The Virtual Revolution

If your bottom line isn't where you'd like it to be, the problem might be lurking right under your feet...and over your head...and all around you. It's your office, and it might just be what's killing your business. In today's economic climate, efficiency is the number one rule of survival. One of the greatest efficiency drains for many companies is the burdensome overhead of maintaining physical offices and everything that goes along with them – landline phone systems, servers, utilities, furnishings, cleaning services...the list goes on and on. In today's economic climate, efficiency is the number one rule of survivalIn the Digital Age, the evolution of technology and communication has reshaped how companies operate and people work. The future of business is leaner, smarter and more responsive. For many businesses, having all employees working the same hours under the same roof is a luxury of a bygone era. As a result, telecommuting is no longer just a nice perk for employees but a key element of a stronger and more competitive business model. While shedding your physical office can significantly reduce your monthly operating expenses, the benefits don't stop there. According to estimates from the Telework Research Network, if every American who could work from home did so even half the time, companies would see over $230 billion in added productivity. Furthermore, going virtual can greatly strengthen the quality of your personnel, as it frees you to hire the best talent for the job - not just those who live within a reasonable commute of your office. Even better news? As virtual companies become more and more prevalent, any stigma that might once have been attached to the lack of a centralized business operation is quickly disappearing. Today's savvy clients don't see value in lavish offices. Their budgets are tight, and they need to yield the most gain possible from every dollar. As a result, they want to be confident that they are investing in results, not taking the hit for your overhead, and that they are paying for talent and expertise, not footing the bill for your conference rooms and copiers.

Are you ready to join the revolution?

Is your company primed to go virtual? There are a number of factors you need to examine before you relinquish the keys to your office in order to make sure it's a good fit for you, your employees and your clients. First, ask yourself how having a physical office directly benefits your customers. If the only answer is the perception or prestige attached to a bricks-and-mortar workplace, it's a good time to consider taking your operation virtual. As long as you ease your customers through the transition without any lapse in performance or professionalism, they'll be far more appreciative of your ability to offer more competitive pricing because you no longer have to pass along the burden of unneeded overhead expenses. Second, take into account whether there are any advantages that your company gains from your specific location that could not be matched if your employees worked remotely. For example, do you get sales leads from walk-in traffic? Do you have a strong referral network established with neighboring firms? If not, chances are there's little to lose by closing up shop. You should seriously consider transitioning to a virtual operating model and reaping the benefits of lower expensesAnother consideration is how often your employees engage in meaningful face-to-face interactions. For many businesses, employees spend the majority of their day in front of a computer screen. Even cube farm inhabitants are likely more inclined to communicate via e-mail than to stop by a coworker's desk. If this is the case, why have all your employees tethered to a single location? Next, evaluate your internal systems for communication and collaboration. Have they been put through the ringer and proven to be effective? Are they so organic that they are now second-nature to your employees? If so, you can feel more confident that they will translate successfully to a virtual working environment, albeit with a bit of tweaking to allow smart technology to compensate for lack of physical proximity. Likewise, take a look at how you gage employee performance. Do you have good methods for tracking accomplishments and measuring productivity? If your performance metrics are sound, you shouldn't need the added security of seeing your worker bees present in the office for 40 hours a week. Finally, explore the growth dynamics of your company. How quickly is your company expanding? If you're unsure how many employees you will have at the end of this year or next, operating without a traditional office means you won't be forced to roll the dice and be locked into a lease on a pricey facility that may ultimately be too large or too small to fit your needs. If the results of your self-assessment weigh in favor of shedding your physical office, you should seriously consider transitioning to a virtual operating model and reaping the benefits of lower expenses, increased efficiency, higher employee satisfaction and – most importantly – greater profitability. To help you get started on the right track, here’s a primer on what you need to know to launch and manage your virtual company: Success begins and ends with trust: Discover why trust is the cornerstone of the virtual company. Remote management: Evolve your practices and policies to foster a highly productive nontraditional work environment. Let's talk about communication: Ensure that internal communication – whether conducted via phone, e-mail, IM or video chat – always remains positive and productive. Go, team, go!: Promote good collaboration among virtual teams by giving them the right tools for the job. The virtual toolbox: Review the basic logistical necessities that will help keep your virtual company running smoothly. The middle ground: Take advantage of virtual offices for a best-of-both-worlds solution that offers the perks of a traditional office without the crushing overhead.

