Working From Home Tips for Sales Productivity

Working From Home Tips for Sales Productivity

Sales Team working from home. Is it possible?

The sales team has one job, but it takes a lot of effort to get optimum results. Salespeople in our staff use a wide range of methods to get to the end goal. A lot of hours is spend writing targeted emails, talking on the phone, trying to get on the phone with the purchasing department of our target clients. It's an exhausting job, but they always manage to get results at the end of the month. After all, for a company with no investors, we need to make sales to keep the gears working. But if your sales team's outreach strategy includes, making cold phone calls, writing more emails and trying to talk to the right people, does it matter where the sales rep is sitting? Sure, the office has its vibe and sets everyone to get into the mood of work. But due to our global efforts to quarantine the Coronavirus, we are looking for alternatives to work away from crowded spaces. The scope of this article will explore the possibilities of managing a sales team working from home.  

Addressing the Current Situation

With everyone locked in their homes due to the pandemic caused by COVID-19, we all have to pitch in to give our best to save everyone. A lot of people are risking their lives at the frontline, for us. We have nothing but support and respect for them. Most businesses have stopped and the government around the world has ordered to carry out only the essential activities within a very strictly followed period of the day.   Intandemly is account based marketing sales-based company. It's not in our culture to sell when the whole world is on fire. There are a few businesses which are thriving and right now require more labours than before. Sadly not all businesses are fortunate to be in such position. During these hard times, we at Intandemly are catering to businesses who are trying to keep the lights on.  

How is Sales Team Working

Currently, 100% of our sales team is working from their home. We are determined to help our Nation's initiatives to flatten the curve. Luckily for our sales team, Intandemly's platform is perfect for Work From Home. Madiraju Nischal, our innovative developer, has given us the following general tips.
  1. Get as far away from your comfort zone as possible
  2. Keep a list of daily task and deadlines
  3. Have a routine, and repeat while getting ready to work
Read this: How To Generate Sales Without A Marketing Budget  

Work from Home Tips for Sales

Here are a few tips to work from home
  1. Start your day with a call to your Sales Manager.
  2. While working, try to keep only 1 tab open.
  3. Take up the Pomodoro approach and take frequent brakes.
  4. Focus on completing more tasks per day over spending more hours 'on the job'
  5. Take notes, and keep write report as the day progresses.
  6. Setup daily tasks, weekly tasks and monthly tasks.
 

Sales Team, Working Remotely

Here's how we are keeping the ball rolling at intandemly.

Sales Manager:

A lot of sales manager take calls through the day and write an email, all while managing a whole team of aspiring and energetic Sales reps. Work from home may feel unproductive for managers because they lose the element of being in present and observing the reps. Our founder Sampath Mallidi once said: "I've been in sales for half of my life, we can smell talent and bullshit miles away." Sampath went on to say "I know my sales reps are working hard". And the number reflects just that. He doesn't need his reps to work from the office. A phone call with a person will tell him how the sales reps are performing.   Here's is our Tips for Sales Manager:
  1. Start your day by briefing your legion on the daily tasks
  2. Encourage Sales Reps to work 1% better than yesterday
  3. Provide positive feedback on victories and losses of your Sale Reps. Times are harder than usual right now.
  4. If you can't manage all your Sales Reps in your Sales Team, your Sales Team is too big
It's the culture you build with your existing staff, moulds the next generation sales rep.

Please note: Recruits and newcomers in any industry or field learn more by being around the team. Most people learn valuable lessons by accidentally eves dropping. Be in frequent contact with your teammates in a group or on a 1-on-1 basis. All of them.

 

Sales Reps:

  1. Start practising Task-Based Work, over Hour-Based Work
  2. Focus on one task at a time
  3. Share your yesterday's work experience with your fellow teammates and manager. It's therapeutic.
  4. Encourage your teammates to try innovative ways to approach clients.
Please Note Empathy the word of the hour.  

How to Build Better Sales Habit Working from Home

James Clear's book, Atomic Habit has a really good example of how to develop a habit which makes you good sales. In the book, Clear gives an example of a young salesman who kept two jars on his desk with 120 paperclips in our jar and the other jar empty. After every phone call he made, he moved a paperclip from one jar to another. He would do this throughout the day until all his paperclips had moved from one jar to the next. Ultimately he became the company's best sales rep.   The example Clear gives is a young salesman who used to keep two jars on his desk with 120 paperclips in one jar at the start of every day. After every phone call the man-made, he moved a paper clip from one jar to the other. He would do this all day until eventually all of the paper clips had moved from the first jar into the second. He became his company’s best performing sales rep. Paperclips were just a cue for him to become motivated to make the next phone call. Activities like this can be practised to improve efficiency working from home.

Avoid Burnout

Working long hours may sound productive, but it has the opposite effect. As mentioned in the article above, we strongly endorse the task-based workday over the hours-based workday. At the end of the day what matters is if the tasks were carried out. By ending up pursing long hours over a single task, we end up wasting too much time over the small things. It starts causing fatigue and boredom. Nothing kills motivation more than boredom.

How To Do This?

Start the day by creating a list of a few tasks you want to complete for the day. This list can be self-created or given by your manager. What matters is you take these tasks, work them one at a time.

 

Battle Isolation.

Work from home is mostly working alone. You end up not talk to anyone for the better half of the day. While working in a traditional environment, we talk to a lot of people. We get up to grab a cup of coffee and stop by the booth of your colleague to talk about that one Master Chef Australia Episode. We Socialise. This element is lost working from home. But it Doesn't have to. Isolation is good but when consumed carefully and in small quantities.

Here's How You Fight Loneliness

Thanks to the so many tools out there, is it completely possible to talk with everyone over the internet. Zoom, Skype, Slack are just some ways to be in touch with your colleagues. As a company is important to create a culture to allow people to discuss topics such as Burn out, lost of motivations, feeling overwhelmed, depression and anything in between or beyond.

 

Struggling Mental Health

Ever felt of the these? Chances are you will feel one of these along your journey as you progress in your career, working from home. Read these, and check if you have been in any of these situations.

    1. Sitting in front of the computer, but not feeling like working
    2. The regular job has lost its charm.
    3. Headache, Fatigue, Body Pain.
    4. You feel like your work doesn't add value to the Company.
    5. You feel your Personal life is struggling because of your work style.
    6. You have the constant urge to prove your work, but never had what it takes to take the first step.

If you have had a flashback of your self in one of these situations, or something similar, relax. you are not alone. Everyone at one point in their life feels like this.

hell, a lot of people feel this while working in a regular office environment. It's completely fine to feel these. But to hid them from your college and not talk to anyone, is not the way to go about.

How Do You Leap Over These?

Take a break. No, seriously. I have been through all of these feelings, and coincidently on these days, I was either working long hours or was trying to over-deliver. World's top Sales Reps have reportedly closed a deal which seemed to be lost. But managed to talk them sanely after taking a break. Here are a few ways to take a break while working from home

    1. Walk to the next room
    2. Check if your plants need water.
    3. Play a quick game on your mobile device. You are an adult, you'll know when to quit.
 

Read Books

We recommend the following books.
  1. James Clear's Atomic Habit
  2. David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH) and Jason Fried's Remote: Office Not Required
 

Conclusion

Working from is possible for salespeople. Reach us at contact@intandemly.com to learn how our team is using Intandemly's platform to work from home. Also remember, Empathy is the word of the hour. Take care of your self and your family. Stay at home, Wash your hands and don't touch your face.