It makes no difference if you are a Saleswomen, a Salesman, a rookie or a seasoned pro, we all face challenges while on the road. You may set up your own flights, cars and lodging, you may have a travel department that does it all for you, or if you are like the vast majority of "rocket roadsters" you drive your own car.

The successful sales road trip begins long before the first appointment. Imagine if you have driven or flown all day, made all of your sales calls, and get to your hotel only to find you don't have a reservation, they don't have an ironing board in the room, they don't have a data port on the phone, they don't have high speed Internet...we could go on and on, but you get the idea, at this point you feel that the entire world is picking on you.

Do you fly to your appointments, what if you did not have a reservation, or you got to the airport to late?

What if you had no rental car reservation?

Is the car you reserved available?

Do you use a computer on the road?

What if it quite working?

On your return trip, you leave items on the plane, or in your hotel room, or in the rental car. How would you get them back?

If you had an accident away from home, who would you need to get hold of for an insurance claim? Do you have what you need with you to check into a medical facility, or get emergency care?

Careful planning to cover these and other surprise occurrences will help make your road trip a success. In days gone by?it was easy to make all of your travel arrangements through a travel agent, doing so gave you one number to call, one point of contact if something went wrong. Today we have the Internet?you log on to your favorite travel site?bring up a saved itinerary from a previous trip, make any changes, push a few buttons?and you are done! The travel site, if you choose the option, will even call your cell phone to let you know the status of your flight, while you are on your way to the airport.

Please visit http://www.RoadWarrior101.com for tips and information to help make your "On The Road" sales career go a little more smoothly.

Jim Newell an on the road sales professional for more than 30 years, publishes a web site at http://www.RoadWarrior101.com with the mission of bringing resources pertaining sales training, sales tips, travel arrangements, a little humor and much more to one easily accessible site.