Success begins and ends with trust

The virtual company exists today because the evolution of technology and communication have made it possible to conduct business anywhere at any time. However, what allows the virtual company to thrive is trust. At the foundation is trust in your employees. It starts with hiring the right people – ones you can feel confident will thrive in the absence of daily supervision. Good virtual employees are self-motivated and self-disciplined, able to manage their own priorities and deadlines and open to collaborating with others in unconventional ways. Once you have a strong team in place, set them up for success by establishing clear expectations. The absence of a shared workspace doesn't mean there must or should be an absence of rules. You still need policies in place governing all the logistics that surround the work process, even though it is happening outside the confines of a traditional office. For example, what are the work hours, and are employees responsible for being accessible outside those hours? You should also set standard operating procedures for answering phones, responding to e-mails, reporting accomplishments and even backing up files. Good virtual employees are self-motivated and self-disciplined, able to manage their own priorities and deadlines and open to collaborating with others in unconventional ways.The trust your employees have in each other is also an important piece of the pie. Each person should have faith that their colleagues are equally dedicated to furthering the success of the company, even when it's harder to see the day-to-day results of their efforts. And while virtual companies benefit from the absence of office politics, it's critically important to establish strong team dynamics. For this reason, it's still a good idea to get together face-to-face from time to time. Whether it's once a week, once a month or even once a quarter, opportunities for non-virtual interaction help to promote a spirit of camaraderie. Last but far from least important, going virtual requires clients and prospects to invest a high level of trust in you and your company that they will receive the same or greater level of service and productivity as they would if everyone was working under the same roof. To this end, there are a number of things you can do to help them keep the faith. First, you must ensure that professionalism is never compromised. While it shouldn't be a secret that you run a virtual operation, employees should maintain discipline in the separation of their personal and professional lives. Even when working from home, phone calls should be conducted with the same level of formality as they would at the office, without background noise, interruptions from children or pets or excessive chatter about personal matters. Also, although you might allow some flexibility with work hours, it’s a good practice to make sure you and your employees are accessible and available to respond promptly by phone or e-mail to clients who keep a more traditional schedule. Whenever you meet in person, you and your employees should always be exceptionally polished and choose a location for the meeting that is comfortable and conducive to work. While you might be right at home doing business at your local coffeehouse, your clients might find the noise, music and other patrons distracting. Instead, consider renting a meeting space in order to help put your clients at ease and make it easier for them to focus on your presentation. There are many firms, such as Regus and Davinci, that offer highly affordable hourly rates for virtual companies that need access to professional conference rooms. Finally, when talking to your clients and prospects, always project confidence that you and your team mean business, and then make good on those promises by delivering great results in a timely manner. With trust as your cornerstone, you'll be well on your way to building a strong virtual company that is positioned to compete with any bricks-and-mortar operation.

