How To Build Quality Relationships With Vendors And Lower Costs
Getting your products and services from concept to cash you need vendors and fulfillment. Anyone from web programmers, fulfillment houses, graphic designers. Whatever type of vendors you may need to use in your business this article will outline a few tips about how you can lower your fulfillment costs while building quality relationships.
One great way to build your relationship with someone is to send them as many referrals as you can. By sending them recommendations and referrals they will see your relationships as having more value then just someone they do business with. When I do this with the vendors I work with I am now not only benefiting them by giving them business but by also bringing more business to them. This puts me in a much more favorable light then most of their costumers. You want to give them as many benefits as quickly as possible – sending referrals is a very easy method to do so.
Here is another tip that I have also done – joint venture projects with my vendors. This is an example of one jv project I’ve done. Graphic designer are great at what they do and can really change the way people view your products. The graphic designer I was working with and I decided to do a joint venture project together – she would do the design at no cost and I would do the marketing and put together the product. Then we would split any profits.
Boom! Just like that I had almost completely eliminated my cost up front and now don’t have to worry about coming up with that money. Starting out, this was really helpful as I didn’t have the money to put up front to hire a graphic designer. So this strategy is really great for that reason and many others.
Some people will think, “If I split the profits with someone else, I’m going to loose a big chunk of money!” Time out. Personally, I think that it is better to actually get your projects completed, making some money, rather than not have any completed and not be making any money.
Instead of just letting those ideas sit on shelf, not making any money, I made an effort to approach and build a relationship with that specific vendor and was able to get those projects completed and off the shelf.
Whether you are just starting out, on a tight budget, or just want to get projects done economically, you really have to look to be creative. Joint venture project with my vendors is one creative idea I’ve used with multiple different vendors.
Another tip I suggest when working with vendors and you want to save a lot of money is to do a lot of work ahead of time. By doing this you are going to save the vendor time and save them effort. Don’t be afraid to ask them questions like, how you could save money, or what else you can do to cut down their time or effort. Vendors want to help you, they want to do business with you. They also know people have budgets to work within and they will help you figure things out.
My last tip for now is instead of creating a completely new project design everytime, create a template to use. This way you can use it over and over again without having to pay your vendors again to do the same work. I’ll tell you more about it in detail.
We will use developing e-Books for example. Instead of getting a graphic designer to design a specific layout for each of your e-Books you generate, it would be a lot easier and cheaper for you to get them to design a template. That way you can use that template for every e-Book you generate after that point instead of paying for it again.
That is a completely different approach, yet it will save you hundreds – if not thousands – of dollars in the long-run. Yet, it’s pretty much the same amount of effort for the graphic designer. So that’s another creative idea on how you can save a lot of money when working with vendors, and also building relationships with vendors.
As you can see, these are just a few quick examples on how to both cut costs and build strong long lasting relationships with vendors and fulfillment companies. Once you start thinking outside of the box, many more strategies will come to you.
May ideas come to you when you need them most!
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