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A new way to work from home…
For the last week or two, you likely have been working from home and balancing your children’s schedules and you may find home and work are colliding. Our work week will not be normal for at least the next few weeks, and possibly the next few months.
Yet, sales teams need to be productive to turn this economy around.
This is a time when we have to be creative and productive to take care of customers and children. Download our
Creating-My-Ideal-Week-Template.pdf
to map out a productive work week while working from home.
Strategies to Maximize Your Sales Time Working From Home
Here are a few key sales strategies to allocate your time to be productive:
- Reach out to your customers to take the best care of them
- Allocate time each day or week to identify & research new markets/industry who are buying or could be recession-proof
- Allocate time each day to improve your sales processes, such as your CRM or proposals
- Allocate time to develop new programs, promotions, and product offerings
- Work with your marketing team to develop marketing campaigns and stronger messages
- Allocate time to stay healthy – work out your body & mind
- Allocate time to review your sales goals, plans & alternative strategies during COVID-19 and to re-build business for the remainder of the year
Some of you may have to plan a better work schedule to also care for children, in addition to customers while working from home.
As a working Mom with a home office for over 17 years, I learned to balance when our girls were young. We created signals so the kids knew when I was on a call with a client and they knew they could not interrupt the call with a request to have a cookie or watch their favourite TV show. They loved to write messages to me on the whiteboard in my office like, “Do you want a grilled cheese for lunch, can we watch TV, can we go to the park?”
Strategies to Maximize Your Parenting Time
As salespeople and sales leaders, we need to adapt. Trying to work and keep a second eye on our children can be tricky.
The workday doesn’t have to be your typical 9-5 day. Working from home means your schedule can be flexible to accommodate children, a workout, or even a grocery run during the middle of the day.
Here are a few different ways to plan your day:
- Parent A begins their day @6am – 9am.
- Parent B begins their day @9am – 12 noon, while Parent A cares for children.
- Parent B takes lunch with kids, Parent A works 12-1 to check emails and respond to urgent requests.
- Parent A takes care of children or continues their workday from 1-4pm, while the alternate parent does the other.
- Parent A works from 4-7pm, while parent B cares for the kids and makes dinner.
- Or another option is each parent takes 1-2 hours shifts to balance work and children while working from home.
The way you decide to schedule your time work and family time, if working from home is new to you and/or your partner, it’s important to be creative and patient while everyone adjusts to new situations and especially to working from home.
In the meantime, stay healthy and hopeful that we’ll get through this!
Lisa is driven by the mantra – Be Strategic. Be Pro-active. Be Brave. – and has been successfully training and coaching sales leaders and their teams to do the same for over 15 years. As the President of Teneo Results since 2003, she has trained thousands of sales professionals at more than 250 companies across North America. She transitions salespeople away from the standard “product & price” approach to having purposeful business conversations with their customers that drive results.
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I don’t think anyone could have forecasted last week’s turn of events. As the majority of the world is asked to work from home in self-isolation, it’s hard to put a pause on sales goals.
You may be asking yourself how a sales team can remain productive while working from home and being banned from traveling or meeting with customers/retailers.
As you navigate the next few weeks, here are 7 tips you can do to Be Strategic, Proactive, Brave…and Healthy among sales teams.
Yes, you can maximize this time and not COCOON!
- Sales Planning – this is a great time to review, strategize and reflect on your sales plans & strategies to STILL achieve your 2020 sales goals.
Blow the dust off your Sales Goals. Review your Q1 goals and plan for Q2 goals. Schedule a call with your manager or another colleague to strategize and share ideas.
- Daily Virtual Team Huddles – your team will need to hear sales successes, best practices, and have a few laughs on a daily basis. Early morning or 4pm huddles – keep your team engaged, accountable & social!
Zoom/Skype video calls are a great way to see & hear your team. Assign different topics, 5-5-5 & agenda teams to your team.
- Research new Markets/Vertical/Competitors – assign each team member to research, learn about this market, create a list of SUSPECT companies and people to contact.
