Boardrooms to Boarding Passes Mastering Business Travel Without Missing a Beat

Professionalism in the digital age requires you to maintain your momentum and position across time zones and locations. Balancing leadership duties while on the go, and staying connected without sacrificing performance is a tough act. It’s all possible with some intentional planning and thought leadership. 

Traveling and hybrid work are the modern professional’s reality here to stay. Whether you have three weeks or a few days to plan, this blog covers the systems, gear, and mindset of executives who treat travel as a high-performance sport. 

Before you travel, think through these three categories to proactively prepare to travel seamlessly.  

• Transportation + Accommodations

• Leadership + Tools

• Protect Your Performance

Transportation + Accommodations

Traveling is a time versus money scenario. It’s up to you to optimize your experience and book what gets you the best experience and closer to the purpose of your trip. 

Maintaining your momentum relies on your travel choices from the airport, airline, lounge and the time management of your travel. 

Here are some logistics that can help ground you and set you up for the world of travel. 

Add on a day to the front end or back end so you can be focused, not frazzled 

The day on the front end can help you set up for your experience If you are traveling for a conference or meetings. You can run errands and grab the stuff you may have forgotten or practice that talk before you hit the stage. 

Recovery & Reintegration: Adding a day on the back end can help you close out logistics and reset before you make the voyage back to your home environment or explore the city you are in after business is handled. Conferences and meetings in other cities can be tiring from the shake up of your routine. Exploring the city is a great way to release the angst the business may have caused and refresh. I also like to use it to make returns from conference stuff I may not have used and to mail back stuff I don’t want to drag around. 

Time vs money 

Business travel costs add up fast in time and money. The largest expenses are your hotel, flight and ground transportation. You have to decide where you’re spending money. 

Some options are spending the majority of your budget on the hotel and no rental and ride share. Book a hotel further out to save on the per night costs and get a rental or rely on rideshare. If your schedule is tight, ride shares might not be ideal. 

Staying near the venue gives you access to people, walks and talks and you have more free time to enjoy the environment. Staying away can make you late and be more frazzled by turning your trip into a marathon. 

I’ve learned that when I stay further away it makes it harder for me to connect with the people that I came to connect with because I have a 45 min commute or I miss the impromptu stuff where people actually connect at like cookouts or happy hours.  

Food 

This one is easy to forget. I make sure I book my stay near a grocery store to grab reasonably priced water and fruit to sustain me between meals. I have to have real food when I travel. Eating out so much slows my energy down and throws off my normal routine too much.

Leadership + Tools

Communicating, delegating, and decision-making from anywhere.

Your time zone doesn’t change your responsibilities. Think through your active and upcoming projects and how your time away may impact the ramp up. Once you have that information identify who you have to communicate with, what you have to delegate and the decisions to be made.

Automations

Schedule out the reminders and critical information your clients, team and email subscribers need to know. I schedule out milestone emails or slack messages to communicate reminders with my team. I explain it’s an automation and that I am not online. I want to keep the project going. Other times it’s an automated affirmation to keep them going. I do this to keep trust going in my team and that the work needs to be done even if I am not in the room. 

Communication

Discuss expectations and decision making with your team and clients PRIOR to your departure. This keeps the trust and momentum going on projects. If a team member is covering for you, tell your people who they will be working with. Reconfirm it in your out of office email. 

Since I am a manager I am available via phone call for emergencies. I communicate what emergencies look like so I don’t get bothered for small things. 

This is an opportunity for succession planning to be active. The work that gets done without my presence shows me who is motivated to be a leader. 

Stay grounded with your ROI

Travel has a way of shifting focus. I find that when I keep focused on the purpose of my trip I am able to get the most out of your experience. If your ROI is to meet ten people make sure you have a plan to get the 10 people.  

Protect Your Performance

Don’t let decision making on the go disturb your professionalism  

Pack necessities

What outfits do you need to meet the experience’s dress code? 

Think through the functions of the events from hairstyles, makeup and types of shoes to wear. Make sure you are still comfortable. It might be best to wear sneakers or flats to a conference that has multiple locations and you have to do a lot of walking. If it’s hot outside wear lighter fabric. 

What things or processes do you need to keep your routine? If you’re a gym person choose a hotel with a gym or pack a jump rope to get cardio. I bring my resistance bands so I can do a workout in my hotel or airbnb. I know people who bring jump ropes or have video workouts they do with no equipment.

Snacks + Favorites 

Depending on where your hotel is you might want to pack protein bars or nuts to hold you over. 

I like to pack my favorite tea and oatmeal for breakfast. I don’t like to eat donuts and croissants for breakfast. Most places offer that for breakfast. There’s always access to hot water for my oatmeal packet to hold me over. 

If you have allergies, always bring your own snacks. As much as the hosts try to accommodate, it’s still kinda risky to bank on venues to accommodate you fully. 

Keep your routines 

Try to keep the same sleep and eating schedule within reasoning to keep your performance benefiting you. Make sure you wake up in time to set the tone for the day. Read, meditate, pray to ground yourself to lead with purpose for the day. 

Protect your performance by staying focused and let the plan you put in place be the guardrails for your momentum. 

Traveling while working adds another element to your performance. There will be moments where you have to choose your hard and refocus. Plan what you can and pivot when necessary. You are capable and the person for the job.