Saleem Anwar, COO at BusinessesForSale.com, explores the secrets to setting up a successful remote business and how to create a strong company culture.
London, Sept. 16, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Working from home has become the norm for many companies in recent years, but it still divides opinion. Entrepreneurs like Mark Zuckerberg love it: he says working from home has contributed to an increase in productivity. However, others such as Elon Musk and Sir Jim Radcliff of INEOS are not fans.
At BusinessesForSale.com, we employ around 50 members of staff across multiple continents. The nations we work from include Australia, Mexico, Cyprus, Poland, India, South Africa, the United States and Spain, as well as the UK where a sizeable percentage of our staff are employed. Because of how we have transitioned to a remote working system - which started years ago, but was accelerated by the pandemic - we are now in a position to employ someone to do anything, anywhere in the world. And our revenue has increased significantly, too.
When the business began back in 2000, after raising £1.7m in the first dot-com boom, all our employees were based in our London headquarters. You had to be based in or around London and work from the office five days per week. It was unthinkable back then that it could, or would, be any different.
The World of Work has Changed
Today, only a quarter of the company head count is based in the capital and the other UK-based employees are scattered across the British Isles. The requirement today, for UK staff, is to be in the office just one day a week, on a Wednesday.
This isn't a mandatory requirement - it's optional and by and large, it's also a sociable experience. Some members of staff, including myself, prefer to be in the office every day and that option is available to anyone.
Occasionally, colleagues will fly in from Mexico or Poland to make it in on a Wednesday - which will inevitably involve closing the office early so we can go out and socialise. The irony is not lost on us. The one day we all come in to the office is the day we shut early so we can go out. Wouldn't you, too?
Our Chairman and co-founder, Marcus Markou, regularly notes the changes. He used to sit on the first floor in the same spot for 13 years. Today, when the office is crammed and buzzing on a Wednesday he will take residence on the sofa, with a laptop and a coffee - and the ideas have never flowed so fruitfully.
The company has become truly agile, remote, global and at the same time more unified and more conscious of what it is. The energy is fluid yet the execution of plans is specific. These are not glib corporate sentiments. This is real.
How Remote Work can Increase Revenue
Our revenue has increased significantly as a result. Since transitioning to a fully remote business in 2020, our revenue has grown by 30% and now sits comfortably above its pre-pandemic levels.
This growth can be attributed to the rollout of new products in the past four years, overseen by our other co-founder and CEO Andrew Markou, which has never been more efficient or game-changing for us. As Marcus and Andrew keep pointing out: "Every day now, we feel like we are a startup again", and that startup energy is not just reflected in this fluid way of working. I believe it is propelled by this way of working.
My role as COO is to act as a bridge between the ideas created and the plan needed to execute. Making this work remotely requires discipline, planning and the right structure.
We are a web-based publishing company that is tech-driven, and most of our interactions with the public take place online. This makes us a cerebral business, where so much of what we do - coding, writing, designing, developing business and new products - is done in our heads. Working from home is more conducive, when so much of our work is done as thinking between our ears.
What are the Challenges of Remote Work?
The big challenge, not just for us but for all businesses, is creating and maintaining the culture of the company when so much work is being done remotely.
The first thing we lost when Covid hit was the "water cooler" chats. These are where ideas were often generated, where experiences were shared, where dots were joined and actions were landed on in an informal and collegiate spirit - in a break, making a coffee, in the corridor.
When Covid hit and so much of the business moved into Microsoft Teams, we realised that these "water cooler" moments needed to be recreated and nurtured. Previously, they would happen spontaneously and organically. Now, we had to become conscious of them.
At BusinessesForSale.com we have daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly video conferences, or "standups". These standups stay flexible as the projects we're working towards change, and cover all aspects of the business.
On average, no employee will do more than two or three video conferences in one day and some days there may be none. On Monday mornings we do an entire company standup, where each head of department will give an overview of what is happening in the week ahead. It's the entire company, in one room.
We quickly learned that the energy of the person leading a group call is essential. They should create an environment where participation is encouraged, no idea is a bad one, and company politics do not exist. If done right, this kind of virtual 'water cooler' environment can also get the best out of more introverted members of staff, who might not be inclined to speak up in a big group environment face-to-face.
How to Onboard New Staff Remotely
One of the last big challenges of running a work culture this way is onboarding new staff members.
Once you are embedded into this system the information, accountability and goals seem clear. However, getting someone into this system remotely is a bigger challenge than before. How do new employees adopt the culture of a company remotely?
This is where onboarding becomes so important. New starters are encouraged to come to the office for the first few weeks of employment, and others who will be working closely with the new starter are encouraged to be there with them. It's a dedicated and conscious way of bringing someone into the system.
Where people are simply not able to come in for their induction weeks (when living abroad) then the onboarding has to be remote and dedicated. Every aspect, including social engagement, has to be planned consciously - as we are doing with those "water cooler" moments. As soon as is practical, we try and fly people in from abroad - and we factor those costs into the recruitment process.
This new freedom has allowed us to cast the employee net much wider than before. It has also allowed us to support employees when they want to stay working for the company but move abroad. This return to traditional company loyalty now means we have staff who have worked with us for approaching two decades - and for all the right reasons. What that brings to the company in terms of expertise, loyalty, application and dependability is absolutely priceless.
What Tools can Enable Home Working?
So how does it all work from a practical standpoint? What tools do we use, what apps facilitate our way of working?
Firstly, we have integrated our phone systems into Microsoft Teams, which has connected everyone's mobile phones and devices from anywhere in the world, and allowed us to track people's calls. From a customer services and sales goals perspective this has been crucial, and has led to more efficiency and self-awareness in both these company remits.
Goal-setting has also moved into Teams. Before the pandemic, we used a huge glass wall on the sales and marketing floor that recorded everything. We now use the CRM software Pipedrive to do this, as well as dedicated resources to continually make Pipedrive work harder. It now connects to our telephone systems, which are, in turn, connected to Teams. Again, more visibility, more accountability, more efficiency.
We use Zendesk ticketing system to manage our customer services, and we use Viva Goals to manage our OKRS (Objectives and Key Results). Any intra-company information (spreadsheets, documents, PDFs, white papers, proposals etc) also sit in Teams.
Any one-to-one or group messaging is often done in Teams, although we have WhatsApp Groups for the big public notices to all staff - which has replaced the email memo. We also have a sales success WhatsApp Group where deals are recorded and applauded - the sales bell in the office is now replaced by a whole slew of memes and GIFs.
More Business Insights on BusinessesForSale.com
At BusinessesForSale.com, we provide a simple, powerful platform for buying and selling businesses - but we also provide guides and articles to inspire and inform entrepreneurs. If you'd like to learn how to cultivate a business mindset, take a look at our article on How to Think Like an Entrepreneur. If you're interested in learning about the world of franchising, why not take a look at the Most Profitable Franchises in the USand the Most Successful Franchises in Canada?
