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he best sales teams are composed of the best sales executives or reps, regardless of where they work — in different countries, offices or homes. With the right sales management, remote or virtual teams can be more effective

than those based in the corporate office. Frequently, sales managers are credited with being good at managing remote teams. The assumption is that they would be, because the field sales team are one group of people who traditionally have never been office bound. But we are starting to see examples where this is not the case and the risks and difficulties associated with remote teams are impacting performance.

It’s all too easy to overlook the performance, morale and development needs of a remote sales team. Often, sales managers can succumb to the pressure of firefighting, running with deals themselves, reporting upwards and all the distraction that working in a corporate office entails. This often relegates their direct reports to second place.

Slipping into this mode of working leads the sales manager into a situation from which it is very hard to recover. Typically the warning signs of poor performance are not easy to spot and can be masked by the individual. Performance indicators, such as pipeline and revenue achievement do show individual performance but the time lag in reporting and length of the sales process can mask problems. And from the remote sales rep’s perspective the situation can also be difficult. At times they may be struggling on their own and finding it hard to stay motivated.

Many of the problems in being a remote based employee and managing remote staff are common across job types.

This list is typical of the issues facedTrust: Establishing trust between a manager and a home-based virtual worker to combat suspicion that working at home means slacking or abuse of agreements.Work management: organising and specifying work in terms of results so that it can be accomplished without detailed management supervision.

PETER THOMSON and DAVID BATUP look at the challenge of managing remote sales teams

Information management: ensuring that a remote team member is provided with the same access to formal and informal information as their colleagues in the office.Social and team aspects: isolation and detachment experienced by those who are remote (‘the loneliness of the long-distance worker’) and lack of motivation and engagement with team goals and timescales.Visibility and development: the propensity of managers and office colleagues to see remote workers as out of sight, out of mind; concern by remote workers that they are harming their career advancement; concern that they

With the right sales management, remote or virtual teams can be more effective than those based in the corporate office

Out of sight, out of mind?

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could be missing out on training and development opportunities offered to office-based colleagues.Communications: problems ranging from the realities of technology support for home workers, through lack of availability of, or skill in using, up-to-date collaboration tools, to reluctance to communicate through technology. Time management: for the home-based virtual worker, being capable of working effectively without the rhythm of the office; dealing with family and friends’ belief that they are fair game to be interrupted; feelings of guilt leading to excessive working hours.

Homing in on sales — and focusing on outputsThere is a tendency for sales management to measure activity such as the number of calls made, demonstrations given or appointments booked as an indicator of goal performance. While this is valid, given that there does need to be an optimum level of activity to achieve targets,

it’s less effective when the individuals are remotely based. These factors should be considered more as guidelines than measures of performance. Trust is a major factor when managing remote teams. But with trust comes responsibility to perform. Where there has to be an element of flexible working to achieve sales targets the trust factor becomes even more important.

Flexible or remote working is not a new concept in sales, but it does pose the question of who is responsible for getting work done. If sales managers divide the territory, allocate the patches to individual members of the sales team, and direct and dictate what needs to be done, we stay with the current ‘industrial age’ model of working. But if the remote based sales executives agree what they are going to achieve and then carry out the tasks necessary to provide the results required, we have a view of work more appropriate for sales in the ‘information age’.

By allowing sales reps to take responsibility for

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producing results and rewarding them for outputs, not inputs, we have a different approach to the work required to make the numbers.

This ‘results only work environment’, or ROWE for short, has been adopted very successfully by Best Buy, a Fortune 100 company employing 140,000 people worldwide. This shows that the approach is not just a fad among a few small companies but is a serious business strategy that can have outstanding results.

This shift toward ROWE does not mean a 100% commission-only style of managing or rewarding sales executives but it does move the emphasis to outcomes. Given that the sales manager cannot be everywhere the focus on performance management shifts towards the individual and what they can achieve. This requires less management time spent on an individual’s activity or inputs and more time on the factors that generate sales performance:■ Deals closed by week or month rather than by quarter or year ■ Conversion rate of leads into prospects■ Profile and strength of the sales pipeline■ Level of repeat business■ Average deal size and profitability.

