- Written by - Comnexa
I’m not talking about friends, families or loved ones; I’m talking about business partnerships. Quite often it’s a matter of a salesperson saying “I get leads from this person” or, “We made £XYZ from them last year. Therefore, it’s a good relationship.” What if they don’t feel the same way? Companies often don’t take the time to step back and evaluate whether their relationships are one way or a true partnership.
Arriving at Comnexa, I had the pleasure of seeing some of the systems that we have configured for our clients. There was something in one of them that I hadn’t seen nor heard of before. The system looks at the value of successfully ‘won’ business passed from the company to its partners and vice versa. Comnexa’s solution can provide immediate and valuable insight, such as graphs and charts, allowing you to see whether a relationship is mutualistic or parasitic. Comnexa call this their “reverse-funnel” functionality.
The power this reverse-funnel tool gives you in meetings, particularly between you and your partners, is invaluable.
Not only can you see if the relationship is one-sided, but you can see which relationships are actually generating the most mutual revenue.
Service-based businesses quite often look at the value of a client compared to the cost to the business, I’ve seen it many times when a client that is turning over the most money isn’t the most profitable, not only as a percentage but also as a bottom-line figure. If we evaluate our clients like this, then why not our partnerships too?
Sometimes partners will become favourites based on what you get from them; however, if it’s one-sided what happens when a better rewarding partner comes along for them?
I’ve been in many situations in the past where a partnership was a cloak and dagger way of asking for leads. When Comnexa first implemented their reverse-funnel solution for a client, the client was left better positioned to negotiate terms with partners and also ensure that there is a positive, mutually beneficial relationship. All this helped to encourage growth of existing relationships.
If you could be a fly on the wall at your partner’s companies, would you be surprised about what they think about your partnerships? How much do they consider your relationship to be worth?
Comnexa are no strangers to looking at complicated relationships, processes, and systems. Combining these expertise with the power of Salesforce allows for effortless data capture and processing, and streamlined workflows. All the number-crunching happens in the background, so you can look at what is really going on across your business, at a glance.
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