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Designed for Growth: Scale your recurring revenue with the new Teamgate SaaS CRM. Explore SaaS Features →

Book a demo today and save 50% off your first month, or 20% off your first year.

Get a free sales audit to uncover hidden revenue opportunities!

Hello? Teamgate’s SmartDialer calling

In case you didn’t know it, there is one simple solution to the burdensome tasks of cold calling and Telemarketing. That’s the much underutilised Teamgate-SmartDialer CRM integration

Let’s be blunt.

Cold calling and telemarketing are difficult enough tasks without making them any more difficult. When reaching out to your prospective customers, land-lines are no longer the preferred, or sensible solution.

What sales and marketing people really need is one, simple, go-to solution to manage all of their calling requirements. The Teamgate-SmartDialer CRM integration is that solution.

SmartDialer lets you call directly from Teamgate – no manual entry, no chasing phone numbers – plus, you have access to all of the other relevant information to hand as you make your calls (location, age, company, position, etc.).

Internet calling

In addition to other lead sourcing and marketing practices, Teamgate’s SmartDialer integration adds an extra and hugely valuable dimension to cold calling and telemarketing. But not just that, Teamgate’s SmartDialer can be used for every stage of your sales pipeline, from lead sourcing right through to customer service.

What’s not to love? 

Why cold calling shouldn’t be the poor relation

Telemarketing and cold calling are often considered the poor relations in the sales family. They are usually viewed in one of two ways; a complete waste of time and money; or the rock on which a company’s sales are built.

Whatever your views are, it’s a fact; people have developed a thick skin (and a sharp tongue) towards cold callers and telemarketers, and are less inclined to engage in random sales banter – with random strangers.

Plus, cold calling can be an expensive means of lead capture.

But remember, it still has a vital place and needs to be taken very seriously. A cold calling or telemarketing campaign can return better value for spending due to the personal nature, and the one-to-one customer nurturing element of the medium.

However cold calling still faces some problems which need to be tackled:

  • Time wasted accessing the right phone numbers to call.
  • Missed calls can cost you valuable sales.
  • No access to conversation records unless the notes from the call are comprehensive.
  • Your sales team have no access to call discussions.
  • Because of the increasing challenges of personal and privacy regulations, cold-calling has become far more selective in the sourcing of the prospective customers.
  • With cold calling comes a lot of manual note taking; comments on the call; follow up calls planned; additional information sourced, and all the other information required to take the sale to the next stage.
  • Time wasting – if you’re not talking to the right person, you’re wasting time. If you talking to the right person but using the wrong sales script, you’re wasting time.
  • It is often difficult to ascertain the success rates, clear results, or statistics – calls made, and outcomes reached.

But that’s where SmartDialer and Teamgate can help you to overcome these concerns.

Solution

It stands to reason that if you have to engage in the practice of cold calling and telemarketing, isn’t it better to come armed with the best tools available?

Tools like SmartDialer are even more effective when combined with AI cold calling softwaref, which helps identify the right leads and improve call timing. Learn how AI cold calling is changing the sales landscape.

Teamgate’s SmartDialer integration is ideal for cold calling and telemarketing. It’s the single, unified communication solution providing you with all the very best tools and features needed to reach beyond the old practices of cold calling.

At Teamgate we spend a lot (a LOT) of time engaged in calling and telemarketing, so we know, first-hand, the problems and just how to solve them. Over the years we’ve seen how sales techniques and sales methods have developed from outbound to inbound.

We have always tried to adapt the Teamgate CRM to these constant changes, and the evolving needs of sales and marketing teams. We have seen the problems, and we have designed the tools and features to remedy them, smarter, and faster.

