Why It's Worth Paying More for a Direct Flight

Travel has been one of my greatest passions for as long as I can remember. My Grandfather used to say, "when you travel, you go direct." In my opinion, it's more important to travel well than to travel on the cheap regularly.

I only let my friend book our travel plans once. He "got us a great price on our flight from London to Dublin" he said. "It's way cheaper than all of the other flights I saw!" he said. I was pumped at the time but realized soon there after that when it comes to travel, you get what you pay for.

Our flight was cheaper than the other flights, yes. However, the flight didn't leave from London (where we were staying). It left from Stansted (an airport about 30 miles away from where we were staying). It also left at 6:30 am...

If we took the Tube, it would have taken us an hour to get there - that is, if the tube was running early enough. If we took a taxi it would have taken us an hour and a half to get there. We ended up taking a pre-ordered taxi and paying a lot of money to get to the airport.

By the time we arrived in Ireland, we had spent an additional hour commuting to an airport outside of the city and MORE money on the taxi than we saved taking the flight with a "great price."

Ever since this experience, I've always considered travel time and the cost of getting to the airport before purchasing a ticket. Sometimes when you're on a tight budget, you think it's worth it to 'rough it' a bit in order to save some money. Another example of this is when people go bar hopping in New York City and stay out until last call and then take the subway from Manhattan to another borough. It's better to have a drink or two less and take a Lyft home!

What in the world does this have to do with business?

The same principles apply to hiring talent and how you spend your budget.

You have to decide when it's time upgrade from cheap labor that doesn't have the skills, experience, or reliability that you need to people or products that meet a higher standard - that don't make as many mistakes, that show up to meetings, that have done the job before.

Once you make the investment in people, platforms, and systems that allow your business to thrive and free up your time, your life will be a whole lot different.