Building Rapport with Clients as a New CEO or MD

Joining an organisation in a key leadership role can be likened to receiving a baton from the previous runner in a relay race. The baton is more than just a stick – it not only symbolises the effort invested by everyone before you, but also highlights your responsibility to maintain or improve the momentum set by them. Even as you assume your new position in the company, you are inheriting the legacy of the previous leader, from the personnel under you to the existing client relationships forged by your organisation.

Resistance to change is part of human nature, and manifests in the business world just like in the wider world. Any change to the status quo will invite an element of unease to your clients. With a new person at the top, they will wonder if business practices and conventions will change. They will also be concerned about your ability to meet or exceed the standard set by your predecessor in delivering continued success. How will you manage these concerns?

The first big step any new senior leader must take is to reach out to clients. As businesspeople, clients will appreciate signs of demonstrated interest and commitment to maintaining good relationships. As regular people, clients will also appreciate the warmth and comfort brought about when you reassure them that they can continue to expect success with your organisation. From an emotional perspective, channelling this sense of comfort can chip away at clients’ innate doubts and resistance to change.

Once they understand that you are indeed dedicated to helping them find success, that’s when they will open up to you, sharing about the challenges they’re facing. When you can work with them to tackle their challenges and devise solutions, your rapport with clients is firmly established. By understanding their concerns and pain points in detail, you can further capitalise on this window of opportunity and build on this rapport.

As you attempt to demonstrate your ability and commitment in delivering success to clients, they will be judging your performance. At the very beginning, you should be prepared to work with limited trust by clients – both you and your company’s relationship with them are on probation. This trust will naturally make its way to you when they see real progress by your organisation in helping them find success.

You may be judged on different standards like sales numbers, problems solved or campaign executions, but one thing will stay the same regardless of context; clients will trust you when you deliver, and the more you deliver, the more they’ll trust you. Your first deliverable is particularly important, because it sets the client’s expectations in place. Do an excellent job and you start the relationship on a stronger note.

When clients meet you for the first time, they don’t know what your track record at your new organisation looks like, but they have a reference point for the business relationship – experience working with your predecessor. Only when you deliver success will you have an opportunity to write your own success story with the clients.

Reaching Out from Within

A leader may represent a company, but he or she is not the company. Never go in on day one trying to change everything, or you’ll end up nowhere and face issues everywhere. You can’t implement successful change without first getting accepted and building comfort with internal and external stakeholders. No matter how great your plans are, they’re not greater than human nature – when people inevitably question change, what’s your answer and how will you deliver it?

Gaining the trust of internal stakeholders is vital to leading your organisation; don’t even consider reaching out to clients without it. No skyscraper stands without a stable foundation – when you establish robust communication and good working relationships within the organisation, you get valuable internal perspectives on the organisation’s business and its clients. 

If you meet clients without this internal perspective, you’re shooting in the dark. Which existing relationships are great, and which are poor? You don’t have the historical background to provide clarity regarding the state of the relationships with your clients. Worse still, you might end up contradicting stances or positions agreed upon by both companies before your arrival. Creating sudden inconsistencies only plants more doubt in clients’ heads regarding your ability to deliver. Shooting in the dark, then, might be the best-case scenario, if it’s likely that you’ll shoot yourself in the foot with such missteps.

Since the relationships that your organisation has built with clients’ organisations have been in place before you, others from your team would have already been in touch with clients. Either verbally or nonverbally, intentionally or unintentionally, they might have shared information and opinions regarding your new position and upcoming plans. It’s important to win over your internal audience, because they’re also continuously influencing your external audiences. Since they’re often in touch with clients, even neutral questions from the client to the rest of your leadership team can invite large implications. 

It also helps to complement your internal perspective with a wider market perspective. Given your position in the company, clients will seek your insights about their industries and their business. Unconvincing answers won’t boost their impression of your ability to understand them. Do your homework and do it extensively – from how their businesses operate, to the wider market trends affecting their industries, and down to analysing their thought leadership. When you study up on your counterparts’ interviews and speeches, it will be easier to understand the perspective they’re coming from.

When it comes to peak leadership, you can’t skip out on one-to-one meetings with the CEOs of your clients’ companies. Clients need to be reassured that you are accessible anytime, even at 12 midnight if necessary. One-to-one meetings are key to creating that level of comfort and trust, which you must have in such high-level relationships. It’s okay to schedule meetings between clients and your entire leadership team, and the chronology of meetings doesn’t really matter, but you absolutely need the one-to-one meetings.

