Going Remote: Useful Advice Every Business Should Heed

You’ve made the decision that for the time being – or potentially forever – you are going to move your business to operate remotely. This might be a move that you’ve been thinking about for a while as a means of cutting costs, or it could be something that you’ve decided on due to the current pandemic situation that the world is in. Either way, taking your business remote means taking the time to think carefully about how you are going to adapt to running your company in a remote capacity. It’s not as simple as shutting down your offices and moving online; there’s a lot more to it than that, and it’s important to realise that. 

Remote working has become increasingly popular in recent years with around 70% of the global workforce now spending at least part of their work hours working remotely from home. This highlights just how effective working remotely – and running a business remotely – can actually be, and explains why so many businesses are choosing to take a leap of faith and move their operations online, going virtual. 

Running your business remotely offers some incredible benefits for the business as a whole, yourself, and even your team members. However, you will only reap the rewards of these benefits if you approach the process of taking your business remote in the right way – gets things wrong and it could end in disaster. If you want to ensure that your business remains successful after going remote, you need to take the time to think the whole process through carefully and create a solid action plan to follow. 

Wondering how to do that and what steps you should take? Have a read of the tips and suggestions below!

Upgrade your website 

The fact is that when you take your business virtual, your website becomes the hub of your brand, and that’s why it’s so important to make sure that your website is the best that it could possibly be. You might already have a basic website in place but if you are going to successfully run your business remotely, then you need to be willing to invest in your website and improve it. You need to have a site that is designed to offer exactly what your customers need and work seamlessly while doing so. 

You will find that if your website is poorly designed, it will have a negative impact on your success running your business remotely. That’s why you need to be willing to invest in your website to ensure that it is designed to the highest standards and is able to offer your customers everything that they want and need from your site. You need to ensure that not only does your website look good but also that it is easy to use and navigate; it’s also important to ensure that it has fast loading times and doesn’t freeze. Keen to learn more about upgrading your website? You might find resources like https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/9811-effective-business-website-tips.html useful. 

Ensure you have adequate IT support 

When you run your business remotely, your website is the heart of your brand and should something happen that causes your site to go down, or another key system to go down, you could be looking at some expensive downtime. That’s why, when you take your business remote, it’s so important that you make sure that you have adequate IT support in place and use a service like https://www.netstar.co.uk/it-services/, for instance. 

By putting IT support in place, you ensure that should something go wrong with your website or other key systems, you have the right support in place to get things back up and running quickly. Downtime can cost thousands per hour, so it’s important to make sure that you specialists on hand to deal with any issues and reduce any downtime that occurs as a result of them. 

Hone your marketing 

You know that you’re moving your business online but that doesn’t mean that everyone else knows, so if you are going to make sure that you keep your customers informed, it’s vital that you hone your marketing strategy. It’s not just about letting them know that you’ve moved things online, it’s also about finding new strategies to drive increased traffic to your website to increase your leads. After all, your website is now the hub of your business, so it’s vital that you are driving as much traffic there as possible, which is why a well throughout marketing strategy can come into things. 

Unless you’re a marketing pro, don’t attempt to deal with your business’s marketing needs yourself. If you already have a marketing team in-house, consider moving them over to remote roles. Or, you could opt to outsource your marketing needs to an agency or hire a freelancer to manage your business’s marketing needs. It doesn’t matter which route you opt to go down, just as long as you ensure that you have adequate marketing support in place. 

Manage your team effectively 

One of the biggest challenges of moving your business online is managing your existing teams and moving team members into remote roles. This is a big change, and you may find that you lose team members as a result. However, for the team members that you’re able to keep on board, you need to work out how to create the ideal working environment in a remote capacity. Believe it or not, this is easier than you might think – it’s just a case of utilising the right systems and creating the right setup. 

It’s a good idea to use a system like Monday to keep on top of each team member’s tasks and progress each week. It’s also a good idea to use a tool like Teams or Slack to make team communication as easy as possible Ideally, you want to ensure that your team still feels like a team, which is where hosting regular team meetings is so important. Aim to set up a team meeting once a week at least, on video chat, where everyone attends and talks about their week and has a general catch up. 

Moving your business to running remotely is a big deal but that doesn’t mean it has to be a struggle to see success.