Competitive Advantage:COMMANDOES MOBILIZE Online Training, Virtual Team Training, Workshops, Flexible Work: How to Get a YES to Your RequestResource!!!!!!!! Video/Weblink

"Business as usual no longer involves working in a traditional workplace at set hours. Today's workforce is more mobile than ever, and every day more people are working from virtual offices, client sites, home offices, coffee shops, airports, hotels, and any number of remote workplaces. Even if it’s not your own teams that are dispersed you are likely working with clients, vendors, consultants, and outsourced departments who are distributed.

Companies that take an ad-hoc approach to this work-style will struggle, while those with a strategic, planned approach will reap the benefit and flexibility of distributed work."

Phil Montero on Cisco's Bizwise TV
"How to Mobilize Your Workforce"

Flexible Work: How to Get a YES to Your Request

My bookshelf holds a communications skills reference that, since 1995, I've used over and over in gearing up for a crucial conversation.
It’s called, Communicate with Confidence! How to Say It Right the First Time and Every Time.

In one chapter, Winning People Over to Your Way of Thinking: Being Persuasive, author Dianna Booher offers this on-target tip to apply to your flexible work negotiating efforts:

Show Passion. If you're not sold on your own idea—sold enough to...

• find and organize the facts you need,
• develop the strategy to suit your audience,
• prepare the presentation,
• energize your body,
• select the perfect phrasing,
• anticipate and prepare for objections

—then the decision makers never will be. (Bold emphasis mine.)

In one sentence, she has captured the steps it takes to get a YES to your flexible work proposal.
The elements she lists are a direct reflection of what is dished up in my Flexible Work Proposal Packages, and I'm convinced that's why so many of its users get their manager's approval of the work arrangement they want.

Careful Preparation Has Big Pay-offs

But the point to embrace is, careful preparation has big pay-offs! Without it, don't expect a positive result. You may have heard this alliteration before:

Proper planning prevents poor performance.

Here's another pearl of wisdom from A Woman's Guide to Successful Negotiating, by Lee E. Miller and Jessica Miller:

The more prepared you are, the more convincing you will be.

Move Quickly, But Not Without Planning

If you're like many WorkOptions visitors, you're at the edge of a thin margin and want a new flexible work schedule now for immediate life-balance relief.
Move quickly if you must, but please heed the advice to carefully plan and prepare to get the YES that you want.
Note: The two books mentioned above are still in print and available; check your favorite online bookstore.
Convinced about preparation? Read about my Proposal Packages, the preferred preparation tool of choice for professionals who plan to ask for flexible work.

Take your pick of flexible work proposals: Telecommuting, Compressed Workweek, Part-time or Job Sharing.