7 Tips on Running a Successful Virtual Company
If the past year has taught us anything, it's that running a virtual company isn't as scary as initially thought.
A decade ago, I took my business virtual.
At first, it was to build our cash reserves. Then we realized our productivity and overall well-being increased significantly. We never went back to the brick-and-mortar business. And then the rest of the world joined us as the pandemic raged, and we were unable to interact with other human beings outside of our households.
As the vaccine begins to reach the general population this spring and summer, many business leaders will wonder if they should reimagine work. They're asking themselves, and one another, some version of the questions, "How do we continue to lead teams and grow our businesses if sharing physical space is obsolete? Can we do it? Will it work?"
As someone who has done it since long before the technology was there to make it crazy easy, the answers are: yes, you can absolutely lead teams and grow your business without being physically together. Yes, you can absolutely do it. And yes, it will work.
How to run a virtual company
Here are seven tips to make it work:
1. Use Google Hangouts, Teams, or Zoom
Just like for all of you for the past year, all of our meetings have always been run through video conferencing. There are several members of my team I've never met in person. Some because they live in other parts of the world, some because they started during COVID, and others because I just haven't traveled to their city since they started. As I'm sure you've experienced, video conferencing is awfully darn close to being in person. You still know a colleague's strengths and weaknesses. You know what motivates them. If anything, it's far more effective because you're more in tune with them as human beings because you're not physically together.
2. Schedule weekly meetings
I meet with my direct reports twice every week (Monday and Wednesday mornings) and I meet with the entire team once a week (Tuesday mornings). Unless I'm on the road and it can't be helped, I never miss those meetings. When we were together in an office, it was easier to miss or cancel those weekly meetings because I saw and talked to my team constantly. "Do we really need an hour-long meeting? We just discussed that in the hallway." Having intimate time together makes things work much better.
3. Set goals
When new people start, they always have about 30 days of bewilderment while they try to figure out if no one really cares that they took a two-hour lunch because they've started work at 5 a.m. all week. Everyone has very specific goals. We track against those instead of number of hours worked. Here's another little known secret: when people work from home against goals, they actually work more and are more productive.
More articles from AllBusiness.com:
- 12 Great Digital Tools to Help You Run a Successful Remote Company
- Weekly Team Meetings: An Important Step to Retail Success
- 5 Ways a Business Virtual Office Can Benefit Your Startup
- 8 Obstacles to Remote Collaboration (and How to Fix Them)
4. Offer extraordinary benefits
I'm not talking about better health insurance or more against their retirement savings. I'm talking about unlimited paid time off and four-day workweeks. You'll find you have to force people to take time off, both when they're sick and for vacation, but people love the idea of working for companies that offer flex time and unusual benefits.
5. Track time and projects
To help us run a virtual company successfully, we use the online time tracker through QuickBooks for time entry and CoSchedule for project management. Both allow me, at a snapshot, to see how people are spending their time, where we are at capacity, when it's time to hire, and who is meeting—or exceeding—their goals.
6. Talk weekly about goals
We don't wait until the annual review to see if people met their goals. We talk weekly about where we are and what still needs to be accomplished. We have a one-page quarterly plan we work against. I have that printed out and keep it on my desk. During my meetings with my direct reports, I go through that plan and we discuss what's been accomplished, where there are challenges, and what our opportunities are for success.
7. Run meetings with transparency
I begin every staff meeting with, "How was your week?" That gives everyone the opportunity to talk about what went well and where there are challenges. Sometimes there are client concerns and other times it's about the technology we're using. It allows me to keep a strong pulse on what's really going on ... even from 2,000 miles away.
Sure, there are challenges to running a virtual company, just like there are challenges to having everyone in one space.
For me, the pros far outweigh the cons.
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