Last week I met with my client Jim at Panera Bread in Coolidge Corner. I really like that place. It’s so big that you can comfortably sit and work without feeling rushed. Even better, in the summer they open up the porch so you can work in the shade, surrounded by fresh air and Wi-Fi!
Jim’s been a consultant for nearly 15 years and we’ve been working together since last spring. He’s successful and makes a nice living. Jim has clients he likes to work with all over the country, so he’s also on the road quite a bit. And it’s wearing him out.
For at least 15 days a month, Jim finds himself in airports, hotels and various corporate offices. In between the training sessions that he runs, he’s busy trying to keep up with email, voice-mail and everything else.
Jim and I sat down and talked about how to make his work flow easier and his life more mobile. These were my three key suggestions:
1. Get your email into the cloud. Using cloud technology means that your email, rather than residing on the hard drive of your individual computer, “lives” on a server somewhere on the Internet. Gmail, Yahoo and many other services are cloud-based, and the benefits are HUGE.
For example, in my “pre-cloud-based” life, when staying in a hotel and trying to check my email, I could receive but not send. Why? Because of something called an SMTP gateway that needs to be configured according to the Internet service provider you’re using at the moment (whether that’s Panera or the Four Seasons Hotel).
Unless you’re on the cloud, that is, in which case there is no gateway. I now use Google Business Apps (essentially, Gmail for business) and I’m able to send and receive anywhere I have an Internet connection. And this isn’t just a temporary fix for when I’m travelling. It’s the way I use email each day, which means that, no matter where I am, as long as I can get on a computer it’s the exact same experience.
And what about when you’re going to be somewhere where there is no Wi-Fi? No problem. Download Gmail Offline and answer, archive and file any of your email. When the Internet is available again, everything will automatically sync.
2. Get your own Hot Spot. If you’re on the road a lot, you need to bring the Internet with you.
Instead of looking for Wi-Fi, trying to figure out passwords and working to bypass corporate firewalls (not to mention paying for connectivity while you’re waiting for an airplane or train in many cities), you can connect to the Internet through your cell phone by using a hot spot!
With one phone call to your cell provider, you can turn your smart phone into your very own hot spot. Then, search for your phone’s wireless signal, connect your laptop to your phone just like you would any other network, and you’re on the Internet.
3. Breeze through expense reports. If reconciling the piles of receipts that you collect while traveling turns into a full day’s work when you get back to the office, you’re making your life unnecessarily difficult. With the nifty application Expensify you can make this whole nightmare go away.
After signing up for an account, link your business credit card to the application and use this credit card for as many expenses as you can. This way you’ll make sure all your expenses are accounted for, even if you lose a receipt.
Along the way, open up the Expensify app on your smart phone and snap a photo of each receipt, make a note of the business reason, and assign it to a trip. When the trip is over, use Expensify to easily create a great looking expense report with PDF images of all your receipts in one file that you can email to your client.
Whew. Business travel is tiring under the best of circumstances. To make it a little easier next time, take care of fixing the things you can before you hit the road!