Know your client
|
Yes, yes yes there’s the worldwide military-industrial complex dedicated to rooting out money laundering — let’s not get drawn into the debate as to whether legalising drugs might be a better policy response than systematically pariah-ising large sections of the emerging world economy and depriving them of access to the developed world’s capital markets — this is about actually knowing your clients. Having a good relationship with them, speaking to them, understanding their business, their expectations and their challenges, as a practical means of managing the risks, and opportunities, they present to your business.
This spills over to a number of Devil’s advocate themes: communication and persuasion; plain English; data; tech.
To this end, reduce risk by building trust with your clients:
- Get to know them. Encourage operational people to communicate informally and often. Encourage operational social interaction at low levels. (Spend £20 on a one-on-one lunch, not £10,000 on taking the CIO to Wimbledon).
- Be personal, not adversarial. If you go to the legal docs, you’ve lost.
- Be authentic in your communication:
| Authentic | Inauthentic |
| Personal relationships | Legal contracts |
| Individual email | “Client outreach” |
| Operations interaction | CEO dialogue |
| Pitches | Disclaimers |
| Phone calls | Advertising |
| “You” and “us” | “Party A” and “Party B” |
| Frank and the team at BFG | BFG Client Services |
| Dear Lisa
I’m writing to let you know... |
Dear Client:
Please be advised that... |