Covid has shone a light on something that I feel has been coming for some time—the death of the traditional in-person sales call. I’m sure many of us remember David Brent, after his days at Wernham Hogg, bombing down the motorway to ask a potential customer ‘Who does your tampons?’.

Travelling sales reps have long been a key tool for many businesses. They provided the personal touch you couldn’t get from a phone call or email, they could offer product demonstrations, and because they had a captive audience, they could look for opportunities to cross or upsell.

The Rise of Online

However, even before the pandemic, the value of the traditional sales representative had started to wane. Key decision-makers, particularly in larger organisations, are not so easily accessible. Getting appointments has become trickier, and the unsolicited approach generally courts frustration and disdain. I also believe there is a generational gap with those who grew up in the latter years of the Information Age not being as appreciative of the sales rep as those who grew up when this methodology was the norm.

This creates a situation where the traditional sales rep has less strategic value to both the organisation and the customer. Covid has only exacerbated the issue, with the easy-availability of video-conferencing applications providing a suitable alternative to the personal call. Our salespeople no longer need to pop in for a cup of tea and a chat; they can simply send a Zoom link instead and do things online. Between video calls, phone calls, emails, text messages and instant messaging applications, is there any real value to keeping salespeople on the road?

Court Before Pitching

I’d say there is. When selling physical products, for example, it’s easier to demonstrate the product in person. Technology may be much more advanced than even ten years ago, but many areas of the country still have less than ideal broadband speeds and reliability. An in-person call isn’t subject to a technical hiccup such as a router rebooting at an inopportune time. It also has to be said that there is still value in a simple handshake, the walk to the elevator, and those other elements that are difficult to replicate in an online world.

To succeed, though, salespeople cannot rely on the way things were done. A business leader or procurement agent isn’t going to agree to a meeting unless they truly believe they can get value from it. For the salesperson, this means that much more of the groundwork needs to be laid before they can even think about meeting in person. In a way, they need to start treating it more like online dating—get their LinkedIn Profile up-to-scratch, build trust, develop respect, communicate openly and honestly, and really sell themselves before they can begin to sell for their company.

Rise Above and Triumph

Salespeople need to elevate themselves above the crowd. They need more knowledge of their industry and market, their competitors, and their product than they needed before. To communicate the value they bring, they need to think more creatively, and approach prospective customers with ideas and insights that the client simply cannot find anywhere else.

The best salespeople will seek to establish themselves within the client organisation as a Trusted Adviser. They’ll make themselves available to answer calls, provide insights, brainstorm, and take the time to help customers understand how to solve the problems they face. Great salespeople have always disrupted the customer’s thinking and challenged them on preconceptions, and now that’s more important than ever.

Still Here, But Different

The in-person meeting isn’t going to go away, but it’s going to become much more difficult to get a date in the diary when there are so many more favourable alternatives. Instead of having people on the road, it may be more beneficial to keep them at home or in the office, and get them prospecting, get them reaching out, and getting them to work hard on their entrepreneurial skills so that they can elevate themselves, and their organisation, above the competition.

At Robin Lines Associates, we offer a variety of Sales, Prospecting, and Key Account Management programmes. All of our programmes are bespoke, tailored to your people’s needs, your organisation’s challenges, and the conditions in your market. Reach out and let us know what challenges you’re facing and we’re certain we can come up with a training solution that will return fantastic results.

The post Death of a Salesperson appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.

But that’s where we are now. The big question is where will be in another few years?

The Centre for Cities Think Tank suggests it is likely that we’ll all be back to normal within a couple of years. The five-day a week, 9 to 5 work schedule and the routines of commuters will become the way business is done once more, just as it had been for decades previously.

However, this goes against what a lot of clients are telling me. A lot of people have started to see the benefits of a hybrid approach where their people work partly in the office and partly at home. Some clients have even suggested that they would rather people not coming back to the office at all.

The Hybrid Approach

While the latter scenario is unlikely due to practicality, the hybrid working scenario is one that many may, and perhaps should, explore. Working from home has a number of benefits. For starters, we don’t live in a 9 to 5 world anymore. Technology has changed the way we think, and it has started to change the way we work. There are advantages to embracing these changes, from being able to connect and engage with customers on their terms and not yours, to ensuring that the potential of the early birds and night owls in your team is fully maximised.

