First up, its a pleasure to have you with us here at VBL. I skipped over to your site and it seems you guys are really active. Good job!

Yes, the PM idea is one I have heard about from other entrepreneurs that utilize virtual staff. Having one person unite them together regularly and work towards goals, etc. The funny thing is that I didnt even realize I had a PM myself until recently – its my PA, Stephanie! She liaises with many different virtual workers that we work with and have on board for various reasons and it just felt ‘normal’!

Thank you for your excellent comment and please be sure to come back often and get involved as much as you can.

Regards,
Chris

Great site and great topic. My perspective is that of a VA and President of two virtual companies. My company Entrepreneur’s Entourage builds virtual teams for clients. We work (at the moment) exclusively w US team members so we are not really challenged by time zone issues or language barriers.

We run our projects under the direction of a Project Manager who is accountable to the client and is responsible for adhering to timelines and deliverables. This definitely takes the headaches out of getting the team to “gel.” In our model, each member has been vetted and is responsible for their own layer of work. PM keeps people and project on task.

I love the commentary from Phil, those 3 points are certainly key to a successful project and am glad to hear such great support from everyone on your blog about the value of our industry!

Great post!
Emily

Looking forward to it already, mate.

Chat soon!

Chris

So glad you liked me feedback even if it was a bit long. I’d be delighted to do another guest post on the topic of virtual teams!

Thanks for the invite – I’ll connect with you soon so we can discuss it further.

Keep on firing it up!
Phil

You bring up a really good, incredibly important point in regards to connecting as a company – a group of collective talent.

I’d like to throw the gauntlet down here, and ask for you to do another Guest Post (although this comment is as good as one anyway!) for the blog, following on from this one, on the same topic. I think you have a lot to give the readers and would love it if you accept. Please let me know.

Thanks again for such an insightful comment.

Best,
Chris

Best,
Chris

You’ve made a good point here, in regards to being spread out and keeping that ‘team spirit’ burning and growing.

I’ve been lucky in most of my virtual staff have been in the same country, here in the Philippines. A while back we all got together at a beach resort here in Cebu and spent the weekend hanging out, snorkeling, BBQing, drinking, etc – it was a great team building exercise and one that I actually do two or three times a year with my brick and mortor company employees, too – although on a MUCH bigger scale (we have one coming up on July 4th!).

Matt commented earlier on that he does similar things with his virtual team members as well.

Anyone else got any case studies or ideas for Phil…?

Thanks for the comment, buddy and ‘welcome’.

Chris

Great post as always my friend and I love the conversation taking place in the comments here! As you know virtual teamwork is near and dear to my heart.

Firstly let me say that I agree that virtual teams can be as, if not more effective, than co-located teams if they are managed/lead properly.

Certainly there are challenges – but in many cases it is small shifts or adjustment that are needed to be successful. I’d like to share a few key points I teach in my workshop “The Art of Virtual Leadership”:

1 – COMMUNICATION: You, Eric, and Matt all hit the nail on the head. Communication is absolutely THE key. The most common stumbling block I find in the companies I consult with comes down to communication issues.

One of my suggestions is to “communicate about how you are going to communicate”. Sounds silly I know but very few teams do this. You will find different people have different preferred forms of communication (IM, Phone, Email, Skype). Setting up simple communication guidelines that you discuss with the team goes a long way toward preventing these issues. Especially expected turnaround time for different communication methods (ie. email by end of the day, voice mail within 2 hours, etc). This makes sure everyone has a shared expectation and is on the same page.

2 – ACCOUNTABILITY. Having clearly defined measurable objectives prevents you from having to “keep on eye” on team members all the time. As you suggested tying compensation, bonuses, or other incentives to performance helps. There should be no need to micro-manage. If need be scheduling weekly calls or chats helps as well as having some type of shared tasks lists to keep tabs on project milestones and progress.

3 – KNOW, LIKE, AND TRUST. Matt and Phil both touched on this in their comments. The teams that are most successful are the ones who connect and get to know each other. People don’t work for companies, they work for people they know, like, and trust. Informal communication happens organically when people are co-located but need to be a bit more pre-meditated when working virtually.

If you can bring everyone together face-to-face then great! Unfortunately that is not always an option. Social media can be a great tool – maybe setting up a private Facebook group or using something like Twitter or Yammer (private twitter for businesses) to help people interact and share. I also love Tokbox (http://www.tokbox.com) which support free group video conferencing with up to 20 people. You can setup a virtual happy hour or some other regular way for people to get together and connect.

