Have you ever been turned down because you don't have an office/team in the country you live in?
Chris J Reed
"The Only CEO with a Mohawk" @ Black Marketing: Our Personal Branding services start from only USD$999 per month and can win you new clients or get you a new job. 2,200+ LinkedIn Recommendations are not wrong.
Have you ever had a potential client decline you because you don’t have a fancy office and don’t have your workers in the same country that you’re living in?
Well it happened to me the other day for the first time.
Given today’s nomadic and digital world it was a bizarre thing to say.
Half our clients are not even in Singapore so why would we bother having an office here?
Half of the clients that we have here are often abroad so again why have an office here?
Most of our clients themselves have remote teams and work from home/anywhere most of the time so why would they care if we have an office or team here in Singapore?
Digital working has changed all of that.
I did try and explain to this numpty that whether the team were here or not and whether I had an office or not was irrelevant to the service that we provide for him given that we are a Linkedin marketing agency and he travelled alot!
He even objected to meeting me at the WooBar at the W even though people meet in bars, restaurants, clubs, coffee shops etc to do business all the time!
I also explained that I did used to have a very expensive office here in the CBD, along with 30+ Singaporean workers but it didn’t work out for a variety of reasons.
The two complaints that I used to get from my global clients, remember our clients are not only Singaporeans or even based here, they’re from all over the world even if they are based here, was that:
1) The account team kept changing.
2) The English wasn’t at a level which could represent their personal brand.
So after 7 years of trying this in various ways I made the change.
I closed down the office here and I partnered with my good friend and business partner in South Africa who could address my customer’s complaints.
My elite team of writers in South Africa are more experienced, English is their first language, they write for our clients perfectly and they stay longer too.
They are all remote workers employed by us and love to work with our clients.
Since then our client retention rates have soared, our staff retention rates are incredible and we have had our most successful and more profitable years.
So I did the right thing.
The data shows it.
More to the point an office is no guarantee that someone is legitimate and not a conman. I've dealt with my CEOs and Entrepreneurs over the years who have had very nice offices whio didn't pay their bills, didn't pay their staff and didn't pay their taxes!
Bernie Madoff had a great office!
So did Elizabeth Holmes!
Sam Bankman-Fried had an amazing office.
Do you know where all their offices are now?
Jail.
An office does not guarantee that someone is legit in fact many use it to convey the perception of being legit while actually being criminals.
What do you think?
Would you like to meet up at my ‘office’ at the WooBar at the W in Sentosa or on a zoom to discuss how we could enhance your LinkedIn marketing to achieve your professional objectives such as finding you new clients or a new job?
Our highly recommended service details are here on this LinkedIn SmartLink: https://www.dhirubhai.net/smart-links/AQHOCRVftI1wAw
CEO of PromoVeritas Ltd: Global leaders in Promotional Compliance, cross-border Marketing & effective Brand Promotions. Proud Winner of King's Award for Enterprise 2024.
4 天前'Agencies get the clients they deserve' and obviously the client that wanted you to have a physical presence, an office, in their country was not right for you. My business, PromoVeritas, is London, UK based, but last year we ran projects in over 80 countries from Australia to Austria, China to Chile and we did not have our own people in country. But we did have hand picked local experts who give us the edge in terms of knowing the local needs and peculiarities. The tricky part is having a dispersed workforce- working from home a few days a week may be fine if they are local to the office, but having staff that you never see (in your country or another) makes it much harder to have a cohesive team spirit, to get to know people and crucially to pick up the vibes, early warnings of client or project issues. Eye to eye contact with staff is important, but with clients less so.
Entrepreneur, Business Accelerator / Optimiser, Coach, Snr APAC Executive
4 天前Chris - I think it depends on the space your in, for your business, certainly I think its crazy that a company not want to work with you due to lack of local presence - I just don't understand that. On the flip side, for the technology equipment side for example, I can understand the need to be local in order to meet the SLA (service level agreements) of the networks / technology you need to keep up in that country....
Transformational IT Leader | Expert in Production Management, SRE, and Compliance Applications | 30+ Years in Banking & Finance | Based in Singapore | Open to NED roles | I Keep the Lights On and the Wheels Turning
4 天前Love the "great office" & "amazing office" and where are they now.
SME Advisory | Agile | BPM | Project Management | Risk & Compliance | Strategy | Working Capital | Helping organisations navigate business change with actionable planning and strategy
4 天前Great call out Chris J Reed ??????