Business
Chris Rivera is the director of client relations and business development at Entigrity, a leading offshore solutions provider to the tax and accounting space. Chris’s background had always been in client relations. He came from the corporate world and worked in a number of industries but he wasn’t particularly happy with the work. It wasn’t until he saw a job posting for a remote worker did Chris learn about a new way of doing things. Chris began working for his future founding partner who was an accountant and got a crash course in accounting over the next six months. He began working with clients and developing those relationships to help grow the fledgling business. Going through the remote hiring process himself helped establish the framework they use to help accountants find remote employees now. Remote work has been around since the introduction of the internet, but in most industries, it hasn’t been fully embraced until recently. The CPAs that Chris talks to generally need a fair bit of education to help them understand the remote aspects of the work. He helps address their concerns and uses the initial call to determine exactly what they require from a remote worker. Once onboarded, the client is assigned a relationship manager to help keep the lines of communication open. The client gets to interview the potential candidates for their project so they have full control. There is a difference between outsourcing and offshoring. They seem the same to many people, but with the offshoring model, you still have control over the employee. Working with somebody that is part of your team is a great way to scale a business while remaining flexible. There has been a spike in business since May of last year. The pandemic is showing everyone that they can work with anyone anywhere. This technology has also made it easier to conduct business as well. Clients call Chris for a number of different reasons, the main ones being bookkeeping, audits, and accounting. It’s always important to diversify your resources, and that includes your team. In regards to audits, clients are mainly looking for data entry work so they don’t get completely bogged down and end up working late hours. It’s much more cost-effective to offshore certain kinds of work. Staffing shortages in accounting are a big problem. This makes the cost savings of Entigrity for their clients even more important. The sweet spot for Entigrity clients is in the 10 to 15 employee range, where they tend to plateau and have trouble finding more people locally and taking on additional work. A common concern is privacy. Chris finds that most accountants they work with are worried their clients will not be willing to give their consent to allow a third party to work on their files, but the reality of the situation is that the vast majority of people don’t care. Most clients just want the work done at a reasonable price. Mentioned in this episode: Michael Rozbruch's Tax & Business Solutions Academy Entigrity.com Entigrity on LinkedIn - linkedin.com/company/entigrity Chris Rivera on LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/chrisriveraus