Choosing the Right Leader-Director in Your Coastal Travel Vacations Business
22 Jul 2011 | Category: business-travel | Author: admin
Are you looking into working a home based business with Coastal Travel Vacation Club? Choosing the right Director is the most important step in your discovery process. Why?
Success or Failure!
You always want to make sure the director you're with has the experience to help you succeed. Trust is a major factor when looking for a leader. The reason I'm saying this is, you want to make sure they've been doing this for quite a while and they're not going to disappear on the YOU and on the business!
Another negative I've found is: The director is doing more than one business at a time. Sometimes doing two is alright, but more than that and YOU won't get the attention and the training you need to succeed because they're focusing on the other businesses and having to train the new people in those businesses as well. One business at a time is always the best then you'll know you have their full attention.
My point is: thoroughly check out the director, the leader. Find out how long they've been in business, what their experience has been like. Find out if they're focusing on more than one business at a time. Is he or she going to be with you next week, next month, next year or just disappear? You get the point!
Choosing the right group within Coastal is important as well. DFI - Decide Freedom International is a phenominal group of people who are focused on Faith and team work. You can't go wrong with this group!
Good Luck to you and God Bless You in all you do!
Slash Thousands From Your Business Travel
31 May 2011 | Category: business-travel | Author: admin
When it comes to your business travel we all know that this comes write out of your bottom line, but in order to keep good customer relations this is something that you must do. One of the most common things to do is to hire a business travel manager to handle all your business travel arrangements.
Did you realize that the median salary for a business travel manager is $73,000.00 per year? (FACT) Where's the savings?
The best way to slash thousands from your travel expenses is to out source. You can have a travel agency do the same things as a business travel manager without spending thousands doing it. By having a travel agency handle your travel arrangements, you can save anywhere from 80 to 90% depending on how many traveler's you have. By doing this makes your bottom line more profitable.
Let me ask you, would you rather spend 73,000 or 10,000?
The responsibilities of a travel manager are to choose transportation and lodging for company employees, advise about passport and visa requirements, rates of currency exchange, all things that a travel agent is already doing. Additional perks of hiring a travel agent is they can handle convention planning and group vacation organization for employees.
One of the best benefits from hiring a travel agent over a business travel manager is that a travel agent is offered reduced travel rates from preferred vendors as to where a business travel manager is not.
By out sourcing and hiring a travel agent over a travel manager, you are not only saving from paying a large salary, but you also save by not having to provide benefits such as health care and retirement. These could easily bring the cost of hiring a business travel manager to well over $100,000.00 a year. That's Insane!!!
There are so many more benefits from hiring a travel agent over a business travel manager because they are so much more knowledgeable in the travel industry. How, when, and where travel is booked whether online or offline is very important when it comes to saving money on your business travel. These are techniques that only travel agents will know because they deal directly with travel vendors. Nine times out of ten a business travel manager will either call a travel agent or go to a travel agent's web site for their information.(FACT)
Haven't we learned in the past couple of years that foolish spending is not the way to go? Look at what it has done to big business. It's time we get smart and trim the wasted fat. Wouldn't you rather spend the money growing your business than hiring someone that's probably looking out for them self rather the company?
When looking for a travel service for your company make sure that they have incentive and rewards programs. Look for a service that has the customer's best interest at heart.
I understand that customer service must come first in order to have long standing business relations. I want to help you to accomplish this same goal.
Balancing Business Travel and Personal Life
09 Apr 2011 | Category: business-travel | Author: admin
If you travel for business, you already know the challenges that you face everyday that the average person cannot relate to. In addition to having the ever present stresses of maximizing your job performance in a very competitive business climate, you hold in the back of your mind all of the duties and responsibilities that you would face if you were home.
We are all individuals and our personalities lend themselves to handling these issues in various ways. If you have children at home while you travel, that presents special challenges. The key is to communicate with your spouse and/or children and make sure they know that they are in your thoughts all day every day while you are gone. With your children, make sure they understand exactly what you do for a living and why it is necessary to be away from them. Our kids are lot more resilient than we sometimes give them credit for, and it may be that they will even think it is kind of cool that you travel for your job. It certainly may be something that they can talk to their friends about at school etc. Make sure you stay abreast of all the activities they may be involved in, and get a daily report of what is happening in their lives. Talk to them. As simple as this sounds, sometimes in our every day lives, we take for granted all the little things our children do that are important moments to them. Make sure your kids know that you realize the importance of the little things that make up their lives.
School functions are a good example of the everyday things that you may miss. Be sure you know when they are happening. Make a big deal of them before they occur, so your children know that although you may not be there personally, you are there with them in spirit. Call them as soon as possible after an event to see how they did. It really does not matter if it is a sporting event, school play, awards ceremony etc. Let them know it is as important to you as it is to them. If you have the opportunity to attend a function when you are home, DO NOT miss this chance. It will only reinforce your support for them.
Spouses are a little different issue. While you are traveling eating in fine restaurants and/or entertaining clients or business associates, he or she will be at home dealing with "everyday life" and may feel some resentment. That is human nature. It doesn't make it any easier but it is a fact. Again, communication is the key. Constantly enforcing your support for them and having a compassionate ear will go a long way towards calming any anxieties they may have about your absence. You may have a long day working on the road, but remember that your spouses life goes on as well without you. Anything that comes up while you are gone, they have to deal with themselves. That can be a lonely thing. If you can, call your spouse several times during the course of the day to let them know you have them in your thoughts. The smallest words of encouragement can go a long way.
When you travel for business or you have a spouse who does, there are many possible challenges you may face. Be sure to face them together, even more so than if you were there.
