Five Tips to Ease Business Travel

Jet lag, missed phone calls, backed up email and wrinkled shirts….no one said business travel was fun. But, in a global economy it seems that every professional, from the Fortune 500 executive to the small business owner is often faced with the prospect of business travel. These five tips can help ease some of the most common travel pains.

1. Assume there will be delays. Sometimes your flight is on time, your hotel room is ready and your client shows up for dinner at 7 pm on the nose. Then there is the other 90% of the time. Travel inherently means delays. That storm in Minneapolis? The room that was double booked? The shuttle that is running 45 minutes late? Fortunately delays don’t have to be downtime. In the age of wireless access and Blackberries, we don’t ever have to be not connected. Delays are great for returning calls, finishing up that presentation or returning some email. By anticipating delays, you can make the most of them.
2. Set expectations. How many times have you checked voicemail after a four hour flight only to find three progressively more unhappy messages from the same client, wondering why you have not responded to calls and emails? Set your out of office email and phone message to clearly state that you will be traveling and not available. Also, make sure to include the name and number of a trusted co-worker in your messages, so that emergencies can be addressed.
3. Oh, you meant 2 pm Eastern time? When on the road, you’re probably still making calls back to the home office. After crossing a few time zones, it’s pretty easy to call in an hour early, or late, to that 2 pm staff meeting. Here’s a trick I use. I set my watch to whatever time zone I’m in, and my Blackberry to my “home time.” One word of warning, my co-worker recently did the same thing, but set her Blackberry alarm for 6 am EST while we were on PST. She ended up wide awake, showered and ready for the day… at 3 am local time!
4. Buy wrinkle free. If you’ve ever met your coworkers in the morning after a night on the road and they ask if your room didn’t have an iron, you know what I mean. Wrinkle free clothes are a great time saver for any road warrior and well worth the investment.
5. Dress like a screener’s dream. We’ve all been behind the guy at the airport who forgets to take his keys out of his pockets, can’t get his shoes untied or wears the huge belt buckle. Don’t be this person. Travel with just the valet key to your car. Keep your cell phone in your carry on bag and leave the change at home.

Travel is a necessary part of business and following these tips can help make you more productive and ease some of the pains naturally associated with life on the road.