Seems like our small-sized companies are catching on to the telecommuting option this year which is a bit of a change. I think a good post would be one that lays out a salesperson’s tools of the trade for today.
Included in that list would be a web-based CRM and a VPN connection for telecommuting. No? Check these stats out from a recent Wall Street Journal article (h/t to Lee):
Seventy percent of Cisco Systems employees regularly work from home at least 20% of the time. So do 34% of workers at Booz Allen Hamilton and 32% at S.C. Johnson & Sons. Those stats, from a recent Fortune companies survey say a lot about flexible work these days. It’s becoming a way of working that benefits both the employee and employer, says Nicole Saulnier, a human resource manager for Rothstein Kass, an accounting firm in Roseland, N.J., that also believes in flexibility. “Happy employees are more productive,” she says. “If a flexible work arrangement will help them reach their full potential, we want to foster that.”
Salespeople have always been telecommuters to some extent, but today there are tools available to make their offices completely remote…and fully functional.