Maternity Leave as a Travel Advisor

One of the questions that I’ve gotten the most is “How will you handle maternity leave?”

Since I work from home, and have a "non-traditional" job, I'll also have a "non-traditional" maternity leave. Keep reading to learn more!

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I’ll start with the fact that I am so very grateful that this is my job! Some things that help make this maternity leave a little easier:

• I have amazing clients - all of them know that we're expecting our first baby, and have been so amazing and sweet!
• I work from home - a flexible schedule has been so helpful throughout pregnancy and will continue to help postpartum!
• I have a few different sources of income - (commissions, affiliate links, etc.) allowing me to help to support my family financially during my time away from booking new travel.

Getting everything prepped ahead of time means a lot of extra work on the front end, but it will help me immensely once our little guy comes! This means designing and sending client packages earlier than I typically would. I also have pre-scheduled social media content that will go out on certain dates.

FAQs
Will you still be booking travel?
Everything that can be completed in advance is out of the way. (Pre-scheduled client emails, etc.)

Upon my return to the office after maternity leave, I will be focusing only on currently booked clients. After that, I will be slowly opening my books again for new clients. I will be limiting the number of clients I take on in the first few months back.

Will you still answer emails or messages while on maternity leave?
With a newborn, I simply will not have the time to personally answer the sheer number of messages and emails that I get weekly. Because of that, my auto-responder will go on as soon as I go into labor.

Anyone with travel inquiries will have a form to complete, and those folks will then be wait-listed until I return to the office.

Do you have anyone helping you?
Of course! THE biggest reason that I chose Wave of a Wand Travel is the stellar team that I get to work with every day. Currently booked clients have a direct contact to one of our agency’s co-owners. (It bears repeating - I love this team!!)

While I do have pre-scheduled social media content going out while I’m away, I’ll also be leaning on some of my team to help me with any Disney or Universal news that will need to be shared on social media or my website.
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Here at home, my husband works for a fantastic company that allows him to take a great paternity leave, so we’ll be together to tackle the newborn phase! 

Any work that I can do in advance is just about done! Hopefully this allows me to be ready just in case he comes early, and we can enjoy some of this holiday season relaxing, too!

We can’t wait to soak up everything about this baby and our new life as a family of three!