Video link

This is the second in a series of video blogs on how to keep your business moving during this time of uncertainty. Tracey Wik and Blythe Kazmierczak provide you with tips for extroverts working from home.

Tracey Wik: So, one of the things that’s fascinating about sales and about business development is that there is a, I would say, a hidden bias, if you will, or maybe in some cases an overt bias, if you talked to some of my clients, that they should be hiring extroverts and big personalities and people that are competitive who can work rooms and be out there.

Tracey Wik:  So, now everybody that I talk to in sales is grounded, at least from travel. They may go into an office, I have some people that are the only person in their office, so they’re going in. Or mostly people are working virtually. So let’s talk about that.

Tracey Wik: Extroverts versus introverts during this time, what do you think Blythe, have you been hearing anything about that?

Blythe Kazmierczak:  Yeah, it is interesting. The folks that were looking forward to events to be able to meet new people and get energy, are having to think of different ways to get energy.

Blythe Kazmierczak: So, I am definitely a high extrovert. And I started to realize by the middle of this week I was really feeling like, a lot of my meetings got canceled, my schedule got screwed up, and I didn’t have those doses of energy that I was normally going to get through the week. And I had to find different ways to get them. Either like literally going for a walk instead or doing other things to reset my energy level.

Blythe Kazmierczak:  And I’m sure there’s lots of salespeople, or business people, who are extroverts who were able to keep their tank full with their old schedule and are now having to figure out what is that new way of managing it look like.

Tracey Wik:  Yeah. So, one of the things that I was talking about, so I’m on the cusp, I’m an extrovert sometimes, I’m an introvert sometimes. So, I’ve found myself kind of enjoying the fact that I was freed up cause I had all these events myself. March, April, May are like events for salespeople. Every week there was a new conference I was scheduled to go to. And now I’m here in my home office.

Tracey Wik: But what’s interesting is that I didn’t quite have that same experience. One of my other clients was telling me that she has started to do virtual happy hours because she’s like you, she’s an extreme extrovert. She wants to be like … She’s trying to find those ways. Taking your dog for a walk, she literally said this to me on Monday, “It’s not enough.” She needed to go and have a cocktail with her people cause that’s what she normally did.

Tracey Wik: So, any creative ideas you have for the extreme extroverts out there?

Blythe Kazmierczak: Gosh, that’s really funny. I think a virtual happy hour or a virtual … I mean, even sales teams themselves, usually Friday is the day that everybody comes in the office in some way and like …

Tracey Wik:  We always had lunch together.

Blythe Kazmierczak: So how do you stay connected for your sales team so that people feel like those casual moments of connection and community that extroverts need and salespeople need to feel like they’re not alone? Because they’re out hunting or if they’re an account manager taking feedback all week. And they need that moment of community. And so I think the idea of a virtual happy hour or a virtual lunch or even like, this may sound hokey, but like everybody listens to a podcast and then comes and talks about it, or a book club.

Blythe Kazmierczak: Those kinds of community building things are the things that people are going to feel like they look forward to, they can make time for. Now that they don’t have time spent commuting or traveling. There is a little bit more time in all of our weeks to fit in a little bit more of that kind of stuff. And I think people would really … It’s so new, I don’t think a lot of that stuff has been pushed out. But it’d be really smart for leaders to put some of those things in place so people have an anchor to look forward to.