I’ve been selling our Salesman.org membership to our corporate customers from home for years now and so working remotely isn’t something new to me.
When I first started remote selling from home though I was a little nervous…
I thought I was going to feel isolated, unproductive and it was going to effect my selling performance but quite the opposite actually happened!
So if you’re selling services from home for the first time, don’t fear. I’ve 5 tips that is going to help you perform your best whilst you’re out of the office.
#1 HAVE A ROUTINE
I’ve found the most important tip to having success selling from home is to build a robust routine.
At first when I moved out of our office and started selling from home I’d sit down at my desk at different times of the day, lunch would happen whenever I had a spare minute and there was no boundary between work and the real world.
This was not sustainable.
So I implemented a very script routine and I’m still using it until today.
- Get up 6am, shower and exercise.
- At 7am I clean my physical desk and virtual desk (which means emails and documents left open from the previous day).
- At 7:30am I start my most important job of the day. The one job that if I make it happen, will have ment today would have been a success.
- I then have my lunch, usually a Huel shake, which is a meal replacement powder at 11:30am.
- And then I crack on until around 6pm or so when I wrap everything up.
At this point I do no emails, I don’t go on Linkedin, work literally stops unless I’ve a really damn good reason to check in.
So the point is, you must have a really solid routine and clear start and stop boundaries for your workday if you’re going to be successful working from home.
#2 DEDICATED WORKSPACE
Now I’m lucky because I’ve got a home office and studio to work from. But if you don’t have a dedicated room to work out of, you need to create a designated space to work from and have everyone that you live with agree that it’s yours.
It could be the breakfast bar in your kitchen. It might even be worth buying a cheap IKEA desk and sticking it at the back of your living room to work from for the time being if you don’t have a workspace in your house or flat at the moment.
But don’t be trying to work in your bedroom or somewhere else that you can’t control.
#3 TAKE BREAKS
When you’re selling in the office your colleagues naturally ask you questions, your boss pulls you into meetings and prospects call you out of the blue.
All of these distractions stop when you’re working from home in the middle of a global pandemic.
Therefore, you might find yourself being incredibly productive.
Which is a good thing right?
Of course it is but with that added productivity to must take scheduled breaks.
There’s a big park with a lake 2 minutes from my house and so I make sure to go for a walk around there for 40 minutes each day. I know that when I do this and my mind gets cleared, it almost acts like a reset button for me.
I can then tackle the second part of my day with more vigour and I get way more done.
Do make sure you’re taking at least one 30-40 minute break in your workdays at home to reset.
#4 GET DRESSED
It’s going to be very tempting to get out of bed, throw on your dressing gown and get to work each morning but you must get dressed.
Your brain associates being a professional with professional clothes. So never work from home in anything less appropriate than you would for a casual Friday at the office.
I myself wear basically the same uniform every single day so that I waste no mental energy each morning deciding what to wear. For me this is chinos, boots and a polo shirt.
Trust me when I say that being dressed for success does effect your productivity. Even if jogging bottoms and a hoody are more comfortable.
#5 BE SOCIAL
Lets get real for a minute…
You probably think that most of the people in your office are idiots.
But all of the subtle, small social interactions that you have with them each day do make a difference in your life. Without them it’s easy to feel a little isolated and down.
So remember to be more social during the day.
I for one call my Dad each morning for a quick chat and catch up without fail.
I also check in with some of our team over zoom a couple of times a week for a 5 minute change of pace.
Scheduling a couple of quick “virtual coffees” each day might seem like a waste of time but they can make a big difference to your overall happiness.
So there are 5 tips for selling remotely from home.