How Teamgate’s SmartDialer can solve those problems:

  1. Your lead sourcing has already identified potential customers who have been entered into your Teamgate account. You can now simply make – and receive – calls directly through Teamgate sales CRM.
  2. Missed calls are listed and recorded along with the customer’s profile. This can save you valuable time and money, it can help you reschedule missed calls, and, it can also help nurture your leads by displaying your willingness to interact in a timely manner.
  3. You can record and playback all of your online phone calls. This can help you clarify any situation, it can help you learn where you may have made a mistake, and it can help improve your calling technique. Plus,  Teamgate’s SmartDialer integration let you store unlimited call records and history.
  4. Make and record call-specific notes directly within the customer’s Teamgate profile card. Notes can then be shared with sales colleagues allowing them to keep up to speed on individual communications.
  5. Sales managers – and sales individuals – can track the number of calls made, and evaluate the effectiveness of those calls.
  6. Recorded sales calls can be used for training purposes, allowing salespeople to hone and improve their sales pitch, and learn from their errors.
  7. The integration’s call logger lets you see all call history; incoming and outgoing calls, call owners, plus recordings and playback.

All of the above features are invaluable for sales managers who need to access a fuller, more complete picture of the whole sales process; call effectiveness; calls made and received; call techniques; assessing the value of cold calling in comparison to other methods; and, help when planning future sales strategy.

What to do next

Even if cold calling or telemarketing is only a fractional part of your sales strategy, we’re pretty sure that you still need a really smart calling solution.

Teamgate’s SmartDialer – the ultimate sales dialer – is easy to set up and can have you calling more successfully in no time. With four or five easy steps you’re ready to start calling smarter, and more productively.

If you think this is the solution for you why not sign up for a FREE Teamgate trial today. You have nothing to lose, and perhaps a lot to gain.

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I just called to say…

“Hold on a moment, I‘ll just give her a call and ask.”

Wouldn‘t it be nice to have that sort of relationship with top business influencers? Having a list of CEO‘s, business advisors and investors on your phone‘s speed-dial is the dream of many startups and would-be business people?

But, it‘s highly unlikely that the average entrepreneur or budding business person has access to the movers and shakers of modern business – as much as they would like the idea.

Symposiums, conferences, and trade shows are the arena of both the entrepreneur and budding business person wishing to rub shoulders and press the flesh with the influencers whom they admire most. These situations offer them real-time opportunities to meet their heroes, and more importantly real opportunities to make an impression and create a lasting and rewarding relationship.

This may interest you

Ok, so you‘re attending a conference and manage to steal a brief audience with your hero. Try not to mess it up.

Firstly, be yourself, relax, be nice – sounds simple, right? – and then, offer something of mutual interest; a contact, a love of hot air balloons, whatever it is, we‘re just human and it‘s that commonality which unites us time and time again.

If you have a specific question, ask it. Wait for the answer, and listen politely without jumping in to make point after point. You‘ve asked for their advice, not the other way around.

When you‘ve had your moment of glory and received the level of contact you were seeking in the first place, try not to hog the person‘s time – and be sure to let them know you value their time.

Thank them politely for the opportunity, assuring them that their response or suggestion was both interesting and also perhaps something which may work for you and/or your firm. One last and highly important point. Before you part company, inform them that you‘ll be sure to send them the results of their advice once you get around to trying them out. Promise made and first steps achieved.

Keep that promise

If you made a promise to contact your new hero, DO IT! You‘ll be surprised by how interested they may be to know how things worked out for you. Was their advice of value to you? Did it succeed or fail? Did it increase business? These are the questions which constantly drive all successful business people, and ones which they expect to hear on a regular basis.

With your follow-up contact – email is probably best – be sure to sign off with another engaging question; one which keeps the door of communication wide open for the future.

“Thanks so much for the advice you gave me at the show in Munich. My sales team tried some of your ideas and our lead return was really impressive. Perhaps you can advise how long we should leave it before proceeding to the next level of engagement?“

It‘s just business, don‘t get jealous

Don‘t get upset if your‚ new ‘friend‘ doesn‘t reply immediately; they didn‘t become successful by answering every question from every stranger they met at a sales conference. But if – and when – they do answer you can be sure that you‘ve done something right.

