Here are the four tips that my clients who lead revenue teams most needed to hear:

Communicate expectations 

Does your team know what you expect from them when they’re working from home?

I’ve spoken to sales leaders who have told me that their teams keep pinging them when they are taking a break or using the bathroom. 

When people aren’t used to working from home, they feel the need to prove that they’re working, instead of just working.

So, my challenge to you as a sales leader: Have you communicated expectations to your team? Have you made it clear how you’ll be measuring their success? And — if I polled all of them, would they give the same answer? 

If not: Spend 10 minutes thinking about your answers to my questions, then communicate them to your team by EOD.

Practice what you preach 

A big source of guilt right now for many of my clients who lead teams is that they’re spinning out while trying to keep their teams calm. They’ve lost their footing while expecting their teams to stay grounded, and that discrepancy leads them to be annoyed at themselves. 

Is one of your values transparency? Share your fears. Do you talk often about the power of people having routines? Make sure you’re adhering to yours. Are focus, boundaries, and trust top priorities for you? Stop pinging your team 24/7. (I see you.) 

In short, practice what you preach, even if it’s imperfect. 

Implement the Golden Hour

Did you know that — even before coronavirus — 70% of employees say they’re distracted at work; even short interruptions can double employee error rates; and 2+ hours per person per day are lost due to interruptions and distractions? That’s a heck of a lot of money left on the table.  

There’s a solution. The Golden Hour is one hour per day, team-wide, no exceptions, where team members (including you!) do focused, important work. That means Slack and email are turned off; no text messages; and no mindless social media scrolling. 

Consider doing this during a time of day when your team doesn’t get a lot of phone pickups, and think about doing it on Zoom for increased accountability. 

Pass on the deep work guide

Below, you’ll find the guide for getting into a deep work state in 15 minutes. I’m slightly biased, but I think it’s an extremely powerful, one-stop method for knocking out important, high-impact work. 

So don’t keep it just for you! Direct your team to piquecoaching.co/deepworkstate — it will serve as a gentle reminder that you have their best interests in mind right now. And as a bonus, it will give you a bit more breathing room, because they’ll be too busy focusing to tell you they’re going to take a bathroom break 🎉

Need additional tips or interested in having me host a virtual workshop with your team? Don’t hesitate to reach out: hello@piquecoaching.co.