3 Quick Tips to Optimize Business Travel

As an author, professional speaker, agency owner, and media personality, I’m traveling for work almost every week out of the year. While I’m based in Los Angeles, I’m constantly hopping from city to city to speak at conferences, host a show for Nasdaq in New York, and meet with clients across the country.

Through my frequent travels, I’ve learned how to turn plane rides into a mobile office 35,000-feet above ground, stack meetings back-to-back-to-back to squeeze the most out of a trip, and, most importantly, grow my business from my work trips. You can do the same. To help you get the most out of your work trips, I’ve partnered with TripActions, a global business travel booking and management platform for companies, to share with you three simple yet highly effective best practices:

1) Prepare your calendar: Before you start your trip, make sure you have a plan for whom you are going to meet with and when. Even if you’re taking a business trip for a specific purpose such as to attend a conference, there’s a good chance you can also find time to meet with clients, prospects or other professionals you want to network with. You just have to take the initiative and prepare your meetings in advance so that you have a full calendar when you arrive at your destination. If you’re not sure whom to meet with, a good tip is to go to LinkedIn and see whom you’re connected to within the city you’re visiting.

You can also take advantage of technology like TripActions to help you stay organized with all your travel arrangements, so as you’re going from city to city around the world, you can keep the focus on whom you’re meeting with, rather than getting caught up dealing with the logistics of your trips.

2) Maximize but don’t overbook your time: While you want to fill out your calendar to make the most of your trip, you also don’t want to overbook yourself to the point of not being effective in meetings, or worse, being late. To make the most of your limited time, schedule back-to-back meetings in two-hour increments. Have key action items for each person you meet with so you can cover what you need to and still have enough time to get from one meeting to another. Then, to really maximize your time, multitask by responding to emails, reviewing notes or doing anything else you can squeeze in while in transit from meeting to meeting.

With a busy schedule, it’s also helpful to have support around you to handle unexpected obstacles. For example, if I run into an issue with a hotel I’m supposed to stay at, or if I need to make a quick flight change, I don’t want that to slow me down from focusing on my clients. Having 24/7 travel support from TripActions helps me quickly resolve those issues while I’m on the go so I can maximize my time spent with clients.

3) Make follow-up your priority: The work during your business trip is only the appetizer, not the entree. Be sure to follow up with everyone you met with during your travels, because you need to stay on their radar in order to close deals and grow your business after the trip. If you need to, delegate or outsource other tasks that stand in the way of you focusing on the human element of meeting with key individuals and staying in touch with them afterward.

If you follow these three tips, you’ll be amazed at how much more you get out of your business travels. As a bonus tip, try to use the same companies when traveling, including airlines, hotels and rental car brands. By doing so, even if you don’t always get the lowest price at that time, you’ll build up rewards points and can earn loyalty status that helps you receive upgrades and can be worth more in the long run. Platforms like TripActions let you easily connect your loyalty program memberships so you can rack up those points.

These perks also help make business travel significantly more enjoyable, which helps boost your productivity. Plus, you can redeem rewards for personal travel, which helps keep you motivated when working. Altogether, following these tips will help you work more efficiently and effectively, which makes business travel more exciting rather than being a burden.

Don’t miss out on a celebration of all things business travel management in San Francisco on October 2–3, 2019 at TRAVERSE 19.