Honesty, Transparency, Fairness and Consistency

Key things to consider:
– Style of communication – standardise text and correspondences with a unique element as required.
– Consistency of approach – Records of interaction and the people – how to get a reputation.
– Construction of the relationship – Channel who to speak to not a barrier.

Suppliers:
1 – Suppliers who give essential products & services – direct costs
2 – Suppliers that you need to use to enable you to do business – overheads

Tips:
– Plan around payments to support the outcome – customers should pay you faster than you have to pay your suppliers
– Choose your suppliers and shop around – build a relationship with suppliers but continue to think about reducing your costs. Keep price checking the fees, responsiveness, costs being competitive, discounts for volume, payment terms, innovation, reliability of the products and delivery.
– Making time to reflect on your suppliers is working on your business.

Customers:
– No cutting slack – contract is a contract. Keep up your terms of the contract and enforce their side. Your long term reputation is more important than one individual. You can say no to certain people.

As always, thank you for listening! Beth