Close Deal Using Texting ONLY!

I have been working from home for more than a year. Today office still remains closed until the  situation gets better.

I have to manage a team of 12 engineers during this period. All meetings and "people management" are done remotely.

From the first day I wfh till today, I didn't really get to meet any of my direct reports face to face, physically.

Yet, two of them got promoted recently as Lead. And I am in the midst of growing another three as Lead too.

One key factor that helps me to remain close with them is - I had already known most of them as peers for years before office was shut down.

Some of my direct reports are based in another country. They have been serving here long enough therefore it is still quite easy for me to connect to them.

The only exception is that one senior DBA who joined us during this wfh season. Yes it is a little bit of challenge to me. Fortunately he has another senior DBA who also reports to me as his mentor.

Does that mean we have to know our direct reports well enough in order to manage them better remotely?

Not really. Let me again give you a real life example. Back in Jan this year, I needed to setup a new function for our SaaS business in APAC.

I have got 2 additional headcounts which are filled by 2 contractors who are based in another country.

Now it is already end of June. I have already successfully onboarded both of them to the new function.

Everyday we remain close communication with each other in Teams/Slack for work progress and blockage. Everyweek I have weekly task planning session with them. This is going on well.

As a result, their quality of work is amazing!

I realize my good communication skill over virtual chat tools plays a big part in helping me doing people management well! I am able to give my direct reports good feeling by just typing.

I believe I cultivated that skill through selling my course to the netizens. I have closed hundreds of course sales just by typing over the Whatsapp, Messenger and Wechat.

Just want to say, it is possible to close deal through Text Messaging, without having to do any audio or video call at all.