David Burkus on Creating Real Relationships in a Virtual World

<p>David Burkus shares extremely timely strategies for deepening your relationships in a virtual world, whether that’s within your team that’s spread across the globe or with prospective clients that are just getting to know you. Learn how to create a system for communication that makes your remote team more effective, how to recreate the white space online where bonds and trust are built, and how to ask better questions to really get to know someone.</p> <p> </p> <p>Mo asks David Burkus: How do you develop relationships with your clients virtually?</p> <ul> <li>The future of work is working from anywhere. The truth is that we are not going back to the office. Even before the pandemic, studies were showing that people are more engaged when they are out of the office 40% to 60% of the time.</li> <li>We need greater flexibility, trust, and autonomy with the people that we collaborate with in a remote environment.</li> <li>Communication is actually more important now that it was before. We can’t take as many non-verbal cues as we could when we were working together, so we need to be more deliberate and empathetic in our communication.</li> <li>One of the first things we need to be doing with prospective clients is talking about how we are going to be working together. This is now part of the process of closing the deal.</li> <li>One major tip is that eye contact is not eye contact when you’re communicating online. You have to look into the camera lens to recreate the experience and connection of eye contact. The other thing to realize is that communication is more asynchronous than ever before. Make sure you have clear writing and thinking in your written communication. You also have to be clear about what each method of communication is meant for.</li> <li>To enroll clients, the easiest way is to have an established communications system within your team already. Create a team-working agreement and then use that to create the framework of client communication. Schedule a meeting to create your team-working agreemen