If they decide to reply back with a second, third, or even fourth reply to your emailed enquiries or suggestions, you can be pretty sure that you‘ve found some sort of common ground, which is the basis of every decent working relationship.

building business relationships

Don‘t make any further contacts complex, or boring. No two-hundred-page reports, no time-consuming instructional videos, and definitely no long-winded and confusing graphs, charts and diagrams outlining where you see yourself in five years time. They don‘t care; at least not for now.

Keep them hooked

To use a fishing analogy it‘s important to keep the fish on the line, but sometimes the best way to do that is by letting the line go slack for just long enough. Then, when you think that enough time has passed try offering something of value to your new contact; a good news story, a mutual interest piece – which further adds to developing a personal relationship – an invitation to an event or show.

This slack-up interaction shows that you‘re not trying to get in his/her face, and that you actually are a pretty decent person to deal with. If you learn something new in business, some new means of getting a task done quicker, a more streamlined sales process, or just a cool new range of images to decorate the offices, be sure to pass them on. But not every day, right!

Show that you care

Be sure to congratulate your new acquaintance on any success or milestone; let them know that you‘re interested in their business and where it may be headed next. They will feel a far greater bond with you and your business the next time you meet. virtually or face to face.

Show me the money

Investors are the backbone of many businesses, but sometimes they‘re kept out of the picture – for whatever reason. Just like your influencer friend it‘s vastly important to nurture and maintain a healthy relationship with investors. Give them the same care and attention as your influencer. Ask for their advice, send them reports and updates on how business is progressing and projections of where it‘s going.

building relationships and showing money

If you‘re holding a corporate event, invite them along and get them to meet the team. Introduce them to companies you work with or plan to work with. In essence, treat them like good humans, they are the ones who have invested in you, or who may do so in the future, show them the respect they deserve.

It doesn‘t stop there

Keep the love alive. Just because you may have achieved your goal of making contact with a top influencer or investor, the job isn‘t finished there – far from it in fact. Making those follow-up calls, sending those emails, blog links and invitations is what will keep the relationship sweet, long into the future.

If you have problems with your business, be human, reach out for help from those who‘ve been there. Ask for advice or suggestions and enforce the fact that failure is often as important as success on the journey. Influencers like to show their humanity too, especially if you‘ve made a good impression throughout the early days of your relationship. They are usually more open to help a human situation than to help an entity, so keep that humanity no matter what happens or how successful you become.

As the saying goes, it‘s nice to be important, but it‘s much more important to be nice.

Aaron Draper created an interactive website with engaging content when he started his business sometime back, ran adverts and eventually, some leads started pouring in. Sounds great! Initially, the leads were less in number so they could be tracked and managed manually and it seemed quite an easy job to Aaron! But the real big problem began when the lead volume grew and he started receiving more inquiries from different channels. Unlike before he couldn’t handle all the leads and devote an equal amount of time to each one of them, this ultimately resulted in lead leakage, no lead engagement and missed follow-ups. Aaron was distressed. That is when Aaron felt the need for Lead Management Software is his business. Then, there was no looking back.

Have you ever felt like Aaron?  Not being efficient enough to justify all your leads and their needs!

To put it in simple words, “Lead management is basically the process to manage the leads equally and constantly.” However, the modern-day lead management automation is not just limited to managing the leads; it directly impacts the end-to-end sales and marketing opportunities of any business.

Today, many B2B enterprises leverage the lead management automation to boost sales, minimize sale cycles, maximize lead conversions and increase revenue. Now, let’s discuss few ways in which the lead management software can improve the marketing or sales productivity of businesses:

  • Lead Capture Automation

As businesses utilize various marketing channels to create awareness and identify their potential prospects, the lead volume tends to remain high. It is not feasible to manage each lead manually; the lead management software enables automated capturing. It collects the information from multiple campaign respondents. This saves a lot of time as well as prevents any sort of lead leakage.

  • Routing of Leads

There are different criteria for any business to assign leads to its reps. Some assign it on the basis of sales, reps’ geography while others distribute the leads to those who have proven specialization in specific products or industry. However, lead management software ensures that all the leads are automatically allocated and sent to the appropriate sales person’s inbox on the basis of predetermined characteristics. This, in turn, expedites the follow-up process as leads are distributed instantly to the appropriate reps.

