On The Road Again…Apr17

Image (c) 2009 DreamWorks “Up In The Air”

Last week, I almost peed in my hotel room closet.

Yeah, you read that right.

It was the middle of the night. I’d been in different hotels (interspersed with brief sojourns at home) for part of every week since the beginning of the year. And for one brief and almost disastrous moment, I simply forgot where I was. Luckily, I came to my sleep-addled senses when I tripped over one of my own shoes, placed strategically outside the closet door. But still, it was a sobering moment.

Many of us that work in the asset management industry spend a tremendous portion of our lives on the road. Money managers must travel to drum up investments, to keep current investors happy and informed, present at investment committee meetings and otherwise support their assets under management. Investors trek for diligence visits, periodic onsites, and other gatherings (trustee meetings/retreats, investment committees, etc.). And of course, there’s the ever-expanding conference circuit to keep both groups, plus a hoard of service providers, racking up craploads of frequent flyer miles. Many of which we’ll never use because we’re pretty darn happy when we actually get to spend an extended period of time at home.

Over the past ten+ years of extensive travel, I’ve developed a few coping mechanisms to manage the rigors of being almost constantly on the go. And after sharing my closet story with a few folks last week who seemed to identify with my temporary travel amnesia a little too much, I came to realize that we could all use a few hacks to make it through 2018 as productively, and sanitarily, as possible. 

So here goes: Meredith’s Top Five Travel Hacks for the Investment Industry

1)   File business cards in your conference name badges. After a conference is complete, I always put the cards I’ve collected into the back of my used name badge. That way, I can remember where I met someone and/or pull contact information for a specific person or company quickly. 

2)   Carry a spare lanyard. If you work for, well, just about anyone, chances are you’ve at one point had a company-branded lanyard. Put it in your computer bag and take it on the road. That way, when you arrive at a lanyard-free conference, or, horror of horrors, at a conference where they expect you to use safety pins to secure your nametags, you’ll be able to spare your look and your clothes while still letting people know who you are. Don’t have a company-branded lanyard laying around? Choose a key service provider and proudly rock their lanyard.

3)   Put one of your business cards in the back of your namebadge while at the conference. So, lanyards are great (see above) but sometimes (nearly all the time if you’re me) those contrary contraptions spend more time making your nametag face your belly button than the person you’re talking to. To ensure that folks can always tell who you are and who you’re with, put one of your own business cards in the back of your nametag while you’re at the event. Frontward or backward, you’ll be good to go.

4)   Get a good business card with a white, non-slick back. Take out your business card right now and grab a pen. Not a good pen, but a crappy conference giveaway pen with a somewhat bajiggety rollerball. Write your name on the back of your card. Can you see it? Does it smear if you rub your thumb across it? Is there room to write your entire name? If you answered “no” to any of these questions, your business card is the bane of people’s existence. How do you expect us to write notes on the back of a card that doesn’t have ample real estate, is too dark, or where the ink rubs off on our clothes or hands? Make it easy for the people at an event to connect with you later with light colored cards on decent card stock.

5)   Know how to sneak in breaks. If you’re a money manager at a conference, you’re there to network. That means anything that says “break” on it in the conference program is showtime for you and your fund. If you’re an investor, your breaks are a little more sacred…if you can get out of the event for a few minutes unmolested. In other words, if you want to get a few minutes to yourself in either case, you’re going to have to plan for it. Money managers, scope out the sessions in advance and figure out one or two you can skip. Note: Do not skip sessions with anyone who has an investment in your fund, who works for your fund, or who could invest in your fund. Investors, you may have to make a break for the break a couple of minutes before a session ends to get to a “safe zone” (bathroom, hotel room, Starbucks). Obviously, you shouldn’t avoid breaks altogether (the best way to find talent is to meet talent!), but skipping out on one out of four in a day may help your sanity level a bit.

Of course, there’s always more where those came from, such as: 

• Don’t ever, ever touch your face during a conference or event…with all the hand shaking, that’s the single best way to get sick.
• When going to the airport or train station after a big event, don’t talk business on your phone or with friends until you know you’re not surrounded by conference goers that you don’t recognize because they are now attired in “real people clothes.”
• And of course, always put your shoes outside the closet door.

I’m sure you have a few tips and tricks of your own, so feel free to leave them in the comments below, but if you follow these simple guidelines, you’ll likely save yourself some headaches and may make even better use of your time on the road again.

Happy Traveling!