Never build up or feed into any negativity about the past. A new leader offers a clean slate for re-establishing relationships; don’t stain it from the outset by badmouthing your predecessor in front of clients, because it doesn’t elevate their impression of you. No individual is perfect, and whenever a leader leaves, a trail of positive narratives and some negative narratives can be found. Concentrate on the positives and emphasise how you will build upon your predecessor’s good work.

Even if the client is initiating with the negativity, you should divert the conversation towards a more positive atmosphere. Contributing to negative talk is unproductive and benefits no one – focus instead on the business issues that their organisations face and how you can solve them. It’s also important to give credit to previous leaders’ work in building your organisation into what it is today. Going back to the relay race analogy, the other runners’ efforts have given you a head start, and it’s your job to make the best use of it. All organisations are built in layers, over a period of time.

People will naturally make comparisons, but take the high road and keep the conversation positive. A meeting sunk into negativity can hardly deliver warmth and comfort for the clients, which is essential for relationship-building.

_“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” _

When starting out on relationships with clients, it always pays to be humble and a bit vulnerable. Just a little bit of vulnerability will help you come across as more open and approachable, but it’s important not to overdo it, because you’re still in a significant leadership position with a lot of reputation riding on you. 

No one likes dealing with know-it-all personalities. If you bring such sentiments into your work and interactions, it reflects a lack of respect for the capabilities of other people. No client would appreciate being condescended to in that manner, and it can certainly jeopardise any relationship you’re trying to establish. Conversely, when you project humility and openness, clients will feel much easier speaking with you on anything. Regardless, at high-level meetings, people want to talk business and talk business fast. Don’t lose sight of the goal, which is to deliver decisive solutions, because while clients might find you more likeable, they’re still evaluating your potential.

Factoring for Industry Experience

You might or might not have experience in the same industries as your clients. It certainly helps smooth things along if you do – if they know your name or if you have socially interacted with them at conferences before, there’s an existing familiarity and chemistry you can capitalise on. Skipping the introductions and jumping into business also becomes much easier when both sides share something significant in common.

However, that familiarity might also hurt you if there are unflattering past perceptions of you floating through the industry. Clients might also perceive you negatively if you’re a younger person who’s jumped to top leadership very quickly. You’ll need to fight through these preconceptions and demonstrate your capability to get the job done.

Conversely, when you come from a completely different background, people are initially still very open and accepting. However, they’re also judging you far more intensely on your awareness and knowledge of their industries and business sectors. They may give you credit for your past achievements, but they mainly care about what you can do for them, in their industry. It’s therefore crucial that you work extra hard to understand the realities of your clients’ markets, so you can speak to their pain points. You may be a star at e-commerce, but the fintech client just wants to hear about how you can contribute to their fintech business. 

They’re not closed to new perspectives, but you need to pivot from that to the real meat of the discussion – demonstrating your understanding of their market and business sector. If you have experience working with other clients in the same industry, you can make use of that as a value-add, but it should always be framed in the context of being eager to learn more about their business, without being overconfident in your own knowledge.

Using Your Best Judgment

It’s crucial to get an internal perspective of the relationships with clients, but having a pinch of scepticism doesn’t hurt. From experience, I’ve met clients under the impression that the working relationship we had was a strong one. After the meeting, I found myself thinking about all the issues that needed fixing. The opposite has also happened, where a discouraging briefing regarding the client then gave way to a fantastic first meeting. 

In an ideal world, workloads and to-dos would come in an orderly and manageable fashion. In the real world, however, everything tends to come hard and fast at nearly the same time. While not all relationships with clients are equal, your approach towards every client should not be biased. It doesn’t matter how big or small the client is, or how much they’re paying for – once they’re working with your organisation, it’s your responsibility to solve their problems and deliver success.

It can be extremely challenging to steer the organisation through the highs and lows of the economy while maintaining great relationships with your clients. As a new leader, it’s also understandable that you might find yourself overwhelmed by the work at hand. Take a deep breath, and remember that while your clients are businesspeople with heavy obligations for you to fulfil, they are people nonetheless. Your abilities have gotten you this role, and you can trust that they’ll continue to serve you well when dealing with clients.

1 Stay Positive

Positive messaging helps assure clients that you’re eager and dedicated to tackle their problems. Negative messaging goes nowhere, so stay positive, focus on business goals and disengage from any badmouthing or gossip.

2 Project Humility and Respect

Clients will find it easier to open up if you demonstrate humility and respect while making it clear in your words and deeds. They may be there to talk business, but they’re people too; all people want to be treated well.

3 Win Your Internal Audience

When you earn the trust and respect of your organisation’s internal stakeholders, you get full awareness of how relationships with clients were doing before your arrival. Positive feedback by your team to clients also boosts their impression of you before the first meeting.