This year has had a huge impact on sales teams with many having to change from working in offices to being remote home-based sales teams.
For many, this has been a big change.
For some, this may be a dream come true! For others, this may be quite daunting.
Some salespeople thrive working at home, but some struggle.
I’ve spent years in sales working from home and remotely and have managed hundreds of salespeople working from home. In this article, I’m going to share my top tips to get the most out of working from home:
Tip 1) Structure Your Day As Best You Can
The better your plan for the day, the less likely you’ll be to get distracted, and the more likely you’ll be to achieve your goals. Set a good clear plan for each day, breaking down each hour and each activity. Make sure you know what you need to do, but also what you need to ACHIEVE.
This is something that is valuable when you work in an office but even more valuable when you’re working from home and there are potentially a lot more potential distractions. Plan your day, set your goals, and then work hard to achieve them!
Tip 2) Keep In Touch With Your Colleagues And Managers
Whether it’s during your scheduled breaks, or to ask for questions/offer support, it’s extremely beneficial to keep in touch with the people you work with. Firstly it’s good to make sure your manager is kept up to date with what you’re doing and achieving. Secondly, it’s good to just TALK to people! It can get very lonely working remotely, there’s no exciting office atmosphere, it’s just you and your laptop.
Set up regular team video calls or conference calls, arrange to speak to colleagues during breaks, utilize chat channels like Slack or Whatsapp, and just keep in touch with people.
Tip 3) Use This Opportunity To Prove Yourself
When you work in sales and get the opportunity to work from home you have an opportunity to prove yourself. It is YOUR responsibility to show your managers that you’re able to work hard without them being there and you’re able to achieve results. This may help you work towards getting a promotion or a pay rise, in the long run, now is your chance to prove yourself!
Work hard and show your managers that you are working hard. Show them the activity and show them the results. You also have a chance to show how you can support your colleagues as well, so look for opportunities to help them when they’re working from home.
Tip 4) Take Regular Breaks & Try To Go For A Walk
It can get quite stuffy stuck in your home all day and night, so it’s really valuable to take regular breaks. If you can, go for a walk, even if it’s just in your garden or around a local park. Obviously, with the virus, it’s important to try to avoid other people, so if it’s not suitable to go outside try to find somewhere else you can do in your home for short breaks.
The best thing you can do is schedule break times so that you have them there in your daily plan at set times. It’s also to try and take the full time for each break, whether it’s 5 minutes, 15 minutes, or an hour. Take a proper break to help your mind and body relax and recharge,
Tip 5) Set Ground Rules With People Who Share Your Home
This could be your family, loved ones, partner, children, or people that you share your home with. It’s important that they understand that you have a job to do and to make sure they support you when you are working. You don’t want to have people constantly interrupting you or distracting you when you are trying to work or sell.
If you need to make cold calls or do video calls, make sure they know to give you space to do so and to respect you when you’re doing so. If you need to concentrate on work make sure everyone else understands that and appreciates that.
Tip 6) Create An Office Space That Motivates You
Find a space that you can make your own as your new work from home space if you don’t already have one. If you do have one, make sure it’s filled with things that motivate you to work. It could be some books, a plant, photos, anything that will help you get into the zone!
Keep it clean, clear, and tidy as well. A cluttered workspace can often distract you from your work.
This needs to be somewhere that you can work from and be as productive as possible. Some sales offices will have targets on the walls or motivational quotes, so creating your own versions of this can help. Print some motivational quotes, create a mini sales target leaderboard, little things like this can help a lot.
Tip 7) Let Your Customers & Prospects See You At Home
This is a rare opportunity for a lot of salespeople to allow their prospects and customers to see their homes. Most of the time during communications you’ll be at work in the office or perhaps in your car. If you’re working from home, when you do run or attend a video call you’ll be at your home, and this is a great opportunity for you to build your relationship with your prospects and customers.
Let them get to see you at home, see you working hard and get to know you outside of the office working environment. If you’re not making video calls, this could be a great opportunity to take a photo of you working from home and share it on LinkedIn. It will be a great way to grow your personal brand.
Tip 8) Enjoy The Perks Of Working From Home
It’s important to work hard when you’re working from home, but it’s also important to reward yourself and enjoy the perks of it as well (after you’ve worked hard!). That could include watching an episode on Netflix during your lunch break, taking your dogs for a walk during a break, make sure you enjoy it as well.
Hopefully, you’ll be working hard, and if you are then make sure you enjoy the fruits of your labor as well. Enjoy the little perks that will exist by working from home. Just make sure you earn them 🙂
Tip 9) Surround Yourself With Positivity
Not only is the media pushing a lot of negative content out there, but you’ll potentially be working in a totally different working environment, one that is the complete opposite of work, it’s home! It’s important to surround yourself with positivity, don’t let the news distract you, don’t keep checking Facebook, instead, listen to motivating podcasts, read motivating articles and blogs, watch motivational videos.
Working from home can be challenging, so it’s on you to create the right environment to succeed.
Tip 10) Look For Training Opportunities
Working in sales right now is challenging, and it’s going to be a tough few months ahead. This doesn’t mean stop trying, but it’s a good opportunity to be smart with your time. Now is the time prospect, look to talk to people, and build pipeline. It’s also a great opportunity to do some training and learning.
Look for online training, look for webinars, consume online educational content so when this does pass, you’re ready to hit the ground running.
And there it is, 10 tips that will hopefully help you achieve more when working from home!
If you are faced with working from home make sure you look for the opportunities and not the challenges.
Make the most of it that you can, it’s a unique opportunity to potentially achieve more than normal.
Thank you for taking the time to read this blog! If you enjoyed this post please click LIKE and click SHARE to share it with your network. If you enjoyed it please do take time to read some of my other recent posts:
LinkedIn Sales Navigator Is Like Going To The The Gym…
Just Pick Up The Phone and Call!
The Modern-Day Sales Prospecting Stack
The 10 Things That Will NEVER Change In Sales
About the author:Â
Daniel Disney is one of the world’s leading Sales, Social Selling, and LinkedIn experts and is the author of the #1 Amazon Best Selling book, “The Million-Pound LinkedIn Message“.
Daniel is also a highly in-demand international keynote sales speaker, is the UK’s leading sales blogger, and is also the Founder and Owner of LinkedIn’s most popular sales publication, The Daily Sales.
With a global audience of over 500,000+ followers and growing by thousands each week, his content reaches millions of salespeople far and wide.
To inquire about Daniel keynoting or speaking at your company or event, or to find out more about his online LinkedIn/Social Selling Masterclass please email contact@thedailysales.net.
Do you or your sales team want to generate MORE leads and sales from LinkedIn?
Well, on Tuesday 6th October, Daniel will be delivering his famous LinkedIn Social Selling training LIVE online in a 2-hour virtual masterclass.
The session will cover:
- LinkedIn Profiles
- LinkedIn Search Filters
- Network Growing
- Effective Messaging (Written, Audio & Video)
- Content
- Personal Brand
- AND SO MUCH MORE!
Attendees will get access to the LIVE session, a full recording, a digital copy of Daniel’s best-selling LinkedIn book “The Million-Pound LinkedIn Message” and a whole host of resources to help them turn LinkedIn into a lead and sales generating machine!
You can find out more and book your place here
