How Traveling Enables You to Be a Better Business Owner

Traveling is thought of as a leisure activity, but what if it actually meant turning you into a better business owner? Can those frequent flyer miles and backpacking really give you a competitive edge against other equally ambitious and highly driven entrepreneurs? Would waking up in a different city or country every week or exploring unconventional terrains and landscapes help shape yourself as a leader in commerce? Here are 10 ways on how traveling enables you to be a better business owner.

Gives You Ideas

Your mind needs material to work with in order to concoct ideas, and traveling gives you these materials. A business without any ideas on how to improve itself or how to evolve is bound to fail over time. By traveling, you expose yourself to new experiences, environments, people, and places. The contrast in these experiences can help form ideas that you wouldn’t have thought of while glued to your office desk. With how businesses are structured to run on a daily basis, the mind gets used to a certain pattern of paperwork, meetings, and tools that it doesn’t get challenged enough and fails to grow. It becomes too linear and rigid, unable to realize ideas and opportunities that abound.

Allows You to Learn

Attending top schools in the country won’t give you the same real-world knowledge and experience that traveling affords. In fact, according to the Brightpark Edu-Travel report, up to 94 percent of business leaders in the US advocate travel experience is tantamount to a competitive edge in the workplace. And albeit no two travel experiences are identical, the principles that surround them typically are. It’s not about the places you go and the luxuries you experience, but rather how you incorporate the experiences you’ve had while traveling into your personal and professional life. Those who are able to extract lessons from difficult situations they’ve been in are more likely to perform better as business leaders and entrepreneurs in the future.

Helps You Adapt

People make preparations before traveling, yet anyone who has had the pleasure of traveling at least once knows the fact that plans can change. The hotel that you thought you booked turns out to be an abandoned warehouse; the rental car you’re driving might break in the middle of the road. These and countless more situations are common when traveling. If there are any advantages to these stressful situations, it is that it gives you the opportunity to adapt and practice patience and problem-solving. It teaches you how to be flexible and remain calm under pressure. This adaptability can help you better manage stressful scenarios in the workplace.

Improves Your Communication Skills

Traveling, especially overseas, will force you to communicate with locals, whether it’s to ask for directions or do some reputation management and repair in another country. The language barriers and cultural differences can be quite stressful to deal with, yet it also encourages you to find creative ways around them. You get to meet people of different temperaments and personalities, network with them, and perhaps even form lasting professional relationships. This ability to create positive interactions with different people can be powerful when applied in the business setting, allowing you to rally the support and respect of your employees. Furthermore, it improves your business’ operational efficiency by making sure lines of communication are kept clear.

Manage Time More Efficiently

To be able to maximize your time in one place, you need to manage everything, from arriving at the airport on time to catching the scheduled tours and visiting hours of local hotspots. Time management is a skill worth investing in both as a traveler and as an entrepreneur. By learning how to better manage one’s time while traveling, entrepreneurs can apply the same approach in efficiently managing their workloads, from hosting meetings to replying to email messages.

Build Connections

The people you meet on the road can be powerful connections who can help move your business forward. Who knows, you might find your co-founder on your next trip to Aruba or perhaps find top talent to employ while flying to your next country? On the other hand, staying in your comfort zone or neighborhood limits the people you meet with and can potentially employ or partner with. Connections are key in business. The right ones can support your growth, spread word about your brand, help you with reputation management in their respective neighborhood, and scale fast.

De-Stress

Traveling isn’t just fun, it’s healthy too. Countless studies have shown that people who travel are far less stressful compared to those who remain rooted in one location for a prolonged period of time. As a business owner, the stress levels can get overwhelmingly high. Traveling to a remote island or to the countryside can give you space and fresh air to decompress. By allowing your mind and body to reset with a much-needed trip somewhere, you can come back to work recharged, more focused, and in a better mood. It helps you avoid routine burnout, which is a serious issue in many businesses.

Generates Brand Interest

When traveling outside your business’ city or country, you are afforded an opportunity to spread the word about your brand and its products/services. Whether it’s just a casual conversation with someone you meet at the bar or hotel lobby or a formal event hosted by your business, traveling helps introduce your brand to more people and places.

Declare Expenses as Deductibles

The expenses you incur while traveling on business can be written off as business expenses on your annual tax forms. Up to 50 percent of food and entertainment expenses can be written off your taxes. Of course, you’ll need an experienced and knowledgeable CPA to be able to push for a tax write off on your travel expenses.

Practice Delegating

Whenever you leave your business in the hands of someone else to travel out of town or out of the country, you are practicing the skill of delegation. You are forced to look at employees individually, weigh pros and cons, and trust them wholeheartedly. By traveling frequently, you train your workforce to be self-sufficient and more confident in their abilities.

Now that you have plenty of reasons to justify a trip out of town, start planning and preparing for one.