NFIB

Now Boarding: Better Business Trips
05/ 07/ 2002

by Lisa Waddle

The word is enough to send you down the road to misery: travel. The delays, lines, traffic--we all know the litany of hassles inherent in the shortest plane, train or automobile trip.

But if that's all you see, you're cheating your business's bottom line--and yourself.

Instead of an ordeal, look at travel as an opportunity. Not just for new business, which most company-related trips are, but for personal growth.

Every time you leave your office and daily routine you have the opportunity for a new perspective on your company. Visiting another city offers the chance to observe other Main Street businesses and note what works and what doesn't. Even if you don't run a retail store, the customer service or employee professionalism you encounter in a card shop could add polish to your insurance agency.

Travel is also the chance for even a workaholic to have a mini vacation. Any small business owner who doesn't explore even some small part of a city you are visiting is just silly. You don't have to take the grand tour, but if you go from the airport to the rental car to your hotel room to your meeting with your head down, all pistons pumping all the time, you're on the highway to burnout.

Which brings me to my favorite part of business travel--and the part I resist the most: the required downtime. While traveling, we're often a slave to someone else's schedule (the airlines', the clients', etc.). And even if you are the monarch of multitasking, you'll find times when you can't make a cell phone call or check your e-mail or catch up on work-related reading.

That's the time to breathe. To flip through a guilty pleasure fluff magazine. To sit and think. I find that imposed "be still" time is when the best ideas percolate to the surface.

So keep a notebook handy and don't feel guilty about not working every minute you're on a trip. Rest away from work is a way to recharge physically and mentally, and another way of being more holistic in our lives.

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This article originally appeared in the April/May 2002 issue of MyBUSINESS magazine.

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