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Working from home always sounded like a dream to me - and then COVID-19 made it a burdensome reality. With the freedom of rolling out of bed and working in my pajamas also came a lot of irritating issues, paramount of which was the fact that everyone keeps scheduling meetings back-to-back-to-back and I have no time to hit the restroom. Or eat. Or shower.
Further, I'm an early/mid-career gal. I don't just want to work, I want to absolutely kill it. Murder it, even. I'm competitive and I require dominating things to wake up in the morning. This is challenging when you can't accidentally-on-purpose bump into your boss for small talk and build your brand in person.
To tackle this subject, I spent some time with Abby Warden, an account executive that I work with at Intel. This is largely a "remote" role even in typical, non-pandemic times, as a lot of the effort that goes into managing large accounts can and does take place wherever you and your laptop find yourself.
ABBY: I cover some of the largest enterprise accounts in the Chicagoland area. Right now, I am covering 22 accounts, some of which are Allstate, McDonald's, CME... Our largest accounts. In my past, you know, like say, when I was working at Dell, there would be one account executive assigned, just to an account the size of McDonald's. There's a lot to manage, and the responsibilities include working with directly with the customer, working with what we call our "fellow travelers," which are the OEMs resellers, I'm having a bunch of internal calls about you know, potential solutions from our Intel Capital portfolio, etc. And I'm responsible for [selling] everything that's Intel: client product, data center, Internet-of-Things, Optane, etc.
As you can tell, Abby has a lot on her plate. I'll have to address overflowing plates in a future post. Not to mention the fact that her name comes up on a weekly basis when the higher-ups are discussing huge deals and best practices.
We have a lot to learn from Abby.
Some Keys to Successfully Conducting Business Remotely
1. Antici...pate your manager's needs
At Intel, our sales managers are responsible for forecasting the business by quarter. Abby turns this into an opportunity to shine.
ABBY: I make sure that I update my forecast on a weekly basis, it's not something that's required of me, but if my manager comes in, and she's like, "Where do you think you're going to land at the end of Q2," I have that at my fingertips. And so I just tried to think about the things that will help her.
This is a straightforward way to stand out - provide value by helping your manager do her job.
2. Communicate like your job depends on it (because it for sure does)
But there is such a thing as over-communicating. You don't need to send emails with daily breakdowns of what happened... for example:
9:00 - staff call
10:00 - customer meeting
10:08 - brief panic attack about the meaning of life
11:00 - team debrief
...is not the way we want to go.
Instead, make sure you are keeping your manager and key team members in the loop in a way that's easy to read and captures what's truly important for them to know.
An easy thing to do is to think about what you'd want them to have on hand if their boss asked them about what you are doing. You want them to have an elevator pitch that summarizes just how much you are nailing it and where you might need help to close the next big deal.
3. Wave your flag by waving the flag for others
A key component of success at any company is having visible, tangible accomplishments. Personally, I struggle with the idea of talking myself up and have to actively FORCE myself to let others know when I've accomplished something, but the point stands: you can't always put your head down and work and hope it speaks for itself.
Abby's strategy for getting her accomplishments recognized is genuine, and also brilliant if you are one of the many who hates talking about yourself.
ABBY: I don't like talking about myself a lot, which is something that you're supposed to do... So instead of telling the stories where it's like, "Yay, I'm the hero," I talk about the people that came together to help structure whatever the deal was. And in turn, the stories [about big deals she won] getting circulated because now I've taken what is essentially my story, but it's really our story.
Recognize all the people who helped close the deal. Tell their manager how much butt they kicked. Bubble it up so the story is one of teamwork and inclusion - because nothing gets done in isolation, and this is a great way to build up those people around you who are making things happen.
You yourself are lifted up when you lift those around you.
4. Block! That! Calendar!
Thou shalt set boundaries and keep them. It's tempting to use the 8 (or 10, or 12...) hours of the work day for straight meetings and productive business woman time, but you'll end up burnt out.
Things to build into your workday:
15 minutes first thing to prepare your brain
It's so tempting to go straight from bed to conference call, but if you can avoid it, don't do it. Get in the mood for business. Light a business candle, play your business playlist, wear your blazer. Maybe wash your face.
5-10 minute buffers between Zoom calls
Your mind needs time to shift between topics, and your body might need coffee or a trip to the girls' room.
A solid, at least half hour long, block of time to eat in the middle of the day
You have to eat. I said it. Keep almonds at your desk if you can't be bothered to leave it.
Time to process your inbox
(no, I'm not advocating for checking your email once per day; I'm saying give some space to go through and sort all the stuff you didn't get to or is no longer needed in that inbox)
A good chunk of time at the end to process all the stuff that happened.
(I try to shoot for an hour but I don't always succeed in focusing that long :))
ABBY: I literally have it blocked in my calendar: "shower."
If you don't bake time in for self-care into that Outlook calendar (yes I realize I'm losing some of you at this point who are already masters of this, but stay with me), you're not going to self-care. You cannot be the awesome person you are if you aren't making time to eat, brush your teeth, and run to the restroom. You will be a malnourished, smelly, and probably uncomfortably wet shell of a human chained to her desk chair if you don't.
And give yourself permission to feel NO GUILT about keeping those self-care appointments. You have to be a human being. Just because a customer wants to meet for a zoom chat at 12:00pm, your regularly scheduled lunch time, doesn't mean you have to cancel lunch; can you make that a zoom lunch date? (imagine the chewing noises, maybe don't do that...)
If you liked this post, you can find Abby Warden on linkedin here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abbywarden/