I proudly state on the top of my CV (the bit they call your ‘personal statement’) that I have a “flair for establishing positive, trusting and mutually rewarding relationships at all levels”. Apart from being confident that I do actually possess that, I also firmly believe that it’s something others will regard as a highly valuable attribute. Which is why I put it there – in bold, right at the top of the page!
It sounds like a no-brainer. After all, who in their right mind wouldn’t agree that great working relationships are of paramount importance to productivity and the rest?
But it just doesn’t appear to be playing out that way in the events arena. On the contrary, I keep coming across situations in which excellent, well established client-supplier relationships are simply blown out of the water … seemingly for no reason at all.
And I’m wondering why that’s the case.
In our industry, annual events are a big thing – and many suppliers go to great lengths to nurture certain client relationships on the basis that they have the potential to deliver and deliver and deliver again.
These are the events to which we give that extra 10% (on top of the basic 100) in terms of care and attention, just to ensure that we provide the very best service or product for our client. In the case of all cyclic events, we learn from year to year (or whatever the cycle) and always endeavour to improve and tweak wherever we can, so that each year, we reap all those fabulous “best event ever” accolades.
And then, bang, out of the blue, our lovely client informs us that they’ve decided to look farther afield for an alternative provider for next year’s event. What’s all that about?
Here’s how the scenario usually pans out:
Year One – you establish the relationship, help your client create and deliver the event, and receive the plaudits.
Year Two – the experience of Year One proffers a huge learning opportunity and you strive hard to integrate all the changes as well as to work in a bunch of new ideas. The client-supplier relationship is now rocking, and post-event you receive the plaudits.
Year Three – you’re now in a position to re-deliver the fundamentally successful Year Two event, but tweaked and streamlined to make it better, prettier, more efficient, more cost-effective, etc. The relationship is now outstanding and the client feels that you know how to solve their problems before they’ve even discovered that there are any. And post-event, you receive the plaudits.
Year Four – there isn’t one, because the job has been given to someone else.
Hello? What happened there?
I think it usually boils down to one of two possible “background stories”.
The first is that is the client is effectively forced to look around, either because they are legally bound to do so, or simply because their own internal procurement procedures demand it. In either case, the route taken might be anything from a straightforward like-for-like alternative quote, to a full blown OJEU tender.
As the incumbent provider, one has to accept that this is how things are these days and every now and then you’ll have to officially, formally, re-prove your credentials. Doing a great job won’t, on its own, cut the mustard.
One might hope however, that during the course of having to re-prove yourself, the high-quality relationship you’ve built up with your client will somehow rise up and present itself as a huge undeniable entity that gets heavily factored into the decision making process.
Sadly, this doesn’t appear to be happening – and often the decision makers are not in fact your actual clients, but their procurement colleagues, who may, or may not, have any direct experience of the event industry.
Sad it may be, but whether we agree or disagree with it, there appears to be an element of logic to it (it purports to create a fairer playing-field, stamp out nepotism, eke out best value for money, etc.). And given that logic, we can kind of understand why it is the way it is.
The second ‘background story’ is far less comprehensible. In this scenario, your client decides to “look around” even though they are under no legal or even procurement-driven obligation to do so. The relationship at this stage is (or at least was) tip-top, and you’re left wondering why your client feels this need to somehow cast doubt upon their own thinking, which up until that point had obviously convinced them that you were the one for the job.
In case you’re thinking that the suppliers in my story had simply mis-read the situation, and that the relationships weren’t as solid as I have made out, believe me that’s not the case. It has happened to a number of people I know well and who are not the types to inhabit a ‘my client loves me’ fantasy world. It has also happened to me.
So these are genuinely good relationships that seem to be heading for great heights, when they are diverted, derailed and sent cascading down into the abyss. OK that’s a tad dramatic, but you get my drift …
I think there are a couple of factors at play here.
The first, and most obvious one is that every client, whether in the private, corporate or public sector, wants to be sure that they are getting good value for money. Until we return to bartering, that will always be the case. However, a smart client will always find ways to reassure themselves that their preferred supplier (you) is indeed providing them with a competitive deal. And that’s by a little bit of discreet research into the going rate for the kinds of services and products that they are procuring from you. It’s not difficult to do.
The second is that many clients are acutely aware of how they might be perceived by their peers and bosses. They want to be seen to be doing the right thing, constantly striving for a better offer and never resting on their laurels. Most of all, they don’t want to provoke spurious rumours as to why they might be so matey with any one of their suppliers.
It seems to me that nowadays there’s an element of dis-trust that pervades our thinking. The media loves to infuse all kinds of relationships with a little smidgen of sordidness – just enough to get our paranoid little minds thinking that there’s something fishy going on. With the ever-increasing and inevitable ‘publication’ of all our relationships, through social media and our overall digital footprint, people are increasingly worried about keeping their work affairs on the absolute straight and narrow. It kills off creativity and jeopardises the place of personality in business, but that’s a side issue.
Irrespective of the reasons for doing so, the moment your client alerts you to the fact that they are looking elsewhere (i.e. to your competitors) they’ve effectively broken the trust that has taken one, two or perhaps three years to build. And for what good?
Having put it out there, there are two possible outcomes.
They may not find a ‘better’ provider and re-appoint you, but in the process of doing so will have clearly damaged an integral aspect of their relationship with you.
Alternatively they’ll go for another provider, and usually they’ll be doing so on the basis of either a more competitive quote or a better ‘presentation’.
In the case of the former, the likelihood is that the saving will be small – perhaps negligible in the grand scheme of things – in which case one might question the value of turning things on their head and starting again with a new supplier. If the saving is high (something I don’t think happens that often), it either means that the client wasn’t on top of things and that the incumbent supplier wasn’t in fact that competitive (but we’ve already dealt with better ways of assessing that), or that the new supplier is taking the job on as a loss-leader in the expectation of being able to jack up the rates a year down the line.
In the case of the latter, the client is clearly taking a risk – choosing a supplier that can talk the talk over one that can walk the walk. They may, in time, of course be vindicated in their decision, and three years down the line, they’ll have established a cracking relationship with their ‘new’ supplier … that they can blow to smithereens in order to be able to start again.
Wouldn’t it all just be a little simpler if we stuck to the relationships we already had?
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