There is never enough time to do this and NOW there is….Prepare and Plan your future plan!
- Strengthen Strategies & Messaging – Territory Plans, Key Account Plans, Value Proposition Messaging, Your Ideal Week, Great Questions Template
Download the complimentary templates from our website and start strengthening your sales.
- Call & schedule customer & prospect calls via video or live voice. Encourage them to still make 10+ calls each day.
We are hearing from many sales professionals, how customers/buyers have more time for these conversations and willing to schedule them! Feel free to give us a call.
- Improve Sales Process & Customer Experience – great time to review & improve your sales processes. At Teneo, we are scheduling a daily 3pm call to review one process each day & improve.
Your CRM, proposals, order processing and even when to ask for a referral are all great processes to review, improve and create a better customer experience!
- Positive Self-Talk & Have Fun! and Stay Mentally Healthy. Sales teams are social and need fun and interaction.
What is your craziest toilet paper story? OMG – why has toilet paper become the scarcest commodity? Share jokes, videos and lots of text emojis! 😀
We have great interactive live training through our “Sales Performance Sessions” via Zoom with break-out rooms, chat conversations, virtual whiteboards, plus a final Sales Practicum. You’ll learn each week and apply the concepts & tools in between the live sessions to improve your skills and GET RESULTS with clients.
Let’s have a conversation at 519-863-3975 or lisa@teneoresults.com.
Please share your best practices and comment which tips you choose to implement.
Lisa is driven by the mantra – Be Strategic. Be Pro-active. Be Brave. – and has been successfully training and coaching sales leaders and their teams to do the same for over 15 years. As the President of Teneo Results since 2003, she has trained thousands of sales professionals at more than 250 companies across North America. She transitions salespeople away from the standard “product & price” approach to having purposeful business conversations with their customers that drive results.
Blog
Are headwinds impacting your business? Lately, the air has been swirling with uncertainty, gloom and even fear regarding what is brewing in today’s economic climate. As businesses and sellers, we need to ensure these headwinds are not impacting our own self-talk.
Nothing happens until a sale is made and we need more sales to happen (other than the sale of hand-sanitizer!).
This past week, I was in Ambergis Caye, Belize. It was a beautiful island just off the mainland of Belize. Actually, it was a 14-minute plane ride on a single prop airplane that held 12 persons including the pilot.
For our readers who know me well, I’m a sunny, fair-weather type person and I hate the cold and wind—it will come as no surprise to you that the headwinds that were present impacted both my pleasure trip and the week’s professional business.
What headwinds (obstacles) are impacting your business? Even though I was on holiday, I started to allow these headwinds to impact my own mindset. I decided to use my best tool to turn around these uncertainties. I sat at the beach and started to write and turn around these obstacles into tangible strategies. As I started this list, I began to feel much stronger about the situation. Within a few hours, the winds even started to subside.
I highly recommend you take a few minutes to create your own list. Here’s what I created:
| Obstacles aka Headwinds |
Strategies to Overcome Obstacles |
| Economy and Stock Market Plummeting |
Salespeople must become stronger to have business conversations and show the ROI reasons |
| COVID-19 Travel Ban impacting Live Training |
Offer Live Virtual Training |
| US Election impacting business decisions this fall |
Develop stronger business & sales strategies in Q2 and Q3, prior to US Election |
| Companies not willing to invest in soft skills training with budget restrictions |
Create stronger performance and results-based training to show ROI investment |
| What are your obstacles? |
What strategies can you put into place? |
Interesting perspective – sometimes we feel these headwinds are much stronger than they actually are.
As we toured the island and met with locals, we asked them if it was always so windy. They didn’t seem to be frazzled by the wind. They would simply pull down the tarp of their open-air restaurant/bar and it would be instantly warmer and calm inside. You just need to find a shelter to reduce the headwinds and even your own head noise!
