MA. I urge you to check out the website and learn what Fitness For A Cure and St. Jude’s are all about!

"Are Attractive People More Employable"

My friend suggested I blog about this NY Times article,
“Are Attractive People More Employable.”

It is definitely an interesting topic, so here are my thoughts:

“Employer callbacks to attractive men are significantly higher than to men with no picture and to plain-looking men,”
As you know from last post, I am all about transparency. If I was hiring I may just be more inclined to call back the people with pictures than with no pictures at all. I feel like I can make more of a connection with people when I can put a face to a name. Do I think the people with pictures are necessarily going to do the job better? Maybe not, but I think they were smart to try to make more of a connection with the person hiring them. If they seem as qualified as someone without a picture they will probably get the call. (As long as it’s an appropriate picture that is!)

As far as calling back attractive men vs plain-looking men. I feel like the article uses tricky words here. Notice how it does not say “attractive vs. unattractive.” In that case, I don’t think I’d be more likely to call back one VS. the other. However, “plain-looking” is a different story. Did one man send a professional head shot of them while the other sent an off-center picture of themselves in a white t-shirt with stains? Yes, I may be more likely to call back the “attractive man VS. the “plain looking” man. Or is “plain looking” a simple a button up and not a suit jacket? If so, I’d have no preference to which one I called back. The article uses words that can be interpreted in too many different ways here.


“Women with no picture have significantly higher rate of callbacks than attractive or plain-looking women.”

What? This just doesn’t make sense to me! Unless you believe the next line in the article:

“We explore a number of explanations and provide evidence that female jealousy of attractive women in the workplace is a primary reason for the punishment of attractive women.”This explanation can only be true when a woman is doing the call backs…am I right? Otherwise that theory makes no sense.

The article then ends with this contradicting statement: “Previous research, however, has found that good-looking female workers receive higher raises than their plain or ugly counterparts.”Okay, so this directly counteracts what the article previously said about how attractive women get punished in the workplace due to jealousy. Or is that statement true and they get punished in non-monetary ways but rewarded monetarily because men are in charge of a majority of raises in the corporate work place? (is this even true?)

Basically, this article leaves a lot to be desired. Also, how did they come up with these statistics? Especially when people see “attractive and unattractive” in so many different ways. It reminds me of the stat on the new Match.com commercials…”One in five relationships now begin online.” What? How did they get this stat? Did they ask everyone in the world that’s in a relationship where they met? They didn’t ask me, I know that.

So, what is the truth about how someone’s appearance affects their marketability?
This reminds me of a case study I looked at in my Services Marketing class my last year of college. The case was about a man who was applying for a sales position at a company but was very out of shape. We had a long discussion in class about what role that factor should’ve played in this man’s marketability. In the end the general consensus in the class was that the man’s appearance (weight) did greatly affect his marketability. He seemed to have trouble walking up and down stairs, traveling, carrying luggage, etc. If someone just as qualified had applied for the job they should get it over him.

So, in the end, my opinion is that there are some factors of appearance that can definitely affect your marketability, even in the corporate work environment. While you may not be trying to join a professional sports team you are still trying to obtain a job that at some point or another involves your health. Just showing up for work is directly related to your health, never mind the travel you may have to do, the presentations you may have to give, etc. If it was up to me gender or a big nose wouldn’t make anyone less hirable (well, except maybe a model...) but shortness of breath and panting during an interview might!

