Creativity Steadied Shaky Times

The 1994 Northridge earthquake was just the beginning of Lani Piper’s troubles. After the quake destroyed the office where her corporate travel and conference planning business was based, six of her major accounts, located nearby, moved out of Southern California. Many small-business owners might have thrown in the towel in the face of so many unforeseen obstacles. But Piper weathered the quake and several other setbacks with creativity and a “stubborn streak” that she feels every successful entrepreneur should have. Piper was interviewed by freelance writer Karen E. Klein.

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I opened my own travel agency, specializing in business travel and conference planning, in 1982 when my daughter had just graduated from high school. She started working with me the day we opened, and she is still here today, so the company has always been a family concern.

In the early years, we did loads of cold-calling, knocking on doors, and we experienced rejection after rejection. I found it very challenging--those were the days when women were just beginning to compete with men in the corporate world--but I learned not to take those rejections personally, and I built up a determination to stay in business that has helped me over the years.

Recession and Desert Storm hit my business hard, yet we managed to keep going. I stopped replacing staff members who left, but I never laid anyone off. Just before the earthquake, business was at a peak, and I had 10 people on staff. Everything seemed great. Then our biggest crisis hit. My office on Reseda Boulevard in Northridge was deemed unsafe, and I had to make a costly move. I lost clients who accounted for a large portion of my business.

But I managed to reopen the business 24 hours after the earthquake. I manned the phones and wrote out airline tickets by hand since we had no computers. Within three months, we moved to a smaller office to save on rent.

When we realized that a large portion of the business was gone, my daughter, myself and another employee started teaching travel classes at the local colleges. We took the knowledge we had acquired in the business and turned it around to start bringing in additional revenue.

Another creative source of revenue came about when I decided to write a book on how to successfully plan a meeting or business event. My office had been doing detailed meeting planning for years, and I used to give away an incredible amount of advice all the time. A lot of companies cut back on hiring a professional meeting planner and wanted to do the job in-house, so I figured they needed a book on how to do that.

That worked out so well I started giving seminars on the topic and eventually we opened a travel school here on site where I teach regular courses on meeting planning and corporate travel. I have also started doing public speaking, turning my people skills into another way to bring in funds, sell my book and publicize our company.

I have managed to keep an excellent staff through all the ups and downs because I have communicated with them honestly and listened to them. I may not always take a salary during the hard times, but my employees have always been paid. With a small staff, after you have weathered a lot of trials you get closer to them than ever.

I also have accounts that have been with me for all of our 15 years in business. I think they have stayed because of our service and level of professionalism.

My philosophy has always been, “No matter what, I’m not going out of business.” People say you have to know when to quit, but I have never even seriously considered it.

This is what I know, this is what I’ve done for 25 years and this is where I’m going to stay. If what I’m doing isn’t working, I just find another way of doing it.

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AT A GLANCE

Company: Global Travel Management Inc.

Owner: Lani Piper

Nature of business: Travel agency and business meeting planner

Location: 19355 Business Center Drive, Northridge

Year founded: 1982, after owner had 10 years in the industry

Employees: 5

Annual sales: $4 million