Supporting clients in difficult times
What has been your McKinsey journey?
I joined the firm more than seven years ago and soon developed a passion for Marketing & Sales and helping clients drive growth. During a rotation with our Sales Solutions team, I went from working with four or five client teams in my five years to working with 30+ client teams across industries in six months. I loved the buzz and the variety of work. This inspired me to change my role to senior knowledge expert in early 2018, a few months before my daughter was born.
What does your day look like as an expert?
I still spend half of my time on client work, either as a Partner lead on local projects as a content director on other non-local projects. At the same time, I run our Marketing & Sales workshops in North America, lead several processes for a client and drive knowledge sharing in this sphere. Working 80%, I squeeze all of this into four days, spending either one full day or a couple of mornings a week with my daughter and family.
How has your work life changed since the Coronavirus situation?
When the global Coronavirus situation worsened significantly three weeks ago, several members of our leadership team and I sat down and created a pipeline of webinars to support our clients through these difficult times. The first one aired last week and had 400+ participants, which is approximately 3x more than our usual number. This shows just how concerned our clients are, but also, how welcomed these digital formats were.
What are the topics most on clients’ minds?
Today, our clients want to work out how to keep people safe, while many are thinking how they also keep minimum viable operations going as efficiently as possible. Questions come up about how to work remotely for more than just a few weeks, including how organizations help their people keep their skills relevant and their motivation and spirits high.
How can we help our clients with these issues?
With so many people in lockdown or living and working with stay at home directives, digital is now the only way to sell your goods in some places. Over the past few weeks, we have worked with clients to fast-track implementation of their digital strategy and equip sales staff with the right skills for remote selling.
How has your interaction with clients changed?
With offices in the United States closed, my client interaction is done digitally, which has been working well. Seeing or hearing each other’s children in the background while working from your living room creates a new intimacy in how we connect.
About Sinem
Sinem is a senior knowledge expert based in the Chicago office. Like many of us, she is now working from home, sharing the space with her husband Joshua and their nearly 2-year old daughter Mara. In her free time, Sinem is currently experimenting with new recipes as a benefit of shelter in place.
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