Summer Knowles: Hi I’m Summer Knowles with SBTV.com and today we are going to be discussing the best practices for the business traveler. Now if you’re like a lot of small business owners you’ve got to be in a lot of different places so how can we make that a little bit less stressful? Well, to answer that question we’ve got Dave Takushi with Wireless Toyz. Hi, how are you?
Dave Takushi: Good, thanks.
Summer Knowles: All right. So what are these tips?
Dave Takushi: I guess one of the tips, one that I use a lot as a traveler and a small business owner is text messaging and texting to Google. You can send a text message if you spell a Google on your phone, it spells out 46, 466453. You just spell it on your phone, follow the letters that are on there. If you send them a text message, you could send a text message and you could say Wireless Toyz, Saintt Louis or Wireless Toyz 63119. You notice in your text message back with the two clauses matches for. It will give you the address and it will give you the phone number.
So maybe you’re traveling another town and you need to find a restaurant, you could say pizza, you know, Detroit, Michigan and it will bring up a list of some different pizza places. It’s a lot cheaper than calling 411 which cost a dollar to $52.00 depending on your service. If you have a text messaging plan, just include it in there. So that’s a great way in order to find information is by just sending the text message.
Summer Knowles: Okay.
Dave Takushi: Other options that are available is with the rising gas prices these days.
Summer Knowles: Yes.
Dave Takushi: Figuring out where can you fill up your gas tank at a cheap price.
Summer Knowles: Gas record?
Dave Takushi: Because there are different prices that are out there. There’s a website you can go to called GasBuddyToGo.com. Put up on your phone and entering your zip code and it will show you a list of different gas stations and what the prices are that are recorded at those gas stations. So that’s a great way in order to find out. You know, hey I see, the price is $4.00 a gallon here. It’s cheaper some place else, you can take a look at those price for that so.
Summer Knowles: Okay and what about staying in touch with loved ones.
Dave Takushi: Well, great way to stay in touch with loved ones is of course, having a cell phone and being able to call back to home. If you’re on a family plan or with the same carrier as the loved one, you get free talking between and so it doesn’t matter whether you’re local or whether you’re out of town, another city, you can spend as much time as you want talking and talking on the cell phone which is a great thing to be able to do.
Summer Knowles: Okay and what about I think the air cards so they can maintain that access to the office at all times.
Dave Takushi: An air card is a great thing to have. I went on a trip recently and I used my air card to be able to get on the internet to be able to access things that I have back at the office so as long as you have a cell phone signal with the carrier that you’re signed up with, you can typically put your air card in and you can get high speed internet access from just about anywhere you go. So it’s just like you’re connected at the office but you can be productive whether it’s in the car or whether it’s an airport or in a hotel room without having to pay for the fee at the hotel, possibly and not having to worry about do they have wireless internets access. I can use my cell phone. I’ve got a signal. I can use the air card in order to be productive and get a lot more done.
Summer Knowles: And I think a lot of business owners would agree that one of the most potential tools is the Bluetooth, talk about that a little bit.
Dave Takushi: Yup. Bluetooth is a great device to have. There’s a variety of options that are available at Bluetooth but it really helps you if you are on a road trip and you need to connect to conference call or you’re spending time, you know, need to call a couple of customers here, their the Bluetooth headset is just a safer way to go whether you’re listening to somebody or talking rather than holding the phone up while driving, trying to navigate around some place else so the Bluetooth headset is a necessity these days. I think for the road warrior that’s traveling or driving around a lot.
Summer Knowles: Okay, so we went through a list of several but if you had to pick one, if they are going to do one at time, it’s a gradual prices for a lot.
Dave Takushi: You know one that I actually didn’t mention that I think is probably one of the most useful ones that you have out there is the GPS capabilities on the cell phone.
To be able to, you can get the lowest gas prices around, to be able to pull off the restaurants. It will do a lot of the things that we’ve already talked about and it will tell you exactly where you are. So you’re in a city, you don’t know where exactly you are, where the hotel is.
For me, when I go on a trip, I just write down the address. I’ve got my cell phone with me. Once I get to that city, I pull out my cell phone. I’ve got my rent a car and next thing you know, it gives me the directions of how to get to the hotel. There’s no more bringing out the maps and events and if I want to find the lowest gas price, it will do some of those things also but I think the GPS in the phone is probably one of the better features and one of the more useful features for the road warrior that’s traveling around.
Summer Knowles: And what’s the range of cost for all of this convenience?
Dave Takushi: It depends on the different things. You need to get the GPS for as little as $10.00 a month depending on the carrier that you’re with and the GPS service that you use. You can get into Bluetooth headsets starting at $40.00 depending on the features that you want out of the headset; the size of the headset, things like that.
Summer Knowles: Alright, thank you very much.
Dave Takushi: Thank you.
Summer Knowles: Alright and if you didn’t catch all of those tips, we will have them right here on our website SBTV.com where small business is our only business.
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