Remote management

Great companies make it easy for employees to perform, no matter if they are working under the same roof or in dozens of home offices spread throughout the city or even the country. While the challenges of managing a virtual workforce are different from those of shepherding cube-dwellers, they are nevertheless conquerable. The key is starting with a foundation of trust and then building a solid project management infrastructure to keep your company's production engine running smoothly. First, take a critical look at the systems you currently have in place for directing workflow. Are they truly efficient and effective? Sometimes the convenience of having full-time oversight of employees who share a common workspace can compensate for or mask weaknesses in your project management systems. However, once the conventions of the bricks-and-mortar office are removed, these vulnerabilities can lead to a breakdown in production and cripple your ability to turn out high quality work in a timely manner. To keep your projects and your people on track, approach every job as a series of milestones and set interim deadlines along the way. If each phase of the project progresses on track, you'll be assured of avoiding unpleasant surprises when crunch time arrives. Conversely, if an employee misses a milestone, this problem can be identified right away, and the schedule can be adjusted to ensure that you still ultimately meet the expected delivery date. Additionally, you will need to establish a regular rhythm for employees to check in and provide work status updates to you and their fellow team members. This process can be as informal as a weekly e-mail or phone conference or as structured as logging time spent on each project every day. Finding a system that works well with your leadership style and the nature of your business is critical to helping you enforce accountability, track accomplishments, evaluate productivity and ensure that tasks are being given the right level of priority based on the time and resources invested in them. Because the dynamics of managing a remote workforce are so complex, good project management software is invaluable to the virtual company. One example of such a system is 37signals' Basecamp. For a low monthly subscription fee, this web-based tool allows you to assign tasks and deadlines, track time, share files, develop documents collaboratively and centralize communication among team members.

Let's talk about communication

For the virtual company, communication among coworkers can take many shapes and forms, from phone calls and e-mails to instant messages and video chats. No matter the vehicle, ensuring that internal communication remains positive and productive is critically important to keeping your business and its people operating at peak performance. Trust in your systems and your employees to get the job done without needing to constantly check in. Since the majority of the interactions that take place are not in person, the benefit of situational context and body language is absent. As a result, each person should be mindful of the language and format they choose when communicating with colleagues in order to guard against misinterpretation. As a general rule of thumb, e-mail is a quick and efficient means of addressing straightforward, day-to-day matters regarding projects and work process. But for subjects of a more sensitive nature, such as addressing a problem with an employee who is underperforming or resolving a conflict between coworkers, taking the time to make a phone call or even arrange a face-to-face meeting will avoid damaging morale unnecessarily. By investing a little extra care and consideration in daily communication, everyone can work together to prevent misunderstandings and feelings of ill-will that can snowball into greater problems over time. As the leader of a workforce that is scattered across many different locations, it is your responsibility to make sure that you devote time to reaching out to every member of your team. Just because you run a virtual company doesn't mean anyone should feel invisible. Keep a healthy dialogue flowing by asking questions and soliciting feedback on a regular basis. However, don't fall into the trap of overcompensating for the lack of daily face-time with an overabundance of disruptive communication or meetings. Trust in your systems and your employees to get the job done without needing to constantly check in, and don't let the administrative minutiae of progress reporting become so burdensome that you compromise productivity. Depending on the size of your organization, holding all-hands or team-based meetings once a week can be a good opportunity to review accomplishments, touch base on projects and update attendees on company business. In the meantime, let quick phone calls, succinct e-mails and even brief instant message or video chat sessions suffice to answer questions that are crucial to keeping the work process flowing.

Go, team, go!

For colleagues who share an office, e-mail is typically the go-to means of communication. It's quick, it's easy, and it allows the recipients to read and respond at their convenience with minimal disruption. However, for virtual workers, e-mail is an insufficient vehicle to facilitate collaboration among team members who are working in many different locations. For your employees to collaborate efficiently and effectively, they need more than just a one-dimensional means of communicating back and forth. At a basic level, they need access to a shared knowledge base with the latest information pertaining to your customers and projects. More importantly, they need a way to work collectively on developing new documents as well as to brainstorm, bounce rough ideas off one another and get feedback from colleagues. In addition, they need a way to monitor workflow and keep tabs on the status of active projects. Lastly, they need tools that will help them stay connected on a personal level in order to promote a healthy spirit of camaraderie and minimize the occurrence of interpersonal conflicts. The good news is that there are three simple and cost-effective solutions that will fulfill almost all of these needs and keep remote employees working together as seamlessly as if they were under the same roof:

Instant messaging

Instant messaging is an easy, no-cost way to encourage real-time conversation and communication. With many IM clients such as Skype, iChat and Yahoo! Messenger, your employees can exchange instant messages one-on-one or with a group as well as engage in video chats for an even more personal experience. Like a virtual water cooler, instant message chats are a great vehicle for spontaneous brainstorming or problem-solving sessions.