Lead Management Routing of Leads

  • Lead Generation & Tracking

Needless to say, identifying leads is a tough and time-consuming task but owing to the lead tracking function the sales reps can track the activities of the prospects. It can give useful insights about the activities and behavior of a particular lead such as forms they are filling or web-pages they are visiting. Most of the latest lead management software even track the chat or phone conversations.

  • Lead Qualification

In order to prioritize tasks and approach the most relevant prospects first, the sales team identifies the qualified leads, which are also termed as ‘sales-ready leads’. Most of the lead management systems provide a quality score to each lead depending on their chances to get converted into sales. This lead scoring enables the sales reps to measure the lead qualification and their interest level.

  • Lead Nurturing

In B2B marketing, there is no such term as a dead lead. There are leads that won’t buy at the moment but have high chances of getting converted into ‘sales-ready leads’ in the future. Then, there are leads that might never come to you, but once you know why they are not interested you can make efforts in that direction to make them interested. Such kinds of leads are transferred to the nurturing cycle where they are kept engaged through various channels such as blogs, videos, newsletters, email campaigns, SMSes and drip emails.

  • Email Campaigns

Automated lead management system allows users to create numerous emails simultaneously and schedules their delivery throughout particular time duration. It helps the sales rep to follow-up only with those prospects that have performed some kind of activity on the email. Businesses can effectively improve the return on email campaigns using this powerful feature.

  • Reporting & Analysis

Besides lead capturing and tracking, lead management software also allows the B2B enterprises to leverage the reporting and analysis features to keep a check of acquisition rates, conversions, close sale ratios and various other metrics. All this data gives them the insight to assess the success of different marketing and sales parameters including promotional efforts, quality of leads generated, return on sales, improvement in management and performance measurement.

Lead Management Reporting and Analysis

Further, the lead management automation allows the organizations to identify the trends and patterns that positively affect the sales leads. This, in turn, helps them to implement changes in their sales and marketing processes and thereby improves effectiveness.

An intuitive application, lead management software streamlines the overall process of lead management by utilizing a full spectrum of automated tools. With a robust lead management automation solution in place, businesses can maximize close rates and generate more revenue by making the best use of every opportunity they encounter with.

There’s a reason why stories are just so popular in our culture. No matter what your background is like or how old you are, we all enjoy a good story. The same goes for your business. Your story gives your audience a personal connection to you and helps them see you not just as a faceless entity, but as a group of people who matter.

If you want to strengthen this emotional connection between you and your audience, then you’ll need to create an effective brand story. Here’s how.

What is your story?

Before you get started, decide on what your story is. There’s a reason you got into the business, what is it?

Maybe you run a restaurant and saw a gap for a well-run family friendly restaurant in your area. Maybe you got into creating custom jewelry as you couldn’t find what you wanted anywhere else. Whatever it is, make sure that you convey this in your story. You can often find out what your businesses story is by looking back at why you got started and how you’ve evolved. For family-run or local businesses, your story is likely very personal and heart-warming.

Creating Brand Story

Create your characters

You’ll have seen larger than life characters used in advertising campaigns all over the world. These are effective, but you don’t have to spend thousands to get it right.

In fact, you could be a character all on your own, as the business owner. Alternately, the buyer persona of your audience could be the character that you create and appeal to. You need to look back at your business and decide if any members of staff are your key character, or if you and your business partners can identify one key customer who should represent you.

Look into what’s being said about you online

Of course, you’re not the only one who can talk about your business online. Others will have opinions and certainly write about them. That’s why your business should be tied into your brand story as closely as possible, to avoid any disconnects.

If you find any less than favorable talk about your brand, there are ways of dealing with it. Brand Yourself is a great way that can help you handle these issues when they arise. It would only take a quick google search and a scan over some review sites to figure out what your reputation currently is.

Build the narrative into everything you do

No matter where you are online, your narrative should follow you. It’s an essential part of your branding strategy, as important as your logo or the colors you use. That means that your writers need to be on board with what you’re trying to do.