Building Successful Relationships

This is a heavy topic, no matter which way you look at it. The relationships we create with people throughout our lives is one of the most important things we do, and also one of the toughest. These relationships create our best friends, our spouses, and often are what keep our businesses afloat. The opposite it also true: they can end up our biggest enemies, in divorce, or can be the reason people go out of business.
No matter which way you look at it; relationships are extremely valuable. What we choose to make of these relationships is up to us. Yes, of course, there are times things happen we can’t control, but often times we have the chance to make our relationships thrive.
In the travel industry relationships are extremely important. It seems like everyone knows someone who knows someone else. When people are together (as I learned at my first NBTA) they like to chat, have fun, and network. I am always trying to keep this thought at the forefront of my mind as I do my job on a daily basis.
I come from a family where loyalty is everything. My parents always taught me to put family first, and that if anyone I ever cared about needed anything to be the first one there. They taught me it’s important to appreciate those who appreciate us and at the end of the day, the important people will be there. My parents talked about relationships a lot. They spoke about their relationship with each other, our relationship with them, and their relationships with their employees. (They owned a restaurant)
Growing up talking about relationships with my parents and now taking some of my own experiences from the business world I think there are a list of important aspects that lead to developing successful relationship, from friends, to spouses, to clients. At the end of the day, I think these are some of the most important:

1.Communication: Once this slows or stops, everything else seems to fall apart and ceases to exist pretty quickly. Even the biggest mistakes or most confusing situations can sometimes be fixed by honest, open communication. Don’t forget to stay in touch with the people you care about. Don’t be afraid to shoot an e-mail or phone call off to an old client you haven’t talked to in a while. Is something really bothering you? Weighing on you? Say it. I promise, you’ll feel better!

2.Honesty: Lying gets you nowhere except into a relationship with bigger problems. Be open and straight forward. Don’t try to hide things. The more honest you are with someone, the more honest they will be with you. Besides, who wants any relationship they are in to be based off of lies?

3.Loyalty: If someone treats you well, remain loyal to them. If they need you, be there for them. If someone else wants to talk about the person behind their back, stay silent. Maybe even walk away or disagree.

4.Appreciation: Let those you care about and feel lucky to have in your life know it. Show them you appreciate them through words and actions. Don’t take people you care about for granted.

5.Transparency: Let’s face it, nobody likes to feel like they have to dig for clues about how you feel or what you’re doing. This is especially true in business….don’t give anyone a reason to doubt you.

6.Respect: Never act too good for anyone. You’re not. As they say: You gain respect by earning it, but also by GIVING it.

7.Intuition: This may seem like the odd ball out, but I think it’s really important. We all have it, somewhere within us. That feeling above all us that inspires us to make certain decisions. I think this feeling is so important in building successful relationships because every relationship we have is going to be different. No one is the same. You have to have an intuition which helps you decide how to appropriately deal with each individual relationship. You know what makes that person tick, you know their insecurities, personality, strengths….so take the time to think about them, follow your intuition and don’t treat any of your relationships the same, because most likely, they’re not.

I’m sure there are many other things people find important in developing and maintaining valuable relationships. I’d like to hear them. Shoot me an e-mail at jillian.walsh@etopaz.com.




My family at my sister's wedding

Travel Policies and Evaluation

Recently, I posed a question on a LinkedIn group I am part of: ACTE (Association of Corporate Travel Executives)
How often do travel managers evaluate their travel programs and travel agencies? How do they perform this evaluation?

Since I posed the question almost three weeks ago there have been numerous responses. Many people from different sectors of the travel world (travel managers, agents, consultants, suppliers) have given their insight into the question. After reading all of the responses so far it seems there are a couple of common points that people brought up. Here is a summation of the responses:

-Numerous corporations (even large ones) still don’t have travel policies in place.

-Many corporations who have travel policies in place, do not enforce them.

-Vendor contracts are reviewed quarterly or annually, using several different methods.

-People are looking towards technology to help book travel and analyze travel spend/performance

-Real time analysis is the most important analysis a travel manager can perform because it allows for immediate recognized savings.

-Travel programs differ and are enforced very differently depending on companies various cultures.

-Enforced travel policies and analysis of these policies is necessary whether you’re a small or large company.

-Many employees do not understand, are scared of, or abuse travel policy.

All of the analysis people have given has been very insightful. I hope to continue to pose questions that people are interested in discussing. To join the discussion, join the ACTE group or the Topaz International Group on LinkedIn:

ACTE: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=789767

Topaz: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=1833037