I'm in awe lately at the technology available to us small- and home-based business owners! This weekend I had some sudden travel come up due to a family emergency. Thanks to the wonders of laptops, wireless Internet service, and programs like TypePad (a web-based blogging program), I'm still able to work from the hotel just as well as at home. (If not better, frankly, since I don't have to worry about doing household chores here. Heh heh!)
I would encourage you small business owners to check with your tech gurus to see how they can make your business more mobile and efficient. This works well whether you are a person who owns five branches of a franchise and wants to be able to travel to each of them throughout the month, or whether you're a freelance writer or artist who wants to be able to travel to book signings and gallery exhibitions.
Here are the top five resources I use that I now consider indispensable for a mobile office:
- laptop computer (save your most essential files and working documents on your hard drive and a CD or DVD-rom, that way you can keep working even if you don't have Internet access all the time)
- wireless Internet service (yes, Wi-Fi hotspots are great too, but I'm thrilled with our Verizon service, which picks up wherever our phones do)
- a cell phone (clients don't even need to know you're out of town if you always use your cell for business like I do)
- a digital camera (I suggest having two memory cards, that way you can save personal photos to one and business to the other; download them each night and email wherever you like!)
- USPS.gov (okay, so I don't carry this with me. But it's a MUST website if your trip is a sudden one and you need to stop the mail RIGHT away!)
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