When Your Client Hires a New CEO | Best Sales Management & Sales Leadership
When a new CEO, COO, CIO, or CFO joins your client, your relationship may be at high risk. Smart professionals never take a client for granted, but they are particularly sensitive when there is a change in top management. In many cases, the new chief will not know you and probably will have some level of loyalty to another firm. Your key is to make life easier for the new chief.
Be Proactive
If your first reaction is to lay low, or to wait for the new chief to call you, this is the wrong approach. You should be proactive in building communication links. Your first role is to educate the new chief by reviewing the services your firm has provided the client. Show how you have had an impact on past cost savings, legal structure, business success, or other significant events. It is good insurance for you to review the past while emphasizing the reasons why you should continue.
Most new chiefs will bring new ideas, new initiatives, and a new team to their new roles. Some chiefs’ approaches may be radically different from their predecessors. So, you don’t want to represent the “old way.” If you have had significant management or internal control recommendations, bring them up early in the new chief’s tenure.
Increase Communications
Professionals who have weathered management changes offer some good suggestions:
Begin to mentally prepare your next proposal to your client. If the new chief has a relationship with another professional, they are probably asking for an opportunity. You would do this if one of your best friends took over a new client.
Don’t assume that business will go on as usual. You must give more attention to the client’s personnel with whom you have worked. You may be asked to alter your services package to suit a new direction for your client. It will be better for you to be a part of this planning process, if you can engineer it.
The quickest way to alienate a newcomer is to act superior or overconfident. Treat the new chief with great respect. You must recognize the new chief’s ability and stress your wish to serve in the new environment.
When Family Members Become the Chief
The time to build relationships with family members who may become the chief is months or years before they are promoted. Often, successful CPAs have built strong relationships with the elder chief and avoided the children. Meanwhile, the children are forming their own relationships. Perhaps, now is a good time to focus attention on the sons and daughters of your client’s owners.
Conclusion
A change in leadership is a time of both danger and opportunity. If you are mentally prepared and build your relationships broadly within your client firms, you will be better positioned.
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