Women’s History Month – Alana O’Neal & Denay Martin
What's your name and your business?
[Alana]: My name is Alana and out business is Cruise Planners - Adventure with DNA
[Denay]: My name is Denay and we are travel agents our business is Cruise Planners but we don't just do cruises we do a lot more than cruising as we'll talk about.
Tell us more about your business.
[Denay]: We are a family run business, each of us bring our own expertise to the business itself in travel. I have some certificates in wine and my daughter in disabilities. So combining those two we hope to create the goal of personalized and unique needs for traveling and make it as seamless and comfortable for each client that we meet.
What inspired you to become a business owner?
[Alana]: What made me become a business owner was transforming my passion for travel into something more meaningful. I love planning stress free vacations especially for families and individuals with invisible disabilities. I want to make travel more accessible to everybody.
What challenges have you faced as a woman-owned business?
[Denay]: Some of the challenges we have is having our voice being heard and overcoming that, not being perceived as overly assertive. Finding the balance between being approachable can be a little bit difficult so we try to be balanced, we try to be approachable, we try to be kind and just get ourselves out there. We want to make sure we get our name out there but also develop a good reputation. Just overall be kind people.
What advice would you give to other women entrepreneurs?
[Alana]: Some advice I'd give to another woman is to just believe in yourself. Believe in your business. Allow yourself to have a good supporting network, whether is your mentor, fellow entrepreneurs, or even an online community. Don't be afraid to put yourself out there because the more consistent you are the better your business is going to do.
Where can we find Cruise Planners?
[Denay]: We named ourselves Adventures with DNA because we're mom and daughter, and I'm Denay and this is Alana, so D and A.
[Alana]: It's a play on words.
[Denay]: We work really all hours so you can email us (denay.martin@cruiseplanners.com) or call us.
[Alana]: You can find us on Instagram @familiestraveltogether and @lynns.opinion. We're pretty much everywhere, Facebook even TikTok.