Is there such a thing as too much communication with remote workers?

The insurance industry today is experiencing an exponential increase in the number of agents working from home causing a huge shift in how remote workers work and how managers effectively lead and communicate with them. The Covid-19 virus has impacted nearly every industry worldwide and the insurance industry is no different; however, they have never experienced such a sudden, broad-based exodus of employees moving from corporate offices to remote offices.

The largest problem facing the rapid sales transformation required of leaders in managing this new remote work force is effective communication. The reverse is true for the agents working in an environment that is foreign to them. How do managers ensure their workforce is working to capacity and more importantly staying focused on the company’s strategic and tactical goals? What can they do to help these workers stay on task and deliver the results expected from the entire team? How do they motivate them? And, how do remote workers stay in the loop and not miss out on critical conversations? How can they ensure they are doing the appropriate work to attain organizational results? The answer: Communicate, communicate, communicate.

Studies show that 90% of companies do a poor job of effectively communicating with their employees and particularly when communicating to cross-functional groups. And, this was before Covid-19 when workers were in the office—not working remotely! Research also shows that 62% of executives agree that relative to audioconferencing, video conferencing significantly improves the quality of communication, a figure that rises to 73% among high-growth companies.1 In addition, viewers retain over 95% of video content versus barely 10% with text.

When introducing a new pathway for teams, the ability to increase engagement and retention is critical especially when leading remote teams. Video conferencing is becoming the de facto standard for corporate communications. A key feature is that the entire team can get on a video conference call and see each other, just like in a conference room back in the office. What happens when the meeting is over? How do you ensure everyone stays aligned to organizational goals and priorities? Another benefit is the ability to record video conferences. It can be transcribed and shared in text, if needed. Short summaries can be created to deliver critical, salient points across the team. Along with this, leadership needs to employ feedback loops to know who is engaged with your communications. When discussing critical information where the execution of this information is important to the entire organization find the best ways to increase engagement and retention.

1 Forbes – 5 Reasons Why Your Company Needs to Embrace Video Conferencing Now

The Future of IT Webinar Series: Gig Economy

About this webinar
How are you leveraging a flexible workforce within technology? How has your IT turnover rate changed and what do you anticipate it will look like in the future? What type of knowledge transfer plans do you have in place and how are you ramping up temporary team members rapidly?

Join us as we tackle these critical questions and dig into the practical answers from organizations that are navigating the changing world of work right now. You’ll gain a view into how other tech teams are tackling major concerns brought on by the global pandemic and walk away with new ideas and solutions to bring back to your organization.

Panelists:
• Elliott Potter, Co-Founder and CEO, Linq
• Dave Toole, CEO, Gig Economy Group
• John Hagel III, Co-Chairman, Center for the Edge
Moderated by Cesiah Kessler, Senior Regional Vice President at Experis North America

Live online Jun 17 11:00 am United States – Los Angeles
or after on demand 60 mins
Presented by
Elliott Potter | Linqapp, Dave Toole | Gig Economy Group, John Hagel III | Center for the Edge

Webinar Series #6: How the Common Language of Skills Will Write the Future of Workforce Development

Webinar Series #6: How the Common Language of Skills Will Write the Future of Workforce Development

Webinar Series #3: The Great Reset & the Near Future of Work

 

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

Time

1:30 pm – 2:30 pm

Location

Online, Pacific Time,
United States

In this session, Gary A. Bolles, will share various scenarios and tactics individuals, organizations, communities and countries are taking to put themselves in a position to thrive as all of us continue the transition toward a more digital economy.

Gary is a thought leader and business strategist who advises a wide variety of stakeholders to develop actionable strategies around what he refers to as “The Great Reset.”

Featured Speakers

Dave Anderson, SEMI Americas
MODERATOR
Dave Anderson
President, SEMI Americas
Dave Toole, The Gig Economy Group
MODERATOR
Dave Toole
CEO, The Gig Economy Group
Gary A. Bolles, Singularity University
Gary A. Bolles
Chair for the Future of Work, Singularity University

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.

Activate your Remote Workers with Pivot Plans

When Andy Grove Changed Intel’s Mission Statement

In September 1999, Andy Grove, co-founder and the then chairman of Intel, came to London and announced that Intel had changed its mission statement to become the ‘building block supplier to the Internet economy’ from the old mission statement which was to be ‘the building block supplier to the new computer industry’.

Before this announcement was made Andy Grove expressed his teams new direction and pivoted Intel’s tens of thousands of employees in weeks. Many of my peers did this in their own global businesses. We are doing this with billions of people at the same time today. No way a vector diagram could track this. In the Gig Economy a loose knit labor market, those that came from the Industrial complex of those in local markets this pivot is being place on all of us. We woke up and now have a new reality with uncertainty ahead of us. This is when Innovation has to occur at scale to find ways to help our front line health workers or find innovative ways to redefine commerce. Hopefully this will be done in support of all the stakeholders in our society.

We have decades of experience in the rapid pivot, some call this agile, others call this a global emergency to re-align our interests to support the path of least resistance to get beyond this virus. Within our business, family, social interactions will change faster than we can adapt but need to find ways to align to actions. We have a long way to go and the Gig Economy Group is dedicating itself to help organization align their remote workers. Every morning people are waking up and engaging with new tools and ways to communicate. Keeping everyone on the same page is hard during face to face meetings, yet alone around the globe, yet alone with a whole new economic construct. Let’s find the best ways to help connect, collaborate and get things done.