Rituals for Better Business Travel | Master Sales Series 9/12

14 Tips for Conquering Business Travel

Welcome back. It’s another edition of the Conquer Local Master Sales Series. One of my favorite things to talk about is hard-earned lessons of business travel. I’m going to give you some of my number one travel rituals and how I get through 220 flights a year, 190 bloody hotel stays a year, and lots of miles being a road warrior. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

Don’t get me wrong, traveling for business can be a lot of fun. You meet new people, get to go to crazy places, you get to be on a plane where somebody comes by and brings you a nice Woodford on the rocks, but you have to learn some things to make this thing work…because after a while you think, “Do I really have to go to Wichita, Kansas?” It’s not all going to be Paris and Rome, folks, there are going to be times you have to go to Modesto, California! What I am saying is when you’re spending that much time on the road, it can really get to be a bit of a grind. I remember I was on the road for five weeks. This is about four years ago. Five weeks straight and it was really tough emotionally. I wasn’t even in a relationship at that time.

It was just George conquering the world by himself, but it was tough. I missed my kids. I missed my mom and dad. I missed my friends. You know, the hotel rooms start to look the same, hard to find the bathroom in the middle of the night sometimes, running into walls and stuff. It wears on you.

Then there are also some things that can give you the back sweats. You know what the back sweats are? It’s when you’re in turmoil and you have a lot of stress because you lost your phone, or you can’t find your passport, or you slept in, or you can’t find your gate, or you check your watch and you realize your plane took off 10 minutes ago.

 So here’s some rituals that I’ve come up with. I also have to mention that I have a lot of people that I have to credit who have helped me with this. One of my really good friends Lorrie Morgan, people from her company and I traveled quite a bit about five years ago and she gave me some really good advice.

1. Pick an airline, and stick with it

Lorrie said, “Number one, pick an airline and stick with it.” You can fly other airlines, but when you pick one airline, you’re going to start to get benefits, a thing called status, and with status comes perks. One, you get to board the plane first. Why is that important? Well, you get overhead bin space and that is a big deal. If you’re late getting on the plane, go to slide into your seat 18F and it’s already full, and you’ve got a carry on bag, now you have to move the carry on bag to the back of the plane. It’s going to take you forever to get off…so that’s number one, pick an airline.

 Here’s some other benefits to picking an airline. When you start to get to the platinum or to the diamond tiers, you’re going to start to earn upgrades and lounge access. Oh, and you don’t have to line up in the security line, you’re going to get priority clearance. So you definitely want to sign up for every airline that has a rewards and a loyalty program. I’ve signed up for all of them. Sign up for everyone, doesn’t matter which one. I fly Delta. I like Delta. I’ve had really good experiences with Delta and I like the people there. They do a pretty good job. Now I’ll run across somebody that says, “Oh, I hate Delta.” It really comes down to your personal preference but me personally, I really enjoy that brand and they’ve have a great program.

I travel a lot. I was fortunate enough to get to Diamond status this year. I don’t have to stand in line and I get lounge access. You get upgrades like crazy unless you’re flying between Minneapolis and Atlanta. That’s a tough one to get an upgrade on. So that’s your first piece. Pick an airline. Stick with it. Get your status in place so you can earn loyalty perks. The other thing that is nice about this is when you start on a loyalty program, you start to earn miles. When you collect enough, you can utilize those miles for personal trips. That’s one of the perks. Now some companies will say, “No, you got to use those miles for business trips,” but a lot of companies will say, “No, it’s part of having to live in bloody airports and sleeping on those stupid couches because your flight is delayed. You can keep the miles and use it as a bit of a perk.” So it’s a nice thing.

2. Don’t do different sh*t

The second item, and I’m going to give credit to our CEO, Mr. Brendan King is, don’t do different shit. Meaning do the same thing every time. Put your passport in the same pocket of your briefcase. Put your laptop in the same spot every time. Don’t put it in the plane’s seat back pocket, put it in your bag. Make sure you double check your seat back pocket every time you depart. Make sure your cell phone is in a certain spot. This was one of the key rituals, don’t do different shit means that if you ever wake in the morning and you slept in by 15 minutes, everything should just work like clockwork because you do the same thing over and over and over again. This has been a really important lesson that I appreciate. Thank you, Brendan. It saved me a ton of anxiety. It’s like clockwork that happens. In fact, the only time I get anxiety is when I do different shit.

3. You need 2 pieces of ID

I come by a lot of these lessons from the school of hard knocks and on lesson is that you need two pieces of ID. You need two pieces of ID and they should never be in the same place at the same time. So here’s what I mean by that... You got your driver’s license, which you’re going to need it if you’re going to rent a car, and you have your passport, which you’re going to need if you do any sort of travel. I always take my passport and two credit cards and I put them into the hotel room safe. If I’m going out at night, I take a credit card and my driver’s license. The reason that I made the choice to put the passport in the safe is if you lose the passport, you are literally screwed. If you lose your driver’s license, you just can’t rent cars. So screwed. Can’t rent cars. Pretty easy, right?

