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The pandemic has forced many companies to adopt a remote work system, but what you might not know is that companies have been making this shift since 2019—with up to 66 percent of companies allowing remote work and up to 16 percent going fully remote. In the last twelve years alone, remote work has grown by over 159 percent.

However, shifting to a remote work system isn’t easy. It requires a lot of planning for things that don’t apply in a traditional work environment. Without a proper system in place, your sales force could operate at suboptimal levels and yield thin and unsatisfying results. 

In this article, we will go over a few successful sales strategies you can implement to smoothen the transition from office work to remote work—for better sales, better productivity, and better profits.

Set actionable goals

Working from home is an entirely different animal. It is more difficult for managers to do spot checks of a worker’s efficiency and performance. While you could allow for more flexibility in terms of goals and objectives in an office environment, this is not effective in a work-from-home system.

Experts in sales strategies will tell you that setting actionable and measurable goals helps boost employee productivity. The clearer the goals are, the better the employee is likely to work. In sales, you can create a weekly or daily quota, depending on what it is you’re trying to sell. 

Hire an experienced workforce

Experience is always a premium when it comes to new hires. However, it is now more important than ever to find people who have experience working in different conditions, particularly with work-from-home setups.

As mentioned before, working from home has been a staple in the operations of many companies. As such, there are plenty of experienced sales professionals out there who work well in a remote environment. These professionals will likely have better work habits than those shifting from office work.

Promote employee engagement

One of the many things plaguing the workforce now working from home, whether they are in sales or not, is the isolation. There is no friendly banter with colleagues, no much-needed stops at the local bar before going home, and no chats around the water cooler. 

As such, using platforms like Slack to create group chat channels to encourage employee interaction is a great way to make up for the physical isolation. The internet is at our fingertips. Why not use it to recreate the experience of a work environment? You could even make channels for shared interests, such as video games, music, and so on.

Final thoughts

The adjustment from an office environment to the remote work system is not an easy task for everyone involved. Employees have to face the risk of blurred lines between work and home life, and managers have to deal with leading from miles and miles away. But with the right planning and the proper systems in place, you can enjoy an operation level similar to when you were working in offices. 

If you need more help with remote sales strategies for your business, please reach out. We offer online sales team coaching and training that is especially beneficial to those who are working remotely. 

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We understand it can be difficult to know where to start when building a framework for sales conversations, so we’ve developed a Sales Conversation “Cheat Sheet” you can download HERE.