While there are many who prefer the office environment for various reasons – they feel it adds structure, or it properly demarcates the lines between work and home life – others are more comfortable working from home. There is no long commute in the morning, which may give them a vital extra hour in bed or more time with the family before the day starts. The stresses and strains of rush hour traffic or crowded public transport are eliminated, which results in a more positive mindset from the get-go.

Home workers can make their environment more comfortable – they get the coffee they like or can listen to the music that best boosts their productivity. They can set up their workspace the way they like it, rather than feel like they need to go along with the rest of the crowd. Many will even save money working from home, as they can cut down on childcare costs, train fares, and other not insignificant expenses that mount up over the standard work week. Let’s be brutally honest, when people have more money, they’re generally happier and happy people are more productive and motivated people.

The Generational Divide

There is also a strong sense that demanding people return to the office is demonstrating a lack of trust. Not everyone can work from home all the time, but in our constantly connected, always-on world, there isn’t as clear a need to make people sit at a desk in one particular place, when they could be sitting at a desk elsewhere and still do the work. Apple asked its employees to come back to work three days a week, and the response was far from positive.

In some respects, the pandemic has highlighted a generational divide in attitudes. Managers from the Baby Boomer and Generation X cohorts, who developed their skills and techniques in the earliest years of the Information Age didn’t originally live in a world where half your life sits on a handheld device in your pocket. The idea of being always-on and constantly reachable is a relatively new one for many of them. Meanwhile, Millennials and Zoomers have largely grown up in that world. Even the oldest Millennials were no older than teenagers when the World Wide Web became public knowledge.

Consequently, whereas previous generations may be wedded to the idea of the 9-to-5, Monday to Friday work week, many of their younger employees are not, and don’t see a benefit to that mindset. Leaders will need to balance their expectations with those of their people, or they risk demotivating their people by making it look like they don’t trust them.

The Importance of Trust

In my leadership programmes, I regularly highlight the importance of trust. If you trust your people, they will trust you, they will respect you, and the overwhelming majority of them will endeavour to reward your trust with fantastic performances. For many, it’s a case of remembering that every single person wants to succeed. There are those who need a more hands-on approach to management, who don’t work particularly well unsupervised, and may not be ideal candidates for flexible working.

However, there are many who will thrive in such an environment because it is simply what they are used to, and when organisations refuse to demonstrate trust, refuse to be flexible, and make demands of them, there is a real chance they will start to look elsewhere to find an employer that is more flexible.

The best way to discover whether a hybrid approach to the workplace is right for your business is to simply talk to your people and ask them what they want, and if your people have shown the same dedication to their work over the past couple of years, maybe it is time to consider cutting the leash?

Want to Learn How to Best Manage Your Remote Teams?

Become a Virtual Presence Maestro

The post What Will ‘Back to Normal’ Look Like? appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.

In this uncertainty lies frustration, but a new kind of frustration is starting to take shape: the barrage of unsolicited pitches across email and social media.

While this type of spam is nothing new—Twitter suffered for years from new followers wanting nothing more than to slide straight into your DMs with marketing messages—the degree to which it is impacting our daily communications is perhaps unprecedented.

In some ways, it is understandable. With traditional marketing channels yielding discouraging results and customers becoming more selective on expenses, a need has arisen to replace lost revenues with new ones, find new leads, and close more sales.

You’ll Annoy More People than You’ll Win Over

However, while the necessity is understandable, the method is flawed. People are quick to tire of repetition and grow annoyed at the repeated intrusions. And let’s be clear—they are intrusions. All of those unsolicited messages and emails flying across the web are becoming increasingly obnoxious.

It isn’t that sales pitches are inherently bad themselves. As a sales trainer, I’d never make such a claim. It’s that the ‘hoof it and hope’ approach being adopted by so many businesses now is the antithesis of good sales practice and etiquette. A good salesperson knows that they add value when they can solve a legitimate problem and respond to an immediate need. Recently, I’ve received messages about everything from blockchain to uniforms. Do I need these services? No. Did I ask for them? Definitely not.

