Every organization should pride itself on providing a positive business experience, and we think that most are grateful to clients who recognize that. There is, however, one piece of feedback that we find particularly striking – and that is when clients say “thanks for being flexible.”
Flexibility is, of course, a desirable trait of anyone with whom you do business, which is why it’s most certainly a two-way street. It demonstrates a bend-without-breaking mentality that allows both client and vendor to overcome challenges together. In our experience, it’s that hand-in-hand approach that helps build a level of trust and commitment that fosters prosperous business relationships.
The importance of a flexible strategy is further accentuated by the specific challenges that businesses find themselves needing to conquer. In the journey of an event production, these range anywhere from fluctuating budget restraints and physical venue limitations to creative content requirements. These are all made even more difficult by the nature of up to the second changes in programming, speakers, and real time data. Again, by forging flexible solutions to these problems together, a client and vendor not only build a strong working relationship – they create an environment where successful outcomes are par for the course.
Just in case successful outcomes sounds enticing to you (it should!), we thought it might help to share some of the techniques that we employ to promote a flexible environment.
Provide a thoughtful response, not a hasty one. What’s more useful – getting the right information slowly, or getting the wrong information immediately? Duh. Save everybody some trouble and think on it for a few minutes. It shows that there really is a give and take relationship between client and vendor.
Tap into the expertise of your people to come up with all possible outcomes. Business is a game of decisions. And the game of odds says that if we don’t consider every possible decision, then surely we can’t always be making the correct one. Be sure to brainstorm every outcome (within a reasonable timeframe).
Have you and your clients’ goals in mind. It’s common knowledge that setting goals is the first step to any successful business. Of course, business can sometimes drive the attitude that your goals should always come first – especially when you’re in the grind of a project. Take a step back, though, and remind yourself that it’s favorable to meet everyone’s goals, not just your own.
Go the extra mile. Choosing whether or not to go beyond your contracted scope of work can be a fickle dilemma – but that’s flexibility in its most innate sense. Try to find the happy medium between expanding your own workload and providing an unsurpassable experience.
We believe that flexibility builds a solid groundwork for any successful business relationship, and we hope that some of these ideas will guide you in the same way they guide us. So, regardless of what business you’re in, we hope you’re next client can say “thank you for being flexible.”
Legend Productions, Inc. is a tight-knit and nimble event production team that has a longstanding history of traversing the globe and offering seamless content, creative production, and technical execution.