Ep. 160: Katie Thomas - Finding, Connecting, and Developing Relationships with Key Stakeholders

Contact Katie Thomas:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/katiethomascpa/
Leaders Online: www.leaders-online.com


4 C Process: www.leaders-online.com/4cprocess



FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTAdam: (00:04)
Welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things
affecting the accounting and finance world. This is your host
Adam Larson, and I'm here to preview episode 160 of our series.
Katie Thomas, owner of Leaders Online, rejoins Count Me In today
to talk about finding, connecting, and developing relationships
with key stakeholders. Katie does a lot of marketing and social
media for executives and helps them increase their presence in
the industry. In her conversation with Mitch, she talks about the
power of technology and social media as it pertains to increasing
influence and nurturing lasting relationships. Keep listening as
we head over to the main part of the episode now.


Mitch: (00:51)
So Katie, the first time we spoke, you talked about how
technology really changed the landscape of the accounting
industry. We talked about analytics, growing your business,
becoming more profitable, things along those lines. But I
understand a lot has changed since we spoke and that was, you
know, February of 2020. So what I wanna kind of get into and, and
start off is if you can kind of explain, you know, what you've
seen over the last year and a half, and what else has changed
across the accounting industry?


Katie: (01:20)
Yeah, so man, since February of 2020, I feel like technology has
had to be embraced more than ever. I mean, there were a lot of
firms using technology, but then there were a lot not, and I
think it was this thing where the firms who weren't fully
embracing technology, they knew about it, but it was kind of
scary be because what you've done before, and if it was working,
it's like why fix what's not broken, but then the pandemic hit
and there was something that was broken. You could no longer have
face-to-face meetings. You could no longer operate as you did
before. And so it really forced the accounting firms and their
clients into digital relationships, even if they were
traditionally local relationships, like come in, meet
face-to-face, it was, Hey, we've gotta find different ways to
communicate with our clients. A lot of people jumped on Zoom and
then managing the staff and the firm members that also had to
change. So if you didn't previously use project management tool
or document sharing, all of that had to be quickly learned and
leveraged and utilized. So I think that the outcome of all of
this is really cool because firms had to become confident in
using this and they realize that they don't necessarily need as
big of an office or they don't need to meet in person as much.
And they can still maintain those relationships, whether it's
with clients or with staff. I know a lot of firms I work with.
They're like, okay, we miss getting together in person and we're
still gonna do that. But you know, maybe it's, you don't have to
be in the office eight to five every single day. There's some
flexibility.


Mitch: (03:02)
Yeah. I think that's a great point. And you know, our focus for
today's conversation really is on these relationships, right?
Whether it's clients or key stakeholders inside or outside of the
business, we'll get into, you know, how we connect with them and
such, but to kind of connect the dots where we were and where we
are. Can you first talk a little bit about maybe some of the
things that technology can influence when it comes to stakeholder
relationships and where we're going with our conversation today?


Katie: (03:29)
Yeah. So people really connect in two ways. There's gonna be
emotional connections. So like that's just gonna be like
conversations and how you feel out someone. maybe you have
similar views, goals, thoughts, and people really connect this
way through talking and through stories. So there is some
technology that can help with this, even like Zoom or Loom or
apps that just connect us. But really I see technology on the
other side of how we connect the logical way that we connect and
with technology, you can really see into the data and create a
story through this to then help you connect and talk about why
you're doing certain things, the outcome of why of what's
happening. The data really gives us the facts and the technology
and able to us to access the data to then create stories around
this data. So technology is a key piece in communicating, but I
really see it supporting a lot of that logical side of how humans
can connect.


Mitch: (04:28)
That's really well said. And we did briefly talk about analytics
last time and you know, the data and everything you just
mentioned. It's, it's a great point. So to take it a step
further, you mentioned Zoom and some other, you know, apps, as
far as technology goes, whether they're specific tools or more
broadly social media, just in general, what kind of resources can
our listeners use to better find, connect and develop
relationships with key stakeholders? You know, what can they go
out and access in order to improve these relationships for the
long term?


Katie: (05:01)
Yeah, so I definitely think Zoom's a really popular one. Another
one I mentioned was Loom. So that's like a screen recording tool,
which is super helpful if you're trying to explain something and
you're not, maybe you're gonna deliver this through an email. You
can walk someone through like financials or maybe a process or a
report. And you can actually show yourself talking about it as
well as share your screen. I think this one's great client
portals are great tools. So client portals can be used to share
documents, securely, communicate through them. I think that's a
great one. and then social media platforms are also awesome
because you can create content for a wide variety of people. You
can have conversations in the direct message. You know, there's a
lot of platforms out there. Maybe it's even like your project
management tool where you're communicating, but really it's just
identifying maybe where there's a gap in communication. And since
there is a tool for about everything, if you Google that, you'll
probably find someone that's found a solution or created a
solution that you can utilize.


Mitch: (06:02)
Yeah. Google is a, it's a great tool in itself and very, you
know, very helpful on a daily basis. But as I said earlier, you
know, there's obviously a lot more to our conversation than
technology. There's a lot more to the profession than just
technology. So I do wanna take this a step further and really
make sure we cover, you know, our listener side of things, the
management accounting side, a little bit more of the accounting
finance profession. As far as connecting with individuals, I know
something that you really focus on with the marketing side of
your business is enabling individuals to increase their
influence. So I'd like to hear your thought on, you know, whether
it's tools or strategies, what can individuals do to increase
their influence and really make a greater impact on the business.


Katie: (06:47)
So I think one of the number one things that individuals can do
to create a greater influence on the organization and individuals
as a whole it's to really align their why with the company's why
and wh...