Google Docs

The latest version of this excellent cloud-based system allows multiple users to create and edit shared word processing documents, spreadsheets, diagrams, charts and presentations. The new document editor now allows up to 50 co-authors to contribute to and edit the same file simultaneously, with color-coded real-time updates. Additionally, inline comments and a shared interface for chat and co-writing eliminates the need for team members to switch back and forth between windows as they carry on conversation about the task at-hand.

Project management software

Good project management software is a lifeline for virtual teams. For example, 37signals' Basecamp is a low-cost web-based tool that allows your employees to manage tasks and deadlines, track time spent on projects, share files, develop documents collaboratively and centralize communication among team members. The most important thing to remember is that the tools you choose have to fit your industry, your company and your employees, taking into account the strengths and weaknesses that currently exist within your work processes and the dynamics of your team. There's no need to become a slave to technology; there are plenty of available options that will make it easier to get work done without creating more work to manage your chosen systems.

The virtual toolbox

As more and more companies make the leap to going virtual, more and more vendors are competing to deliver agile solutions to replace relics of the traditional office like landline phone systems, fax machines and file servers. Even better, most of these new services are far more affordable and versatile than their antiquated predecessors. Here are just a few of the many available tools that will help the day-to-day operations of your virtual company run seamlessly:

Voice communication

For voice communication, providing each of your employees with a cell phone is an obvious solution. But how do you give your customers a single access point to this network of mobile workers? Just because you are giving up your office doesn't mean you have to sacrifice your company phone line, thanks to virtual phone systems such as Grasshopper. For as little as $9.99 per month, Grasshopper gives you a dedicated local or toll-free phone number with unlimited extensions, each with its own call forwarding, voicemail and message delivery settings. Better yet, your Grasshopper number can even double as a fax line and can deliver your incoming faxes straight to e-mail as PDFs.

File sharing and archiving

There are many services that allow you to store and access files remotely. Dropbox is a user-friendly file-syncronization tool that offers two gigabytes of secure online storage for free or up to 100 gigabytes for a low monthly fee. Dropbox works with files of any size or type as well as with Macs and PCs. Shared folders allow multiple people to work with the same set of files, and Dropbox automatically syncs when new files or changes are detected, so you don't ever have to worry about losing data to a computer crash, accidentally deleting files or knowing who has the latest version of a document. You can even access and edit files from any computer or mobile device via Dropbox's web interface.

Skype

Skype is another indispensable multitasker for virtual companies. Skype is best known as the software application that allows users to make free voice calls over the Internet to other Skype users anywhere in the world, but it also offers many other helpful features. Using Skype, employees can exchange instant messages, participate in group chats, hold phone and video conferences and engage in screen sharing for presentations or collaborative work sessions – all at no cost to you. You can even use Skype to conduct conference calls with customers who are on a landline or mobile phone for a nominal fee, and the audio quality is crystal-clear.

The middle ground

So you're interested in taking your company virtual, but you'd still like the prestige of giving sales presentations in a corporate boardroom? Or perhaps you'd like the personal touch of a receptionist answering your company phone line? Don't let these desires stop you from shedding the burdensome overhead of your corporate office. There's a better, more cost-effective way to enjoy the perks of an office without footing the bill to maintain a dedicated space 24/7. Virtual offices are an ideal solution if you want to take advantage of the operational efficiencies of a remote workforce but you serve a more conservative clientele. With the growing popularity of virtual companies, a new concept has emerged called the "virtual office." For less than $100 a month, you can secure a business address in a preferred area of town to publish on your company stationery, business cards and website, and your mail and packages will be received and forwarded to you. For an additional fee, you can also have a few days of private office access each month and a dedicated phone line answered by a receptionist in your company's name, with calls and messages handled per your exact instructions. You can even rent meeting rooms by the hour on an as-needed basis. Virtual offices are an ideal solution if you want to take advantage of the operational efficiencies of a remote workforce but you serve a more conservative clientele that prefers to conduct business in a traditional office setting. In addition, most virtual office services are offered à la carte, so you can easily adjust your level of service and your monthly expenses as your business needs evolve. For more information on virtual offices, a quick search on Google or Yahoo will yield a number of reputable firms, such as Regus and Davinci Virtual, that offer a wide array of highly flexible options to suit your specific needs.

