Business-to-business dealings and sales can be the difference between having a sustainable business and having a thriving business. The close relationship you develop with your partners and vendors can make all the difference in allowing you to deliver efficient and high-quality services and products to your consumers. These types of strategic business dealings can allow you to work with support industries to your field in a way that benefits both parties.
Maintaining a beneficial relationship can ensure smooth service and effective solutions when you need additional equipment parts, such as filler attachments or filling machine tubes, from a supplier. Therefore, the additional time and research required to establish business-to-business sales are well worth the effort. The level of interaction required will bring you into close contact with important managers and stakeholders of the other business.
This type of networking opportunity is rare to find. The trust and respect that will accrue from successfully closing the deal will allow you to find a symbiotic business connection that can help to guarantee the efficiency of your business for years to come.
Learn from Others
Look to the companies that suffered the dip brought about by the pandemic. The ones who are in a better place now have a reliable supply chain that can work with them and adapt to their needs.
The companies, in turn, gave back the support to keep the supply chains running and bolstered. This is the type of relationship your company needs to have to overcome sudden market upheavals.
Research Your Potential Partners
You can learn a lot via Google about a company, but it is also possible to polish the online information. Do your due diligence and find out all you can about the company. Low numbers in areas you can bolster are not an issue if they can bolster your company in your weak areas.
But suspicious financial dealings, tax issues, and a high employee turnover rate are all indicators of a bad business partner.
Read Their Content
Subscribe to your prospective partners’ website, read their email newsletters, follow them on social media, and analyze every piece of marketing information they share about their product.
This will enable you to fully understand what they can do for you, how you can benefit them, and give you a basis to build your talking points.
Cold Call for Contacts
This should be a way for you to reach out if you absolutely cannot network with the people you need to talk to any other way. If you stay polite and consistent, eventually, you will be put through to the people who can vet you and arrange for your meetings with decision-makers.
Get out ahead of these problems by becoming more social. You are the face of your business. Go to business leaders luncheons and attend charity events to meet the right people. Make the contacts you may need in the future in a pleasant social setting that allows them to feel a personal obligation to meet with you when you call.
Listen to Your Prospective Partners
Some companies make the mistake of only focusing on how their potential partner can benefit them. They focus on their own goals and where they envision being once the partner starts giving them what they need.
But every business must focus on its own bottom line or risk failure. Make sure to listen to your potential partners attentively. Watch out for signs that they are not fully satisfied. Active listening will help you address their concerns effectively and ask the right probing questions to unearth their concerns.
Make it a point to reach out personally to stakeholders regularly throughout the vetting and negotiation process. Email and phone calls may help to iron out issues, but it is not always enough. You can begin the process through calls and emails, but you will need to sit down with your fellow stakeholders from the opposite side at some point. Whether through Zoom or in person, there is a lot more that will come out when there is a face to converse with.
It will be easier for you to answer any niggling questions they have that are too small to put in an email. This type of meeting is also a way to show how much you value their input and expertise and a great way to showcase your business’s energy and professionalism.
Take your time with it. No one likes to be rushed into a decision that can affect their business stability. If you need a quick infusion of product or investment to save your business, then you may need to look elsewhere. Strategic business partnerships are for companies with the ability and infrastructure to support and adapt to the business opportunities that will come from business to business partnering.
