Working remotely creates a unique challenge for ambitious, upwardly mobile salespeople eager to prove themselves. That’s because when we spend so little time working face to face, it can be difficult for us to gain visibility within our organizations. Instead of feeling like an integral part of our teams, we begin to feel like just another voice on the end of the phone, or another talking head on the team video-conference. Over time, that can lead to diminished access to opportunities for promotion and advancement – not to mention a stunted sense of career fulfillment.
In this post, we’ll explore some tactics for improving our visibility within our organizations, even while working remotely. (SPOILER WARNING: It turns out that the same principles which apply in the physical setting also apply in the virtual workplace; we just have to be a little more deliberate about how we go about it.)
1. Build rapport with your colleagues.
In the world of remote work, relationships with coworkers and superiors suffer from the way our interactions are neatly compartmentalized and technologically mediated. Gone are the break room small talks and casual office pop-ins where organic working relationships are formed and strengthened. So in these largely virtual settings, where individual personalities are muted and side conversations are difficult to have, we have to work extra hard to stand out among our peers.
Fortunately, we can still find ways to build personal rapport with our colleagues and personalize our interactions in a way that will create lasting impressions:
Meet one-on-one. Isolation sneaks up quietly when we’re spending six to eight hours a day toiling away in the relative privacy of our homes or vehicles, making phone calls and sending countless emails and text messages but rarely interacting one-on-one with our coworkers. We can combat that tendency by scheduling regular appointments for direct fellowship with individual coworkers – even if it’s just a weekly virtual coffee break or lunch date. Besides breaking up the work week routine, these interactions help position us in our peers’ minds as more than just another name on a team roster. No matter what the circumstances, people tend to be a lot more comfortable approaching and partnering with people they’ve spent one-on-one time with.
Talk about things other than work. We usually bond more meaningfully with people we’ve gotten to know at a personal level. We enjoy hearing about our coworkers’ hobbies and special interests – the things they’re really passionate about outside of work. People appreciate being able to connect the dots between the jobs we do and the bigger picture of our lives. Plus, when we take the time to share such details, we help others see us as full-fledged human beings with a sense of purpose that transcends our particular organizational roles.
Share wins and losses. All of us experience highs and lows at work. That doesn’t change just because we’re working remotely, but it can be a lot harder for us to celebrate our wins or find encouragement through our losses when others on our team may have little idea what we’re working on at any given time. So we can take the lead by letting others in on what’s going on in our lives each week and fostering a safe, stigma-free environment for our peers to share what’s going on with them, too.
2. Establish a personal brand.
Connecting with others goes a long way, but visibility requires more than just good rapport. We also have to distinguish ourselves among our peers. After all, we don’t simply want people to know who we are; we also want them to know what we have to offer.
Make your skills and ideas known. We can begin by finding creative ways to showcase those unique perspectives and skill sets we might not get a chance to display in the course of our everyday duties. Perhaps we have ideas about how to improve some of our sales literature. Why not email the publishing manager with some notes – or, better still, our own stab at a revised copy? Maybe we’ve noticed some opportunities for improvement in one of our work processes. Why not sketch out an alternative and ask for ten minutes with our manager to discuss it? Writing and project management skills might not be part of the resume required for our current job, but casually putting them in front of others is a great way to demonstrate the as-yet-untapped value we bring to our organizations.
Contribute to efforts outside your regular job tasks. We should also keep our ears to the ground for opportunities to get involved in something outside the scope of our “day job.” Perhaps we could participate in gathering user feedback for the product development team. Or maybe there’s a need for additional on-site implementation personnel on a partner’s project. Admittedly, this might entail taking on extra work – possibly without pay – but so long as the work is well aligned with the kinds of things we enjoy doing anyway, it’ll offer us invaluable direct exposure to the kinds of people who can help us realize our long-term goals.
Become an influencer. There are also all sorts of things we can do to build a personal brand outside our work organizations. Even a modest following on social media can dramatically increase our visibility among industry peers. For instance, we might consider joining and actively participating in professional organizations connected with our industries. Such fellowships grant us access to high-level conversations about industry trends and frequently generate opportunities for us to ingratiate ourselves to people with the necessary influence to broker key introductions that could unlock future professional growth. We might also consider getting involved in philanthropic endeavors for nonprofit organizations and causes we’re personally passionate about. And we can always independently publish blogs, white papers, or even a book on a topic we’ve gained the necessary authority to speak on. Such things all help us make friends in high places, even in the digital world.
3. Get involved in organizational activities.
Working remotely, it can be easy to forget that our efforts are directly tied to the jobs of many others within our organizations. If we want to have a better understanding of how our job contributes to our company’s overall mission, then we’ll take steps to get more involved at the organizational level instead of remaining isolated in our home offices. The goal isn’t to simply function well as a cog in a well-oiled machine; it’s to become part of the team actually driving the machine.
Here are a few tips:
Volunteer at corporate events. Most of our organizations periodically host company-wide training, business, or purely social events. Such events usually have planning committees and various volunteer service positions that it would be very tempting to let someone else take on when we’re already swamped with plenty to do in our regular day jobs. But if we’re aiming to get noticed by others, then we want to be one of the people other participants go to for help or more information. We might be tasked with something as menial as setting up chairs or as prestigious as introducing a keynote speaker; it really doesn’t matter. So long as we’re part of the event team, we’ll benefit from being part of an “inside track” of knowledgeable, committed employees who care about their organizations and intend to go places with them. And that will make a positive impression on those with the power and influence to make our ambitions a reality.
Seek out leadership roles. A leader is someone others intuitively look to for direction. Many of us are already leaders, even if our job titles don’t (yet) reflect it, and one of the surest ways to gain visibility within our organizations is to begin looking for opportunities to put those leadership skills to more formal use. Perhaps we can volunteer for a corporate-level steering committee or offer to teach a session at the next company training event. Maybe there’s a cohort of new hires we could offer to mentor during their first few weeks. Chances are, if we’re willing to take the initiative, someone in charge is going to be grateful we stepped up – and if we follow through, then more opportunities are sure to follow.
Consider starting something. Occasionally, we’ll find ourselves in the position of having great ideas or profound visions for something that simply doesn’t exist yet in our organizational context. When that happens, our next best step might very well be to spearhead a fresh initiative of our own – with appropriate permission, of course. We might feel called to take on the task of structuring informal work routines into documented processes for onboarding new hires in a growing startup. Or maybe we’ll simply decide a team cocktail hour is long overdue and undertake the logistics of pulling one together this month. Whatever it is, we can decide to take action rather than sit around waiting for someone else to do it for us. And while the effort may or may not lead where we hope, the initiative itself will not go unnoticed – or unappreciated.
To be sure, moving up in the world of remote work takes diligence and determination, but the greatest obstacle to visibility isn’t the fact that we’re working in separate places. It’s that we’re reluctant to take risks and put ourselves out there. Fortunately, anyone who has what it takes to be a good salesperson already has what it takes to gain meaningful visibility within their sales organization. As long as we’re willing to sell ourselves the way we sell anything else, we have little to lose.
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