Will you thrive or flail selling from home?

The work from home revolution has liberated many of us from the traditional sales office environment. For some of us, we thrive, others flail. Is working from home the right thing for your commissions?

I, like so many others, was sent to work from home in March of 2020, and I never went back to the office. At that time I was working for one of the biggest companies in the world in the timeshare industry selling upgrades over the phone to existing customers. Imagine being told that the whole world is shut down, no one can travel at all, but your job is to call people and sell them vacation. A daunting task to be sure, but given the state of the world at the time, I had to make it work or somehow find another job, which I very much did not want to do. So, I took my computers home, made space in my sewing room and started attending my daily sales meetings via Zoom. 

Within the first few weeks, nearly half of my coworkers dropped off, leaving only a handful of us who were determined to survive. those of us that remained actually thrived. Month after month I continued to break my personal bests. For me personally, working from home meant less stress and less distractions. The sales floor is a loud place with a lot going on. The music played in the office is never what I would personally choose, there is always salesmen on the phone pacing on their wireless headsets up and down the aisles, and every office has that one guy that stops into your cubicle a couple times each day to try to strike up aimless chit chat... you know they guy. The whole environment was always noisy and overstimulating and for someone like me, that made it hard to focus. While the circumstances that caused the company to send us to work from home were far from ideal, working from home for some of us was a dream come true.

Now let's talk about the draw backs. The move to set up a workspace in my home was sudden and I was not at all prepared. I did not have a home office at that time, but I did have a sewing room, and like most crafting spaces, it was large sums of clutter and sewing materials in haphazard stacks all over the place. I had a fabric cutting table up against one wall, so I cleared that off and that became my desk. For the first few weeks, I made nearly no effort to convert the space into a purposeful office space, but in time it was clear that this wasn't going to be a short term thing and I was going to have to get serious about my work environment. I not only needed to clear up the space and give myself room to walk around and pace while I was on a call, but I also needed to establish boundaries with my family. I had to explain that although I am at home, during work hours I needed everyone to treat my office as off limits and act like I wasn't there. This sounds harsh, but I am in phone sales and that means volume of presentations is everything, each and every interruption that takes you off the phone effectively takes money out of your pocket. It took some getting used to, but eventually I converted the sewing room to a full time professional office, and my family was supportive and respectful of my boundaries around my work day.

Weeks stretched into months and eventually we rounded the one year mark since we had all been sent home. I sold well over a million dollars in inventory, which was quite a lot for our particular product, but some of my other coworkers were not fairing nearly as well and were anxious to go back to the office. There are those that thrive in the more social atmosphere of the sales floor, and still others who just plain sick and tired of being home all the time, they wanted to have some where to go each day. For me, I had zero desire to go back. Why would I? My numbers were way up which meant I was making more money than I ever had before, and I didn't mind being home all the time, in fact, I loved it. So I stayed. Other circumstances have arisen since then that required me to relocate, a story for another day, but the company was supportive and accommodating, allowing me to relocate and bring my job with me, and I have been working from home selling over the phone ever since. 

So, if you're considering taking your phone sales job home with you, I would urge you to consider some important factors before you make the switch. Do you have a suitable work space that is separate from your living space? Yes, a desk in the corner of your bedroom can get the job done, but when you get done with work and you sleep in the same place you worked all day and then you wake up in your office each morning, it can take a toll on you psychologically. If you live with others, will they be respectful and supportive of your boundaries around work? Can you truly handle spending the VAST majority of your time in your home, or will you go stir crazy? Consider these things carefully. 

If you're ready to begin your work from home sales career and are looking for guidance on how to be successful in that endeavor, consider scheduling your coaching session today. Now let's go make those fat stacks.

~Kat Jack