techslog

The Wall Street Journal last weekend ran a great article about virtual workers. I have seen a few of these articles recently as more companies are moving towards virtual teams to be more competitive and to access talent across the globe.

How can you be effective as an enterprise sales person when your support team is scattered across the nation, and sometimes the globe, and your manager is in a different time zone? Techslog has culled the articles and will run a series of blog postings to give you some “info bites” to help you navigate the virtual landscape and use it to your advantage.

The rise of the virtual teams is occurring at a time when technology is more advanced to support the technical needs of teams in different locations, and talent is at a premium.
However, all the technology in the world can’t address the remaining hurdles that come with managing a virtual team. WSJ quotes the hurdles as: time-zone difficulties, cultural miscues, Team chemistry, and element that is instrumental in making teams more productive.

As a salesperson who worked virtual for many years, I can also add accountability. As a sales rep you are the face to the customer, but the inability to schedule or secure the other virtual resources always falls back on the sales person- at the end of the day- and the ability to hold these resources responsible is tough.

A recent study found that virtual teams were beleaguered by just these kinds of challenges, while other virtual teams were high performers and able to work through the distant blues. What makes one team thrive and yet another falter?

While the WSJ article was written in general terms, I am tweaking it to address the needs of sales people. These “tips” will be printed every day this week, so please check back daily to learn how you can be a more effective virtual sales person.

WSJ- Working Together when apart article