In the market place we are all, we have to change to win business we have and will always change to win business.
Yesterday I was talking to a company who I won’t name about conducting business with them, it was not a great deal of money but over a period of a year could have been worth £50,000 to them.
They had already sent one of my companies a small sample of product to try out, it was OK, but we wanted a bigger sample, we said we would pay for it along with shipping costs, they said it would be £154.73, but then the area manager stepped in and said it was not viable for the company to send us the samples, I have been trying to do business with this company for 7 months now.
When they came up with all sorts of ideas why it was not viable i told them to forget it, so I moved on and found other suppliers who wanted my business, if this company had thought of the bigger long term picture they would have done this without hesitation.
Today that same area manager called me to say they would go ahead and supply us, his loss not mine, so I had to tell he had lost the deal, then he started to offer me even better deals and prices.
For me he had lost the deal, I was not prepared to deal with a company who could not be flexible to gain business, I gave my business to a smaller company who needed the business to survive, so I hope that I can help them.
The moral to this is innovate, reinvent, think outside the box, grab it with both hands.
Richard