Are You A Symbiotic Vendor?

Or are you instead, a parasite? America Tech industry blogger Rob Enderle recently reminded us of the all-too typical account management thrust. Is your firm’s

“focus on bleeding cash from their clients and largely measure executive and sales success against financial goals”?

Do you suffer the

“massive swings that companies often experience as over-harvested customers revolt or fail”?

I’ve seen for myself highly paid farmers whoop around the office after selling a client more than they’ll either need or use. Most salespeople will nowadays say that they “partner” with their larger customers. They may even proudly reel off examples of “working together” with them. Yet how real are these claims?

There’s certainly merit in the idea of switching from a “lock in” mentality towards one where each party holds a “deep understanding” of full co-operation. Or in the language of the aforementioned blogger, where

“assets are interchanged optimally to ensure the success of both members equally“

But how do you go about genuinely adopting this mindset?

Well, the mere mention of symbiosis, and its preference over the nasty parasitical pole, could be a decent starting point. Also, an interesting example of this thinking was provided by suggesting that you “improve a process rather than a product“. All in all, there’s a worthy first-step to embrace here, one that could even include asking your customer which one they think you’re at right now, don’t you think?