15 Ways To Build a Strong Relationship With Your Vendor

For small businesses, their vendors and suppliers play an important role.

With their services, you can focus on offering valuable services and products to your customers. The relationship between you and your vendor is based on mutual benefit.

To make sure that you don’t do anything that can break or harm the dedicated relationship. It’s crucial for you to have an understanding of how to build a strong relationship.

build strong relationship with your vendor

The dynamic can help you in keeping your business smooth and day-to-day work hassle-free.

To understand more ways to keep your relationship strong with vendors, here is what you need to know.

How To Build a Strong Relationship With Vendors & Suppliers

For businesses, managing their supply chain is a crucial aspect. Not just can you build trust and continue with the vendors but also get more opportunities for growing your business.

But when you deal with vendors, they are all different which makes this process a bit tricky. To understand the best way to get a better and more efficient relationship, consider these points.

1. Be Mindful With Cultural Differences

The increase of the globalized world. There are lots of opportunities where you might require to work with global suppliers.

Since it’s on a global level, you will work with people who have different cultural and standard practices in business.

Before you start working with them, it’s important for you to take care of this aspect. Understanding other cultures and respecting their differences can help you in building a good relationship.

Also, the business is more about the people, so if you respect their culture, you can build a strong relationship with your vendors for your business.

Do your homework so you can solidify and keep your relationship healthy.

For example, Chinese culture is more focused on personal building relationships, which is also known as Guanxi. This is considered the foundation of their relationship.

2. Communication Is The Key

No matter what relationship you are talking about, communication is considered the key. The same applies to building a strong relationship with your vendors.

Communication can help in creating transparency for both parties. It also prevents the chances of any hiccups or missteps.

It can be anything like the wrong collection or counting in inventory, or missing the orders in the purchase.

To make sure that you have better ways to communicate. It’s important to have established channels and structures that can boost efficient communication.

Have the right tools that can help both internal and external teams. Improve communication, including sharing documents and other kinds of information, that can help in boosting the speed of work.

3. Keep In Touch With Them

The important aspect is keeping in touch even if you don’t have the work. This will help you maintain the relationship and establish many more personal connections.

This also means you are going to keep in touch on a regular basis. You can also meet them in the office; it will keep both of you comfortable and know about each other.

Share your goals and ask what they can do to help you. Include them in your goals and make them feel like an important part of the business.

You can also give them feedback, for example, if they received poor reviews on their products. You can inform them and give them a chance to address the problem.

The more effort you will put in, the better way the relationship will build. Make sure you both understand the information and personalities well.

Also, respect their decisions and leverage their qualities to bring both businesses better growth.

4. Understand More About Your Vendors

Working with vendors who you understand well can make your work efficient. Through a better understanding, you can work together and overcome challenges together.

Also, when you have an understanding, it helps you in building your relationship much stronger.

For example, you can consider the reviews submitted by Harvard Business on Toyota and Honda.

Toyota and Honda believed that the partnership foundation should be the level of understanding they have with their vendors and how they know about themselves.

To improve better, also consider taking your vendor business and the possession they hold. Find out what your vendors are and how they do the publicly traded.

Also, get more about their mission. Purpose and the way of operation they do. Get aligned with their business, and armed with the understanding of this, you can deliver better results.

5. Be On the Same Page In Your Company

Knowing about the vendors on your own is not just the only thing; your company should be on the same page too. If your people in the company are not putting their best foot, you will keep two steps back in every scenario.

To make sure that you have the understanding, it’s important to keep everyone on the same page. For this, you will need to set a highly visible example.

Also, do the training sessions to make sure everyone is aware of the process and principles.

6. Meet The Vendors In Person

Well, the business is shifted to the digital world. However, even though you are doing business online, it’s important to meet your vendors in person.

Instead of doing phone calls, texting, and emails, which is good too. You can set a date or schedule a meeting to meet them in person.

You can meet for lunch or something to build a better relationship.

When you meet them in person, you are boosting the relationship, which is not limited to work only. You can also contact them and do a person-to-person talk. Ask about their weekends and try to get a little bit of personal relationship.

However, make sure you are not overstepping things. Keep your business firm but also friendly. And keep everything professional too.

This can help you in getting a stronger relationship and boost the understanding between you two.