Lisa is driven by the mantra – Be Strategic. Be Pro-active. Be Brave. – and has been successfully training and coaching sales leaders and their teams to do the same for over 15 years. As the President of Teneo Results since 2003, she has trained thousands of sales professionals at more than 250 companies across North America. She transitions salespeople away from the standard “product & price” approach to having purposeful business conversations with their customers that drive results.
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Sales Leaders,
If you were the coach of a high performing sports team, what would your team rally and conversation look like in the dressing room before game time?
- Are you rallying your team to win this upcoming game?
- Are you strategizing on game moves to play an offensive game against the competitive team to win?
- Are you building confidence and getting them excited and motivated for the upcoming game?
- Are they in strong shape to mentally and physically play this upcoming aggressive week?
- Do you huddle and high-five and have your team cheer/mantra before you head out to the field?
- What is the aura of your weekly sales meeting? Does your team leave more excited for an upcoming sales week?
What can you do to create a stronger IMPACT in your weekly sales meetings?
In our Sales Leadership Journey Program, we talked about this topic to get sales leaders to transition from mundane weekly meetings to being stronger coaches who rally their team at the beginning of the week.
Most sales meetings are too focused on last week’s sales achievements. You can’t do anything about last week’s sales numbers. You can do something about this week’s upcoming sales numbers.
Here are 3 quick fixes to create stronger business rhythm:
- Other than secured sales – what are the next two important KPIs you want to feature on your dashboard?
- Apply the 5-5-5 Coaching Strategy to strategize on what you will do to win business this week.
- 5 minutes – one sales team member shares their customer situation
- 5 minutes – the rest of the team can only ask questions about the situation (great discipline to get the team to only ask questions, not provide solutions or sell too soon – yet)
- 5 minutes – the team can provide ideas, advice and solutions on how to win this business
- Get your team more involved in your sales meetings. Delegate a sales topic each week to a member of your team to provide a five to 10 minute sales training lesson.
One of our Sales Leaders in our “Leading Sales Success Journey” Program implemented a daily 4pm team call. It has increased motivation and accountability…and best yet 25+ new clients since January 1st. That’s great business rhythm!
Lisa is driven by the mantra – Be Strategic. Be Pro-active. Be Brave. – and has been successfully training and coaching sales leaders and their teams to do the same for over 15 years. As the President of Teneo Results since 2003, she has trained thousands of sales professionals at more than 250 companies across North America. She transitions salespeople away from the standard “product & price” approach to having purposeful business conversations with their customers that drive results.
Blog
Sales Leaders,
Remember when you were a kid and you had to put yourself out there in grade school and send a Valentine to everyone in the class, including the person you had a secret crush on? You would spend time personalizing all those Valentine cards, choosing different images and messages to add to every card. It was just as much fun (and sometimes painful!) to give those Valentine’s Day cards as it was to receive them…
This grade school Valentine’s Day ritual is a lot like Prospecting!
Who is the prospect you’re crushing on, the one whom you would LOVE to have as your next new customer? What can you do to #ShowTheSalesLove and get your dream prospect to return the love by granting you that meeting?
Let’s think back to when you were 8 years old and had no fear during Valentine’s Day. Would you make a hand-written card, and spend time choosing the perfect Valentine’s Day message? Or would you do something bold and give them flowers, chocolates, or a teddy bear?
Be Creative and Bold this week. Choose the right messaging to get the attention of that “special someone” to create a sales relationship that lasts long past Valentine’s Day!
Perhaps, you want to get really creative and send a v-gram or even send chocolates to get their attention! Or maybe you want to show the love to your favourite customers and thank them for their customer loyalty.
Whatever you decide to do, be sure to #ShowTheSalesLove this week!
Lisa is driven by the mantra – Be Strategic. Be Pro-active. Be Brave. – and has been successfully training and coaching sales leaders and their teams to do the same for over 15 years. As the President of Teneo Results since 2003, she has trained thousands of sales professionals at more than 250 companies across North America. She transitions salespeople away from the standard “product & price” approach to having purposeful business conversations with their customers that drive results.
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