How Business Travel Can Benefit Your Company
As the economy begins to improve, companies still find themselves cutting costs by eliminating business trips. It makes sense—remove trips and you save money—yet is it smart? At March Communications, we frequently travel and believe that business trips are a core component of a successful company.
Face-to-face contact is an irreplaceable advantage of business travel. The value of videoconferencing, email, and Skype is not to be undermined, yet they do not replace meeting in person. Face-to-face meetings allow you to observe verbal and non-verbal behaviors not captured over the phone or through video. These gestures and exchanges connect you to the client and help develop trust.
Networking opportunities is another advantage of attending conferences and trade shows. Aarti, a March employee told me a story about how she got the contact information of a valuable journalist while waiting in line for the bathroom at an event. This type of interaction is what makes business travel worth it.
Business travel also increases your revenue. A report by Oxford Economics says that for every dollar invested in business travel, companies realize $12.50 in incremental revenue and $3.80 in new profits. Therefore, by cutting business travel your company may be forfeiting profits.
To get the most out of your trip, I recommend following 5 business travel tips:
- Ask yourself if the face-to-face meeting is necessary. What can you get from this meeting that you can’t get from other means of communication?
- Make the trip hassle free. Boston’s Logan International Airport has tight security that can sometimes result in a long wait. Arriving early is essential to avoid a stressful last-minute dash to the plane.
- Have an agenda. An agenda ensures a productive meeting and lets participants know that there is a legitimate purpose for their attendance.
- Remember the trip is not a perk. Keep the trip focused on business and spend within company guidelines. No massage or beach day involved.
- Keep in touch with people you meet at conferences.
What other business tips would you suggest; do you have any advice for a successful meeting?
[...] As the economy begins to improve, companies still find themselves cutting costs by eliminating business trips. It makes sense—remove trips and you save. … See original here: How Business Travel Can Benefit Your Company | March Communications [...]
How Business Travel Can Benefit Your Company | March Communications | Business TravelWhen traveling to field offices and meeting with others outside your region, it is helpful to consider the office’s culture. For example, I used to visit my firm’s Nashville office every few months to work on various projects. The slower pace and casual office environment took some getting used to. Long lunches, numerous side conversations, and countless smoke breaks were the norm in this specific office. While seemingly inefficient from my uptight “corporate” vantage point, I found that these frequent pauses provided essential opportunities to get to know my coworkers. Showing my adaptability went a long way toward building the rapport needed to collaborate and develop solutions to our firm’s issues. We ended up thinking and creating more at the local burrito restaurant and standing around in the parking lot than we did in the conference room I had booked before my arrival in town.
While this case was specific to my company, it provided me some helpful management lessons that I believe can be applied by all. In short, always consider your audience and adapt your style. Whether it be a client, your team, or a panel of senior managers, you will come off as more relatable and position yourself for a positive resolution to the problem du jour.
David S.David, thank you for your valuable tip. Taking into account the client’s style and preferences is essential to creating a strong relationship, glad you pointed this out! For March, we notice that some clients prefer face-to-face meetings over any other means of communication, while others find video conferencing to be just as effective.
From your story I find another lesson: creative moments are often spontaneous.
Rachel LeamonThanks for this helpful tips March. I agree thinking that even though mostly all of the communication has swift to the Internet is the value and credibility that makes it unique to have the interaction face to face. Its recognizing and putting an image to that person on the other side. It just depends on the matter and style of the client. Either way, the relationship amongst the parts is what makes the business sucessful
Natasha MarquezNatasha, glad you enjoyed the tips! It’s true, the foundation of a company relies on strong relationships in every area of the business–from clients to employees. Thanks for your insight, and I hope you will continue to find the tips in our posts useful
Rachel Leamon[...] This post was first published by Rachel Leamon on March Communications’ blog, PR Nonsense, and may be viewed here. [...]
How Business Travel Can Benefit Your Company | GlobalCom PR-Blog InternationalIncredible piece of information!! Business travel can really work wonders for your business.
Angela William