To find this time sales managers will need to re-examine what it is they do day by day. The smart approach is to spend time on the tasks that motivate, coach and help the remote team to

outstrip their individual targets. Almost everything else should come a poor second. It is easy to assess this: just take a quick look at the diary for last month and add up the time spent on motivation, coaching and helping the remote team. If it’s less than 60% it’s time for a rethink.

So given you have a remote based sales team, what is it you can do to focus on results and outcomes? We will look at this from the performance building blocks of strategy, people and process and within these are our top 10 tips for improving the performance of your remote salespeople.

Strategy — focus on outcomes, support systems and performance managementTaking the strategic thinking, planning and operational sales tasks as done or under way, the smart sales manager would do well to consider what it is they could do to increase the effectiveness of their remote sales team. Many of the ‘meaningful and effective’ strategic approaches will take time and effort. If we had to choose just three for this year these would be our recommendations.■ Measure outcomes — but it’s better if managers sit down and agree with reps what makes sense. They need to agree on how they will both know the job is getting done, and what the warning signs are if things are slipping.

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It’s very easy for remote reps to feel isolated from the

Contributor Peter Thomson is director of Wisework,

a consultancy in the implementation of new working patterns,

and a visiting Fellow at the Henley Business School.

petert@wisework.co.uk 01491 628143 www.wisework.co.uk

Contributor David Batup is founder and COO

of Perperitus, a specialist in developing sales knowledge

management and sales enablement solutions for direct,

remote and partner channel sales teams. db@perperitus.com

0118 965 4066 www.perperitus.com Linkedin: davidbatup

■ Look at the CRM system and develop reports that are focused on outcomes rather than inputs, eg. it’s better to know a conversion rate or volume than how many calls have been made.■ Take performance management seriously. There is no point firing off a stinging email to a remote rep after the quarter end when it’s clear they have not made target. It is much better to know beforehand so you can take action to recover the situation. Plan to be out with the sales executives for a day to visit customers, coach and probably most importantly, listen.

People — hire right, communicate and socialiseLeadership, emotional intelligence (EQ) and communication skills are great attributes of any sales manager but they come to the fore as critical abilities for managing remote reps. The need to find techniques that motivate your remote reps is critical to helping and coaching them to perform. Here are our three favourite people tips. ■ Hiring is hard enough without the complication of the individual being based remotely. This places additional importance on how they are brought into the organisation and brought up to speed. It is well worth considering a separate ‘onboarding’ session for remote reps to help them adjust and organise themselves.

■ Talk to people. A survey of remote workers by Henley Management College found communication was considered to be the most important skill needed by managers of remote teams. We are not advocating more emails (fewer would be good) but strongly encourage managers to find the time to call. Managers should sharpen up their EQ skills to enhance their listening and develop a sixth sense to detect when things are not right.■ Socialising. It’s very easy for remote reps to feel isolated from the team and the company. The risk is they start to disengage from the company and its goals, leading to the inevitable loss of performance and ultimately, resignation. People miss out on valuable social interactions when they don’t meet face to face. Managers need to organise social events, even if it is just that everyone comes in on a Friday and goes to the pub at lunchtime.

Process — time management, sales knowledge management (SKM) and trainingSales managers are not known for their love of process. But when it comes to managing a remote team, process can become the difference between achieving an OK performance and an exceptional one. There are four areas we recommend you take a close look at.■ Put it in the diary. Managers need to be organised; meetings and teleconferences need to be scheduled for remote teams to work at their best. Managing outcomes and time management are key to the effective running of remote teams. This takes effort. Simple techniques such as ring-fenced blocks of time and not going into the office prior to meeting a remote rep avoids getting embroiled in the latest firefight.■ If a remote rep cannot gain the same level of information, help, best practice, fieldcraft and collateral as their office-based colleagues then they are at a distinct disadvantage. SKM solutions need to be available, preferably via the web 24/7, for all travelling and remote staff.■ Consider a forum addition to your SKM to allow a more collaborative and unstructured form of help and advice. In this way a remote rep can tap into the collective knowledge and understanding of the whole team. Open this up to everyone in the sales value chain — marketing, pre-sales and professional services.■ Face-to-face training is a highly effective way to help remote reps to build contacts, get the low down on what works and of course pick up new knowledge and skills from the training itself. Some companies, such as Microsoft, make training part of the individual’s performance goals and this should apply especially to salespeople who are based away from the office.

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team and the company