How to Make Remote Teams More Effective – with Matt Compton
EPISODE SUMMARY
In this episode, Matt Wolach interviews Matt Compton, CEO, and Co-founder of Filo. It is a virtual platform that helps people collaborate effectively in a remote setting. Compton shares how his organization develops relationships among teams working remotely.
If you’re a new software founder looking to build a remote team or a sales leader wanting to improve your team’s collaboration in a virtual setting, check out this episode’s highlights and some quick tips.
PODCAST-AT-A-GLANCE
Podcast: SaaS-Story in the Making
Episode: Episode No 179, “How to Make Remote Teams More Effective – with Matt Compton”
Host: Matt Wolach, a B2B SaaS sales coach, Entrepreneur, and Investor
Guest: CEO and Co-founder of Filo
TOP TIPS FROM THIS EPISODE
How to Develop Better Relationship among Sales Teams Virtually
“Real sales is solving problems,” says Compton. “A lot of our passion is around solving problems.”
To build better relationships, especially among remote sales teams, Compton emphasizes: solve your problems together.
“[Sales] is very much a team sport.”
“First, you have to understand, what is the market you’re going after? What are their problems? How do your solutions fit into those?”
“As an organization of 1,600 people, how do you get everybody understanding all of that in the same way that you can go out with the same message to customers and then be able to sell things?”
According to Compton, it’s about establishing relationships. It’s about learning from your peers. It’s about knowing who to lean on when you have a question, who you go to for support.
“All of that takes an entire team of people, especially at scale.”
With Filo, Compton says all business sizes, from small sales teams to huge organizations, can build relationships remotely and collaborate effectively.
“Sales is all collaboration.”
Move Fast, Be Brave, Expect Victory
Compton has three pieces of advice for new software founders:
First, move fast. There will be many problems you’re going to run into. It can be on the whiteboard all day long, but just get your feet moving, take action, learn quickly, and move forward.
Second, be brave. People fail multiple times, sometimes every single day, but just be brave and get started again, Compton adds.
Third, always expect that you’re going to win. There will always be risks. If you fall on your face, pick yourself up, dust it off, learn from it, and move on.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
Resilience Is Key to Grow Amid a Global Pandemic
“How do we build something we can sell a boatload of stuff to some large organizations? How do we take advantage of things in the pandemic?”
At the height of the pandemic in 2020, many companies were severely affected by restrictions and lockdowns. Several businesses had to close down, gatherings were prohibited, and people were ordered to stay indoors. For Compton, it’s all about finding solutions and taking advantage of the situation.
Around April, Compton worked with a B2B SaaS venture studio called High Alpha when they encountered a problem – the team had to cancel a scheduled event due to lockdown. The event was always conducted in person, and industry experts would fly to the venue to run a sprint week until the pandemic happened.
While there are virtual solutions like collaboration platforms, project management software, virtual whiteboards, and communication, something is missing that the team couldn’t consider whether or not they could run the event virtually.
The team spent a week researching and figuring out what was missing with their solutions until they figured it out.
“It comes down to having a structure to engage within, having the visibility,” says Compton.
From being almost canceled, the event became the most successful sprint High Alpha had ever run.
And from there, Filo happened. Around June, the company finally kicked off amid a pandemic. Since then, the organization has been proactively helping teams come together to solve problems remotely.
Finding the Missing Pieces of the Puzzle
When the much-awaited event was on the brink of being postponed, Compton and his team proposed an idea to hold it virtually.
While the team had chat and project management software to make the virtual event possible, it lacked some elements that are only present during physical events, and these are what Compton aimed to solve.
Compton identified the three missing pieces of the puzzle:
First is the structure. Having a system to engage people in makes jobs so much easier, says Compton. There’s a structure when you meet in person – a table, some chairs, a whiteboard, or a couch.
“All of that structure tells us how to engage with one another. But when all that becomes links and meeting invites, all that structure kind of goes away.”
The second is visibility. “Having visibility into all of those [conversations], just being able to look around the room just gives you so much context of the work that’s going on and tells you how to engage.”
The third is the interaction. “You can have just quick eye contact or hand gesture or passing a note to somebody to start a conversation.”
And Compton solved these points, which resulted in the founding of Filo.
“The cool thing about software is it makes these things and expands them so much further than what even exists in the physical world.”
With software, teams can provide real-time visibility of everything that’s happening and visibility of everything that has happened in the past so teams can quickly get caught up.
Through some features Compton and his team are developing now, they will show visibility of what’s coming up in the future.
TOP QUOTES
Matt Compton
[03:45] “We believe travel should be about enjoyment, about building connections, about building relationships with individual people.”
[13:29] “It comes down to having a structure to engage within, having the visibility.”
[16:16] “When you think about what sales is, a lot of our passion is around solving problems. Real sales is just solving problems, right?”
[24:48] “Every company is incredibly different. Every founder is different. Every team is different. So I say if it’s helpful – fantastic. If it’s not, throw it to the side and be you and do your own thing.”
Matt Wolach
[13:14] “There’s a lot of people these days working from home. Now they’ve realized [that] remote works.”
[23:17] “In the early days, if you have an opportunity to get some big deals in the door, you’ve got to take it.”
LEARN MORE
To learn more about Matt Compton and Filo, visit: https://www.filo.co/
You can also find Matt Compton on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/comptonmc/.
For more about how host Matt Wolach helps software companies achieve maximum growth, visit https://mattwolach.com/.
