Almost everything written about this profession talks about what can be done. I'm going to do the opposite, because I think it says more: four requests I don't take on, and one I do even though most people assume I don't.
I don't search for one-off flights. It's what people ask me for most, and the only thing I never do. Not because it's unprofitable, but because I add nothing: any search engine solves it just as well as I could. When someone writes to me about a ticket, I tell them where to look, and that's where my advice ends.
I don't organize group departures. And here the distinction matters, because it's easy to get confused: I do design trips for groups — in fact, groups of friends and large families are some of the trips that work best. What I don't do is form the group myself. If you bring the group, the trip is designed around you. If I form it, it's designed around the lowest common denominator of twelve strangers, which is a different thing, and other people do it very well.
I don't work with cruises. The itinerary is already decided by the operator. My work begins exactly where that ends: choosing the order, the pace, and the length of each stage. On a cruise, none of that is left to decide.
And I don't compete on price. If you ask me for a quote to compare against two others, I'll tell you honestly: mine will come out more expensive. What I offer isn't a better price for the same trip, it's a different trip. Comparing it by the total is comparing two things that aren't alike.
I do put together single-destination trips, and they take more work than they seem to. It's the one thing almost everyone assumes I don't do, and it's the opposite. When someone is going to spend eight days without leaving one island, there are no following stages to make up for a mistake: choosing the place is the entire trip. Getting that island right requires knowing more than stringing together five cities, not less: which side of the atoll catches the wind in February, which villas have the reef within swimming distance and which have it a ten-minute boat ride away, which house treats a family well and which is designed only for two.
Saying this out loud costs clients. It also saves a lot of people a conversation that wasn't going to lead anywhere, and it leaves me time for the trips I do know how to do well.
If yours is one of the first four, I've already saved you an email. For everything else, I'm here.