As teams work remotely, business owners increasingly rely on strategic advisors with access to up-to-date, data-driven insights to help them make informed business decisions quickly. Business owners no longer have the luxury of waiting for the data they need to be compiled, organized, or interpreted. They need reliable and timely information to plan for a very quickly-moving future, or to react to the seemingly constant shifts in the market.
As strategic advisors, our clients must be able to rely on us to get them the information they need, right when they need it, and it’s critical that they are able to interact with us when they want and in the format that they prefer.
Traditional client interactions that used to take place on the golf course, tennis court or across a fancy dinner table are, for the time being, on lockdown. Virtual meetings, audits, and advisory services are here to stay, and we need to operate with speed and agility to ensure that clients receive the support they need, from a reliable digital system that works every time.
A lot of time has passed since March 2020 when teams first went remote. The tolerance for connectivity issues or joining a call audio-only to hide the fact that you just hopped off the treadmill into a meeting has waned. Now, our clients expect a new type of interaction. They expect these meetings to be timely, with no technical glitches, and expect you to be prepared and armed with the right data to provide valuable strategic advice.
To accomplish this, you need tech. You need a conferencing system that works every single time. You need cloud-based access to innovative accounting tools and your client’s financial data. Once you have the right tech in place, you are poised to harness the incredible opportunities that this unexpected shift has had on our industry.
These opportunities include the ability for business owners and you, their advisor, to interact on a much more human level, and from a much more informed starting point. When business discussions are fuelled by the type of data-driven insights and metrics available through use of innovative financial technologies, the client/advisor relationship strengthens, as both parties become able to collaborate and build strategic plans based on the same data, relying on an accurate and up-to-date single source of truth.
Keep an eye out for our next post in the series that will examine the concept of our new role as strategic advisors, and the difference between providing your clients with service-based support and value-based support, with tech making it possible.
