7 Tips for Coaching Your Startup Team, Remotely
Guest post by Jane Hurst, https://www.lifehack.org/author/jane-hurst & https://blog.getresponse.com/author/jane-hurst
Just because your startup team works remotely, it doesn’t mean that they don’t need you to be there to coach them. In fact, it is even more important that you are there for them, because it isn’t like they can just walk into your office for a chat. So, you need to come up with ways that you can coach your team remotely, and be able to keep in contact with them. They need to know that the lines of communication are always going to be open. With this in mind, let’s take a look at seven tips to help you to coach your startup team remotely.
1) Be Proactive – You need to let it be known that you are always available to help your startup team, and that you want to share your expertise so you can give them the support that they need. It is a good idea to approach each member of your team individually to let them know that you are always there if they need you for anything, and that you want to help with their professional development.
2) Talk about their Challenges – Each week, get team members to submit emails detailing their biggest sales challenges. This is a great way for you to see where there are problems, and come up with ways to help your team with difficult situations. This is going to help you to see a huge increase in sales, because they are going to be able to overcome hurdles more easily since you know where they need to be coached.
3) Be there When You are Needed – It is not enough to make yourself available. You also need to make sure that you are available when you are truly needed. You never know when someone on your team is going to be having issues with an aspect of the job, and you need to be available when they really need you. You might be surprised at just how important this is, and how much it will mean to your team.
4) Communicate a Lot – If you aren’t communicating with your team, they will never really know what it is that you want from them. You need to be willing to provide feedback so they know what they have accomplished, and what they need to do to continue accomplishing things. Give the feedback on call recordings, and make sure that you always have an open dialogue with each member of your team. Sell laptop computers that are older and upgrade to make this easier.
5) Try Virtual Ride-Alongs – You may have team members from different parts of the globe, so you can’t actually work with them in person. But, you can do virtual ride-alongs, such as listening to live sales calls (with or without the knowledge of your reps) so you can give them feedback about their performance, in real time. You can also do joint calls, to be there to help if they are having any difficulties.
6) Hold Regular Meetings – Just because you can’t get together for in-person meetings with your remote team, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be holding regular meetings. There are several ways that you can do this, such as telephone meetings and conference calls, video chats, web calls, webinars, etc. Any of these are great for helping to coach your team, and be able to interact with them regularly.
7) Set Up Leaderboards – Everyone has a bit of competitiveness in them, especially those who are in sales. You can set up leaderboards that will let them compete for recognition within the startup. Don’t forget about dashboards, which will help everyone to see their progress, and identify and strengths or weaknesses that need to be worked on. This lets them help themselves before they have to be told to do so.