Well here we are again! Like many other companies across the country, Fusion has taken the decision to recommend our staff work from home if at all possible. And here I am, back in my shed at the end of the garden.
What have we learned from previous visits to the shed, that we can bring to bear now? I thought I would highlight a few pointers.
You have some time on your hands
The first thing to note is you no longer have a commute! Of course, you can use this in one of two ways. You can choose to get an extra half-hour’s lie-in in bed, and crack out the pre-dinner drinks a little earlier than usual. Or you can be structured with your time and make a plan for what you will use this new block for.
An idea would be to look at some of those important-but-not-urgent tasks that for you have a habit of slipping away. Why not block in some time to do them every day?
Work hard to maintain your relationships
When you’re working from home, we all need to leverage our technology in order to communicate with each other. However, people are less likely to use this technology to interrupt you at home than they might if they can see you are free and walk over for a chat.
Now this could be seen as a great thing! But it has both pros and cons. You need to make sure you touch base with your team regularly so they still feel they can come to you as needed. It’s also good to have a social catch-up, just as you would if you were in the office.
When it comes to clients and prospects, the key is to do the same. If you can show them you are thinking of them at a difficult time, it will be respected and appreciated.
Social media platforms like LinkedIn can be a great place to do this, as communications here often cut through the noise of someone’s email inbox. Keep your message brief – no one has the time for something long and drawn out. And do not sell. The moment you promote yourself, all the benefit of the note is lost.
If you have hundreds, or even thousands of contacts to keep in touch with, of course you’re not going to do this manually. But with careful systemisation you can keep things real and authentic. And remember, just because you’re getting a bit of a help delivering the message, that doesn’t change the authenticity, as long as you truly mean the message.
Keep your pipelines building
As with the lockdowns we’ve had previously, we’re seeing that the working from home directive is making people a lot more reluctant to go out to events. Whilst this time technically we’re being encouraged to carry on with planned events, a lot of people are not wanting to do so.
Given this, more than ever it is important to keep on with your systematic activities to introduce yourself to more people, and allow them to get to know you and your services.
This blog post is a great example. You might be reading this on our website. But you also might be reading this on one of many social media platforms that we’ll have also posted it to. Allowing people to stumble across you as they go about their work is the softest form of selling. It reinforces who you are, and how you help people. But it doesn’t do that in an overly pushy way.
Think carefully about a call to action that will make them reach for their phone or drop you a note. Get these right and you’ll be setting up your calls with them off the back of this work.
This is something you need to be doing daily. It’s only through systematic regular content that people will stumble across you enough. Remember, they are not going to see every post you write.
Remember to have some fun
Cast your mind back to that long first lockdown. Do you remember the explosion of group quizzes that we all took part in? Unfortunately, by lockdown 3 we were sick to the back teeth of group quizzes. We were quizzed out!
But we’ve had some time off from all that. So now, maybe, it could be worth coming up with a few ideas for something fun you can do with your colleagues. It could be a quiz, it could be a shared drink, it could be a distanced version of that Christmas Jumper event you had planned. Don’t make it too structured, don’t repeat it too often, but it’s nice for everyone to see each other once in a while, before we break for the holidays, or when we get back.
