Adam Schwab is co-founder and CEO of Luxury Getawaysa start-up founded in 2013, has grown into a global travel brand employing more than 400 people across four continents. The Melbourne-based company is on track to generate total revenue of A$1 billion (£780 million).
Stocking shelves in a supermarket was a more fun job than you might think and I'm still friends today, almost 30 years later, with the people I worked with.
We didn't have a specific boss and worked for five different managers on different days. Without today's technology, it was difficult to track employee efficiency and, as a result, team members had almost no motivation to do more than the bare minimum.
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As the youngest person on the team, the best managers I’ve worked with have been great at making sure we’re not only having fun working, but also getting a lot done. One manager even gamified the role by creating a “shelf tidying competition” that had me working like crazy for a week until they stopped the competition.
It was the perfect example of the reality that “if it’s not measurable, it’s not manageable.” I loved being held accountable for my work and wanted to be the best. Without that brief week of gamification, there didn’t seem to be any incentive for anyone to excel.
This little example has always stuck with me: we want to make sure that when we can (and often we can't), we measure the productivity of our teams, not to berate someone for not working hard enough, but to recognize and reward the extra effort that team members make to better serve customers.
We used to have a manager who was a pretty smart guy. I remember one time he called us and a few other guys in and gave us a stern lecture about the need to show initiative.
Even though the presentation was sloppy and the timing was odd, the lesson was absolutely correct and has always stuck with me. The ability to show initiative is one of the most important characteristics, along with courage and empathy, that make a great team member.
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At Luxury Escapes, leadership at our level involves several things: first, building and maintaining a world-class team, especially in a business like ours that relies almost exclusively on intellectual property. Second, a leader must be a good allocator of capital, willing to take risks and seek asymmetric returns, but also to carefully manage shareholder capital.
Finally, great business leaders are also product owners. As Steve Jobs pointed out, you need to be able to know what products your customers want before they know they want them. A leader needs to be able to guide the company’s product vision and create beautiful products that customers love.
In the travel industry, our biggest challenge is acquiring new customers. Our brand is incredibly strong in Australia. Not only have most travellers heard of Luxury Escapes, but our customers almost all love us and we have one of the highest Net Promoter Scores of any company globally.
We never thought of ourselves as smart businessmen. What we know how to do is understand what customers want and create a lot of value for all our partners.
The most important thing when buying a trip is to be very smart and plan ahead. Hotels, cruises, tours and airline tickets are never cheaper the closer you are to the date of your vacation. If you can book a year or even more in advance (you can only book flights a year in advance, but hotels, tours and cruises can often be booked up to two years in advance), you will pay much less.
Also avoid traveling during peak season. Off-season (or if you have kids, right before or after school holidays) will likely save you about 50% on your expenses. And you can invest those savings in an amazing experience.
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Starting a business comes with many challenges, but as an online travel company, we have faced the unique challenge of multiple trust barriers. Not only are our customers buying online, but they are also buying an expensive travel product, often to an exotic destination like Thailand, Bali, the Maldives, or Dubai.
If you're going on vacation to an expensive place like this, you have to be absolutely sure that the person you're buying from is completely legitimate. Even though we're a multi-billion dollar company and we don't have these issues today, when we first started, it was extremely difficult to gain customer trust. We were an overnight success that took 14 years to build.
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