Ali Raymer spent nine years building her business at Picture This Travel before launching her own agency, Peace & Pearl Travel Co. Along the way, she made a decision that felt counterintuitive at the time. She started giving away leads.

Not her worst leads. Not the ones nobody wanted. She gave away business in categories she was already good at selling, because she wasn't passionate about them, and because holding onto them was slowing her down.

The result: she went from selling a million dollars a year to selling two and a half million, in a single year.

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The trade that felt risky at first

For years, Ali sold everything herself. As her client list grew, so did the parts of the job she didn't love, and ocean cruises were one of them.

"I'm not a good ocean cruiser. I don't do well on the ocean. I don't sell it very well because I don't like to sell those," she said.

An ocean cruise, she explained, could take her ten times longer to plan than a custom Europe itinerary, the kind of trip she's genuinely passionate about. That gap in enthusiasm showed up in her output. So she made a decision a lot of advisors would hesitate to make: she handed her cruise leads to someone else on her team.

It wasn't an easy call. "It was a little bit scary doing that, giving leads away and trusting other people to stay in their lane and sell that and earn the commission," she said. The timing added to the pressure. She was coming off the uncertainty of the pandemic, when her business had been rebuilt from almost nothing. Giving up revenue she knew how to generate felt like a gamble.

It paid off. Freed from the categories that drained her, Ali could spend more time on the trips she sells best, and the advisor she handed cruises to found her own specialty. That advisor now runs cruise groups with dozens of cabins booked for a single sailing.

The lesson isn't "give away your business." It's narrower and more useful than that: know which parts of your work aren't your strength, and find someone for whom they are.

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Building a team starts with knowing who to look for

None of that works without the right people in place first. So what does Ali actually look for before bringing someone onto her team?

Passion for travel, not a sales background. Ali doesn't hire for resume experience in sales or marketing. She believes that side of the job can be taught. What can't be taught, in her view, is a genuine love of travel. "I don't want to hire someone that just wants to have a stay at home gig and make a little bit of money working from home," she said. Every advisor on her team travels regularly and brings that firsthand experience back into how they sell.

People already in her orbit. Ali's first hires weren't sourced through job postings. Her very first advisor was a former student. After that came a former teaching colleague, another former teacher she found through social media, and two former clients she'd worked with directly. In each case, she already had a read on how the person worked and communicated before she ever offered them a role.

A specific gap she can point to. Rather than hiring generally, Ali often builds a new advisor around a gap on her team. She brought on her former teaching colleague specifically to take over ocean cruises, a category Ali wanted off her own plate. Naming the gap first made it easier to know who to bring in and what to hand them on day one.

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How she gets a new advisor ready

Once someone joins, Ali doesn't send them out to build a business from a blank page. She built a structured onboarding system, a video series covering the fundamentals of the industry, paired with short assignments that walk a new advisor through defining their niche and their audience.

The first ninety days are hands-on. New advisors shadow her in person, sitting in on real conversations with suppliers and clients before touching a lead of their own. When they're ready, she hands them a simple first lead they work through together, giving them room to learn the research and planning process without the pressure of a complicated trip.

She's upfront that the early months are slow by design. Fewer leads, more time to learn the job. As the advisor gets faster, the balance shifts.

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Building where you are, or building toward your own agency

Ali's story ends with her own agency. But the lessons underneath it apply well before that point. Whether you're a solo advisor thinking about your first hire, or you're already leading a team and want to build it more intentionally, the same questions hold up: which parts of your business are you doing out of habit rather than strength, who around you might be a fit for the gaps you have, and what would it take to get them ready.

As Ali put it, looking back on her own decision to hand off the work that wasn't hers to keep: "You're gonna see your individual sales grow because you're more efficient in the things that you're passionate about."

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Hear the full conversation

This only covers part of what Ali shared. Listen to the full episode of The Lounge by Travefy to hear the rest of her story, from her first years in the industry to rebuilding her business after the pandemic to how her team stays connected day to day.

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