As companies have transitioned to remote work and virtual meetings during the pandemic, one common piece of wisdom has emerged: It’s much easier to transition an existing relationship to video than it is to create new ones. That’s especially true in B2B sales. Many companies have coped with this by using this time to deepen relationships with existing customers. However, sales teams should not give up on finding new customers during this period, too. This article offers tips on how to do that.

o plan for a post-pandemic world, businesses must understand what your stakeholders’ behaviors will look like after the pandemic. Some behaviors will return to their pre-crisis state; others will be transformed; and others will disappear entirely. Drawing on research into habit formation, technology adoption and behavioral economics, the authors offer a framework to help companies make reasonable predictions on what happens next.

While virtual communication platforms help keep remote teams connected, they’re not always the ideal venue for delivering engaging presentations. It’s difficult (or impossible) to read your audience’s nonverbal cues over video and audio — if you’ve lost them, you might not even realize it. You’re also up against the many distractions inherent to working from home. Delivering effective presentations over video requires a little extra preparation. Ask a few people you trust to help you out before and after the meeting by being ready to participate when called on and by giving you actionable feedback afterward. Learn about your audience in advance and build in a short, relevant personal story that will make them feel included. Above all, be concise and clear.

While work will likely never go back to our pre-pandemic status quo, the future will be a blended one that leverages the best of what both virtual and face-to-face experiences can offer. The authors argue that collaboration, innovation, acculturation, and dedication are difficult to replicate virtually and sustain without some face-to-face interaction. But to design in person environments that will be successful in the future, they say, you must create an immersive experience that incorporates elements like purposeful focus, interpersonal bonding, deep learning, unencumbered experimentation, and structured serendipity. While our blended future is still distant, companies will need to start considering what warrants face-to-face interaction and how to make the most of those precious opportunities.

As we head into the second wave of Covid-19, you and your team may be feeling foggy, cranky, and fatigued. What should you do when assurances that “we’re all in it together” are met with skepticism and annoyance, and when you’d rather snuggle up in bed instead of strategize for the future? Leaders should focus on three areas: understanding the difference between urgency and importance, and focus on the latter; be compassionate while also driving your employees to action by channeling their feelings of defiance, anger, and frustration. Finally, change things up every single day with a focus on energizing your team.

Much has been written about the benefits of collaboration — but what can you do if you’re not sure how to convince a potential partner to work with you? In this piece, the author describes six types of “collaboration capital” that you can bring to the table to get your would-be collaborator on board: Sweat equity, subject matter knowledge, process knowledge, connections, access to funding, and image. Understanding (and clearly communicating) your own collaboration capital is key to winning over a colleague and launching a successful collaboration.

As we begin to emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic, hiring data is highlighting a growing demand for individuals with a more unusual or heterogeneous talent profile, such that they combine soft and hard skills hitherto not found in the same individual. If you are a Jack-of-all-trades, you can now expect to be in-demand, so long as you find a niche to apply your different skills and interests. Even if you as an individual haven’t mastered the art of developing a multi-skilled and interdisciplinary talent profile, you do have choices. The most important is to avoid putting all your eggs in one basket. Instead, broaden your career horizons to expand your self-concept, reimagine your potential in the most wide-ranging and diversified way, and be open to unusual choices. There has never been a better time to keep your options open.

Talking to yourself with self-compassion will help you deal with a raft of challenging situations, including those you experience personally and those you need to help your employees or kids through. To use it effectively, follow these practices to build specific, personalized habits of self-compassionate talk: give yourself a gentle and supportive nudge by asking yourself what you need in the moment; use irreverence to challenge your beliefs; reframe a trait or tendency to take a more balanced view; identify your patterns of self-sabotage; borrow language from friends, quotes, or proverbs; and write scripts for common scenarios.

It’s normal for people to have different communication styles, but working with someone who lacks warmth or tends to be blunt can spark feelings of anxiety. Instead of spending time and energy worrying about what a colleague’s abrupt communication says about you, try out a few strategies that might improve your collaboration. First, understand what makes you uneasy and remember not to take it personally. Then try to gauge whether or not they’re willing and able to adjust how they communicate with you. Keep in mind that you have to be willing to compromise, too, and that you should resist the urge to gossip. These techniques can prevent you from distancing yourself from a colleague who has other important strengths.

Charities serve others, and often at scale. But they do more than just deliver on their noble and needed missions. In the U.S., non-profits represent the third largest workforce. That’s why it’s crucial for charities to beat the Covid-slump. Richard C. Shadyac Jr., the president and chief executive officer of ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, offers five tactics for staying afloat during difficult times. His conclusion?There is no way to survive alone. Charities need to reach out to corporate partners, new young donors, and others- urgently.

Overcoming distrust of vaccines is a major obstacle to persuading enough people to get vaccinated to achieve herd immunity. Employers, working in concert with federal and state health agencies, can help tackle this problem. To do so, they should tailor their campaigns to local communities. Here is a five-part plan for doing that. It includes: understand your population and focus on inequities, tailor messages and channels to local needs, educate and be transparent, leverage data and analytics, address hurdles and incentivize positive behavior.

What does it take to cut through COVID-19 fatigue? Governments may need to refine how they convey exposure risks to a weary public, says research by Michael Luca and Edward Glaeser.