 This has happened to me. I did different shit. I was in Tyler, Texas and boarded a plane. I put my passport in the pocket of my jacket then gave the jacket to the flight attendant before falling to sleep. When she brought my jacket back, so I could put it on at the end of the flight, I took the passport out of the pocket and put it into the seat back pocket. I was half asleep when I left my passport in the seat back pocket of the plane….but oh, it gets better. When I realized I was missing my passport, I contacted Delta and explained, “Hey, I was on this flight in Tyler, Texas and now I seem to be missing my passport.” They said, “Oh, no problem. I’ll call Lost and Found.” So they did, and they have my passport, so that was great. I continue to travel around Texas and do business. When I go to fly home, I find the Delta lost and found and they did not have my passport, George’s passport. Well, not George Leith, they had Jorge Vicente’s passport. So not George Leith’s passport. So thinking I’ll just use my driver’s license to board the plane, the lady at the counter says, “I can’t allow you to board a flight back to Canada without a passport. If you do not have a passport, you cannot get back.” So I said, “Well, what do I do?” In the end, I flew to Seattle, rented a car, drove to the border, and at the border crossing, showed that I was Canadian with my driver’s license and explained that I’d lost my passport.

 The other thing that you can do, I found out after the fact, is you can go to the authorities and report your passport stolen or lost, whatever it is, and they can give you some sort of a document to give to the airline. So there’s other ways around it, but literally, you need to have that passport.

4. You need to have at least 2 credit cards

So here’s a tip, you need a couple of credit cards. The passport and one credit card go in the safe and your driver’s license comes with you because if you only have one credit card and it gets compromised, meaning somebody takes the number when you happen to be in Fort Worth, Texas and some dude in Miami is trying to use it at a Whole Foods. The credit card company will shut the thing down and you can’t use it. So you’re screwed if you only have one credit card. You will have to go to Western Union and get your dad to wire you money or something like that. Happened to me by the way. So have two credit cards with high limits. Put one with your passport in the safe and take one with your driver’s license and you’re good to go. Even if something bad happens, like somebody holds you up, you can still get back to the hotel where they know who you are, let you in...you’re good to go.

5. Take a pictures of your hotel room numbers

Next, take pictures of your hotel and room number with your phone. When you start going to three different hotels a week, every week, they all start to look the same. I remember one night having security tap me on the shoulder, after having a couple of drinks. It was in Cincinnati. I went to a great restaurant named Jack Ruby’s and enjoyed two or three bottles of wine….it’s really what it was. My hotel was the Hyatt but I was actually staying at the Marriott and with my room key, I was trying to get into 621. I knew the room number, I just had forgotten what hotel I was at.

 I did the same on Sanibel Island, where I had just checked in, went up to the room, then immediately to the gym. I hadn’t even been drinking this time. So no excuse other than they just all start to run together. I had to go to the front desk and ask them what my room number was.

So take a picture, have it on your phone and then you know. It’s way more secure than carrying a little paper cover where they write your room number on. There’s a reason why you don’t have a room number on your key. If you have that information on your phone, at least it’s securely locked on the phone.

6. Take pictures of your receipts

Take pictures of your receipts immediately. I used to just collect all the receipts and put them into a pocket in my bag, but you lose that crap. You forget where they were from. You forget who you had dinner with. Now you’re lying on your expense reports. You know, just bad things are going on. It’s pretty easy to jot a few names on the receipt and take a picture immediately. You’re right there having dinner, you got the two pieces of paper because you need the detailed receipt, so take a bloody picture right there. Get Concur, FreshBooks, QuickBooks, whatever it is to record them and make expenses way easier.

 Now do I do this? It’s still a challenge because I’m not really a detail-oriented person. I have a personal assistant that helps me with my expenses but even for her, it helps when I take a picture immediately and send it to her. We have a shared folder and Slack so I take a picture and upload it to Slack. Done. I am way better at that piece. Here’s the thing, it’s going to save you money. The estimate I am losing when I wrinkled them all up and put them into a pocket and then remember to upload them is 10%, probably 15% and when you’re running $10,000 to $15,000 worth of expenses a month...do the math, it’s costing you money. So that’s one of the reasons why companies get you to pay for it, by the way, is because they want you to be accountable for that information that’s coming through.

7. Get a credit card specialized for travel

Speaking of expenses, get yourself a credit card that is specialized for travel. I use RBC Avion and it’s fantastic. You’re double-dipping then. You’re getting points from the airline. You’re getting points from the hotel. You’re getting points from the car rental company, and you’re getting the points on the credit card. So now you’ve got two different places that you can book travel. You can book your airline flights, you can buy a new TV, or do whatever you want with the points on your credit card. You can do the same with the hotel points and you can do the same with the car rental points so you’re using a points credit card that is specialized for travel.

