The first major shift of thinking regarding our travel happened when we were conducting a workshop in Boston on September 11, 2001.  Coincidently, we were scheduled to leave out of Boston's Logan Airport the next morning at the very same time the planes took off and headed  toward the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. Our grief was minimal compared to others, but with four children thousands of miles away in California, it was very frightening to be so far from them. Finally, 5 days later we were able to rent a car and drive to Newark to catch one of the first flights after the FAA lifted flying restrictions. As we waited for our flight at Newark Airport, we could see across the harbor to lower Manhattan where the smoke from the Twin Towers had created a red sunrise. In that moment, looking across the water just before our plane boarded, we knew our lives would be forever changed by the event, we just didn't know how much.

When you travel for a living, you learn to ignore the risks in favor of the benefits. However, with so many workshop participants choosing to stay closer to home following 911, we had a lot of time to rethink our business model; specifically how we delivered our training. We had a vision to provide a rich, robust learning experience that would be enhanced by technology. Unfortunately, we were a bit ahead of our time. In 2001 the technology just wasn't there to support our vision but we kept at it. We experimented with on-line webinars and trainings for small groups. We also focused on working internally with larger firms where we traveled to them instead of them coming to a public workshop.

In a way, the fall-out from 911 was a blessing in disguise for Mentor Plus. The shift of focus to working internally with a larger firm over a longer period of time resulted in exponentially better implementation rates than our public workshops. Unfortunately, pulling away from promoting public workshops left many smaller firms and individual practitioners with very few training options but we knew it was only a matter of time before the technology would catch up with our vision.

For every downside, there is an upside . . .The increase in oil prices, rising travel costs and hotel rate increases helped to accelerate the accessibility, economies of scale, and competitive pricing for on-line training technology making our investment in cutting edge more feasible.

Coincidentally Green . . .

Although we knew there would be some green benefit to not traveling, it wasn’t until a number of studies were published on the carbon footprint associated with business travel did we realize what a difference we could make by moving much of our training on-line. Although there are a few people out there (mostly older partners, to be very honest) who aren’t keen to be part of the on-line training movement, the demographic of our ideal audience has embraced on-line training without hesitation. Younger partners and team members, Gen X and Y have grown-up with technology as a part of their everyday life and learning process. In fact, these young people work hard to achieve a reasonable balance between their work and home life. As a result, on-line, on-demand training and the accompanying digital, searchable manuals and materials has a lot appeal to the NextGen of accountants.

To sum it up:

1. We wanted to work closer to home
2. Our ideal clients want  to stay closer to home also
3. We wanted to make our training programs more cost effective so we could reach a wider audience
4. The technology is now accessible and affordable
5. We appreciate the opportunity to reduce our impact on the planet.