Interacting and dealing with other businesses is an essential part of running your own firm well. Even if you do not plan to sell a single product or service to a corporate entity, you’re still going to have to interact with them sooner or later, in order to supply your own firm with the materials it needs.
And so how can you improve relationships with your business to business connections? Is there a secret magical sauce that allows you to get the very best of discounts and preferential treatment? And even so, how might this preferential treatment be defined? After all, while a complimentary mutually-supporting business connection ethos can be wonderful to curate, you’re both competitive entities to some degree, and thus it’s important to do what we can to optimize our results.
Thankfully, this goal needn’t seem like an arcane art you can only achieve with the most intelligent business wisdom. As with anything in business, keeping things simple is an exercise in efficiency and steadfast potential.
Accept Their Terms
It’s important to accept the terms of the business you’re connecting with, and not to act entitled as if your connection somehow grants you extreme preferential treatment. This is something that must be earned over time with reliable functioning as an excellent client, or as an excellent supplier. Of course, ensuring that your terms match reliably and are negotiated for mutual support can be important, but it’s also important to honor certain consistent requirements, such as payment dates, the processes you both rely on, and utmost transparency in everything you agree on and then put into practice.
Pay On Time
Be sure to pay on time to the extent that you can. When you’ve taken the time to find the best FTL shipping rates and you’ve calculated the cost to that degree, upfront payment or the immediate settling of an invoice can be a great idea. If you prioritize this with every B2b connection you hold, there’s a good chance you’ll continually be regarded as a premium and trustworthy client, and if you’re engaged in mutual businesses there’s a good chance they will afford you the same respect. As evidenced in many fields, it’s usually action that holds more sway over kind words.
Value Above Price
Value above price is important to consider. For instance, you may be selling your business to business connection a good array of your products and a service, but then you decide to throw in another service as a complementary good to raise the value of your offering and ensure they keep coming back to you. It’s worth always dealing in potential value first as this can potentially grant you loyalty and recommendations than it is to be overly pedantic about the price, as a valuable business connection like this can be worth more over the years than the immediate payment you receive right now. To that end, careful discount planning can be a fantastic effort to think about.
With this advice, we hope you can reliably improve your relationships with business to business connections, all across the world.