Business strategy: How to transition to a remote business

Whether you and your company is ready or not, there is a new era upon us. A while ago someone at Microsoft formulated: 'We've seen two years' worth of digital transformation in two months.' Now four months have passed, and for most companies sales teams, this is a clashing disruption. If you recognise this situation, perhaps this article can give you some guidance. 

Doing business remotely

Below, I have put together some insights. The transition to business remotely can feel daunting and challenging; I try to bring clarity and simplicity to succeed with being comfortable to do business remotely.

Perhaps you've heard much talk about what might work or what should work in a transformed digital way of doing business. And you have most likely seen lots of articles about how to handle tools and systems. 

My main recommendations are:

Use common sense 

There is much uncertainty in people and many companies right now; no one knows what will happen. At situations like this, it's easy to get a bit introvert. Remember to reach out to your clients and prospects with a human touch.

Stay focused

Tweak your content and information week by week, and remember that you shall stay relevant for your customers, and your company's role is to keep or increase the confidence in the market. Do not communicate about COVID 19; everyone else is doing that.

Use video and document 

You need to increase the use of video and video conferencing, internally and externally. And do record and distribute all appropriate workshops, meetings and demos, when you have the permission.

Download the following guide with video conferencing tips:

Prepare

Using LinkedIn as a natural part of your way of working is more crucial than ever, look up every possible decision-maker, and do extensive research of companies and people.

Stay in touch

Keep in touch with colleagues, potential and existing customers. And stay in touch when people find themselves without a job or furloughed. Some people end up somewhere else and are keen to do business with you once again.

Be proactive

There's no universal best practice to take right now; what's truly important is doing things. We are living through an unprecedented and extraordinary situation, so you and your company likely get some leeway if your intentions are good.

To stay passive or reactive now is the worst thing you can do. The key to showing good intentions lies in proactivity, and to establish trust requires a new approach. The referrals and recommendations from mutual connections are more important than ever to compensate for the old ways of building trust, so to be able to deepen that relationship through knowledge leadership is crucial. You and tour company have to earn the right to get a potential or existing customer on a video conference.

Focus on customer retention

The value of having a satisfied customer is amplified right now since bringing new business is difficult for many companies. Make sure that you put all needed efforts into having happy customers. Take care of the existing customers first, practising trust and transparency, maximise these relations over the long term.

Download the ebook to learn about the key reasons you should prioritise customer satisfaction today!

Train, enable and share knowledge

Provide all customer-facing colleagues with the needed expertise and tools to succeed; it will pay dividends now and down the road. And most likely, you need to sharpen your business model, so re-skilling and up-skilling your customer-facing colleagues is a priority for many, and that is a journey. Start today.

Acclimate

The key for every decision-maker is to implement adaptive changes that will benefit your company long after you have applied the changes and that this changed way of working has become a natural part of your culture and way of working. 

Now is a time to be human, and you have to be authentic with your team, customers and prospects. Create a human-digital engagement - internally and externally. Because if you're digital and not human, whether you're just a bot or you're a sales rep who sounds like a bot because you're just sending a canned pitch, that's not going to work either.

I see companies that cover more ground digitally as they're embracing how to do their business remotely. Hopefully, we will see less travel and less traditional events and tradeshows. I wish that everything becomes more digital and online.

So, get back to the basics, lead with empathy and practice relevant business conversations. Now is the time to add real value - digitally, online and remotely.