Meet John Wiszezur of The Escape Artist Travel Company in Chandler/Gilbert

Today we’d like to introduce you to John Wiszezur.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I never had necessarily envisioned myself as being an Entrepreneur, well, maybe outside of my illustrious snow shoveling days as a kid in Chicago! Yet, here I am, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Out of college, you enter Corporate America. That’s what you do. In my case, it was with Enterprise Rent-a-Car here in the valley. The organization does a tremendous job of teaching their employees how to run their own businesses, and you are constantly balancing a Profit and Loss, making sure you aren’t losing inventory (cars and trucks, and yes, this happened a lot!) managing employees and working closely with other branches to ensure the best success for all — what a great starting point for my career.

Working 65 hours a week was a challenge, but I met some amazing people. One of which is my current business partner, Tim Gerber. I will get to that later. The hours started killing me, and a bunch of my friends were working less and making more in the mortgage industry, This math seemed like a no brainer, so I changed professions and went into mortgages. This was around 2004 before the mortgage industry was basically the cause of the largest recession of our lives. I managed a team of great salespeople and even brought Tim along with me for the ride.

Before the mortgage industry blew up in all of our faces, I was sensing change in the industry and wanted out. I discovered that Monster.com was hiring in Tempe. I did a ton of research on the company, put on my favorite suit and lucky tie, and crushed the interview. I loved it at Monster. As a rep, I did well enough to be promoted to manager where a fellow manager, and Chandler resident, Rory and I decided one night that we were going to change the culture of our center. We wanted to build something that nobody could break, but more importantly, that nobody would ever want to leave. And we did just that!

Later in my Monster career, I was promoted to Director of Sales and was handed a 32 million dollar number that I was responsible for growing. Luckily, due to the best leadership team and salespeople that we could surround ourselves with, we turned that 32m into a 40m organization in just under three years! Unfortunately, Corporate America happened, and the company decided to go in a different direction. One that didn’t match mine or my manager’s ideals, and within mere months, we were all gone.

After lengthy interviews with a few other organizations, I reached out to my old friend Tim, who had relocated to New York and had been in the travel industry for 10+ years. He and I had a long discussion alongside a pool in Cuba earlier in the year about starting our own business. Now was the time — no more Corporate America.

Fast forward six years, my wife Katie and I operate the Arizona side of the business, and Tim and his wife Jen run Upstate NY.

Has it been a smooth road?
This is a great question, and as most Entrepreneurs will tell you, there are no smooth roads. Not at first, at least. Our initial goal was to focus strictly on selling Latin America, so Central and South America. We wanted to focus on this region because my business partner had been selling it for so long and had built strong relationships in each country. Unfortunately, his former company didn’t approve of his leaving and essentially forced ground operators to not work with us. This created our first major problem.

We set out to Guatemala City to a Tourism event there. Our goals were simple, meet our ground operators, and establish strong partnerships. Travel is a 7 trillion dollar industry. We were minnows in an ocean, hardly consequential to any of the larger travel companies. But we had a formed a niche, and we were excited to sell the very best ground operators on our goal.

Mainly, our niche was that we would never sell cookie-cutter trips. Everything is going to be customized but offered in a way that will meet every client’s budgetary goals. Nothing will be sold twice, ever. And we would also not work with agents. We are a wholesale travel company, so when we are selling a vacation, we are selling direct. No middle man, ever! Luckily, our partners in our destinations were absolutely ecstatic about this idea!

Our next challenge was harder to face as business partners. Do we want to market everywhere, or focus on our own backyards? We initially decided to focus on the entire US market, and that backfired in a rather expensive way. Luckily, it also gave us the focus that we needed. I would focus on the East Valley in Arizona, strictly. I would NOT spend another dollar marketing outside of my backyard. Luckily, this has worked out, and I am proud to say that I have met a ton of amazing neighbors that have become clients, and most importantly, friends.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
My wife and I work together side by side, which frankly makes what we do even that much more enjoyable! When clients are interested in going on a vacation, Katie and I “interview” them together. The purpose of talking with our potential clients before we build them a vacation is so that we can learn all about them. Think of vacations, destinations, and travelers as snowflakes. No two are ever alike, so they shouldn’t be treated alike.

This sets us apart in that we will never present a client with a typical package that they can buy online or from any other travel agent. We want our travelers to be as excited for day three as they are for day 7 of their adventure. The Escape Artist takes great pride in this part of our business.

We also like to give back to the communities that we send guests to. Therefore, we work tirelessly to find different schools or organizations that can use help. We work with local schools, orphanages, and shelters all over the world so that if our clients are feeling philanthropic, we can offer them a place to help and to see first hand how they can impact people across the world. We’ve had clients release baby sea turtles in El Salvador and Costa Rica, bring school supplies to children in Belize, donate clothing and soccer balls to churches in Uganda and even work with special needs children in Peru. And that’s just in the last three months! Giving love back to the people is important to us!

What have been some of the most important lessons you’ve learned over the course of your career?
If I had to start over, I think I would have focused on working closely with our neighbors vs. trying to tackle the entire country. This was a hard lesson to learn, but maybe not one that I would change. Having to refocus locally has made me have a bigger appreciation for our community.

Oh, and maybe the coasters that I bought for local establishments. Although, while they haven’t brought us any business, it is fun to see a cold beer sitting atop our logo!

Pricing:

• We build trips everywhere in the world and work within every individual budget

Contact Info:

• Address: John and Katie Wiszezur
• Website: www.theescapeartist.com
• Phone: 480-435-8921
• Email: john@theescapeartist.com
• Instagram: @go_see_your_world
• Facebook: @go_see_your_world

Image Credit:
John Wiszezur
Katie Wiszezur
Greg Zinn
Patrick Pierson

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