The other thing that I like about the RBC Avion is I have the RBC Avion Infinite Privilege which gives you concierge privileges. It cost me $499 a year but guess what? I’ve had times where I call the concierge number and they can get me concert tickets or they can get me into a hockey game that you can’t get. They can get me into a restaurant where you phone and they say, “No, we’re sold out.” You phone the concierge and, “No problem, we can get you in there.”

Another card that our CEO Brendan King really likes is the American Express Platinum card. It’s fantastic for getting into lounges. The Avion card does have the priority pass lounge as well. So, you know, two high-end cards, they cost you a little bit of money every year, but the perks far outweigh the $499 a year you get charged.

8. Keep EVERYTHING in the cloud

When you’re on the road, you’re going to be working so here’s a real simple tip, don’t store anything on the hard drive of your bloody computer, phone, iPad, whatever you have. Keep it all in the cloud so if your laptop bag gets stolen, you can always go to the Apple or a computer store and buy a new one, access the cloud and still make the killer presentation to the client. Here’s where I learned this one.

 It’s early in my career as a road warrior and I am in Orlando, Florida. I’m at American Automobile Association, the AAA and going to make a big presentation. I’m parked in the parking lot, pulling on my jacket, and I close door to the rental car when I realize that I have locked my bag, my keys, my phone, everything in the car, and I am just about to make a presentation. Thank God it was at AAA because they were able to get my stuff out of the car and they didn’t even charge me. Even if I hadn’t been able to get into my vehicle I would still be able to make my presentation because all of my presentation materials were in the cloud. So whether you want to backup on your hard drive or your computer or you’re going to have a hard copy, USB sticks (are so 2010), I don’t really care. Just save a copy in the cloud.  Let’s get that stuff in the cloud because then you can access it from anywhere. Imagine if you had a MacBook and you needed to use a dongle and you didn’t have a VGA dongle. If you had a PC and maybe it connects. Sometimes you go to these presentation rooms, they’ll have their own resident computer connected to the projector. And if you’re on the cloud, again, you can just access the cloud and still make the presentation.

9. Pack key equipment

That brings me to dongles. Dongles for days, I call it. I have a little bag full of dongles. Every single freaking dongle that Apple has ever created for every computer and I bring them everywhere. I also have my own clicker to do presentations. I just find that bringing your own stuff ensures that you’re going to have a great presentation. I even went as far as buying one of those mini projectors because I was paranoid that the bulb of the projectors would burn out. In the end, that didn’t work out too well because the thing I bought was piece of crap. What I am saying is, pack as many things as you can to ensure that the reason you’re on the road doing sales stuff, is to make great presentations and show off your products and services. So make sure you are bringing the right things for every occasion.

10. Always have some foreign currency

Always have a little bit of currency for the country that you’re traveling to. It’s pretty easy to do this now a days. Before you had to go to the bank a week before and order currency. I remember when I was traveling early in my career, you had to get traveler’s checks. I bet some people right now listening to this podcast going, “What the hell is that?” Y’know, American Express travelers checks... Don’t leave home without them. It was a thing. You purchased these traveler’s checks and if you got held up and they were stolen or if you lost the checks, you could just call and cancel them. It was pretty unique but here’s the reason why I like currency. When you get to some countries they may not take a credit card. I also find this a lot with cab companies. I’m not picking on cab companies, but I am. I was in South Africa and jumped into a cab that has the contract with the Johannesburg Airport, so you think it’s pretty legit, right? I jump into the cab and get the ride all the way to the place that I was going, and then they say, “No, we don’t take credit cards.” And I say, “All I have is credit card and American cash.” “Nope, don’t take American cash.” They want South African Rand. So you go to the hotel desk hoping they have an ATM. No ATM. Now you’re getting the cab driver to drive you to some bank to get the cash. Anyways, it will just save you a bit of grief if as soon as you get off the plane you find one of those currency exchange wickets. Grab whatever is equivalent to 100 bucks and maybe a little tipping money. It’s also nice to have some tipping money. I did find this to be helpful in South Africa, I have yet to run across this situation in other jurisdictions. In South Africa they have security guards in all of their parking lots so when you park, there’s security...and the guard would like to see a couple of coins to make sure that your tires don’t get slashed. I don’t know if that’s unique to South Africa thing as I’ve yet to experience it anywhere else. You know it is nice to have a little bit of cash just to tip as you’re running around, it may even help you get better service.

