Travel Policies and Evaluation

Recently, I posed a question on a LinkedIn group I am part of: ACTE (Association of Corporate Travel Executives)
How often do travel managers evaluate their travel programs and travel agencies? How do they perform this evaluation?

Since I posed the question almost three weeks ago there have been numerous responses. Many people from different sectors of the travel world (travel managers, agents, consultants, suppliers) have given their insight into the question. After reading all of the responses so far it seems there are a couple of common points that people brought up. Here is a summation of the responses:

-Numerous corporations (even large ones) still don’t have travel policies in place.

-Many corporations who have travel policies in place, do not enforce them.

-Vendor contracts are reviewed quarterly or annually, using several different methods.

-People are looking towards technology to help book travel and analyze travel spend/performance

-Real time analysis is the most important analysis a travel manager can perform because it allows for immediate recognized savings.

-Travel programs differ and are enforced very differently depending on companies various cultures.

-Enforced travel policies and analysis of these policies is necessary whether you’re a small or large company.

-Many employees do not understand, are scared of, or abuse travel policy.

All of the analysis people have given has been very insightful. I hope to continue to pose questions that people are interested in discussing. To join the discussion, join the ACTE group or the Topaz International Group on LinkedIn:

ACTE: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=789767

Topaz: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=1833037

Standing Up After Falling Down

Vince Lombardi said it best, “It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up.” I’ve heard this advice from a few people in my life and always thought this made sense but never truly understood it until I was in a position of truly falling down and standing up again didn’t seem so easy. The truth is, looking back on it now I see numerous times I have fallen down and have had the choice to sit down or stand up. Most of those times I kept my head held high and stood back up right away. A few of those times it took a little more effort and a little more of a push to stand back up. However, it’s the couple of times when it took time, a true struggle, and a strong push to stand back up that have made me who I am today.
Bad times teach us something. Even when we don’t feel like we’re learning anything in the moment (or months), eventually, we realize how much we’ve been taught through the struggle. There’s something to be said about moments when you feel like there is no light at the end of the tunnel. One thing I’ve learned is that there is always a light at the end of the tunnel. It may not be the light you expect at the time and it may not be the brightest burning light, but it’s there. And once you reach that “light” at the end of the tunnel, whatever it is, you’ve got through the hardest part. Now you have the choice to take whatever that light is, small or big, and make it burn brighter, and have it fulfill your life in all the ways you need it to.
I think sometimes we have challenges we face that we never expect and we can’t imagine getting beyond. All our lives in business and life we’re taught that preparation is everything, and without it, you fail. So what do you do when something happens that you were unprepared for? How can you possibly succeed if you weren’t able to prepare?
These are the moments you may feel like a failure, but these are also the moments you have the chance to stand back up, start over, try again. Most of these moments’s preparation wouldn’t have helped you anyways. They are the things you can’t prepare for. The things you can’t wrap your mind around, the things you say, “That will never happen to me.” Well they did, it did, he did, she did………..so, what next?
I think back on all the advice I’ve received and this is honestly one of the best pieces. It happens all the time to people in all areas of life. It is the difference between being unhappy, scared, depressed, and/or stressed forever, or pushing forward onto the life you want to live with the success, love, happiness, fulfillment you want. So next time you fall down, feel free to allow yourself to feel the struggle, take the time in stride, and know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel if you can just keep walking through it.

Topaz is Celebrating Higher Education!

Topaz International is Celebrating Higher Education!
Research? Student recruitment? Study abroad? Student Competitions? Conferences? Spring break trips?

Topaz International is celebrating our colleges and universities around the world for inspiring the growth of our future leaders! Recently, many colleges and universities have been utilizing Topaz services to help them save money on travel so they can bring the impact of their educational programs across the globe. We’d like to help you make a greater impact. All colleges or universities who audit in the months January, February or March will receive 10% off their total audit price!-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Personally, I’m very excited about us helping colleges and universities save money on their travel. Looking back on my college career my most memorable and life changing experience was when I went abroad to Italy for a semester. It was such a great opportunity to spend time outside of my comfort zone in a new culture learning a new language. I also know that many of my friends feel the same way. I’ve yet to hear someone have a negative experience that went abroad. I also had friends during college who went to Ghana, Africa to help teach entrepreneurship to children. They also told me how life changing their experience was.