These are words of advise from a seasoned business traveler. Please keep an eye out for additional tidbits of information and lessons from the road( most learned the hard way).
Business Traveler Tips - Cannot Send or Receive Email Messages
16 Feb 2011 | Category: business-travel | Author: admin
After a busy day of making a number of sales calls, meeting new people and making contacts, you call it a day and a grab a hotel room for the night. You log into your laptop to update the day results and get ready to send a number of emails to your boss/suppliers to update new orders and deliveries. You finish composing the email and click on send but nothing happened! You have to get that email communication through, its critical.
Have you ever been in this position where you cannot send receive email messages?
Here are planning tips to help prevent this situation.
1) Always Bring along LAN / Ethernet Cable. - The majority of hotels now offer wireless services for Internet access but at times the signal quality of the wireless service may become low thus restricting your access to the Internet. If you cannot get access to the Internet via the wireless service connect your LAN port on your PC to the Hotel computer network. Most Hotels have this function available for you but they usually to not have extra LAN / Ethernet cables in stock.
2) Carry a list of tech support numbers in your laptop case. - Your firewall or latest update of your virus scanner may have broken your email communications. Knowing who to call will drastically reduce your frustration level.
3) To Prevent Undeliverable Email Error Messages, keep outgoing email messages under 10K. - Emails with very large attachments may be rejected by the remote mail server because of the size of the email may fill up the receipts email inbox but also a number of Email servers have hard limits on the size of the message that it will accept. A good rule of thumb is to keep the email message under 10mb, this will prevent your message from being undeliverable.
4) Subscribe to a Internet Email SMTP Services to prevent email relaying problems.- When you are traveling for business you destinations may be from 1 hour from your home base to half way around the world. Where ever you are,( Internet Cafe of Hotel ) the probability of you using a different ISP for email communications is very high. Each and every Internet service providers have their own policy dictating how emails services will be provided and almost all ISPs will not allow you to use their email servers to relay message to external sources. ISPs prevent relaying as a mechanism to stop spam emails from propagating. ISP will only allow relaying when they can verify who you are meaning that you need to subscribe to their services.
Internet Email SMTP Services will prevent you getting the following errors
550 Unable To Relay,550 refused, 550 relay error, 550 relay denied, 550 relay not permitted, 550 5.7 1 relay, 550 unable to relay for xxx domain and allow you to send receive email messages from anywhere. Internet Email SMTP Services will work with Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, Apple Mail and any other email client.
Running a Business While Traveling to Another Country
26 Dec 2010 | Category: business-travel | Author: admin
Traveling and running a business sounds like an oxymoron. Well, it can be done. Thanks to Apple, Twitter, Facebook, Skype and Wi-Fi. Today with all the virtual offices around you never know if you are talking to someone in the UK, America or in India.
As one of the main partners at The Web Success Team, I am running a little experiment. I am presently traveling around Southeast Asia for 3 weeks technically on vacation but not quite. I still have to take care of my clients needs. Even though I have a support system back in Los Angeles, my clients still want to know that someone is in charge of the operation. Here below is a small part of a diary I am keeping.
Day 1: Thursday, March 12: After traveling for almost 24 hours, Bob and I arrived in Phnom Phen, Cambodia where settled in a charming boutique hotel, The Blue Lime. Before booking our hotels we carefully checked to see if all room had Wi-Fi. We were able to take care of all emails and reassure our customers that we are in contact. And since we were 15 hours ahead, it was easy.
Day 2: Friday, March 13: Visited an orphanage - a must for all people visiting Cambodia. We brought the kids toys and purchased a 50 kg (110 lb) sack of rice to feed them for a month. The next day we visited S-21, the Khmer Rouge prison where the Communists tortured and destroyed the educated class of citizenry. The afternoon was spent designing and writing a direct response website. One gruesome note. In the evening we went to dinner at in a colonial mansion where street teens were reeducated into learning cooking and waitering skills. The meal was delicious, including Bob's appetizer - fried trantulas. Bob ate all four and said they were crispy but delicious!
Day 3: Saturday, March 14: Early flight to Siem Reap, home of the famous Angkor temples (one of the world 7 man made wonders of the world). Work wise, I managed a shopping cart issue for one of my clients while sitting by the pool.
Day 4: Sunday, March 15: Caught the sunrise at Angkor Wat at 6 am (with all the tourists in the world, chasing after the rising sun with their cameras), visited the amazing site for 3 hours, returned to the hotel, and with around 5 hours of downtime (too hot to go anywhere), I worked on the direct response website and a social media plan.
Day 5: Monday, March 16: Flight to Saigon (now named Ho Chi Minh City), delayed...opened up my computer and reviewed client statistics for the month. Arrived at the hotel, checked email and wrote and uploaded client blogs and sites. Saigon's city streets are awash in motorcyclists (thousands), honking, surging and buzzing around like disturbed hornets. The city itself lacks charm and is quite polluted. Even the motorcyclists wear doctor's masks.
Day 6: Tuesday, March 17: It had to happen sometime, we both got sick with bad tummies. So we decided against an all day bus trip to the Mekong Delta and chose to stay close to the hotel and visit the city instead. After breakfast (chicken noodle soup and tea) went to the war memorial museum. Very graphic but a must see visit. It documented the American war atrocities, very real and very tragic. War knows no humanity - on both sides. Worked in the evening, it is the morning in LA we are 15 hours ahead, good thing.
So far my clients seem happy, some are not quite sure where we are and don't even care as long as they get what they need in a timely manner. My objective is to do this at least once a year. It seems to be easier on vacation then when I travel for conferences, where most of my day is taken.
Page 2 of 7 Last >> Next > < Previous << First