Earlier in the year, Brick Factory became a 100% remote company.  Chip Griffin from Agency Leadership Advisors recently had me on his podcast to discuss our decision to become a virtual agency.  You can listen to the podcast on his site or via the embed below.  

For those that don’t have thirty minutes to spare for the podcast, here are three key pieces of advice I would give to companies thinking about making the transition from a traditional to virtual workforece:

(1) Give it a dry run first.

As I outlined in my post announcing our decision, our transition to becoming a fully remote company happened gradually.  Over the course of five years we went from a company that was 20% remote to one that was 80% remote.  By the time we went 100% remote, we had already spent years tailoring our workflow to suit the needs of a remote workforce.

(2) Don’t think of it as a cost savings measure.

Obviously renting an office in downtown Washington, DC is an expensive proposition.  And certainly having greater financial flexibility was one of the reasons we made the move.  However for us the financial aspect of the decision was really more about wanting to spend the money on other things (more in person get togethers, a flexible co-working space, etc.) then strictly about saving money.  While not having to pay rent is great, be aware that you’ll likely end up spending money on other things you weren’t before.

(3) Keep your focus on culture.

One of the challenges of being 100% remote is keeping your team connected and together.  We are fortunate in that most of our employees have worked with us for a long time, so we have strong bonds created by years of working together.  However as we make the transition to being 100% remote we are trying to prioritize in person get togethers as a way of keeping our team connected.