(Fortune Small Business) -- Alan Minton, vice president of Cornerstone Information Systems, was hardly opposed to taking business trips. After all, travel is part of his core business. Cornerstone, a 70-employee firm based in Bloomington, Ind., makes automation software for the travel industry.But in March 2005, Minton embarked on a disastrous four-day sales trip to San Francisco. One potential client canceled at the last minute. Another sent representatives who weren't empowered to make buying decisions. At his final meeting Minton was peppered with the kinds of technical questions that his IT guy could have handled easily - except that his IT guy was back in Indiana.
That unproductive trip got Minton thinking. What if he used conferencing software to meet and vet potential clients over the Internet before he ever stepped on a plane?
"I'm not trying to eliminate my trips," he says. "I'm just trying to make them more productive."
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