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Coronavirus: (COVID-19) has been declared a Pandemic by the World Health Organization and many companies are now creating a work from home sales team. Working virtually (telecommuting) may be an option you want to implement for your company. Unfortunately most of the information available is on how to manage a remote sales team, or how to create a work from home sales team.
It may seem overwhelming and difficult to set up a remote workforce, but it can be done easily and efficiently! These 10 tips on structure and technology will help you set up a remote sales team! This works for both inside sales and outside sales.
How to Set Up a Remote Sales Team:
1. Clearly define company work expectations around having a virtual office. Is there a start and end time that your team must be on-line and available? Or can they create their own schedule to get the job done? Will they still be expected to go see clients, but not have to visit the company office? To avoid confusion and dysfunction, think through all scenarios and clearly communicate what working at home means for your team.
2. Make sure your team has the appropriate space and technology to work from at home. Great – your company provides a laptop for work, but do all members of your team have high speed Internet? A printer? Good cell service? Headphones? Dedicated workspace?
3. Confirm that your employees bring home everything they need to work. You’d be surprised how many people bring home their laptop and then forget their charger cord, mifi (mobile hotspot), client files, access to CRM, or code to the company VPN. Does the laptop have a camera or do you need to bring one home? Make a list and check it twice!
4. Do you have a dedicated landline in the office? Make sure the calls are forwarded to the company cell or other appropriate number for customer interaction. Be careful about forwarding to a home phone. If little Johnny answers, it may be weird!
5. Embrace the software and technology that is available to stay connected internally and externally. Slack is a great way to enable your team to share files and messages and they offer a free plan to get you started. You can even set up private channels to connect with specific work pods or individual clients. Messenger and Whattsapp offer free international messaging to enable overseas communication without a personal expenditure from the home office.
6. If you want to “see” your clients but aren’t able to meet them face-to-face. I suggest video conferencing. Personally I am a huge fan of Zoom. The platform is very stable and they also offer a free plan to get started. Facetime and Skype are also options, and for large group video conferencing Google Hangouts is great.
7. Are you worried about how you can share confidential documents that need to be signed like contracts? No need to have a printer, scanner or fax machine. HelloSign is all you need. In HelloSign you can create invoices and documents, or upload one of your own. The process is very similar to DropBox, because, well, they are a DropBox company. They also have a free plan if you have limited needs.
8. Do you need a way to manage time for hourly employees? Or have a project that needs to stay on track? Consider using Asana. Asana is a project management tool that will keep track of time and help you manage your project. And yes, they have a free version too!
9. Keep your teams routine in place. If you have sales meetings on Mondays at 8am, continue those meetings. Is Friday lunch usually a fun team gathering? Try using a virtual team building activity for your remote team instead.
10. Working at home can be more productive (less interruptions), but it can also be isolating. Make sure you communicate frequently with your team so they don’t feel like they are on an island. Working from home should be just a change in office space, not a change in office culture.
Good luck in setting up your team! Contact me if you need any help, and FYI the tools mentioned above are ones that I’ve worked with and like. I do not get compensated in any way from those companies. I’d love to hear how you’ve set up your team or tools that you love. Please share with comments below!
This article about creating a work from home sales team was written by Christine Miller of Miller Sales Consulting. With extensive experience as a highly strategic sales motivator and sales coach, Christine has excelled at building and structuring sales organizations. More sales advice can be found on her LinkedIn page, as well as Medium. Subscribe to her videos on YouTube.