There are also simple team building exercises you can do that take very little time and help everyone get to know each other. Many can be done using a discussion board or other asynchronous collaboration tool so time difference won’t matter.

The main thing is to consciously think about how you can promote or encourage informal communication and help people learn more about each other in non-work related ways. Share photos, bios, hobbies, and other personal information.

This helps a lot with the accountability/trust issues as well as once people “know, like, and trust” each other they will naturally be more accountable as the connection is greater.

With a little planning and some strategy you’re virtual team can thrive and be super productive!

I hope some of those tips help – and by the way love the new video at the top of the blog promoting the eBook!

Thanks for taking the time to share your experience and wisdom in all these great blog posts – keep up the great work!

Phil

Great timing on this piece.

I’ve been thinking about this for quite some time. I work in a relatively virtual company. The biggest challenge had always been in finding that camaraderie and esprit de cour. Something I’ve found lacking in many virtual work environments.

What suggestions do you have to build this within a virtual team/company?

Much Success,
Phil

Again, let me know if you need help and advice along the way…

I believe that I have a very positive and inspiring message, and I want to share it with the world.

I want to start my own digital empire from my blog, and in the long run, I need VAs to help me with that ,)

Excellent news, bud!

Thanks for signing up – hope you enjoy the eBook and it proves to be helpful.

Keep us all updated on how your first VA experience goes, okay!

Welcome to the VBL Blog!!!

Chris

Good article. I just joined your mailing list to get your VA ebook! I’m thinking about getting my first VA this week and can use the advice you have to offer. Thanks!

Peace,
Darren L Carter

Welcome to the blog, and thanks for your first comment – highly appreciated.

I must say that your comment is nothing short of AWESOME. And extremely inspiring. Good job to you all for getting a system like that in place. Very impressive.

When you’re ready and dont mind giving out some of the secrets that you obviously put into play to set this up, I’d love to sit down and interview you for the blogs Podcast, so everyone can learn and be motivated by what youve achieved.

Just drop me a comment to let me know youre cool with it, and we’;ll set it up.

Thanks again for dropping by, bud.

Chris

Thank you for gracing the blog with your presence, young Infopreneur!

Thanks also for the kind words on the design, branding, etc.

I look forward to plenty more cool comments (which just as much admiration, of course!) in the future.

Chris

PS. Brandon has just taken over TheInfoPreneur blog from James Richmond, so please do shoot over and show your support.

No problems on the offer, thats what its all about – helping EVERYONE achieve their goals and dreams. Looking forward to meeting you when you eventually do get to be here in the Philippines, whenever that may be.

Great LinkedIn profile, by the way, too. I recently did a post on LinkedIn.

Chris

Now we have an office in Chiang Mai, Thailand and despite living 10 minutes from the office, I’ve been working mainly from home for a few months. We are so efficient working remotely that it becomes a distraction going to the office. Instead of recruiting only locally we are now recruiting globally and could care less where our team members are from.

That being said, I also think that meeting face-to-face is extremely important to build your company’s culture and to foster team spirit and unity among all of our team members.

We are planning to fly everyone down to our office twice or three times a year for about 7 days each time. Everyone will participate into a group sprint where we work our butts off for 7 days to hack an important feature. We plan on going to eat all together, go to the movies together and all stay in the same resort/hotel, etc.

It’s a totally new approach to team and culture building, it’s all very exciting! So far our people are much more productive and happy. The challenge will be to see if we can scale this and maintain this approach as we grow the company.

Great stuff Chris, keep it coming

Couple things to say:

1) Your site looks GREAT.
2) I love your branding with the free ebook and the super man type logo
3) and the Video intro in the upper right corner rocks.

I’ll definitely be stopping back. Adding to my reader right now. PS. I’ll be in touch in the next day or two. Talk soon.

Brandon

And thanks for your generous offer of assistance on the job search. I’m looking for senior IT/BPO type work – I’m a 25 year IT professional. If you’re interested you can see my acronym collection at http://linkedin.com/in/mikestankavich.

I have some US based financial obligations that currently prevent me from just moving to the Philippines and bootstrapping it on a shoestring, hence the search for expat gigs, hopefully with expat type salaries I can handle the relocation costs, but I can’t meet my existing obligations on a native salary.

You make some REALLY good points here.

I dont even have to start WORKING with VAs to get a feel for the type of people they are and how they perform for their clients. Absolutely, get your feet wet, Mars, and talk, email and converse to see how things feel, etc.

Thanks for the comment, Tony!

Chris

I have a few freelancers and VAs that I have in my contacts that are always open to take a project off my hands. They may not be my full-time VAs but its a start.