I always think it’s a neat thing when institutions of higher learning all over the world can collaborate and travel to each other to share ideas and cultures. I think sharing knowledge is one of the most important things we can do as a society. I’m proud to help support an initiative that tries to make this easier for everyone involved. I look forward to working with many institutions of higher learning in the upcoming months!

PS: The picture above I felt was appropriate for this post. This is a bar in the middle of Florence, Italy that had US college shirts all over the ceiling and walls. Kids who have come there from all over have got to hang their shirts. :)

10 Great Reasons to Audit in January

There is a similar pattern I’ve noticed as I’ve been working with clients in the early stages of their audit process. Many of them come to Topaz with a desire to audit but have many questions about the process. Once we have had a few phone calls with a client and they are comfortable with the process they usually talk it over with their team and then decide to audit. One thing that has always surprised me is that often times after our clients decide they want to audit they choose a random month to do so. They may start right away because the audit was motivated by mistakes they feel their agency is making, or it may be a time when employees have complained they can find lower fares on the internet. Or sometimes it’s a month when they have a lot of their employees traveling.
However, sometimes I think there are certain months to audit in the year that are better than others and these times fly below the radar. One of these months is January. Most clients will assume January is actually a poor time to audit because it is one of their slowest travel months. However, if you look closely there are at least ten great reasons to audit in January:

1. Let your agency know you are serious about their performance and developing a relationship with them from the beginning of the year.
2. Utilize benchmarking reports included in your audit to set a baseline for 2011
3. Renegotiate contracts early in the year if you are seeing problems
4. Address specific employees or agents early on who are not following policy or making errors
5. Quiet the noise of your employees stating they can find lower fares at the beginning of the first quarter.
6. Ensure you don’t run out of money in your budget to audit by the end of year.
7. Compare 2011 data to 2010 data right away to see how changes in your travel program, management, etc. have developed.
8. Review your agencies performance during a month where there are fewer bookings and errors are possibly more likely to occur.
9. Ensure a peace of mind of your agency’s performance and collect data to show management later in the year if issues arise.
10. Take part in a responsible business practice half of the fortune 1000 companies are also a part of!

So if you are considering an audit for next year and haven’t decided when would be the best time, consider January.

Ronald Reagan - We Must Fight Speech

This video got me thinking today. Sometimes…we must fight.
I’m not talking about war in this blog, I’m talking about in business, in life. Sometimes, we must fight. Quite frequently it’s easier not to fight. It’s easier to accept. It’s easier to walk away, to settle, and to let something go. However, today Ronald Reagan reminded me that sometimes those are not the right answers; those are not the right decisions.
When something matters to us, when something is important to us, there is a time we need to take a stand and fight for those things. Fight for the things we care about most and are most important to us. We can’t let our own dreams die, without fighting for them to be pursued. When we have something that we have built, whether that is a business or a family, we have to fight with all we have to keep it prosperous and safe.
We have to fight for the things we believe in most, the little things which are actually big things. Clients, family, friendships, dreams, sometimes...we must fight to preserve all of these things.
We have to fight for ourselves. It seems everywhere we look there are people who are defeated. They have allowed themselves to be defeated by others or by themselves. They have lost their strength, their personality, their fight. They have lost some of the greatest things about themselves because they stopped fighting back themselves and others. The most important fight is forgotten: The fight to keep our own head above water.
The challenge lies in two things: Deciding what’s worth fighting for, and then fighting with all you have for those things.
“If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat. Eventually we have to face the final demand, the ultimatum, and what then...Someday when the time comes to deliver the final ultimatum our surrender will be voluntary because by that time we will have been weakened from within, spiritually, morally and economically.”
We must fight.