Seize the day

By and large, technology has evolved faster than corporate culture, which explains why a relatively small number of companies are currently taking advantage of telecommuting. However, today, with the advent of more specialized cloud-based project management and collaboration tools and clients that are savvy to the impact of high overhead on the value delivered for each dollar they spend, the momentum is building for a virtual revolution. Shepherding your company through the transition from a traditional bricks-and-mortar office to a virtual operation is a complex process that requires buy-in on all fronts. It mandates that your managers adapt their thinking, practices and systems of communication in order to direct and coordinate teams remotely. It challenges your employees to practice the self-discipline and flexibility to work productively in a non-traditional environment. It asks your clients to make a leap of faith that your company can master the unique demands of a virtual operation and realize the benefits of greater productivity and more manageable expenses. It may not be feasible to make the leap right away or all at once. However, even if you take it one step at a time, every outmoded system that you shed is like cutting away an anchor that’s weighing your business down. Similarly, every time you replace one of these systems with a technology-based solution that helps your company and its people work smarter, you’ll be making significant strides toward building a highly evolved business model that is armed to compete aggressively in today’s marketplace.

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3 Simple Rules for Navigation That Will Boost Your Website's Performance

At the outset of every new website design project, I ask clients to list a few adjectives that would describe their ideal new site. Inevitably, “easy to use” is almost always at the top of the list. Naturally, no one wants their website to be difficult to use. After all, in today’s era of unlimited choice, a great user experience is an absolute necessity. You work too hard to attract visitors and prospects to your website only to drive them away because that site’s interface presents them with frustrations and challenges. In that vein, the ease with which visitors can navigate through your website and its content will have a significant impact on the success of your site. If users can’t quickly identify how to accomplish their goals – whether it’s obtaining more information or making a purchase – they are likely to make a quick exit, taking their business with them. It’s up to your site’s navigational structure to do the heavy lifting in supporting their objectives and answering their questions, guiding them through the site to find what they need and complete the actions appropriate to those needs. This could be purchasing an item, filling out a membership or information request form, or simply finding your phone number so they can call you and open the lines of communication with your business. Regardless of your site’s “win,” an intuitive navigation structure is what will lead them there, so make sure your website follows these three Cs of good navigation in order to ensure that you make the most of every opportunity to capture and convert new customers.

1. Be concise.

In his book The Laws of Simplicity, renowned designer and current President of the Rhode Island School of Design John Maeda offers the following advice as part of his First Law of Simplicity: “The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction.” When weighing various options, the fewer choices that are available, the easier the decision process becomes. Give me four items to choose from, and I will be able to select one much more quickly than if you present me with eight. The same principle holds true for website navigation. Presenting your audience with fewer choices will allow them to more easily identify the one that pertains to their specific needs. Considering how impatient typical website visitors are, this can have a very positive impact on your site’s user experience. Look again at John Maeda’s quote, and you will notice that he is not an advocate for arbitrary editing but rather “thoughtful reduction.” Paring down the elements of your website’s primary navigation structure from nine or 10 choices down to four or five is great, but you need to be strategic in how you do it. Start by looking at the pages outlined in your sitemap and deciding how they can be categorized or grouped together in order to reduce the number of topline options. One of my favorite examples of this practice is the common testimonials page. Businesses love to include a testimonials page on their websites, but based on traffic numbers, these are typically among the least visited pages on any site. Traffic numbers are the ultimate arbiters of value and importance. If your visitors aren’t accessing certain content, then that content shouldn’t be given the same prominence as those pages that they actively seek out and use. In the case of testimonials, removing that link from your primary navigation and establishing it as a subpage under your “Our Company” or “About Us” section works very well. The same applies to any pages that you have that are dedicated to company history, management team profiles, staff bios, your company’s mission statement and the like. While these items are valid information for someone who’s really digging in to vet your qualifications, the majority of your visitors will never look at them, so let them take a back seat to the content that’s really going to seal the deal. Of course, this is where the “thoughtful reduction” principle comes into play. While each of the examples above could be grouped together, that doesn’t mean it is the right choice for your site. The goal is to examine your sitemap with a critical eye and decide which elements are truly important to your audience, which ones are secondary, and how you can treat them accordingly to provide as few choices as possible within your site’s primary navigation.