When a business uses such tactics, it doesn’t fill me with confidence that they behave ethically, have a trustworthy brand, or are genuinely interested in helping me. Their motivations don’t even need to be questioned because they’re entirely obvious—they’re selfish.

They’ve connected with me on LinkedIn and added my data to their database without consent along with however-many hundreds of others, purely in the hope that out of several hundred irrelevant messages, they find the one person interested in their offer. Let us not ignore that being added to such a database raises all sorts of questions about security that really need to be answered.

Lazy Marketing = Lazy Business

Businesses that use such practices are telling me how lazy they are. They are broadcasting, loud and clear, that I will regret it if I do business with them. If you cannot even muster the interest to prospect effectively and put some real thought into your pitch, what assurance do you offer that your product is worth anything?

Worst is when a company simply fails to take the hint. Being bombarded with message after message to ‘touch base’, ‘reach out’ or ‘check whether you got [the] last message’ is not only irritating, but it is disrespectful. It assumes that people care to discuss with you something they never asked you for. I can only speak for myself, but I don’t desire to waste thirty minutes or more every day responding to messages I never asked for.

There is nothing wrong with follow-up messages to people or companies that have expressed an interest in your services. There is something very wrong with multiple follow-up messages to those who have expressed no interest at all.

Consider the True Costs

Many companies spring up to bombard everyone with the same scripted message, promising dozens of warm leads for a pittance. Before you patronise these services, ask yourself, what are the real costs? Because there are costs—there are costs to your credibility, there are costs to your brand’s reputation, and there may be costs to all the work you’ve done to build your business online.

If you give somebody access to your LinkedIn or other social media accounts, all it takes is for a few annoyed people to report you as a bot or spammer, and you lose them. All of the effort you’ve put into cultivating your online identity can disappear in an instant because of the actions of a third-party you mistakenly trusted.

What if you keep emailing somebody who leaves scathing reviews on Google, Trustpilot or other similar services? Would you want your brand to be publicly pilloried in such a manner? Probably not. That is, however, the risk you are taking, and for all of their promises of warm leads, the chances are you’re going to be getting some very poor ones at best.

Building Connections Takes Time and Effort

If you want to win business, do so ethically and considerately. Don’t just barge into people’s inboxes with unfounded promises of future benefits, but take the time to build your relationships organically. Offer people something, post informative and relevant content, and take the time to learn what your potential leads might need. Once you’ve done that, you’re in a far better position to offer something of tangible value.

It may take some time, but you stand a better chance of reaping real, long-term benefits; and your email address is much less likely to end up on a spammer blacklist.

The post The Real Messages Spammers Send appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.

Last year, we were contacted by Ultrapolymers, a long-term client of ours, to design and deliver an entirely remote programme of training materials to equip their people with the skills to ensure their business could handle the new challenges.

The Brief

As an international group, Ultrapolymers had people in offices across Europe. Our training would have to take on-board the particular needs of their people from both the UK and offices on the European mainland. We’d need to design materials that would translate well to people for whom English is not a first language. Further to this, Ultrapolymers asked that we focused on remote teambuilding within these separate offices to better prepare their people to engage in cross-border business and communications.

Given their business’s international scope, we also had to consider the multinational markets and cultures to deliver a truly universal programme.

During the programme, we would be delivering training to people from Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Russia, Croatia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Czech Republic, Serbia, Bosnia, Hungary, Poland, Switzerland, Austria, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Belgium, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

Key Focuses

In addition to teambuilding, Ultrapolymers sought training on prospecting and developing new business in the uncertain times we all faced. They wanted to ensure that their people could still talk to clients with confidence that Ultrapolymers was a valuable strategic partner who could add value, solve problems, and deliver no matter the additional priorities.

When it came to Key Accounts, Ultrapolymers needed to help their people engage with their clients, understand their changing circumstances, and position themselves as the right partner to renew those mutually beneficial partnerships which had been a core asset to the Ultrapolymers portfolio. We wanted to make sure that UP could continue to develop their existing relationships while cross-selling and up-selling the most relevant and useful products/services in their offering to their most valuable clients.

