In The Mix and Getting In the Pocket — Aligning and Synchronizing

The best leaders and teams that get alignment around their Purpose and North Star will determine the winners and losers coming out of the great transition we are going through in 2020. That is a tough calling, even for the best. We thought this was the year to see how Vision 2020 was conveyed 5–10 years ago to rally people around a vision. We wanted to communicate how all the pieces would come together in new ways. Now we have a world that is turned upside down. For the few that aren’t struggling with feeding their families and the survival needs of their livelihood, there are many that are trying to determine what our socio-economic relationships might look like on the other side of this.

While most of history has found those leaders with great vision would do better than most, now is a time for the present moment. This is of urrgent importance coming from a technology background and living on the front lines of the roll out of Moore’s Law. We have gone from a linear path to a vision that took us to a destination and now is one that you need to get in the mix and iterate to a better place with a direction in mind. Adding capabilities you and a network of people can build will create new services for the new economy.

This brings us to what “Being in the Pocket” means. As a professional musician in my day, the greatest experience was when the rhythm section was all connecting, bringing a pace that the audience resonated with while collaborating and improvising with band members. This created a flow of sounds that expressed a movement. The Beatles, Symphonies, Jazz and most of the musical greats have experienced the highest level of capability when different people with different skills can come together and create greatness. It does not need just to be the greats, but it will be those that come out of this with a new capability to synchronize with teams that are not in the same room but believe in a common cause. This is “In the Pocket” Commercial or Social.

There is starting to be more people talking about the fact we are defining the future of work as we are all distanced from each other. I’m working with a great group of people exploring this and sharing experiences of what you can do to work through this challenging time as we are now adjusting to a new work and home life experience. There are three drivers that we must keep our eyes on and participate in. Stabilizing where we are, pivoting to a unique advantage and normalizing to a new normal.

There are organizations with a mission that need to be preserved for shareholders with many existing organizations, some recognize this needs to be improved upon, we can’t walk away from what has served us before. We must build a bridge from the old Industrial World to the new Information Age (this is how we surface new valued interactions) and in many ways will require us to redefine our purpose around stakeholders. There is the interworking of stakeholders that moves our society to a better place. This is not easy and new approaches to evolve our collective advantage will be tested at scale.

If we focus on where stakeholders are coming together to move socio-economic interests along we will find a way to get “in the pocket” as we mix it up. We will better align and synchronize to serve a broader middle class. This is the core to the survival of society.

Work & Life in the 21st Century – Webinar

WEBINAR SERIES #2

Wednesday, April 22, 2020

1:30–2:30pm Pacific Time

Join us online for the second webinar in the SEMI Virtual Forum series, Work & Life in the 21st Century.

In the face of COVID-19, many companies have decided – or will soon decide – to perform all work virtually. Work is changing, and companies must explore new ways of working to sustain and thrive in uncertain times. These are the moments that matter, and how you rally your team will be key.

In this webinar, we will discuss how companies can execute a cohesive business strategy and response through three deeply connected dimensions of an organization: work (the what), workforce (the who), and workplace (the where).

Work & Life in the 21st Century

Virtual Forum - The Future of Work Webinars - Organizers

Join us online at this first SEMI Virtual Forum of the Work & Life in the 21st Century Webinar Series to hear industry experts discuss best practices leading companies are using to optimize their remote teams.

Time

1:30 pm – 2:15 pm

Location

Online, Pacific Time,
United States

Culture and Leadership with Distributed Teams

Businesses are rapidly getting up to speed in how to efficiently manage Remote Teams. Those that learn to lead and develop the critical skills to maintain corporate culture and execute clear outcomes will define who emerges with the most competitive advantage.

We are pleased to have a prominent leader in Distributed Teams share with you some of the benchmarks in remote leadership.

Featured Speakers

Dave Toole, The Gig Economy Group
MODERATOR
Dave Toole
CEO, The Gig Economy Group
Laurel Farrer, Distribute Consulting and the Remote Work Association
Laurel Farrer
Founder, Distribute Consulting and the Remote Work Association

REGISTRATION

Open to AllFREE

Managing Priorities in Remote Selling

By Building Trusted Relationships

In-person selling is no longer available to those who are focused on keeping sales going during these tough times. This requires sales and businesses to pivot and adapt to new “work-from-home” techniques. Independent, direct sellers have been working remotely for decades and offer many lessons to run a remote sales team in the new “work-from-home” reality we find ourselves in. Whether CEOs at large, enterprise companies or small, independent business owners, remote working is now the lifeblood of the US economy. Managing priorities is always a challenge, with a remote team even more so today.

Remote selling is new to big businesses as well as independent, small businesses and contractors like real estate agents, life insurance people, distributors and sellers, etc. These are the people that are needed to get up to speed rapidly to survive and eventually thrive in this new economy. Getting up to speed and getting to best-in-class performance is making the difference as to whom will survive in the new economy.

A case in point: One of The Gig Economy Group’s customers found that as a direct result of implementing the GEG app, first dollar went from 5% of new remote workers to 22% selling product in the first 30 days. They also found a remarkable decease in churn because the app assisted sellers in getting to first dollar.

