The Real Value of Relationships

By Paul Jagielski President, Bell Binders, LLC

In business we are prone to boil down complex ideas into simple easily understood (at least superficially) buzz phrases. Innovative thinking becomes ‘thinking out of the box’; smarter, more efficient logistics becomes ‘just in time delivery’, etc. We throw these catchy lines around as if we truly understand them, when very often our understanding merely scratches the surface. I can confess to sometimes smiling and nodding while expert chatter flew well over my head.

Over that last several years we’ve all been hearing about the importance of relationships in business. The fundamental idea of a business relationship is that each party in a transaction benefits from a deeper understanding of the each others needs. This operational paradigm requires a substantial knowledge of your customers’ business and leveraging that knowledge to your mutual benefit. This process requires an investment by both parties and is generally initiated and nurtured by the seller.

Lately I have been thinking a great deal about our best relationships and what makes them so special. It will come as no news that the last few years have been difficult for most businesses and ours has been no exception. Still we have weathered the ‘Great Recession’ largely because of our terrific relationships with a handful of key accounts. I believe that we work well with those clients because we have developed a meaningful understanding of their needs while they are sensitive to ours. This allows us to have honest conversations focused on producing the best possible outcomes (not just selling them something).

Here is my checklist of what I believe to be the key qualities that we bring to our clients and that we look for in our vendors:

• Access:  Can you get them on the phone or does your call always go to voicemail? Do they return your calls or emails in a timely manner?
• Reliability: Can you really count on their product or service?
• Flexibility: Will they work with you to solve your problem or to help you find another way? Or do they sell you into what they want?
• Responsibility: When they cause a problem (or even sometimes when you cause a problem) do they own the problem and fix it quickly and fairly?
• Honesty: Do they tell the truth? Any relationship that is not based upon truth is tenuous and ultimately dangerous to your business.
• Commitment: Are they willing to send you elsewhere, even to a competitor, if that is what is best for your business?

At our company we prize these qualities. We believe that in the final analysis, providing real value to our customers is the key to mutual long term success. We also believe that developing and nurturing a real relationship is the best way to create that value.