The Heart and Soul of Mission Control – Working from Home

Juno puts her heart and soul into everything she does. That’s the abiding theme that came through in the interview with Juno. Juno has the personality of a beautiful free spirit, and at the same time, she understands the benefit of systems and routine. At first glance, being a creative, free spirit and being devoted to continual improvement may seem contradictory, however, Juno shows us that it is possible to embody both concepts. Evidence can be seen in Juno’s home office, which has the functionality and organization of mission control, and at the same time, the soothing calmness of a spa retreat.

Here’s the interview:

Q. What are some of the ways that you make working from home work?

A. My office is in the back of the house, away from everything else. I have clocks in all four time zones above my head. It has a door that I can close and a beautiful window that I can look out of. I have two large computer monitors. I have an hour glass timer so I can time myself without it making any noise.

I want the vibe of my home office space to feel like me. I try to make it as beautiful and interesting as I can. I love my office. I have essentials oils going. I have a large, live plant by the window. It feels pretty and comfortable, has good energy and a positive feel.

Q. How long have you worked from home and how long have you worked with TeleReach Corporate?

A. I’ve worked with TeleReach for over four years. I moved from California to Georgia with my husband’s work. When I moved across country to a new state, my business connections were in California, so I was starting from scratch. That’s when I started looking for remote work and found TeleReach. I remember I went through Rat Race Rebellion because I liked the fact that they vetted the companies they put on their site. I didn’t have a background in cold calling but I had worked in the newspaper industry and I was used to talking to CEOs and people in general, so I decided to take a chance and apply anyway, and you guys decided to take a chance on me.

Q. What type of work were you doing before you joined our company?

A. When I lived in California I worked in digital marketing and with social media. I was driving to work, but I was also driving around a lot to do interviews and stories outside of the office. I was behind a camera and writing the stories and involved in all the different aspects of digital marketing. I loved the creativity and creating the stories. I like being behind the scenes because I’m pretty much of an introvert. With TeleReach, I can be behind the scenes but I still have that variety and interaction with people and the different types of the clients we have. It’s interesting to me. It keeps it different.

Q. What kinds of solutions have working from home in your new career provided?

A. Pets. We have two dogs that are older and it’s good for me to be home with them during the day. I get a break and they get a break when we can take a walk and get some fresh air.

Savings. We don’t have a need for an extra car anymore, so that is a big savings, and now with COVID, I go out even less.

Boundaries. With some of the jobs I’ve had in the past, because the work could be done at any time of the day or night, I found myself falling into a workaholic trap, kind of just working around the clock. With TeleReach, I can’t do that anymore because you can only make calls when businesses are open, so there’s more of a defined stop and start time.

Portable reliability. If there was an emergency in my family or if I wanted to visit my grandmother in another state, I could literally take my job with me and continue to work. I can have flexibility but still have a job. I wanted a job so that no matter what happened in my life, I would have something I could rely on. When I was in the hospital last year, it allowed me to take the time off to be in the hospital and have a job when I came back. I was also able to ramp up slowly until I was eventually able to get back into my full routine again. My mind wanted to work but my body wasn’t ready, so I was glad the job allowed me to baby step back into full swing.

Entrepreneurs. With TeleReach, it’s loose in one way but there’s also a built-in structure. We’re provided the CRM, the systems are in place to make your calls, you don’t have to hunt down clients or scripts or come up with any of the business platform items. You can put your talent to work right away and not have to worry about how you’re going to do it, so if you are wanting to be more of an entrepreneur, you can dive in without worrying about creating the structure for it. In a sense, as contractors, we are all entrepreneur’s and TeleReach is our client. I like having that system without having to create all of the other part.

Q. What advice do you have for people thinking of changing careers to cold calling or to working from home?

A. Commit to the long game. In order to be successful, you have to commit to it for a while because there is a pretty long learning curve. That growth period is really important, and if you can stick with it, it eventually explodes. You’re building a pipeline that actually becomes a foundation for something amazing. Having the commitment to stick with it during that learning curve is necessary to allow that to happen. Prospects use me as their tickler file, and if they ask me to call back every three months, I do. They get to know me and I set a lot of appointments that way by building relationships. They know me and they take my call. I’m always very respectful of that.

Discipline. You have to be self-disciplined enough to block out your hours. If you don’t plan, it’s easy to lose track of your goals. It’s really all on you and how you decide you want to work the job. You can do as much or as little as you want to commit to.

Team Vibe. It’s a different vibe here, and like working with friends and family. We all get to know each other. If you want to reach out and ask questions you can always find somebody to help and cheer you on. We have a team environment, and not an environment where you feel it’s very regimented and you feel barked at.

Telemarketing. I am a connection maker, not a telemarketer. The last thing I want to sound like is a typical telemarketer. It’s just not in me to try to hard sell somebody or sound like a robot. That’s not me. What we’re doing is just making an appointment, not a sale. We’re helping to establish a connection. Even when I get a ‘not interested,’ it’s usually a legit not interested. It’s because it’s not a good fit, but I don’t get a lot of rude people.

The negatives to me are second guessing myself and getting in my own head too much. To me the way to get past that is to talk to somebody who can be real with me, who can coach me into finding strategies that are useful and practical and not just a rah rah, yay yay about how my dials are going to pay off. I like having that support as a kind of touchstone when I start feeling like I don’t have my own measuring stick anymore.

Connection makers. We all know people who can walk into a room of people they don’t know at all and instead of seeing them as total strangers, they see them as friends they have yet to meet. My brother is like that. He has a gift. Going to a restaurant with my brother is generally an adventure in making new friends. I can’t tell you how many long, unusual and sometimes fascinating conversations we’ve had with total strangers. The experience is way too magical and mystical for me to understand, so what I do is, I just go with it.

Juno’s cold calls are the telephone counterpart to going to a restaurant with my brother, an adventure in making new friends. She has some type of magical ability to connect with total strangers over the phone. I don’t have to understand it to know that she has a gift.