It has been way too long since I blogged, but there is a topic that I felt that was blog-worthy. It woke me up from a deep blog sleep. Woke the giant, so to speak.

Attention Customers and/or Prospects…we are not all out to get you. It is understandable that you have had some trying vendor relationships, but it is important that you keep an open mind when dealing with new vendors or prospective vendors. I believe that the most important component of a vendor/customer relationship is communication. There are other important things to keep in mind like respect, trust, and honesty, but communication is an important component of these other things, so it has to be at the top of the list. If communication breaks down, the relationship breaks down. Here are a few thoughts, ideas, tips that I would like to offer you, our customers and prospects:·        

• If there are past experiences with vendors that you do not care to repeat, tell us about them. If we know about them, we can make sure that we do not repeat them, even on accident.
• Communicate your expectations of us. It is our job to set the appropriate expectations and to aim to exceed the expectations that we set. All I would add is that if there are certain expectations that you have, especially if you consider them critical success factors; make sure that you communicate them to us.
• Start respectful and keep it that way. Nobody wants to feel like the lesser of the two, so why should it have to be that way. A quality vendor relationship has a foundation of respect. Respect breeds trust. Trust is what it’s all about. You get as you give. I have seen vendors (really good ones) choose to disengage from a relationship with a customer or prospect because there was a fundamental lack of respect. Vendors are not beneath you. If they were, why would you call them in the first place?
• Over the course of the relationship, something is not going to go as planned. How you handle that situation as the customer will often determine how that issue is dealt with and resolved. TIP: Abusive reactions don’t work. Work through things together. Put a joint plan of action together. Take ownership of some of that plan. Work with the vendor and things will get resolved quickly.

Effective vendor relationships can really have a significant impact on your business. Vendor management is not about controlling the vendor; it is about creating a reciprocal relationship and leveraging that relationship to your benefit and the benefit of your firm. I said it earlier and I want to close on a very simple theme, you get as you give. Communication, Respect, Trust, Honesty… give it. We’ll give it back.

We had a presentation yesterday to a huge company. I typically help with strategy, the building of the presentation, and the final editing for these. I am pretty anal about presentations, so I am always tweaking either the content or the way that I plan to present the content.

Yesterday I made a colossal mistake and one that I thought I would share with you, my loyal friends. I failed to go through what is usually a really normal process for me of putting myself in the audience’s place and going through the presentation in my mind. In my opinion, this is a must for any personal interaction that you expect be long and meaningful.

Having the other person’s perspective in mind is really important. It allows you to analyze what they care about most and in a sales setting, it will allow you to best tailor your message so that you can get the outcome that you desire. Areas of analysis for a sales setting should be:

• The audience themselves - Who is going to be there? How are they related or linked to one another? What are the things that are most important to them? What are their interpersonal relationships? Where is their specific pain? How are you going to take care of that pain? Don’t laser focus your message on only one person, unless it is an audience of one. Make sure you strike a nerve with each one in some way.
• The audience’s challenges – Do they understand their own challenge well and will they feel that you understand their challenges based on your presentation?
• The audience’s level of understand of the topic – Do they fundamentally understand the concepts being presented? If not, make sure that you alter the presentation based on the audience.
• The audience’s risk tolerance level – How risky of a proposition is whatever you are presenting to them?
  The audience’s historical buying patterns – In my world, I try to look at how my prospects typically engage on projects. Are they well-planned, multi-month or year programs, or are they more tactically focused and therefore engage on short projects.
• Does every visual or written component of the presentation further your cause? - If you are presenting case studies, examples, sample work, are those meaningful to them and their industry?

I am probably leaving a few things out, but you get the point. Thinking through how the content of a presentation will affect the audience is probably the most important thing you can do. For us yesterday, we would have avoided a particularly uncomfortable situation had we not missed this. We live and learn, that’s for sure!
Sell well, sell hard, or let me do it!