- Finding trustworthy vendors and partners is key to growing your business — but it’s a challenging relationship to perfect.
- Here are six methods that some of the leading entrepreneurs have suggested:
1. Start small.
- Ask any potential vendor about their sustainability practices to make sure their values are aligned.
- If they are, experiment with small-batch orders to ensure quality without affecting the supply chain and customer experience too much. Eg. Mcdonalds launched their Chicken McGrill for the north-eastern part of India in 2020 after identifying the need of the market.
- Clear communication of your expectations from those earliest days is an important part of creating lasting relationships.
2. Build foundations.
- Some entrepreneurs take a long-term approach to all partnerships.
- Building relationships with your dream partners without having to pitch your ideas all the time can be very helpful.
- Also showing intent for their life is always beneficial as it builds an emotional connection with your partners.
3. Do your research.
- This is the biggest step to identify your partner according to the needs of your company.
- You can go to factories, talk to other customers, and consider the vendor’s communications during the process.
- If they aren’t responsive while trying to win your business, they won’t be responsive once they have it
4. Think like a team.
- Try to find partners that view your brand as a path for success for their own business — making sure a partnership is mutually beneficial leads to great relationships and aligned success.
- To make this relationship last, don’t hammer vendors when circumstances are out of their control, like when the rain causes delays in Mumbai monsoons.
- Be flexible, and treat them like true partners rather than pieces in a machine.
5. Consider values.
- Your mission and vision for the partnership must be ethical and pre-defined.
- You can connect with our partners on a regular basis, and having a common mission makes the relationship stand on a really solid foundation, one that’s much deeper than just a transactional interaction.
6. Share success.
- This can often slip through the cracks, but it’s really vital for building long-term relationships: Celebrate wins together.
- It’s so important to acknowledge that building a business is a team activity and to share the successes with vendors and partners.
To know more about how to build partnerships and the six entrepreneurs with the lessons, read this article:https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/368372
We have also curated some other articles about partnerships, you can have a lot at them here:
Also, we are coming up with a free Q&A for all your entrepreneurial questions, so head over to this link and ask our experts any 3 questions to get a chance for a one-on-one with them: https://sncoglobal.com/#q&a
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