P R A C T I C E P E R S P E C T I V E S MOVING YOUR FIRM FORWARD
Four Ways to Make Remote Business Development Work Digital business development has its challenges, but these four tips will help you effectively attract new clients while working from home.
Art Kuesel President, Kuesel Consulting
Remote work has a lot of benefits: greater flexibility, no commute, and more time with family and pets. But if you’re planning to stay remote, you have to think about how business development will change when it’s purely digital.
art@kueselconsulting.com
As a CPA, you have some responsibility for business development, no matter your position or firm. At the very least, you’re responsible for client service and satisfaction—core components of business development. You remain responsible for business development even if you’re working from home, and business development can be done effectively in a remote environment. Like many aspects of work-from-home versus in-office, business development has pros and cons in either setting. Let’s explore how to make remote business development work for you. Here are four of the biggest challenges of remote business development, as well as tricks to overcome them: 1. Developing rapport: Rapport is often defined as “mutual understanding” and it requires connectivity to uncover commonalities. To set yourself up for success, do your research in advance—digging into the available information about the person you’re meeting with can reveal topics or interests you have in common. On video calls, scan the virtual environment of your client (subtly!) for clues, like sports teams’ logos or family pictures, that can open the ground for rapport-building. In a virtual world, you’re going to have to work a little harder to uncover the commonalities with your clients and other stakeholders that are the building blocks of a relationship. 2. Earning trust: Trust is earned through repeated positive interactions. Without the touchstones of in-person meetings, plan extra virtual interactions to demonstrate that you’re working on the relationship, being proactive, and doing what you say you will. These can range from check-in videoconferences to update emails. The other factor in earning trust doesn’t change from the office to remote work: You have to do great work. With strong communication skills and high standards for yourself, you can build trust with clients in a virtual environment. 3. Determining needs, wants, pains, and fears: In a virtual environment, it can be hard to get clients to open up about the problems they’re facing, making it extremely difficult to 32
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