How to start a travel business —Oyedotun

Oyedele Oyedotun is the CEO of Deloy Consulting, a service company which caters for clients travels and ticketing needs. In this Interview with RUTH OLUROUNBI, he explains the requirements for starting a travel business.

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What are  your background and qualifications?
My name is Oyedele Oyedotun. I am from Ibadan in Nigeria. My education is kind of funny. I studied painting and decorating at technical college, before I proceeded to The Polytechnic of Ibadan for HND in Marketing, after that, the University of Ibadan for masters in Personnel Psychology.

Let’s first talk about your entrepreneurial side, how long have you been an entrepreneur?
I started this business in 2006. Before then I was into different kinds of stuff. I actually founded this business in 2006.

What kind of stuffs?
I used to be other people’s affiliates, running their marketing for them and getting my commission. Deloy Consulting came into the fold in 2006.

Did you  have a special training or something?
Fortunately, I did not have any formal training in this business, it’s a kind of passion borne out of inspiration. I didn’t get any training from anybody.

How has it been since you started?
 It’s been fun and it came with some challenges too, just like any other kind of business.

What kind of challenges?
Challenges in terms of trying to manage people’s expectations and trying to satisfy people’s needs. There is a saying that the customer is king, and there is another school of thought that debunks that the customer is not always right so they cannot be king. Let’s say you walk into a pharmacy and ask to buy something that can be poisonous to your system, I am sure the pharmacist will not sell it because you’re king and you’re right. Some people tend to make the work difficult because what they want is what we know will not do them good.

Lets talk about the funding, how did you raise your funds? Considering the fact that to start a business is not always easy.
Hmm. Funding. Actually this kind of business is not the type that you need a lot of funding to start. All you need to does get a good office in a good location, try to make the office look good and that’s it. All the same, you need to pay staff salaries, make yourself look good and just some over head in starting the business but I don’t see it as a business that needs a huge capital to start, especially in the area of visa processing.

Were you into other businesses or this is your first?
This is my first

And your success rate, how would you describe it?
In percentages or generally speaking?

Generally speaking
Well, for someone like me who didn’t have any formal training in the business and who didn’t have anybody that I can call my mentor, I can say that God has been so good, the success rate is so high and if I have to draw a graph now, the graph will be on the high side. Speaking in terms of percentage, let’s say I started with 10 per cent now I could say I am at 85 per cent.

What does Deloy do?
We are into educational consultancy. What that means is that we work for people who want to go and study abroad. We started in that area. We had partnership with some schools abroad, in the UK, Canada, United States, Germany, Australia, and some other places abroad. So we actually started as an educational consulting firm, for people that wanted to get placements in credible institutions abroad, after which we delved in to the area of ticketing. We realise that when we got visas for our clients, we referred them to other places for their tickets and most of the time they had issues and they always came back to us and complain.
So because we didn’t want our clients to keep having issues, we decided to make Deloy consulting a ‘one stop’ shop. We decided to create another department that would be handling the area of ticketing and ever since we’ve been doing good in that area. So, we are into educational recruitment, ticketing, hotel reservation and we are planning to launch something entirely different. The company has been thriving on referrals, so we are now trying to launch another project that is going to be like a reward platform for our refferals instead of the mere ‘thank you we’ve been saying to people who refer clients to us. The platform called irinajo.com where people get rewarded for referring people to us, because we are not into advert, we’ve been thriving on referrals like I said.

Do you partner with any institution?
Yes, we do, quite a number of them too, with certificates confirming that we are their appointed representatives in Nigeria.

Let’s go back to you being an entrepreneur. What made you decide to go into personal business?
That’s a good question. It wasn’t in my thought but I think it was God’s design. When I was working somewhere, I just discovered that any time I browsed on the computer,  I usually went to travel sites.  So I started by helping people package their tours, locate embassies in Nigeria, the requirements and all. And I was doing these for free until I got the inspiration that this could be my calling, so to speak. It wasn’t like I was really mad about having my own business, but at a point, I just decided that it was time I went into it fully.

Some people say that it’s better being on your own than working for someone else. In fact, they say you can never be as rich as your boss. Do you think this is true?
No, it’s not true. It depends on how hard you can work. I heard some time that the General Manager of Ford is richer than the company. Look at this reward system that I am talking about, my staff are equally entitled to partake in the scheme. If you, for instance, happen to stumble on a company that has a very good client base and you start earning commission on them, you can be richer than them, you can be richer than the MD of the company. It depends on how hard you can work. It depends on how you can make yourself different from the company or from the owner of the company. You can actually get more money than the owner of the company.

What would you say are the benefits, the advantages of being an entrepreneur?
 I can only attribute a single advantage to that which is freedom and the fact that you can determine your income.

What do I need, if I want to go into this business, in terms of money, in terms of psychology to make sure that I succeed?
You need strength, knowledge of the working environment, and prayers too.
Nigerians are not so knowledgeable in this business. For instance, if you contract a lawyer to defend you in court and he loses the case, you cannot go back to the lawyer and say where is my money? You understand what I’m saying. And if it’s a relation who is sick and surgery has to be done, and eventually the person gives up, you cannot sue the hospital or ask for refund. But this kind of business, especially in the area of visa processing, people do come back and say, “wow, what are you talking about? We didn’t get the visa, so where is the money we paid you?” That’s why I said you need strength. You need to understand the environment where you’re going to work in and prayers too.
In terms of the funding, you don’t need a huge capital like other businesses, all you need is to secure a good office in a good location, have a staff at least to start with. Have your computer and you launch yourself out.

You said the other time that as far as marketing is concerned, you depend majorly on referrals, is that the only way you market yourself? Isn’t it limiting?
That’s not the only way, but I grew up to learn not to bite more than you can chew. Since referrals give us enough income you need at a point, you better stay with that. Like I mentioned the other time, we are always passionate about our clients. It’s just like marrying two wives when you cannot manage one. But now, we think we have grown to a level where we want to reach out, because we know that our client base is getting bigger now so is our capacity, now we can let people know what we are into, what we can offer them and stop patronising touts that call themselves agents and come to a trained Consultant at Deloy consulting. Now that we know that we have the capacity in terms of human resources, and we have the technological know how and the business know how and we are prepared now even in the quest to get expanded, we know that a lot of satisfied customers will refer clients to us.

How can one recognise a tout. You just spoke about not patronising touts. How do I know someone is a tout?
If a person says he wants to render a service to you, it is fundamental to that you ask the person a number of questions and if the persons fails to answer satisfactorily, then you know he doesn’t have the knowledge of the business. I learnt that some people that claim to be agents ask prospective clients to meet them in eatries, if a person doesn’t have an office, he is obviously fake.