Rights of Those Who Work 2: The Right to Partner with Clients and Vendors
View CommentsI don’t want clients or customers.
I don’t want to be one either.
That doesn’t mean I don’t want to work, that I don’t need to eat, or that I’m flush with funds and can work for free. That doesn’t mean that I don’t believe in compensation for work done well and successfully completed.
What it means is that relationships defined by money are often skewed in a negative fashion.
Right 2: The Right to Partner with Clients and Vendors
Share the risk; share the benefit. That’s how the saying goes. It’s a great keystone philosophy upon which to build a relationship with a client or a vendor.
When a relationship takes on the client/vendor form, one person is above the other. That leads to a psychology in which it’s easy to start working for the client’s approval. The client’s ideas become the center of the relationship and the work. It becomes the client looking at the market and the vendor looking at the client, because the client is the vendor’s market.
In the client/vendor model the compensation is for the work completed and vendor’s expertise within the context of the vendor doing what the client wants.
The client/vendor relationship doesn’t serve the audience who will buy the client’s products nearly as well as a partnership between the client and the vendor.
When a client and a vendor form a partnership, a relational shift takes place. Both parties take on the goals of the product. Both parties are looking beyond each other to the audience who will buy and use the product. Ideas require the approval of both parties to be vetted and deemed valuable. The entire infrastructure is stronger. The resulting product is higher quality and more suited to the market.
In a partnership model, the compensation is also for the work completed and for the expertise. However the context has shifted to a collaborative working partnership in which that expertise is used to do more than solely execute “what the client wants.” The result is a higher quality product or a more customer-centered service.
We have a right to look for a partnership standard in our relationships with clients and vendors. In fact, we have a responsibility to demand it on behalf of those we serve and those who work with us.
Do you partner with your clients and your vendors? What will you do about those who cannot step out of the hierarchical roles?
Liz Strauss
Behind every Successful business is an Outstanding Manager. — PVM
See also Work with Liz! at Successful Blog
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http://in-sidemarketing.blogspot.com Brad Shorr
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http://lettingmebe.blogspot.com Liz Strauss