If you need to find good writers to help you with your branding, try looking on freelancing sites such as Big Assignments or Upwork. This means that you need to make sure that once you’ve decided on your story, you disseminate it across your staff.

Create Your Brand Story

Look at what the competition is doing

You have competition, and they’ll be trying to develop their own brand story. What are they doing, and how can you learn from them? Keep tabs on what they’re doing, and look at how successful their tactics are.

Tools such as Rapportive and Mention can help you do this.

Build a relationship with your writers

If you’re hiring writers, try to hire the same team to work on everything that you’re putting out there. Doing this means that your message is cohesive and that your writers are all on the same page. The best way to do this is to hire them all from the same place, such as Write my assignment. This way, you’ll build up a relationship with them and keep the story going.

Be authentic

If you’re telling a story, make sure that you’re living it. If your story is that you’re a family restaurant that values the time families have together, the make sure that you’re working under that ethos when you’re running your business. If you don’t, it can make you look inauthentic and insincere.

As you’re trying to create an emotional connection with your audience, this is to be avoided. This means that you need to make sure that the people who are involved in deciding on your story are involved in the day to day running of the business and make sure that your story reflects reality.

Whats Teamgate Brand Story

Always proofread and edit

No matter what you’re writing, you need to ensure it’s properly edited. This is because it makes you more professional, but also it makes your story more believable. If the reader is fighting through spelling and grammatical errors, it’ll take them out of the story.

If you need help, there are some tools out there. Academized is great for editing, and Easy Word Count can help you edit your work yourself. Another popular tool is Grammarly, which can make sure that your writing across all levels, including emails and social media, is the best possible quality.

Your brand story is more important than you’d think. If you plan and use it properly, you really can create an emotional connection with your audience. Give it a try for yourself.

Finding the perfect balance between pressure and leisure is like discovering Shangri-La for most modern workers. However, many of us find it hard to perfect even one of these fields, let alone both. As a result, something has to give; with workers regularly unable to participate in family activities, or pursue their private external interests to the full.

With the rapid increase in the number of freelancers, more and more people are at last finding a semblance of that so desired balance. But, for many others the struggle continues to somehow harmonise a productive business life together with a healthy family life. In order to help you reach both your professional and private goals, we’ve tried to compile seven useful tactics for combining pressure and leisure.

Office work combine pressure and leisure

1. Don’t bring work home

Although many working people will say that this is easier said than done, not bringing work stress home should be the ultimate rule for every employee or freelancer. The pace at which you climb the company ladder will depend on your organizational skills, rather than the number of work hours you put in. Improving your in-office time management, will pay dividends in your private life.

The early bird catches the worm. Those old proverbs didn’t just come about by accident. Try and get to the office before others start pouring in and breaking that golden silence. You’ll be amazed how those two or three hours will free up a lot of precious space later in the day. In addition, many top achievers constantly claim that those first few peaceful hours can be the most productive of the entire day.

When it comes to working from home it really is imperative to keep your work space and private space separate. Such an arrangement will prevent you from intermixing these two abstract areas of life and avoiding the conflict and problems which inevitably arise. Once again, try to start your day early and make use of those golden hours of super productivity. Just because you happen to work from home shouldn’t mean you can stay in bed all day. 

Potential aide: Simplenote

As the name suggests, Simplenote offers a high level of functionality, packed in a simple and sleek design;  meaning you can start taking notes in a matter of seconds regardless of your physical location.

It also allows you to create and edit notes in the offline mode, ready to be synced next time you go online.  

The app also enables you to access previous edits of the same note – a super productive hack for the forgetful or harried business manager.

When you make notes of your ideas and obligations they become clearer and tend to become a reality in a more scheduled and time-saving manner.

2. Control the workload

Losing that precious balance between pressure and leisure often comes as a result of poor project planning and estimation. Driven by a strong desire to provide more, you may often end up with less, and may even result in missed deadlines. Biting off more than you can chew can ruin your reputation and reduce profitability. For these reasons it is essential to make an accurate estimate for every single project. By doing so clients will gain trust in your work and on a personal level reduce the amount of work-induced stress.

