After the Pandemic – Working Remotely First in a Series on Planning for the New Normal We have been thinking a lot about life after the Pandemic and the reality of the new normal.  One thing that keeps surfacing is working remotely.  For instance, a recent post by famed CRM provider Salesforce stated, “The 9-5 workday is dead.”  Office buildings will no longer house the thousands of workers once important to maintaining operations.  Salesforce categorized the future of their workers this way: ·          Flex : When it is safe to return to the office, employees around the globe will work flex. This means they will be in the office one to three days per week for team collaboration, customer meetings, and presentations. ·          Fully Remote : For employees who do not live near an office or have roles that don’t require an office, they will work remotely full-time. ·    ...

A news flash just revealed over 2.8 Billion people currently live under some form of travel restriction. Here in Iowa, we are not under the same stringent guidelines as New York or California, but most sensible folks are limiting their exposure to others. Working from home, not traveling unless necessary and certainly curtailing all social interactions. Call it what you may, but for the sake of discussion, let’s say we’re quarantined. The readers of this group are still working; most from home and all working diligently to keep business flowing. But, the logistics of working from home creates extra time. For instance, we have no commute, no need to dress for work (some of you may even be reading this while donned in purple sweatpants) and no errands tied to daily work routines. Since our social life is limited to the spousal unit and maybe kiddos, we’re not required to attend networking events, parties, coach soccer practice or wait in line at our favorite restaurants, we’ve go...

Words like Pandemic, Lock-down, Disrupter, Social Distancing, and Community Transmission wash over us like a tsunami in an ocean of hand sanitizer.   Whole countries are under lockdown.   Tradeshows and other events are going into cancel mode.   States are declaring health emergencies and closing all public gathering places and there are forecasts of even more stringent plans in development. Many of our customers are considering going into emergency mode.   Travel is curtailed, everyone who can do so is telecommuting and business is being conducted in non-traditional ways. As distributors I feel we have two options available to us: 1.       We can stand idly by and simply react to the situation.   2.       We can anticipate the situation, make some plans, and push forward. Anticipating the situation It might be safe to assume the following will accelerate: Increased number of...