11. Pack smarter

Next up is a really simple one, but it does take some discipline. Always pack your luggage the night before an early flight. I’ve even taken this a step further. If I’m flying out the next day, I pack my luggage the night before. And if I’m going out for a client dinner the night before I leave, I pack my luggage before I even leave for dinner. Just set aside 15…the other thing is, if it’s taken you more than 15 minutes to pack, you’re packing a bunch of crap you don’t need. So you’ve got to become a little bit of a minimalist when it comes to packing. You don’t need eight suits. You don’t need eight dresses. You don’t need eight pairs of shoes.

 You do need to come up with a wardrobe that’s going to be functional. It’s going to serve for a casual night. It’s going to serve for professional nights. I’m about to embark on six weeks on the road, nonstop and I’m taking five shirts. I’m going to dry clean the shit out of them. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll just go buy three more. The thing is, you’re going to be on the road so it’s pretty easy to go get stuff. There’s a Murphy & Johnston or a Brooks Brothers in pretty much every airport. You don’t need to pack the 59-pound bag that you then have to take 9 pounds of crap out of. Weigh the bag. Nothing irritates other travelers more than rookie travelers that put 59 pounds worth of stuff in a bag. You only get 50 pounds, it’s a known fact. They’re going to charge you a lot if you have more than that.

The other thing that I’ve started doing is, if I am going to be traveling and I am going to be doing some shopping, I pack my nice leather coach bag inside the suitcase. It weighs about a pound and a half or a pound and three quarters so it’s about the weight of a pair of jeans. So I pack only one pair of jeans but I have a bag in case I buy some stuff. I can just put the newly purchased items in my carry on bag and now I’m good to go and I don’t have to buy another bag.

12. Invest in luggage

All right, next up let’s talk about luggage because there are a number of different luggage brands out there. I just got back from a great trip to Asia. Rimowa, (they own Asia) everybody’s got a Rimowa. Super expensive aluminum luggage. It’s pretty cool. Tumi has come out with a really nice luggage bag as well but the luggage bag that I’m liking today is Away. Away is a startup that recently came to Canada. I bought an aluminum Away bag just a couple months ago. It’s about a third of the price of a Tumi and about a fifth of the price of a Rimowa. The carry-on has a nice little USB charger inside (you can’t have a lithium battery in your checked luggage). I liked it so much I bought the large series so when you are on the road for a longer period of time, you’re going to use the larger 50-pound bag. I tell all my friends about Away, which many of them bought and love. So it’s as good as a name brand and a new startup that is just about to become a fantastic brand.

13. Check into hotel shuttles

Your hotel might have a shuttle which comes and goes to and from the hotel. A lot of hotels do. I’m a Hilton guy. Hilton has them. Most Hampton Inns and most Hilton Garden Inns have shuttles that come and go straight to the airport to give you a complimentary ride. It doesn’t cost you a penny...maybe you should tip the guy that lifts your bags but it is not charged or mandatory. They run pretty much on the half hours.  You may have to wait a little bit but its not bad.

 That’s one way to get to the hotel. Uber is also a great way. Lyft is great. The only thing about them is that they only allow pickup/drop off in the weirdest places. In Atlanta, they put the Uber and Lyft station pretty much in Miami. So you have to walk quite a way to get to the Uber and Lyft station. I did that right after my hip surgery last year and it was not a pleasant scene. The reason for the weird pickup place is the cab companies have a deal with the airport. They pay them some sort of a fee to have their pickup station right out front but we all know about cabs, I’m not picking on them, but it’s just not a good user experience. When you plan ahead, you find the hotel shuttle, Uber, Lyft work fantastic.

14. Become a master of your apps

The last item I want to touch on and have become a master of, is travel apps. I have a folder on my phone called Travel. It’s got all my top travel apps that I use from checking a flight status to checking the weather at the location you’re going to be at. I also have on there a great little app for renting cars called Silvercar. It’s one of my favorite car rental companies. For about the price of any other rental car, you always get an Audi A4...and now they have the Q5. Better than that, they pick you up and they drop you off at the airport. So no more horrible rental car shuttles and parking 20 miles away. Just drive right up to the gate and they come get you. It’s pretty cool. It’s called Silvercar by Audi. It was a startup and Audi recently got involved with them and I think they ended up buying them out or something like that.

So these are just a few things that will make your life a little bit better. I hope that these things help you when you are on the road to become a better travel warrier. I welcome any suggestions that you may have that I can pass on. I’m sure there’s some road warriors out there. Brad Petersen, my good buddy from MatchCraft, Kimberli Lewis from SIINDA, Paul Plant, that I have a privilege of working with. Maybe you have some things that you’d like to share. Share them with me on LinkedIn, so I can share them with the rest of our travelers.

May the road ride up to meet you. May the wind always be at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rains fall soft upon your fields until we meet again, and may God hold you in the palm of his hand. I’ll see you when I see you. I’m George Leith.