We also understood that with changing priorities, budget freezes, and similar obstacles, Ultrapolymers needed their people to become confident negotiators who could build value in UP products and services, differentiate themselves effectively from the competition and convey the exceptional levels of service, technical expertise and support on which Ultrapolymers has built its reputation. We endeavoured to ensure that UP could sell its value and defend its margins.

The Programme

Beginning in May 2020, RLA delivered a series of bite-sized half-day modules using the Zoom platform, focusing on making the programme as interactive and engaging as possible. By limiting the number of delegates to ten per session, we felt better able to provide a strong training programme for the group and address individual needs and concerns despite the restraints of remote-based coaching.

Using a combination of group work in breakout rooms, polls/quizzes, and the more traditional slideshow presentation, we felt we could replicate the classroom experience, and in some cases, even exceed it.

Over a period of three months, we delivered sessions on Business Development and Prospecting, The Psychology of Sales, Objection Handling and Pre-Handling, and Customer Segmentation to over 150 delegates. Realising that technical difficulties, family life, and other unavoidable factors may disrupt the learning process, we also delivered several ‘mop-up’ sessions later in the year so that no individual need be left behind through missing a session.

Additionally, we provided support materials to the delegates, offered pre-work for the delegates to complete before each session, and came up with a post-training enforcement programme to ensure that the training stuck.

Results

We were delighted to hear back from Ultrapolymers at the beginning of 2021 that UP has secured 151 new accounts despite the difficulties of business in the new normal, with profits in excess of €350,000 in the months since the programme’s completion. Additionally, Ultrapolymers predicts this figure will continue to rise through repeat sales up to €600,000 in the next quarter.

We look forward to continuing our strong working relationship with Ultrapolymers in the future and are honoured and privileged to have played a part in their continued success.

Testimonial

“When Covid hit we quickly moved, like most people, to a Teams call every morning trying to motivate our salesforce to still make virtual face-to-face visits with our clients. However, like most organisations, this quickly turned into ‘death by Teams meetings’. That’s when we turned to Robin. Robin was able to guide us in splitting our 100+ Europe-wide team-members into smaller manageable chunks as well as splitting the programme into 4 two-hour modules. We have found that not only has the programme increased the proactivity across Europe, it has also allowed the teams to work better in collaboration. Sharing successful projects and best practice around the whole team.”

Stuart McCaig, European Sales Ambassdor for Ultrapolymers

The post Ultrapolymers: A Case Study appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.

Uncertainty about COVID has led to changes in customer decision making, a restructuring of the decision-making hierarchy, and a tendency for ‘wait and see’ or ‘do nothing’ to become the default approach.

Furthermore, as more people work from home, the initial novelty has worn off. Business leaders that fail to adapt their style to leading teams remotely are finding morale slipping and productivity waning. It is perhaps more vital than ever to put compassion and empathy at the forefront of leadership. Instead of adhering to tired stereotypes about home workers being happy and carefree, we should seek to understand that not everyone thrives in a more isolated environment.

Contrary to prevailing beliefs about home workers having a better work/life balance, in truth, a significant number are unable to ‘switch off’ – they feel uncomfortable, as though they’re cheating, by taking a break from the computer from time to time.

We have found that there is a ‘silent minority’ of people who feel isolated or burned out working from home. Lacking the guidance of understanding leaders, they often feel that they are kept in the dark and directionless, which is taking a toll on their mental health. Engagement levels have dropped in many businesses due to poor communications, a failure to communicate vision, and a lack of consideration to the Hierarchy of Needs.

The bottom line is that the skills that got us where we were at the start of the year are nowhere near sufficient to take us through into the next one.

That is why we at Robin Lines Associates have spent the year developing our remote training programmes. We have spent time listening to a variety of clients, developing bespoke programmes based on their immediate needs to get them over the initial obstacles and ensure that they are productive and well-set heading into this uncertain future.

We are confident that our programmes, specifically tailored towards Winning Business and Keeping People Engaged in the New Normal can add significant value to any business struggling in these difficult times.