Accurate workload planning requires more than setting deadlines—it depends on understanding how time is actually spent across the team. Without real visibility into work patterns, even the best schedules can fall short. A real-time clock in and out app can provide that clarity, helping teams monitor hours worked, identify inefficiencies, and improve project estimations based on actual performance data.

When preparing a work schedule a good rule of thumb is to allot more time than necessary for a project’s completion. If possible, negotiate a bonus for early  completion. This way, you’ll protect yourself from penalties for late delivery, and on the plus side may even result in extra profitability.

Potential aide: Teamgate

Keeping your workload, your schedule and employees in harmony will be easier if you use a proper Sales CRM tool. This is where Teamgate comes to the fore. The Teamgate web based Sales CRM is a full sales process software product which can greatly assist you in organising your teams, and allow you to follow their contributions on every stage of a project. Moreover, this Sales CRM solution will assist in sourcing and organising your leads. It will also provide you with easy to read stat’s and analytics from which you have the ability to make comparisons between sales goals and actual current results.

3. Aim at a higher income

When you’re just starting out, a person is usually happy with the fact that they’ve managed to land a job. Nevertheless, if you want to intensify that feeling of contentment, aiming at a higher income is a must. While this goal might be more easily reached by freelancers, company and SMB-workers shouldn’t give up.

As advised by the experts from Forbes you should ask for a raise at the right moment. Salary budgets are usually set in advance making it vitally important to accurately judge that right moment. Sometimes that right moment may be just after the successful completion of a major project. An honest conversation with your boss is also sometimes recommended and may bring produce dividends – but, it may also do the opposite, remember to judge the situation well. Never overdo your salary requests – once a year is enough. And most importantly, never ask for more than you are realistically worth to a company.

Freelancers, as a golden rule, should never increase rates mid-project. 

It stands to reason that by making more money and working less, you’ll manage to reach a balance between work pressure and leisure more easily. But that’s only if money is really an important part of the equation.

Potential aide: Mint

In order to curb expenditure and make savings on your budget, perhaps you could do with a little extra help. In the recent past Mint has become one of the most appreciated apps for just that purpose. Simply connect this app with your business or personal accounts and let it track how and where you spend your money. Its functionality depends on your preferences. For example, you can add or exclude some of your assets to the equation allowing for more concise results. It can also provide you with regular reports on your expenses, as well as launch alerts if your accounts run too close to red.

4. Team up with other people

Personally, I know many freelancers who are very headstrong individuals and don’t like to share their work with others. However, successful workers – both freelance and company employees – can often work well under much pressure. Their clients and bosses know how much they can rely on such workers, so in turn their assign load gets bumped up. Be extremely careful when accepting extra projects.

It is vital to ensure that you avoid burnout at work. Taking on too much responsibility will quickly take its tole on both mind and body, often with disastrous results. In order to displace some of the load from your shoulders learn to team up and accept the benefits it may bring. In addition, outsourcing is now more affordable and more available than ever before. Through shrewd outsourcing or delegating some of your workload to other colleagues, or freelancers, you’ll free up more time and notice the benefits almost immediately.

Combine pressure and leisure team up

Not only will these benefits contribute to the improvement of your personal life, they will also make a healthy contribution to your productivity at work. CNN’s Brigit Schulte brings us a very imformative piece on the benefits of leisure, as linked to increased productivity.

5. Make technology work for you

In the 1930s, John Maynard Keynes hypothetically predicted that by the year 2030 people would work a mere 15 hours per week. This is the goal (however possible) every modern worker should strive for. Technology can be of great assistance in attempting to achieve that objective. One small example is to turn your tablet or smartphone into your mobile office or workspace.

Thankfully, it is now possible to rely on a wide range of online business tools to ease your work load, tools such as; Google’s G Suite, Microsoft’s Office 365 and many others. They potentially free you up to perform even more productive tasks while on the go, and allow you to collaborate more easily in real time with co-workers.

