About Christina Frank — I collected skills.

I didn't take a straight path. I collected skills.

Acting, Meisner, modeling, voiceover, commercials, sets, auditions, travel, sales, a business. Twenty-seven jobs before this one.

None of it was a plan. All of it turned out to be the same job: pay attention to the person in front of you, and tell them the truth.

The long way round

New York at 22.

Moving to New York

I moved to New York at 22 to be an actress. That was the whole plan, and it was not a detailed one.

Two years at the Neighborhood Playhouse

I trained in the Meisner Technique at the Neighborhood Playhouse. Meisner is a listening discipline before it's an acting one. You stop planning what you'll say next and start responding to the person actually in front of you, which is much harder than it sounds and useful in every room I've been in since.

Christina Frank outside the Neighborhood Playhouse, New York — The Neighborhood Playhouse, New York

Christina Frank on stage in production — On stage

Modeling, voiceover, commercials

I worked professionally in acting, commercials, voiceover, and modeling. Voiceover taught me what my voice does to a sentence. Commercials taught me how much can happen in thirty seconds. Modeling taught me to take direction without taking it personally.

Christina Frank recording voiceover in a studio booth — In the booth

Christina Frank in a national print advertisement — Print and commercial work

On set

Sets are collaboration under time pressure. You learn where you fit, when to speak, how to be easy to work with, and how to stay present when everyone around you is busy.

Christina Frank being filmed on location — On location, mid-take

Auditions, and a professional volume of rejection

Auditions are a job where the answer is usually no, and it's rarely about you. That's the best sales training in existence, and nobody sells it as sales training.

Travel

Then travel, which I did not see coming. Eight years, a full book of clients, $1M+ in personal sales. Travel taught me people and trust: the difference between what someone says they want and what they actually need, and how much is riding on getting it right.

Sales

Somewhere in there I realised I wasn't good at travel so much as I was trained at listening, and that the two had become the same thing. Sales gave me confidence and clarity — being direct about what I believe, and warm enough that people want to come with me.

Entrepreneurship and TravelBrokers

My travel business runs through TravelBrokers Inc., a family agency in Homewood, Illinois, in the industry since 1988. Building alongside it taught me leadership: hiring, deciding, being responsible for other people's momentum as well as my own.

Building Frankly

Frankly Global LLC is mine, and it's separate from TravelBrokers on purpose. It's where the acting, the listening, the travel, and the selling stopped being separate careers and became one method — taught, on the record, to anyone who wants it.