You can find a brief rundown of our new programmes here. All of our programmes are modular and flexible to suit your team’s requirements, can be run over a variety of video conferencing applications, and can be scheduled in bitesize chunks to give your people proper time to absorb the content. We provide recordings of sessions on request, and we favour a practical approach using interactive roleplay scenarios to fully recreate sales and leadership in the new normal.

The post Leadership and Sales Training in the New Normal appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.

Master Your Tools

You need to master your tools and master your customers’ tools. Your organisation may prefer Zoom, but a customer may wish to use Teams or Skype. Familiarising yourself with several of the most popular video conferencing or communication platforms will help avoid any embarrassing technical issues.

Renew Your Focus on Building Rapport

Ensure that you are fully present during a virtual meeting. A good strategy, although not an intuitive one, is to look directly at the camera from time-to-time. Not only will this prevent your eyes from drifting, but it helps to mimic eye-contact, which is often lacking from virtual conversations.

Similarly, try to gently mirror the other side’s body language, energy and language. Don’t just clone their mannerisms, but attempt to break down the cyber barriers by creating a welcoming environment.

Engagement

When presenting/pitching, don’t rely too much on PowerPoint. While you may wish to show some slides, because of the nature of online interactions, it can build a wall between you and other people. Instead, send some pre-reading, use whiteboards, and other sharing tools.

You should also encourage questions by calling upon people regularly to give you their thoughts and reactions. Make sure that you pay attention to see if anyone is using a hand-raising tool, and let people know before the meeting that they can.

Mimic the Walk to the Elevator

After most in-person pitches or presentations, there is usually the few minutes where both parties walk to the elevator or to the exit. While this obviously doesn’t occur during a remote conversation, you should aim to include a five-minute ‘cooldown’ towards the end of the meeting.

This is one of the last, and often one of the most effective chances you have to influence the other side by building a personal connection. Always remember that people like people who are like them, and are always far more likely to buy from somebody they like!

The post Practising Your Virtual Selling Approach appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.

Similarly, the way we connect with people, build our relationships and develop new ones has also changed. Most of us are not doing in-person meetings yet, most trade shows and events have been cancelled for the foreseeable future, and even a phone call or email might go unanswered.

The best option we have is to cultivate and build relationships virtually. If you use LinkedIn, you’ve probably noticed the high volume of connection requests and sales pitches popping up in your messages. While selling over LinkedIn is nothing new, the quantity of sales approaches is unprecedented – and it’s because it’s currently the best way to build a new relationship.

However, you have to be cautious when approaching new people. At this point, many are sick of the unsolicited communications that flood inboxes on a near-daily basis. An out-of-the-blue pitch, or unwanted piece of advice comes across as insincere at best, and the behaviour of a grifter at worse.

Who Are You?

That’s the first question somebody will ask when you approach them online. Before they even read your message, they’ll want to know who you are. Your profile needs to answer that question.

Ask yourself the same question, and tailor your profile appropriately. Use the space available to inform people who you are, what you do, and what type of connections you’re looking to make. Focus on skills and keywords that are relevant and desirable to your audience. Assume that people are busy, so keep your profile concise and to the point. Relevance is akin to quality when it comes to a LinkedIn profile, and that matters a lot more than length.

Get to Know People Before You Consider Selling

Approaching somebody new with a sales pitch is often regarded as poor etiquette online. Before you’ve even tried to learn something about a potential contact, you’re showering them with, often unwelcome, pitches.

Right now, a lot of people’s businesses are in flux. Investments are more considered than ever before. Somebody who seems like an ideal customer might not have the finances to make a new investment. They might be under pressure or stress, and your sales pitch could be the last thing they have time for.

Instead, get to know people you connect with. Try and understand their current position and what their immediate needs are, and where possible…

Offer Your Time and Expertise

In our sales programmes, we often talk about the value of generosity. Investing a little of your time to offer your skills and expertise can reap huge rewards. Look for ways you can add value, even if it means providing some assistance for free. It’s a great way to start a mutually beneficial relationship and build up some credit in the emotional bank account.

Get Involved

If you’re wondering how to uncover people’s needs, the simplest method is to get involved. Participate in discussions, join groups relevant to your industry, share articles that could be useful to others, etc. When you’re active, people take notice, and those who care about the future of their business may well ask if they could pick your brains.

