subject: Do Business With Your Clients - Help Them, Help You [print this page] Do you ever stop to think if you could be doing business with your clients?
If you have a choice between doing business with a clients company and a non-clients company, it's your obligation to work with your client. They help pay your salary and keep your company going. They help pay for your administrative help, they put
I have had the chance on numerous occasions to do business with my clients. In fact, I worked for a company that specified that we were to use airline that I didn't do business with (they were a client of the firm though). I went to the higher ups and told them that I would be using an alternate airline as they were one of my accounts and my company was in full agreement. I didn't give them a lot of business, but I gave them 100% of my airline business, which helped them out.
I once worked for a large multinational company that did building heating and air conditioning maintenance. One of the Sales Representatives that I worked with was trying to get a contract with a large company in Canada (name withheld) on a facility in the city we worked in. He worked hard to get this contract but was unsuccessful. The reason, his $700 a year inspection contract was $200 higher than the local competitor. For most people this would be the end of the story and they would move on, but this sales representative, it wasn't the end.
This representative knew that our company was one of their top 50 accounts and spent millions of dollars with this company every year. He also found out that time and time again, the other company would award contracts to local firms in different cities and typically it was based on price. Long story short, our company asked the prospect to reconsider, which they didn't, so we switched suppliers. This cost the prospects company millions of dollars in revenue each year and one of their largest accounts.
If you do the math on this, even at $1,000,000, that would meant that for every $1 that the prospect thought they were saving, it cost them $5,000. In fact the math is significantly higher if you use the real number.
So remember if you can, do business with your clients. You never know how much it may make you or actually cost you.
