When Shawn Hay met a technician at a Home Depot parking lot last week to discuss performance, it wasn’t about power tools. It was about employee performance.

With government mandates in place competing with the desire to conduct a face-to-face employee review, Shawn decided on a nearby Home Depot. At a distance of six feet apart, both Shawn and the technician met in the parking lot and conducted business as normally as could be expected in the spring of 2020.

When the goin’ gets tough, the tough keep goin’ … to whatever distance necessary.

Social distancing has created odd scenarios for us all over the past six weeks – Datamax is far from immune to the strangeness of it all. The traditional way of conducting business has been turned upside down during COVID-19 for necessary safety precautions, and, for many companies, that creates a disconnect between both clients and one’s co-workers.

But the great companies go to great distances to navigate around that separation. To engineer a better strategy. And to grow stronger because of it.

“We stood outside of our vehicles, we kept an acceptable distance apart and, you know, it wasn’t a bad thing – it was good,” Shawn said.

This scenario illustrates a question that Datamax Texas President David Rhodes posed last week:

“Are we utilizing this time to keep focused for a brighter future? It’s not time to quit. It’s time to roll up the sleeves and get better. As long as we’ll do this, and that’s not only management but each individual employee, we’ll be just fine,” Rhodes said.

DFW Service Manager Daniel Ketchum is affected by the distance between himself and the technicians every day. Frankly, he misses his guys.

But the utilization of phone and video conferencing has mitigated the physical distance between himself and his team. There’s group collaboration over the phone. Regular service meetings over video. And even trouble shooting enhanced by the introduction of Zoom on-site sessions.

“Normally, techs are coming into the office. I’ll ask them how they’re doing. Keeping that communication up to keep your team strong, when you know you’re not seeing each other regularly, that’s so important to both Shawn and myself,” Daniel said.

Daniel emphasizes to technicians the importance of doing what they can to better themselves. Advanced online training usually takes up nights and weekends for the service team – this extra time affords a greater opportunity for expertise looking forward.

“The goal is that we have more well-rounded service technicians because they’ve got so much more training under their belt, that they didn’t have time for before,” Rhodes said.

Clay Mills strongly believes one way to minimize distance between partner and prospect is empathy.

He reasons…

• You recognize what they are going through
• You’re telling them they are not alone
• You’re helping others who are in the same place
• You’re offering to help make their lives better
• You’re asking for time not a business decision

That’s why the Texas Vice President of Sales introduced a contest to create the most effective telescript or email message during COVID-19. He had each rep construct a script that adapted to the changing business climate given the pandemic. Winners were determined by sales team member votes.

The winners?

• A Team winner Jamie Rhodes
• G Team Winner Lee Kapoor
• B team and overall winner Ryan McConnell

Meanwhile, Kenny Prince in East Texas understands that activity is essential for his sales team.

He also created a contest for his reps for the highest number of activity (any phone call, email, visit (not happening for the most part right now, but could change before the Period is over) that is tracked in Sherpa.

"The contest was an added incentive to generate activity," Kenny said. "Activity is important because we want the current customer to know we’re still here working hard for them and the potential customer to know that there is a company that is aware of the situation they’re in and has the resources to take care of them."

The results thus far have been optimistic, given the circumstances.

“This has helped reps hone their phone skills – we’ve had more success with people answering their phones while they’re at home,” Rhodes said. “Also, we’re improving our email communication – what to say, what to do, etc. Hopefully those things carry into the future in the development of sales teams.”

Any distance, no matter how great, can be overcome by successful communication.

“Communication is huge no matter what time of day or week or year, in trying times or good times. Every organization that runs efficiently has good communication,” Rhodes said. “The more that our managers communicate and let people know that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, that we are here to stay, that we’re staying healthy and being smart, the better.”