Month: May 2020

The ability to work remotely is more important than ever before thanks to the COVID-19 crisis. Many jobs have transitioned online, and you may find yourself communicating with your team over Zoom or Skype instead of face-to-face across the conference table. This could be working well, or you may find yourself wondering about long-term accountability for yourself and others who work with and for you. How can you make sure everyone is putting in maximum effort while also working from the comfort of their living room — maybe even in their pajamas?

The good thing is that you are perfectly capable of working and doing your job without constant supervision. Same for your team, as they are adults who are able to work without you providing constant guidance. One thing that will prove helpful is to provide clear communication about tasks and expectations, yet remain flexible about how things get done. For example, you may have a team member who has small children at home, and the ideal time for him or her to work may be late afternoon.

Depending on the nature of the work you do, you may need to create a structure that makes sense for your team. This may require some creative thinking and letting go of certain expectations, but that does not mean that the end result won’t be successful. Everything is different and constantly fluctuating right now, and your ability to respond well to the crisis and rapid changes will influence your team’s reaction and their ability to cope.

When you give your team clearly communicated expectations and structure while remaining flexible and understanding, you’ll find that accountability likely won’t be an issue. Trust that you’ve set your team up for success and that your leadership will still serve them as well virtually as it does in-person.

By Meagan Kerlin for Vertu Marketing LLC

Your career or your business has been through significant changes and upheaval over the last few months. Virtually every industry and type of job has experienced effects from the COVID-19 crisis. Whether you’re working remotely, adjusting procedures or even temporarily halting operations, you’ve likely experienced first-hand the impact of this global crisis. Like in any type of crisis, you’re facing difficulty, but you could also be coming into new and exciting opportunities.

In the next few weeks and months as local and state governments begin to transition into reopening, you may find you have new opportunities available to you. Perhaps you can reopen your doors in a limited capacity, offer new services or begin to develop a strategy for operating under social distancing guidelines. Customers and clients are hungry for a sense of normalcy, and they may soon be coming to you to fulfill specific needs. So how are you going to handle it?

Things will be different for awhile, and it may require ingenuity and creativity simply to open your doors and serve customers. This challenge represents new opportunities by allowing you to find new ways to operate. Your customers and clients may have new needs now as a result of the COVID-19 crisis, or they may need you to help them in different ways. You’ll have to stretch, grow, learn, experiment and try different tactics, but don’t think of it as a bad thing – approach it as a unique opportunity.

Can you offer to-go products? Can you serve clients online through Skype or Zoom? Can you offer curbside pick-up? How can you adjust in-store operations to safely serve patrons? These are a few questions that can help you seize the opportunities available to you and move forward during this challenging time. Things are still difficult, but ingenuity and positive thinking are keys to your ongoing success.

By Meagan Kerlin for Vertu Marketing LLC

The entire point for businesses marketing through social media is to engage with their followers and hopefully turn those followers into paying customers. As you develop relationships with followers, you want to do more than get likes on Facebook or views on your Instagram stories – you want these followers to trust your company enough to become a customer or client.

The way to turn your social media followers into paying customers is to strive for better engagement. Meaningful connections with your followers is key to making your marketing strategy work well. One way to do to this is by giving them an inside look into what makes your business work. Behind the scenes or “about us” posts can help your followers gain a better perspective into what sets you apart.

The more your followers get to know you, your employees and your company, the more comfortable they will be with patronizing your business. This is why your social media marketing strategy shouldn’t be cold and impersonal. In fact, letting your personality shine through should be an important part of your social media plan. This is more likely to lead to engagement, more visibility for your posts and more likes.

Another way to build better relationships with your followers is to post things that encourage engagement. Get your followers talking by posting polls, asking questions, posting funny memes and getting responses. These don’t have to be serious to be effective. You may even find that people respond better to your “fluff” posts than they do your serious posts, and that’s okay. The point is to get people engaged.

Social media is a great tool, but only if you are using it in the right way. If you aren’t engaging well with your followers, they may never decide to become customers. Don’t let these valuable relationships and the opportunities provided by social media go to waste with boring and non-engaging posts.

By Meagan Kerlin for Vertu Marketing LLC