Over the past 3 months of coaching CEOs, President and high-level assistants, the one thing I’ve been hearing from the executive is that their assistant needs to take the complete trip before they do.
As someone who travels almost weekly, I know exactly what they are saying. And these are great assistants who have planned entire week’s trips for years! This is not an inexperienced admin we’re talking about. So what does this mean?
The idea is to imagine you are your executive and you are home the morning of your 3-day or 5-day trip. This trip is going to involve stopping at 5 different companies – maybe clients, potential clients, or meetings. What needs to happen from the time you leave your front door until the time you arrive back at your house 3 days later? You must map out every step along the way.
Most problems occur during the trip, once the executive has arrived at their destination. A good example is an executive who had several stops to make on a trip to Los Angeles. LA is huge! My sister lived there for years and I’ve been there several times. When you are trying to figure out how your executive goes from Point A meeting to Point B meeting and then has to give a speech at Point C, don’t ask how many miles apart they are. They can be 3 miles apart and take 45 minutes. This is even true in Las Vegas. Depending on the time of day and which route is taken, it can take me anywhere from 15 minutes to 45 minutes to get to the Strip from where I live.
This is just one aspect. If you do not travel often on business, which most admins don’t, you might tag along one time with your executive so you really see what it is like. And each trip can be different so you have to be flexible in travel planning and double check everything.
Good luck.
Joan Burge