Are you a Partner or Supplier?

Cards on the table, I am looking for new partners for my employer ITS, my role is to support ITS developing and growing and guess what as a wholesale connectivity provider we can not do that without partners ??

I am often speaking to potential partners either via, email, phone, face to face or LinkedIn (normally LinkedIn!).

What have I noticed?

We all (connectivity providers) talk about partners, offering them great pricing and we are all the best of course!

What is a Partner?

Well it seems this is where my industry and I fall into a trap on occasion, both sides transfix on price

What are your rates?

Are you cheap?

Cheapest wins the deal

Now there is nothing at all wrong with this per say but we are all missing a trick in the telecom world.

A partnership is a relationship or indeed a partner in business speak is classed as a co-owner in their business so forming a partnership, that must be something serious right?

Now this is where we can all build something, a partnership is built on mutual benefit and understanding working on the same shared interests in addition to the old favourite price based supplier relationship.

 Is a cheap price best with poor service, lack of interest from your partner in your growth aims and engagement limited to a price only fixation going to help your business grow?

Will a customer only buying based on cheapest be a long standing customer/partner helping your business grow?

It will not, price only focus may provide a front-end benefit with more opportunities won, but if they fall by the wayside in delivery or are poorly supported once installed then your cost will increase for the customer while the supplier builds no loyalty or certainty of sales – Its economics ??

Here is where we can all help!

We need to focus on our partners and our partners need to focus on us, we need to be invested in each-others success. My all-time favourite Boss Amy Higgs put it best when talking to our team during one meeting “you need to have each other’s backs”. Great advice and applicable to a great partnership.

To my one reader as always, if you take one thing from this it is to focus on the relationship, the mutual benefits, to support each other and to both work towards the same goal. If you get this right the world really does fall into place for you and you will move from a supplier relationship to a partner.

Let’s change the dialogue, wish me luck!

Will