How To Keep Business Flowing When You Can't Meet In Person

The world has changed for financial services relationship managers and national accounts professionals since COVID-19. In a business that relies on relationships, it’s much harder to maintain those connections now that in-person meetings are on hold.

In the financial services industry, relationships are forged by formal conversations and informal interactions. Not too long ago, it was common for relationship managers and national account professionals to travel to client home offices or to industry conferences to interact with their accounts. You would spend all week on the road, updating your contacts on product information or engaging them in conversations to better understand their firm’s strategic direction to see where you might be able to assist these efforts. There were also opportunities for casual chats or quick touch bases without needing to set up a formal meeting.

But now, financial services professionals have to do business a whole new way. To understand how they are keeping relationships alive without informal or in-person meetings, I reached out to my network of senior leaders about their national account efforts.

My question was: “If you can’t visit your clients or casually bump into somebody, how do you build relationships or keep relationships strong enough to keep both information and business flowing?”

Keeping Your Contacts Engaged

Managers at premier financial services firms, from large asset management companies to boutique organizations, agreed on two points:

1. 1.Keeping people engaged is a challenge.
2. 2.Firms need to be much more intentional when connecting with clients.

Their advice was to “manufacture events” that add value or be creative in order to “play in traffic” and remain top of mind. In a virtual sales world, firms must provide white glove, concierge service to various levels of their client organizations—not just senior leaders and home office contacts, but also field leaders and product managers. Sharing product updates, mentions of the firm in the news, positive media coverage, and commentary on national or global events and their impact on investment strategies are all examples of information that adds value.

One senior leader is coaching his team to share articles related to personal as well as professional issues, so the client knows they’re being thought of regularly. Fostering a sense of community and connectivity on a regular basis is key. All great relationships are based on communication—a back and forth that forges understanding and caring.

Another way to add value is to make a strategist available to meet with advisors or clients in either a one-on-one or a one-to-many setting via technology. These subject matter experts can help advisors and clients make sense of rapidly changing markets and trends, providing context for short-term market movements and discussing the resilience of the stock market over time.

Another national account manager described the process of keeping people engaged as a sprint. The firm uses sprints to keep their client-facing teams (relationship managers and wholesalers) up to speed on products, company viewpoints, and effective ways to keep in touch.

Client-facing teams have always maintained relationships with constant touches, using their expertise as a differentiator. Now, they must be deliberate, methodical, and structured in their communications. In this environment, there are no ‘drive by’ or ‘drop in’ conversations. The primary way of keeping in touch is to manufacture value and create connectivity.

Reinforcing the Importance of Relationships

National account managers and relationship managers need to create visibility and awareness to ensure their products are recommended. They must provide good service so that the account person makes their company’s funds more visible in the system. These days, firms must use a deliberate approach to enhance connectivity.

Personalized communications are more critical than ever. National accounts people are calling on their counterparts at the home office, saying things like:

• ​“Here’s a great article I read about keeping safe in this environment.”
• ​“Here’s our viewpoint on the strength of the dollar today.”
• ​“Our strategist is available for half an hour consultations and I’m scheduling appointments to meet with them. Would you like to pick a date and time? Or offer these slots to your top advisors?”
• ​“We hear that advisors are often asked about what’s happening with the market relative to the economy. Here’s how our subject matter expert answers that question.”

Sharing a mix of information every week that’s relevant on a personal and professional level is a way to stay in front of key accounts and their advisors without being bothersome. Simple phone calls, informational emails that don’t require a response, formal video conference calls with strategists, or pre-recorded videos from your website are all effective ways to keep in touch. Another is recording a Q&A video response to a frequently asked question.

In this business, knowledge is power. Firms should enable their client-facing teams (wholesalers and relationship managers) to share intellectual capital with their clients’ advisors.

Every client firm has a “house view.” The intellectual capital from strategists and portfolio managers can help key account clients and their advisors validate or explain their views to their own clients. Reaching out in this way shows contacts that their concerns are valid and affirms your expertise and credibility with timely, relevant, and useful information.

Increasing Productivity

An unexpected silver lining of not being able to meet in-person is that many asset managers believe productivity has increased because communication must be more deliberate. As one shared, “You can’t rely on drop-ins or drive-bys to stay in touch or grow business. You have to be more strategic and make sure you stay connected to remain relevant.”

The challenge for management is keeping people focused on this approach. Being deliberate is harder than relying on informal tactics—it takes more work and more time. But, as one manager said, “There’s no flow coming back to you unless you create the flow.” Firms need to encourage their people to make the effort to keep an edge over competitors.

“In difficult times, you create a bond with the person in the foxhole with you. By being intentional and reaching out, you say ‘we’re going to get through this together’,” said one manager.

When the world returns to normal, we may find that we can apply the lessons of the virtual world to the post-pandemic workplace. Using mobile, video, and peer-to-peer networking technology to give your team the best chance to build and maintain relationships is one way to generate business we won’t want to leave behind.

Learn More

Download our new eBook The Essential Guide to Virtual Selling to learn more about amplifying sales productivity when you can’t meet in person.