How to Improve Remote Sales Team Engagement

Folks, we’re over a year into this new normal. What we talked about 12 months ago to engage your remote teams, is probably not still working today. Need a few new ideas to improve remote sales team engagement? I’m here to help. I’ve collected a few favorites from my friends in high and low places in the past month. Hope you can grab something new that fits – or improves – your culture. 

1. Zoom fatigue is real. Hell yeah, it’s a powerful tool! But we don’t need to use it every time. Let’s pick at least one meeting a day and go old school, make it a conference call, give yourself and your team a break. 
2. Take a break. Since we don’t need to be in front of the camera for that meeting, let’s take that time to go for a walk or do something else healthy. Encourage your team to do the same. 
3. Your time is precious. Cut your standard meeting times to 45 minutes and 25 minutes. Use the “extra” time to stretch or grab a snack.
4. Invest in tools. If you’ll be staying semi-remote or totally virtual in the future, you may get more budget traction with helpful tools. Start with conversation intelligence (call recording to the layperson) like Chorus, Gong, or Execvision. These tools can be used for skill/call coaching, rep note-taking, or saved for future onboarding training. 
5. Amp up your call/skill coaching. Manager direct coaching scratches several itches for your revenue team: 1. Skill improvement 2. Employee engagement. Both of these are doubly important in this remote world. A good portion of your workforce was likely onboarded remotely and may never have even met their manager face-to-face. Prioritize these 1:1 connections. 
6. Call a no-meeting day. Then call a no-Slack day. Watch your team shed tears of gratitude.
7. Snail mail. Use it to send a personal note, a small gift, some team swag. Not feeling very creative? Use my friends at Sendoso.com. Traditionally, their corporate gifts were used to open accounts during ABM. In today’s remote world, more and more companies are using them to engage their own workforce. Seriously, cool!
8. Go visit. Sure you may not be coming back onsite to the office in the foreseeable future. But if you, the boss, can take a trip to simply go out to dinner, it will make a difference.
9. Buddy up. More than ever, we need to help employees connect – with us, with the company, and with each other. A mentor or buddy is a great way. Add minimal structure to get them started like 1-2 sample agendas, interview forms or buddy scavenger hunts to complete. 
10. Ditch the happy hours. Your teams are ready to get OUT of the house and see their real friends. Sorry, but you aren’t their first choice anymore for happy hour. Don’t make it feel like a requirement.
    
    
    

    BONUS! ⬇

11. Be flexible. This can be a real engagement enhancer. I’ve seen companies staying 100% virtual, others doing 50% on-site, and still others 100% onsite. If you’re running a hybrid environment, consider mandating some in-person time to ease back into office life. One of the most creative solutions I’ve seen is a satellite hiring strategy – where employees can be located up to 2 hours away from any office.

My last piece of advice, regardless of your plan, is to do all you can to retain your hires. The next five years look to be the toughest ever for hiring sales talent. Let’s give our employees every reason to stay!