7. Honesty Is Important And the Best Policy Too

In business, there is no denying that you will not have a disagreement. When you are working with someone who has a different mindset, it’s obvious to have a disagreement over things.

It’s a measure to manage such situations when you stay honest with each other. Similar to your personal relationship, your vendor relations need to be based on honesty too.

When you have addressed the problem with honesty, you can find the solution too. Also, it gives the clarity to keep the communication much more fruitful and result well.

8. Set Your Examples

Most of companies focus more on suppliers and what they can do for them. Instead of this, you should consider what you can do to lower the cost.

It’s tempting to expect that your vendor can do everything for you, from offering low prices to fast shipping and on-time communication.

What you forget here is it’s a two-way street, where not just your vendor but you are also involved.

It is important to establish yourself as an example of the characteristics that you want them to be.

When you are building a strong partnership, it should be beneficial for both parties and advantage to their growth.

9. Use Technology To Keep Everything Simple

The digital era is helpful and offers convincing to everyone. You can use this to build a better and strong relationship with your vendor.

Invest in good supplier management software that can help you in keeping track of information regarding your suppliers and keep it in one place for your access.

You can install purchase order management software, which will help you in creating, process, and tracking purchase orders. Also, it will keep work hassle-free and provide a detailed form for the vendors too.

10. Timely Payment Or Early One

If you don’t want to make your relationship bad with your vendor, it’s important for you to understand the value of paying on time.

Since you are not just the one who is doing business, it’s your vendor too. They also have their bills and other work to handle.

Make sure you are paying on time so they can meet their needs without hassle. When you do this, working with you becomes easier and more reliable too.

If there is some case when you are not able to pay on time, make sure you give one clear date on which you will make the payment.

11. Keep Your Agreements Detailed

Suppose you are making a regular purchase. Make sure you have the supplier relationship agreement.

Write down everything in a detailed and descriptive manner. Make sure to highlight all the requirements that both parties have and what they want each other to fulfill.

It includes major points like delivery terms, communications, price, payment terms, etc. Get yours and their sign on the paper to make it official.

Well. This document can be complicated as it depends on what kind of business you do. When you document everything, it will keep your mess away, and there will be fewer chances of disputes or confusion.

Also, make sure you keep your team aware of the terms and agreements you have with the vendor.

12. Evaluate The Complex Scenarios

There is always a chance of getting at risk when you are dealing with your vendor. It becomes hard to ignore when you have a complex supply chain.

To make sure you are not creating any kind of extra senior that brings more risks. It’s important to keep everything simple for everyone.

Before you start the work, make sure to ask for the areas of expertise, previous work history, how they dealt with the crisis, when they had the crisis, etc.

Make sure you check everything thoroughly so you won’t have to deal with any kind of frisk in the future. Evaluate your vendor before you sign the final paper. It will keep both of parties clear about their roles and work.

13. Keep Them Updated On Time

When you are planning to do a special promotion or you have new business goals, make sure your info your vendor in an early stage.

This will give the vendor enough time to prepare the order and give you peace of mind that your work will not disturb you.

When you provide enough lead time, it will ensure that all stocks are available, and it helps in improving the winning.

14. Refer Them

It’s not just you who wants to grow but your vendors too. You are in business and have networks that can help your vendors to get more people as clients.

If your vendors satisfy your requirement, you can refer them to your colleagues. This also shows your gratitude toward their work. And it will be appreciated by the gesture too.

15. Understand The Importance Of No

As partners, it’s important to secure deals and opportunities. That leads you to say yes to almost everything.

As a businessman, understanding that is saying no is important too. When you keep saying yes to everything, you are guaranteeing yourself a failure.

It also plays an important role in bundling the relationship with vendors. If they ask you for something, but it’s not under your capacity, it’s important to say no at the right time.

Being honest can help you in solving big issues in the future.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Why should a business have a strong relationship with a vendor?

The advantage leads you to have to get better value for your business. When your vendor knows about you and your work, they can help you with better services, preferential pricing, and better terms.

What should I do to keep my vendors happy?

To keep your vendors happy and satisfied, it’s important to meet their requirements. Contribute to their growth, have close connections, help them in meeting their goals, etc., to keep the relationship strong and healthy.

How to deal with difficult vendors?

The common point includes working on your communication, evaluating their previous work, and getting everything in writing. Make sure there is no space for miscommunication and error, so everyone stays on the same page.