...Now it’s just another day, but I remembered how my week used to be after talking to an old friend and ex-workmate yesterday on the phone. 

I used to be in the Audio Visual/Live events industry (trust me it’s not as glamorous as it might sound) first as a technician, then a project manager, then a business development manager. I worked my way up the corporate ladder I guess you could say.    

Snakes and ladders as I found out 12 years later when they kicked me off it! But that's another story.

At the top of my ladder I had a decent salary, a nice company car, free smartphone and laptop and a telesales person working for me making business appointments. 

When the recession really started to bite, the company’s CEO was keen for us to pursue every sniff of new business with a vengeance.

So my telesales person was not too fussy about the quality of appointments she made for me. It was more about quantity - she was paid commission on each appointment whether it generated business or not - pure folly.

So that meant my week usually involved working from the car. I’d race around the country from appointment to appointment, meeting to meeting from 8am till 6pm or later for 5 days a week. You might think Scotland is a small country but try driving from Glasgow to Aberdeen and back to attend 3 or 4 meetings…

Many of these appointments were really just information gathering exercises for the people I was meeting or were “future reference” or “we might need to hire a projector at some point”, routines.

No wonder when Friday came along with the promise of two days off I welcomed it with all my heart.

When I think about that now it just strikes me as such a stupid, wasteful, impractical way to do business - and to spend most of your time. 

Granted it wasn’t my money paying for the car, the fuel, the salaries, the laptop or smartphone. Same goes for the thousands of other sales people I’d share a rush hour traffic jam with, but it still seemed farcical - more so now since I’ve learned how completely unnecessary it is to do business that way. 

Doing business online provides the possibility of targeting only the best prospects for whatever you sell. It doesn’t involve expensive, polluting travel to and from meetings or any of the other ridiculous trappings of many traditional businesses. 

So this Friday I’m raising an “after work” glass or two to the internet and it’s life changing possibilities. 

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Cheers!