What Can Small Services Vendors Do About Preferred Vendors?
Written by Gloria Metrick on . Published as written. It may not reflect how these systems work today.
For the past few days, I'd been blogging about the change between the old days when customers would look for services firms to implement their systems and the current times when more and more of them use preferred vendors. Companies such as mine, GeoMetrick Enterprises, must find ways to continue to do business. Small businesses in our industry sometimes struggle to find ways to get new customers and some of them will ask me, "What can we do about preferred vendors?"
Answer: Nothing.
Seriously, there's nothing you can do about the fact that so many customers are locked-into these systems. Some customers will tell a sad story of how their project needs went unfulfilled because the preferred vendor couldn't or wouldn't get them a resource at the same time you had people who could have filled that spot, but there's nothing you can do about it. Companies who choose these vendors have their reasons and, except for those who leave openings for specialty vendors, aren't going to be flexible-enough to let you service these customers, as much as both sides might want it.
This then leads to the question, "Then, where do we find other business?"
Answer: That also gets harder to figure out, every day.
In the "old" days, we would meet at industry conferences, user group meetings, and these types of places. We now have fewer conferences where "everyone" attends -- more smaller ones -- and fewer people seem to have a travel budget. The other day, I mentioned that, because of this, customers don't tend to meet each other in-person to share information such as referrals the way they used to but they also don't meet the smaller product and services vendors, either.
One problem with being a small business is that you can't try lots of things and see what works. Small businesses don't have the budget nor the personnel to use this tactic. Additionally, whatever the next small business is doing might not work for you. We continue to read about how social media changes the face of business, how we all have to be in FaceBook, Twitter and such, but if every small business spent all their time focusing merely on being active in all these tools, I doubt we'd have enough time left for anything else. Unlike consumer products, our customers don't necessary "hang out" in these places. However, I do think it's good to try some of these tools to understand how they work and to see their potential, but each business owner has to find the things they are most comfortable with and most successful.
The old model held that by speaking and writing, you would drum-up plenty of business. Unfortunately, there are fewer places to speak and fewer people see the talks that are given. With the plethora of blogs, I no longer see much of a return from writing articles for industry magazines, either. Thus, the old formula has been shattered. It's no longer that easy, if that was even ever "that easy."
In the end, if it really was all that easy, everyone would be doing it. To all the small businesses out there, keep your chins up. For those who ask how I do it, I think it's just that I'm such a dyed-in-the-wool Midwesterner. Maybe there's just something in the water, but the idea of giving up just doesn't seem like much of an option.
Gloria Metrick
GeoMetrick Enterprises
http://www.GeoMetrick.com/