What Is Traffic Costing You?

As an entrepreneur, it can feel like we’re in a constant struggle against time. We need to maximize the impact of every spare minute in our workday. In today’s hustle and bustle world, that means traffic. In 2011, the average American spent 38 hours every week stuck in traffic (even more than that if they were in major cities).

That’s almost an entire work week’s worth of hours doing nothing but sitting in the car waiting for the road ahead to become clear enough to move from “Point A” to “Point B.” Think of all the different ways that time could be used.

First of all, entrepreneurs can do their best to avoid sitting snarled in traffic. This can mean different strategies such as video conferencing from a company like InterCall, or creating a social media strategy that actively places you in front of clients and reduces the need for travel. It can also mean maximizing your time spent in the car.

While it’s still not advised to use your smart phone while driving, you could schedule posts and tweets ahead of time for the hours that you’ll be in the car in order to maintain a presence. Adjusting your work schedule to create a faster commute or working from home could also help free up some needed time for more productive activity. Traffic will never go away. Handling it in a more strategic manner can increase the impact of your business.

About the author:  Dennis Collins is the director of marketing for Conferencing and Collaboration at InterCall. In this role, he directs a team that provides strategic marketing support for product launches, external communications, competitive positioning and channel/sales communications. His career spans a wide range of communications, marketing and operations experiences including being a digital video pioneer as well as spending 13 years with technology PR firm as partner and COO. Entrepreneur does not escape the list; Dennis also started his own ad agency and founded an award-winning gourmet dessert café. Connect with Dennis on Google+.