Vid To Stay

Neat hanging barchart treatment here from the Telegraph broadsheet graphics team last week.

Although why they chose the specific ordering eludes me.

Nevertheless, the article wrapped around it has a pretty clear message.

WFH is still a thing.

A London analysis reported via a November Future of Work event suggested quite the shift;

City office occupancy:
just 13% on Fridays,
25% Mondays, &
peaks mid-week at 42%.

Only one in eight at their desks on a Friday. Though 'double' on Monday, with one in four in attendance. Yet even in between barely above two in five.

Reasons for London's place at the top (or rock-bottom) of this global chart appear chiefly attributed to the despised commute. England's capital shackled by the longest, costliest and most insufferably congested options from home to office.

Regardless of contributors, how about this overall issue.

What are the Friday seven-in-eight - let alone the three-of-five midweek - doing when not in the office?

Consider those in Sales roles. Maybe they're in back-to-back client meetings on-site. Or hammering the phones moving things forward alone. Perhaps locked away in 'deep work' mode, crafting that finely tuned Deck, Business Case or Prop.

Whatever fills your day, if you're not using video to have a call or meeting, you're missing a big trick. And if you are conducting video calls - internally or externally - then you're likely unaware of where and how you could make them way more productive.

I continually urge sellers not to wrongly conflate WFH with video calling. They should not co-exist through mutually dependency. Now, it seems, this medium of video is here to stay, regardless of any employer Remote-work policy. So it feels prudent to get to grips with how to get the most out of it.

One question I typically ask an engaged prospect is, 'what pitch practice have you done over video'?

Invariably the answer is a timid version of 'none'.

On the practically invisibly rare occasion they may have done, it turns out to be camouflaged as part of a general new product training exercise. Which, let me categorically state ... Is Not The Same Thing At All.

And that's before you get to all the other parallel yet vital components mostly glossed over or ignored. Such as gestures & movements, idea generation and priority ranking-cum-voting.

Even if London and New York were at the same level as the other quartet in the above chart, you'd still be advised to master video selling to a greater depth. And generally seek the higher productivity it can unleash for you.

Where is this in your plans for '23?