Furthermore, by being active, you make yourself noticeable to people who want to connect with you. People gravitate towards those who they feel are like them. Commenting on other people’s posts and taking part in discussions is a fantastic way to market yourself beyond the confines of your own circle.

The post Building Your Business Relationships Online appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.

Take it Seriously

I’m sure we’ve all seen several amusing tales of online meeting mishaps, from the Spanish councillor who broadcasted himself taking a shower, to the poor Reddit user whose quirk of talking to his food caused significant embarrassment. Many of these unfortunate events occur because people are not taking these meetings seriously.

Sipping iced mochas while sat at your PC in the comfort of your home can lead you to let your hair down a little too much. You might be at home, but a remote meeting is still work and should be treated as such. Make sure you adopt a professional mindset from the off, close those irrelevant browser tabs and don’t leave the TV on in the background.

If you must leave the session temporarily, be sure to mute your mic, turn off your camera and inform others in the room. Type a message to let people know you need to go AFK for a few minutes. However, unless something is vitally important, try not to leave. Be respectful of other people and the time they’ve set aside for the meeting.

Impressions Count

In a similar vein, it’s essential to ensure that you are making a strong impression. Arriving at an online meeting in a football shirt, with a cocktail in one hand and a burger in the other screams that you don’t care. If you don’t care, why should anybody else?

Nobody expects you to don a suit and tie for a half-hour follow-up session, but smart casual should be a bare minimum. Keep any drinks at the desk to a glass of water or a mug of tea/coffee and leave the snacks for later. Remote meetings might afford you some leeway, but if you wouldn’t do it in-person, you probably shouldn’t be doing it online either.

Additionally, ensure that there are no distractions for others visible behind you. Where possible, find a spot where your camera looks out on a clean portion of the wall. When talking to clients, be mindful of anything in your room that could be offensive or viewed as insensitive if noticed.

Pay Attention

This is an area we’ve written about before, but it’s absolutely vital in online meetings. Too often, people become distracted in a meeting. They might start reading emails or become fixated on something they see out of the window. When this happens, not only does productivity start to drop but others in the meeting can become frustrated.

It can be easy to lose focus during an online meeting, but people will notice. Eliminate distractions in your workplace and give the current speaker your full attention. Take notes as you go, and always remain aware of your body language. The signals you’re sending out will be picked up on by others.

Where possible, look directly into the camera. While it may not always seem intuitive, especially if your video feeds are not in the eye-line of the camera, it will help you pay attention to what is being said. More importantly, it will ensure that the current speaker feels that you’re taking notice. This is especially useful when talking with prospects and clients, and helps bridge gaps and make video conferencing feel more personal.

The post Three Tips for More Successful Online Meetings appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.

In coaching, we primarily work face-to-face. It’s a people-oriented profession and working alongside those people has been seen as the best method for embedding new skills and developing talent. Remote consultations, such as over the phone or via Skype, have usually been considered as an extra, rather than the primary delivery method.

Therefore, it is fair to say I was sceptical about transitioning to primarily remote delivery. I had questions about the technology and whether I could adequately recreate the classroom experience. Would people pay as much attention? Would they consider it to have the same value? Would there be technical complications? A lot of concerns rolled around in my head. It has always been vital for me to feel that people are benefitting from the training I’m delivering. Could remote training really replicate the in-person experience?

Having been delivering remote programmes for several months now, I feel more confident to say that it could. There will always be times when in-person training is better. Larger groups or residential weeks cannot be delivered remotely. Teambuilding is best managed in reality, not virtual reality. Sometimes the key to unlocking somebody’s potential needs an unfiltered training experience.

More and more, however, I see the value of remote learning. The feedback from clients has allayed a number of my initial misgivings. The versatility of Break Out Rooms for roleplay and simulations significantly helps to make the remote experience more dynamic, while polls and chat encourage engagement. The technical challenges we’ve faced have been minimal, and mostly due to nothing more than a temporary blip in a delegate’s internet connection. Even these have been easy to overcome, as we can record sessions to view later.

