This is what we’re going to discuss today. I will show you how I packed my bag as a business consultant in the past. And I will share some tricks, which are my perspective, what you will likely need, what you probably won’t need, and probably what can be a lifesaver in certain situations.
Travel is down. People are not traveling that much. There’s more home office. They also know that travel is already starting to pick up again slowly. So trust that this will become more relevant for you in the future again.
So let’s start by talking about the exterior because there are some little things that you can do as well. And one of the main problems you will face is that many business consultants will use very similar bags. So at the airport, there were lots of bags that pretty much looked the same. So my tip is, use something like this, a little piece of something to mark your bag that everybody knows that this is yours. And that you can quickly distinguish it from other bags as well. And of course, a proper luggage tag with the information, with your details will be helpful So that in case you lose it, in case somebody else finds this, they know who you are and how they can reach you.
Why do business consultants even care?
So why do business consultants even care so much about what exactly they pack into their bags? And the main reason is that you will not check your luggage, so you can only bring hand luggage. And the reason is that it would just take too much time if you go to the luggage bed conveyor after you land.
You wait for your piece of baggage to pick it up. The team wants to take the taxi directly, take the cab to the client once you land. So everybody would pick up hand luggage. There will be no checked-in luggage. So let’s start with how these bags are structured. And, of course, the different types of luggage will be different. But usually, it’ll have one compartment where it’s more free float, right?
Shirts
So let’s start indeed with the shirts. And here, what you need to understand is that on Monday morning, you will already drive to the client and then fly to the client fully dressed. So in your suit, in your shirt, and so on. So from Monday, you already wear your outfit. This means that you still need outfits for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, so three days, but then it’s a good best practice to always have an additional one in the store with you.
So that for instance, if for whatever reason, you might need to stay there for another day spontaneously, that you would be able to stay there, for instance on Friday as well, without running out of cloth. So it’s best practice to have four clothes with you. There are four shirts, and of course, here are the types of shirts you see here. What types of shorts, what kinds of suits you’re supposed to wear, but like usual plain colors, white, blue, some simple stripes. This is what’s usually okay. This is what you were wearing most of the time.
Underwear
The next item to take care of is your underwear, And here for the same logic, you already wear your things on Monday. They don’t need four more days to be covered until Friday. And then my recommendation is to bring even one additional one in case you want to do some sports. So, for instance, one pair of sports socks always makes sense. So you have five additional pieces of underwear.
Now, if you look here in the compartment where we put the shirts, it makes sense to staff this a little bit here in the free spaces because this will have this whole area not moving so much. And the less it all moves, the fewer wrinkles, the more minor problems you get with ironing your shirts afterward. So once you’ve all put it in, then you can close this, and this then should make sure that this is more or less firmly secured. And then this first half part of the bag is done. Once you then unpack your bag in the hotel, it always makes sense to check how wrinkly your shirts are. And indeed, most business consultant hotels will have the opportunity to help them with the ironing or provide you the facilities so that you can then iron the shirts perfectly if they are too wrinkly for you to wear.
Shoes
The next point is the shoes. And this is always a question of personal philosophy because indeed in such a bag you usually only have a place for one additional pair of shoes. So you really already wear your business shoes on Monday. So the question is what is the second pair that you bring? And some colleagues like to bring a second pair of business shoes so that then they can alternate the shoes during the week.
This of course can make a lot of sense and will help you to really keep the shoes in a well-looking place for the long term. Personally, I always liked to prioritize sports. So I always brought a pair of running shoes so that I have these with me. And this is then indeed something that you can just then pack in the second half. They usually did it in some way like this to have the shoes in here in the section. I often frankly also use the shoe bag to make sure that then the potentially dirty shoes are not making other things dirty here as well. So for the sake of simplicity, I’m not having these here but indeed, you could pack these actually in a simple garbage bag, a simple plastic garbage bag, for instance, to have this clean and secured here.
