If there are two departments which get along the best, it’s sales and marketing. They fit hand in glove with each other. They both work incredibly well in a team because essentially, one cannot live without the other. They are both in the same boat, facing the same challenges. You can, therefore, merge your sales and marketing employees to form a team. Since their level of cohesion is naturally high, you can send this team off on an abroad mission to find and impress potential clients. Almost every other department will usually work best when they are doing so as an individual entity. However, if you need to meet clients, show them what your business is about and straight after trying to nail down a sale, a marketing and sales team must be formed and sent off to autonomously scour for leads.
Their daily objectives
Since they are abroad, your team will be working in a different timezone. Even if they are in Europe and you are a UK-based company, they will be one hour ahead. If they are on the east coast of America it’s 5 hours and if they’re in the western part of Canada it’s 8 hours. You need to use software that allows them to retrieve their daily objectives, documents, and content without the need to wait for you. Using an enterprise document management service, you can automate your documents to release and or be accessed by the team autonomously. Autonomy is a big factor in your team’s productivity and efficiency so this type of software would allow you to save a lot of time and frustration.
So close yet so far
When the team is many thousands of miles away in places like China, America, Canada, and Brazil, it’s going to be difficult to remind them of the seriousness of their mission. It’s difficult to admit, but sometimes, teams that are sent abroad treat it like a second vacation. It’s your job to remind them constantly that the work they are doing is being felt and heard back in the headquarters. They may be far but you can be so close to them. Using conference software and apps, you can have regular conference meetings with them. They will be able to see your face and that will have a huge impact on morale. With the best conference software such as Zoom , Skype, Webex, and Microsoft Teams, you can have a meeting as if they were in the same room as you. Each employee can have a face to face conversation with you at any time. This is excellent for when you need an update from the team leader but also when you have to discipline someone.
Setting a new objective
It’s far better to keep your team out as long as it is needed than bring them back home without a proper result. Therefore if you ever need to change objectives, you should make a report as quickly as you can and email it to your team. In the report, you should have a few things made abundantly clear.
- The central aim: Why are you setting a new objective, what are your aims?
- The relevant entities: Who do your new team need to make contact with? If you are setting new objectives, it’s best to make contact with the local clients that you intend to meet. This way your team can be given a list of names and companies they need to make contact with to introduce themselves and set up a local time to meet face to face.
- A time schedule: Set a schedule for when the objectives should be completed so you can limit the amount of over-stay which will be costing your business expenses fees the longer the team is left abroad.
Team cohesion
It’s vital that you keep getting updated on how the team is performing as a group. Speak regularly with the team leader to see how employees are behaving toward one another. If there are tensions brewing, you will not be caught out if and or when something erupts. You will also need to speak regularly with each team member, just to let them know that you are watching them and listening to their concerns. If there is a need for conflict resolution, you can call a team meeting and air out the differences to find a solution.
A marketing and sales team is a force to be reckoned with when things are going great. But when any team is sent abroad, keeping the team cohesion and focusing the minds becomes a real constant challenge.
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