Founder and director of Sales Made Easy Kevin Hayler works with clients across time zones, cultures, and experience levels on a daily basis by upskilling, coaching, and producing bespoke frameworks to help teams communicate with each other, and their target customers. He has learned that there are five key ways to achieve success, on a global scale, regardless of business size and location.
Set clear business strategy goals from the outset
Businesses of all sizes have goals and strategies in place, but the successful ones are the ones who execute those strategies with empowerment, clarity of messaging, and accountability at the heart of them. Many often think of their business goals as short and long term, but can fall down by making them too short or long sighted. Too short a timeframe can turn activities into tick boxes, and too long term can risk missing out on crucial and timely landscape changes. Instead, businesses should set 12 month, 24 month, and 36 month strategic periods. These then need to be broken down into ’90 day sprints’ with clear KPIs attached to each one. It must also be clear how everyone within the team impacts those goals, and they need to be held accountable for the delivery on their part – location and time of working day is irrelevant, seek only the tangible results. There should be a rhythm of daily huddles and weekly meetings to track progress and online software management tools like CRM/project management tools are recommended to track all of the above.
Designate a person/team to drive each KPI
A senior person with responsibility and accountability should be known to the rest of the workforce for any questions and queries, and their vision cascaded to the rest of the team using the suggestions above of daily huddles and weekly review meetings. It is the job of the delegated responsible person to understand their own role, but also ensure that each and every team leader below them equally understands how they fit into the structure of the company and what responsibilities they are accountable to deliver. If the goals and actions are clear, a culture of empowerment will be present, along with the visibility and measurement tactics that will achieve the desired success.
Maintain the company culture across all regions
It’s very easy and common to think that going across border lines means changing the direction of an activity. However, while an understanding of the various nuances for different regions and cultures is needed from the ‘c-suite’ team at Head Office, that shouldn’t change the company culture as it should be evident across all regions to begin with. The key is to marry up the company culture and ethos to bring the best of both together to each area. It’s equally important to educate Head Office of the various cultural nuances as it will only make the entire organisation a stronger and more valued place to work and represent.
Outsource virtual expertise to save money, and gain a wealth of experience
When working virtually, there are no borders. It’s a lot easier to get external support when and where required, without the hassle of advertising a role, interviewing, onboarding, and training up. That’s before even realising the newly employed person isn’t quite the right person for the role. Instead, hire a virtual network to manage the area of expertise you’re lacking within the organisation as they often bring a team’s wealth of experience to the table, for less than the cost of a single hire.
Don’t lose sight of team engagement
The goals have been set, the people have been allocated roles, but getting the balance with diligence and motivation can often be a challenge. It’s a hybrid world which brings huge efficiency to the working environment and one that won’t change anytime soon. While communicating virtually should be the default method across borders, face-to-face and group meetings should also be booked in as often as possible to cement relationships. Especially when it comes to empowering teams and ensuring responsibilities are understood, there is no substitute for physical engagement. Communication should be two-way, so ensure the person on the other side of the screen is given ample opportunity to converse in their preferred way, otherwise risk miscommunication and failed goals.
To summarise, ensure the culture and ethos of the business is in place and transparent for all before even attempting to set goals and objectives. Once in place, getting the basic principles of acknowledging the direction of the business with the clear responsibilities of each person, will undoubtedly make achieving the results a lot easier.