The graph to the left is Kineviz’s GraphXR graphics which are imbedded in the GEG app and visually exemplifies the case above. It shows how a new seller (dot in the middle) using the GEG Agile Business Concierge has been effectively onboarded and provided best-in-class training, coaching, and mentoring to always have 10 contacts that they are continually communicating with (teal dots). The platform delivers best practices messaging, content, and approaches that are individual to each contact. This personalized content is delivered by the app at the right time and guides the seller to impart the most salient information to move their prospects/customers down the funnel to close (orange dots).  Bringing the remote worker to best in class performance in real time. Note: This individual sold deals (orange dots) within the first 22 days of hire.

Research has shown that remote workers who have success within the first 30 days of hire are highly motivated and very likely to continue selling for the foreseeable future. Continued coaching, mentoring, and sharing best practices provides these workers with the tools and support they need to build trusted relationships, gain the confidence and competencies needed to develop a dependable referral network, and create momentum for continued success. Keeping priorities in sync is now more challenging and critical than ever.

The challenge with providing tools and support services to a remote sales organization that is comprised entirely of an independent channel is the lack of control over them—they aren’t required to take advantage of any services or those sanctioned by your organization. Therefore, the only solution is to provide this independent sales organization with a pathway to success that they will wholeheartedly embrace—one that delivers proven results within the first 30 days, provides clear directions to building trusted relationships, facilitates developing a reliable referral network—all accomplished by providing ongoing tools and support to build momentum in a way that is intuitive, easy to use, and walks them step-by-step to success. Synchronizing priorities to deliver on the promise is more important now. A much more productive pathway than existing ad hoc workflows.

Two critical components to any remote worker is building long-lasting, trusted relationships when there is no longer the water cooler conversations or face-to-face meetings. It is important because the success of any business depends upon its reputation. These are the people who can help you, advise you, and refer you to their network. Referrals are extremely important because those who referred to you are essentially saying “this person is trust-worthy, their solutions are solid, and they will take care of you.” It is always easier when your solution is referred by someone instead of cold calling people you don’t know.

The Gig Economy Group is one of an exclusive group of global, forward-thinking, world-class companies that has invested an unprecedented amount of time, expertise, and resources to definitely understand the intricacies that exceptional, worldwide, B2B companies employ to deliver best-in-class, extraordinary results to their customers, employees, and stakeholders, while managing rapidly changing priorities.

The Gig Economy Group recognizes that sales success in the first 30 days of a new seller’s journey is critical for their initial and ongoing achievements and that effective relationship and referral network building is a skill that most people aren’t adept at; moreover, it is a talent that most don’t care to learn how to do. Therefore, a means to guide people through this competency coupled with astute ‘next-best-actions’ recommendations is the most effective approach to achieving unprecedented results.

The Gig Economy Group’s ABC Platform is the only available solution that guides new sellers through the complex maze of building relationships and creating a reliable, effective network. The app delivers step-by-step guidance to reach out and acquire relationships and then to cultivate them into a network that will ensure sales success. The graph below shows how a seller acquired meaningful relationships and started to build an effective network.

This graph shows how a new seller (dot in the middle) has effectively been guided by the GEG platform to initiate and cultivate contacts (teal dots). The app is continually guiding the user to build lasting, important relationships (teal dots). This is the first phase in building momentum to closing deals as outlined in the previous graph above.

The Gig Economy Group has analyzed the unique problems associated with Gig Economy workers and has talked with industry leaders and analysts to uniquely understand the breadth and depth of the issues facing these workers.  As a result, and as shown in this blog, The Gig Economy Group developed a mobile, AI-enabled app that effectively onboards new remote sellers, provides step-by-step guidance to them, delivers coaching and mentoring at a time when needed the most, and dispenses best practices with real time recommendations throughout the sales journey. Very importantly, it provides best-in-class guidance to building relationships and creating a critical, viable referral network.

In summary, today’s workplace is drastically different than yesterdays. Keeping a pulse on how your remote workforce can contribute to the bottom line and how, as sales leaders, you can provide the tools and support is essential now—more than ever. Next, we’ll share the benefits in synchronizing priorities between organization and remote workers.

ABOUT THE GIG ECONOMY GROUP

The Gig Economy Group (GEG) provides a state-of-the-art AI-powered sales acceleration platform to Gig Economy networks and workers. This platform enables large, global, independent sellers to accelerate sales and improve sales team effectiveness by making smarter, actional decisions resulting in significantly increased revenues. This AI-powered app with its recommendation engine, delivers precision guided selling advice, continual coaching, mentoring, and sharing of best practices.

ABOUT KINEVIZ

Kineviz is the company that brought GraphXR to the marketplace. GraphXR is a visual analytics platform that delivers unprecedented speed, power, and fluidity to anyone working with connected, high-dimensional, and big data. Its interactive, iterative design accelerates time to insight while enabling analysts and business users to make needle-in-haystack discoveries that evade traditional analytic workflows.