Selling Your Expertise

CHAPTER 13Stay Relevant

Chapter 13: Stay Relevant

At Exec|Comm, our business is highly personal. As we help our clients enhance the way they communicate and connect with others, we often hear about their fears and insecurities. They trust us with their vulnerabilities as we help them step out of their comfort zone. For forty years, we've served our clients by being in the same room with them, coaching them, and coaxing them along their growth path. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced us to rethink how we could support them since face-to-face interactions were no longer an option. To further complicate the situation, at the start of the pandemic, many of our clients had to focus on the survival of their business, not on developing their people. They postponed leadership development programs, deferred promotions, and canceled coaching for their conference speakers. Training, in general, became a lower priority.

We had to quickly assess the situation and figure out what our clients needed during this transition and how to support them. We recognized that for some of our more traditional clients, working from home was new. Their leaders wanted guidance on how to manage remote teams and run effective virtual meetings. Their team members weren't sure how best to communicate and collaborate in this new environment. Different functions also had their own unique issues. For example, given the circumstances, salespeople weren't sure if it was appropriate to reach out to clients during ...