In addition, modern workers can now utilise the flexibility of numerous software solutions via the cloud, saving you money, and a lot of time. In return, the surplus of these two resources can be redirected and used as your leisure fuel.

Potential aide: Dropbox

An increased number of online businesses requires online storage tools. Dropbox is one of the most popular and reliable such solutions. From 2.5 GB of free storage space to 100 GB that costs as little as $100 a year, you and your employees can store and keep track of a wide range of files, folders and multimedia material on this virtual hard drive. In addition this facility allows you access to this stored data offline when marked while online.

combine pressure and leisure technology work for you

6. Schedule your free-time routines

It’s often much easier to juggle your work and social life when you schedule your routine in advance. It may be more beneficial to schedule with business affairs in the first instance allowing you to be aware of available time to spend on your personal life. Even if you happen to be a freelancer, it usually proves counterproductive to be available to your clients at all times. Choose the time of day when you feel most productive and stick to this arrangement.

Likewise, your free-time routines should also take place at a particular time of day. For instance, if you like jogging try to create a daily routine which becomes so embedded in your schedule to be virtually impossible to erase.

By implementing a well-planned scheduled your family, friends and work colleagues will come to recognise when they can count on you, and your time. Creating a well-refined balance between all of these factors will go a long way towards ensuring a higher level of satisfaction and productivity, both at work and at home.

Potential aide: Wunderlist

A borderline case between a business app and a free-time tool, Wunderlist can be employed to help manage either, or both spheres of your life. On the one hand it can remind you of upcoming or important business tasks. Alternatively, or in addition it can be populated with all of your various leisure and family activities. It’s also possible to add your business partners, friends, or family members to your events allowing you to share your experiences. However, in our opinion, Wunderlist appears to be slightly more practical for use with personal and family affairs due to the sheer volume of business specific apps available on the market.

7. Work harder on your social life

Business success and determination should by no means exclude the existence, or importance of having a social life. In fact, improving your social skills can be greatly beneficial in improving your business efficiency. Never forget, it’s equally important to leave work and grab a cup of coffee with family or friends from time to time. It’s widely known that spending time with our loved ones improves the condition and wellness of both our mind and body.

Pressure is good for nobody, in fact the opposite is true, and needs to be unleashed when possible. Any down-time you can introduce into your life will provide your brain with new information and new stimulation about the world and people around you. As the saying goes, a healthy body is a healthy mind.

Potential aide: your friends 😉 

Managing business and free time can become a real nuisance for modern workers. Exposed to dozens of challenges, expectations, and stimuli we can easily get carried away from our goals. However, reaching success in business on account of your private life won’t bring long-lasting harmony. Therefore, take your life in your own hands and make sure you find at least some time for leisure and recreation. We hope our tips and advice will help you get there faster than you’ve expected, happy, healthy, and productive.

Workplace and happiness – two words that don’t always go together. Most employees find their workplace stressful, dull and boring, especially if they are working in sales and need to be constantly on the phones… What if there was a way to change that? Would you feel better about your job if your employer cared more about your well-being and improved the office environment?

There are many studies that prove the benefits of having happy employees and it just makes sense that a happy employee will want to stay at the company longer. However, many companies cannot afford to invest in time trying to improve office culture and happiness. You might argue that small companies cannot afford it. In fact, big companies can be even more ignorant and try to cut costs on everything possible like making their staff work in buildings with no windows, buying them the cheapest tea possible and not paying for any overtime (true story but we won’t be pointing fingers).

We were happy to team up with a real office genie, Lilli Hender, and share some insights about workplace wellness. To be honest, we were surprised and shocked with some of her findings…but let’s start with some basic, eye-opening facts.

