If you’re a startup owner or you’re working for a startup, the idea of a business trip can be pretty dreadful. This is especially true if the company is still in its bootstrapping stage, which means the trip will be on a tight budget and you’ll be expected to cope with a lot of annoyances almost naturally.
I agree that a business trip on a budget can be very dull, uninteresting, and even tiring, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Recent studies have revealed that business trips are far more effective when those traveling are having fun along the way. Here are the top five ways to make your next business trip more fun without breaking your budget.
Explore Your LinkedIn Contacts
Meeting other people – especially industry experts – can turn a mundane business trip into a fruitful one. The best way to get started is by looking into your LinkedIn contacts and contacting those in the same city you’re visiting to arrange meetups. You can spend a nice afternoon having coffee or even having a casual dinner.
Talking to people with the same interests as you is always a great way to gain plenty of new insights and learn new things. The people you meet can tell you so much about the local market as well as other information that may prove to be crucial to your startup. You can even explore new opportunities and find ways to work together in the future.
Of course, meeting people is also a great way to keep the mind sharp. You’ll feel much better as you enter the main business meeting and you will come home from the trip feeling completely refreshed and full of new information to work with.
Add a Day of Vacation
A business trip doesn’t always have to be a one-day in-and-out hassle. By timing the trip correctly, it is actually possible to add a day of vacation to the trip. This is a handy trip to try if you’re traveling to a city you have never explored before or you’re near a popular holiday destination. Adding a day of vacation can also save a lot on the vacation itself.
Going on a business trip on a Friday means you can extend your stay for an extra day – or even two, depending on how you prefer to spend your time – for exploring the city. Cities like NYC are so much fun to explore. You also make use of websites such as www.ticketoffices.com to help you find shows to attend or buy tickets to a sporting event.
You can also go on a foodie tour. Don’t just visit famous restaurants or five-star hotels. Find out more about the local food scene in the area and try to find local food hangouts to explore. You will be able to find plenty of gems from the foodie tour, plus you can treat yourself to some tasty cuisines along the way. If you don’t know where to start, Yelp is always there to help you.
Write About the Trip
This next tip is something a lot of startups owners are turning to in order to garner interest, not only on their products but on the experiences they have working on the company itself. Take famous YouTuber – now part of CNN – Casey Neistat. When he was launching his startup Beme, his various trips to San Francisco and other parts of the country turned into a series of vlogs everyone loved to watch.
You can take the same approach and let customers – and your audience in general – take a closer look at what life as a startup owner or employee looks like. The interesting stories behind a business trip, the places you visit along the way, the food you try and any other interesting experiences you bring home are all great things that can be nicely integrated with other content marketing efforts.
String a Few Trips Together
One last way to make a business trip – or should I say business trips – even more exciting is by stringing a few of them together. Jet-setting from one city to another, exploring multiple cities while having a fast-paced series of meetings and business tasks is indeed very exciting. You can turn a whole series of trips into one long story for the audience to follow, making the trip more interesting as a content marketing campaign.
Saving on these trips will be even easier to do when you string a few business trips together. You no longer have to fly back and forth, plus you can book hotels much further in advance with a clear schedule in mind. This, and the previous tips we talked about earlier, will help you turn a business trip from dull to exciting.