Moving forward, I could see remote training have increasingly practical applications. Bite-sized sessions are not only more environmentally friendly, but they are also more cost-effective for both the client and me. Businesses need no longer set aside whole days for some training sessions when smaller groups could be managed in a more staggered manner. Productivity will only increase as courses need no longer be as intrusive on a delegate’s time. If several delegates are unavailable due to unforeseen circumstances, it’s not as problematic as it is with in-person. We have been able to provide additional follow-up sessions quickly, ensuring nobody is left behind in their training journey.

As I write this, sitting in a room on a hot day, I’m reminded of those times a group of us have sat in an uncomfortable office in the middle of summer. While we might not be able to cool down everybody’s home, there is an additional comfort factor in being able to work with an iced-latte and a nearby desk fan. People always work better and learn more, when they’re comfortable.

Our brand new LMS allows us to create supplemental materials, such as pre-work and post-work, to add even more value by challenging and developing people beyond the sessions themselves. We can even better tailor our post-session development work more to the individual, delivering additional learning materials that take into account a person’s needs and goals. Our LMS allows us to see, at a glance, how our delegates are progressing, where they thrive and where they struggle. We can evaluate an entire group’s understanding of the materials and deliver our findings confidently to business leaders. Combined with our E-Learning Platform, we can offer additional low-cost training courses, on-demand, to our clients ensuring a steady stream of valuable materials to facilitate success.

Although we found ourselves in this position out of necessity, by forcing us to confront the limitations of the way things have always been done means that we can now confidently find new ways to do the same thing. In-person training will always have its place in the coaching world, but I am not ashamed to say that I have transitioned from sceptic to believer over these past few months. I truly believe that, in time, remote training may no longer be delivered out of necessity, but become the default for a lot of programmes.

The post From Sceptic to Believer: Remote Training and the ‘New Normal’ appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.

To hit the ground running, businesses will need to show that they have adapted to the changes and prove that they’re in a position to serve their customers’ needs.

Reassure Your Customers

Your customers need to know your position, particularly if COVID had a significantly detrimental impact on your business. If yours was one of the unfortunate companies that had to basically shut up shop and ride out the height of the pandemic, then it’s time to start reaching out directly to your customers. With any luck, you’ve dropped them a few notes to keep them up-to-date with what’s going on, informed them of any delays or difficulties you’ve been having, and given them a timeframe for restarting. Now is the time to make sure they know you’re ready to serve them again, and if not quite now, when.

If you’ve not kept your customers up-to-date, then you face an uphill challenge—although not a serious one. As soon as possible, start reaching out.

Find Out What Your Customers Need

Your customers might have different priorities to those they did a few months’ ago. Now is a great time to find out where your customers stand and what their immediate concerns are. Look for ways that you can add value to their business. Those relationships that you have spent so long in cultivating over the years are vital, both to you and them. Proving that your business is as dependable as it has always been in the past will help ensure that trust levels remain high.

Send the Right Marketing Messages

With the above in mind, emphasise ‘working together’ during the coming months. You’ve almost certainly encountered similar messaging in adverts and social media posts recently. It’s because not feeling like you’re alone matters as much to a company as it does to an individual. As we’ve had to fall back on our own support networks on a personal basis, we’ll need to develop our support networks on a business basis. Positioning yourself as a company willing to work hard for its customers, to support them and ensure their success will ultimately ensure yours.

Continue to Offer Digital Options

Zoom, Teams and other virtual conferencing solutions have never been more popular. Although it’s likely that over time, business and customers will move back to the “old normal” of in-person meetings, in the immediate term, there may still be some reluctance. COVID continues to pose a risk, and some people are naturally more cautious than others.

Furthermore, some people will have found the move to digital a refreshing change of pace. There is likely to be an increased appetite from customers to handle meetings online where possible. For that reason, continuing or developing more flexible communication options now stands you in good stead for the future.

When You Must Meet In-Person, Safety First

We are going to see a lot of new safety measures on business premises for the foreseeable future. Hand sanitisation stations, face masks, reminder posters. Make sure that your business is not only showing common sense by taking necessary precautions but is proudly presenting itself as such. Ensuring that your customers know that you care about your people and clients, you will present your business in a favourable light.

The post Restarting and Rebuilding Post-COVID appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.