VR has a sister site called WorkZ. Writers submit articles and we take some good content and publish it. It's important for our small businesses to get resources and knowledge about how to grow their businesses.
We gladly accept great articles written by businesses. By the way, if you've got an article you want to submit, it's free, just email it to Alf. He's managing that site.
Anyhoo, I've been publishing articles by this one writer for years, literally. They're good articles too. So one day, I get an article emailed to me, using one of our formidable competitors. Wow. Now I've got to get them. I intro myself, tell them that we also have been publishing their articles on WorkZ forever (i.e. I established we already have a great business relationship, let's grow it), told this person that we have a tool comparable to what they're using. I asked to give us a shot. A tiny shot.
Do know this person totally shut me down? Then when I tried to reel them in, they got a bit nasty. For no reason. I would have been ok with "I tested you out, and you don't have feature a, b, and c" or whatever reason. But nowhere in the conversation did they do that. Not even a test after years of working with us in a capacity.
That's business development suicide in my opinion. And the irony? This person gives advice on sales!
If you've got great business relationships, do everything you can to keep them. They can be hard to come by.
Opportunities come to us every day in many different forms. My experience has been rude people close themselves off from this. Your article is a great example.
Posted by: Steven Fine | October 25, 2006 at 12:47 PM