Lilli conducted a study aiming to measure job satisfaction and primary factors affecting happiness at work. While nearly half (48%) of the respondents are quite happy, it is concerning that 35% of employees feel ambivalent or unhappy at work. Given that we spend half of the day at work, employers should be concerned about making the working space as positive as possible. If you haven’t thought about it yet, here are some tested points to implement at your workplace to improve employee satisfaction:

  • Flexi-hours. Flexible hours do not always mean working from home. It also includes working remotely, abroad or in a coffee shop. Sometimes you have a doctor’s or bank appointment (that are only working during most people’s working hours) which can disturb your working day. Sometimes you just need to refresh your brain and a change of scenery to keep motivated and creative.
  • I think what shocked us the most is that 60% of women are still going to work even if they are ill rather than taking a day off. Now that doesn’t really help anyone; the woman who is ill doesn’t get enough rest to recover as she is scared to be behind with work. Also, other team members might get ill as a result of someone else being ill at the office. The problem is that employers need to be very clear and honest about their employees’ health and let them know that it’s ok to take a day off and get some rest.

How to Avoid Burnouts and Be Happy at Work

  • What’s more, a huge 78% of employees believe that working from home would improve their happiness. Companies cannot ignore the fact that a desire for flexible working hours would be beneficial to employee’s productivity and overall well-being. If you want to know more about this topic, we recommend watching Jason Fried’s talk, which raises a question whether working in the office limits our productivity (you’ll be very surprised with his findings)

  • Working environment. We hear about “workplace culture” a lot these days, however, it is still not openly discussed within the companies. “Workplaces function like ecosystems” – says Lilli, “everything from the dress code to the layout of the space makes difference in happiness”. Open-plan offices is a growing trend as companies think people feel happier and more productive if they all work in one space…except they don’t. In fact, open plan offices have the least happy employees – they prefer working in smaller separate rooms. Same with a dress code – it’s no surprise that no dress code has a positive impact on employees happiness. With these facts in mind, the companies should discuss these points with their employees and try to adjust to their wishes instead of dictating to them. We have a good article on creating a positive working environment, if you want to dig into this deeper.

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  • After-work activities. If you shudder with horror every time you hear the words “team building”, your company is not doing it right. There are many ways to foster team development without going out of the office or spending a fortune on activities. We are not talking about office scavenger hunts, “truth or dare” or other outdated office games – we all hate it. Why not take a break and have a coffee together? Or have lunch at a local restaurant to celebrate the last Friday this week? It doesn’t have to be obligatory if people have plans but everyone should feel invited and welcome to join. You can even set up a virtual poll and let employees decide on Friday activity at the office. As an example, we at Teamgate celebrated the Neighbour’s Day by having a bbq grill by the river. Needless to say, it was a success.

Teamgate celebrating neighbours day

  • Wellbeing schemes. It is important to understand the underlying roots of unhappiness at work. Lilli points out that feeling overworked is the biggest source of stress (47%) therefore, companies should be looking at ways to support their staff. It is worth mentioning that more and more companies in the UK are starting to adopt wellbeing programmes and employees see such initiatives to be a good way of tackling stress. For example, providing access to nutritious snacks and healthy drink options is one way to keep energy levels up. However, there is no one fits all programme to suit all the companies. This is why it is worth researching your team’s needs, demographics and age before adopting a wellbeing scheme.
  • Incentives. Many companies think that a pay rise and bonuses increase employees’ motivation and happiness. Well, they are completely right and the facts speak for themselves – “pay is clearly a driving factor when it comes to workplace happiness: 67% say a pay rise would improve their workplace happiness” – says Lilli. What’s more, 41% claim pay to be “the most valuable element in their working life”. The simple truth is – companies who secure a pay rise and bonuses are more likely to sustain their employees.

A happy medium

Take a note of the above facts and give it a little thought. It is clear that companies still have some work to do to improve their workplaces. What we’ve learnt here at Teamgate is that putting team’s needs is a priority in order to make sure everyday is “a good day” in the office. We are a long way from being perfect but we are constantly learning and improving. We try to maintain a healthy and positive relationship within the team and achieve a great office atmosphere. Every company should understand that investing in your employees will bring long-term benefits. It will take some time to show results but if you are making wellbeing a part of your company’s culture, it will eventually make a difference now and in the future.

 

Lilli is an English Literature graduate. Before she joined Office Genie, she was an intern for  Aesthetica Magazine and the BBC. You can contact Lilli through her Twitter or LinkedIn.