2. Be clear.

Everyone wants their website to be unique. Sometimes, this leads to the temptation to try to reinvent the wheel when it comes to the organization and presentation of its navigational structure, whether that’s by replacing links with icons or coming up with clever names for major content areas. While this may sound like a great idea that will help set your site apart from your competitors’, it can easily backfire. Visitors want to make quick, logical choices as they navigate through your website, which means that the options presented to them need not only to be concise but also to be clear. The navigation on your website needs to conform to the expected conventions that your visitors instinctively know and recognize. This does not mean that your primary navigation should be designed to look like large, beveled buttons with faux‐3D effects. That treatment may make for an obvious “button,” but it is also not in keeping with the aesthetic of today’s Web. On the other hand, you don’t want buttons or links that are so subtle with so little contrast that they fade into the design to the point of becoming invisible. There is a happy medium to be achieved where all links can be obvious and attractive at the same time. Labels are also an important part of clear navigation. Having a navigation link labeled “About Our Company” directly conveys to users what they can expect to find on that page. Trying to be creative and instead name that link “Unlock the Magic” is anything but clear and will confuse and frustrate visitors who simply want to find more background information about your company. That’s not to say that exploring interesting and innovative avenues in the design of your website is always a bad thing. It can certainly help differentiate your site from others and make for a memorable experience. Just make sure that you are not sacrificing clarity for creativity and confusing the user experience in the process.

3. Be consistent.

The final rule of website navigation is consistency. If you’ve designed a clear, concise navigational structure that your visitors can quickly and easily understand and use, then it’s important to maintain that structure throughout the rest of your site. Your website is not a video game, where each level provides new challenges that are the purpose of the game itself. Your users do not wish to relearn how to use your site at every step along the way. They are there solely to obtain information or complete an action, and anything that gets in the way of their mission is reason enough for them to abandon your site. Consistency is about more than just your primary navigation, however. The way that submenus are presented on the interior pages of your site should remain the same from section to section as well, and the same holds true for treatment of text links or buttons. If you use a certain color for text links, consider using that same color for buttons. Users will quickly learn which color – red, for instance – denotes a clickable area, which will help them to continue moving through your site quickly and intuitively rather than being bogged down by simply trying to locate the pathways to their desired destination.

How does your site measure up?

While there are many factors that ultimately contribute to your website’s performance, a well‐designed navigational structure goes a long way toward ushering your visitors from point A (your home page) to point B (the point of conversion, whether that’s placing an order, sending you an email or picking up the phone to initiate conversation). Look at your site and evaluate its navigation based on the principles covered in this article.

1. Is there anything you can do to make your navigational structure more concise through thoughtful reduction?
2. Are there any changes you can make to make your navigation clearer to your audience?
3. Are you consistent throughout your entire site with the way navigation is designed and presented?

Even if you are not ready to undertake a major site overhaul, you can still refine and tweak your existing site to improve its navigation and realize the rewards of presenting a better user experience to visitors that have found your website and are looking to do business with you.

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