Nothing Great is Ever Achieved Without Great Risk

Sometimes I think it's hard to decide if something is good enough, if something is right enough, if the timing is quite right, if the effort is worth it, if it will be too much of an investment, if it will succeed, if there's something else that should be done instead, if staying within your comfort zone makes more sense.

I think that often times our doubts, our fears, our uncertainties, our insecurities, hold us back. We talk of all the barriers in front of us before we stop and realize we've created 3/4 of them, and the other fourth are things we can't control or will never know the answer to what they truly hold until we try to break through them.

We close ourselves in, we shut ourselves down, we let our greatest ideas, our strongest passions, our biggest dreams fall to the way side. We miss out. We never know. We wait for the 'right time' and fail to acknowledge time waits for no one.

Then somewhere between all that doubt, uncertainty, waiting, and holding back it becomes..too late. I guess in another breath it's "Never too late" but then again…as much as we don't want to realize it, sometimes it is. Whether the patent was taken, or we suddenly lose our health, there are times when “too late” is the case.
It really seems to me, at the end of the day, none of the greatest things in this world would've happened without great risk:




Benjamin Franklin- 1752 on a stormy day ventures outside, flies a kite into the air with a key attached to it and feels an electric shock go through his body, inventing electricity. How many of you are ready to head outside during a lightning storm and fly a kite with a key attached to it and shock yourself to help change the world forever? RISK.



Chuck Yeager- First person to break the sound barrier in 1947, flying the experimental Bell X-1 at Mach 1 at 45,000 feet. A flying career of more than 60 years and a brigadier general in the United States Army Air Forces.



Neil Armstrong-First person to set foot on the moon in 1966, also one of the first US civilians to go into space. Performed the first manned docking of two spacecraft. Commander of Apollo 11, explored the moon’s surface for 2 ½ hours with Buzz Aldrin all to bring back research about outer space to earth.



Lance Armstrong- Most of us have trouble getting ourselves to go to the gym for 30 minutes a day. Lance Armstrong battled cancer and has gone on to push his body and mind beyond limits other people only dream about. Winning seven consecutive Tour De France’s and coining the phrase “Live Strong” he has now aided in donating millions of dollars to cancer research.



Sir Richard Branson- Set up Virgin Records, eventually expanding to an airline, Virgin Atlantic, pioneer of numerous humanitarian initiatives. Attempted the fasting Atlantic Ocean crossing, First hot air balloon crossing of the Atlantic, attempted to circumnavigate the globe in a hot air balloon, Fastest crossing of the English channel in an amphibious vehicle. This guy never stops taking risk as an entrepreneur and being innovative.



Mother Teresa-Dedicated her life to ministering to the sick, poor, dying and orphaned. At the time of her death Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity were operating 610 missions in 123 countries, helping millions of people. Awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 1979.

All of these people took such great risks and all of these risks lead to such amazing, important achievements. Risk and faith are so important in all of the things we do every day. In business, in life, in love, in everything we do. Taking risks on things were unsure of is often the only way we ever truly know the answer to anything. Whether that risk turns into something that goes nowhere or you happen to invent electricity…..the risk was the first step.

The word “risk” sometimes has a really negative connotation because I think often times we associate it with, “failure”, “scary”, “venerable”, and “impulsive.” The truth is, it is possibly ALL those things, but it is also “courageous,” “necessary for change,” “passionate,” “rewarding”, “life changing”, and the one way you’ll really ever have an answer to some of your most important dreams and desires.

So get out there, take a risk, and get your answer. Be electric, break a sound barrier, reach for the moon, live strong, circumnavigate the globe, and help people who need it most.

The Way The Flight Attendant Safety Brief Should Be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lqh8e2KYIrU&feature=player_embedded

Why can't all flight attendants do this? I don't know about anyone else but I would be relaxed and in a good mood after this. This isn't amateur hour either; these people have rhythm and are in sync. Not to mention the fact they have up to date and upbeat music. I'm going to have to give Cebu Pacific a WIN for this one.