Business.gov had a great guest post the other day with tips on travel for small business. I was surprised to learn that for every $1 spent on business travel, incremental revenue is $12.50. Wow! That’s a great return…however, travel can also be sticky, tricky, and somewhat undesirable in the modern age of Skype. Here are some ground rules to help guide your travel planning:

1) Do you really, really need to travel?- Are there alternatives to spending the money to fly to meet your potential client/partner. Could you both meet halfway in a desirable location where there is more opportunity for both parties? Can the meeting be conducted via Skype for now, and then plan a trip at a better time?

2) Make travel rules crystal clear- Though you may think employees know your sentiments on 5 star dining while on business trips, it’s better to clearly voice your expectations and set ground rules before you get a receipt from the Four Seasons.

3) Set agendas and expectations- Make sure travel time is optimized by seeing whether there are other opportunities other than the mandatory meeting to attend. There may be networking events, conferences, or other contacts in the area where you are traveling.  Really maximize each dollar you spend by not wasting time on the road. A way to monitor this is to have a spelled out agenda which shows exactly what you or whoever is traveling will spend their time doing. Having an agenda makes it easier to set expectations for the outcomes to expect from travel meetings.

4) Make expense reporting easy- Expense reporting can be complicated and a waste of time. Luckily there are an abundance of tools and strategies to make it easier. Having a procedure that everyone is aware of will minimize questions about requirements. Or, you can opt to use what we use, Expensify, which makes expense reporting easy by having photos of receipts mailed in a pdf to automatically create an expense report.

Image thanks to http://www.flickr.com/photos/12734746@N00/427400947/