Build your business for the people
Having a relevant offering, managing your finances and establishing efficient processes are all fundamental attributes of a successful business. However, forming truly reciprocal stakeholder relationships underpin all these elements. This means interacting with people that most align with your company values, and equally, providing them with a product/service that meets their wants and needs.
Find the right people
Start-ups and adolescent stage businesses tend to have a shorter-term approach to the relationships they form. This is often because they need a quick fix to a current challenge and do not have the required time to be more selective. Whilst this is understandable, and may provide immediate results, a longer-term focus is definitely preferable. If you onboard a variety of people with disparate expectations, this will make your business more complex. Always have your ideal personas in mind.
A balancing act
To take your business to the next level, you must go beyond satisfying your stakeholders’ expectations and work towards delighting them. Stimulating this positivity will differentiate your organisation from its competitors and result in continued interaction. Demonstrating that you are an employee or client centric will make your brand synonymous with quality and care.
The difficulty with delighting each stakeholder group is that you must cater for all at once. Your employees must feel confident, whilst your partners feel valued, whilst your customers/clients are excited by your offering. Balancing these separate expectations is certainly testing, but for your business to function productively it is vital that you do.
Creating reciprocity
The most effective way to sustain your stakeholder relationships is to make them reciprocal. Both parties must feel that they are profiting from their interactions, motivating them to continue their business in the future. No one wants to feel like just another transaction, but equally an organisation cannot afford to waste their investments on stakeholders that do not make them money. You see the complication…
During my time as a coach, I have worked alongside a number of organisations who have targeted this reciprocity. Here are the three key ingredients that I have witnessed provide the best results:
1. Where are you going? – At the start of your relationship agree what your separate aims are. This will mean you can help each other work towards achieving them. For an employee, this might be to deepen their understanding in a certain area, so they can become a specialist. Therefore, you can support their learning and offer them opportunities to acquire new skills as part of their workweek.
2. How will you get there? – Define how your interactions and communication will look over the course of the relationship. Having this consistency will give both parties confidence in the other, so their work together is built on stronger foundations, preventing misunderstandings. For a supplier, this might be establishing a specific delivery time, so you can synchronise timetables.
3. What will the outcome be? – At the conclusion of each separate interaction, you must agree what results you both want and when you want to see them. It is enormously important these agreements are reached from the outset, as resentment can occur when the received benefits do not seem equally divided. A customer purchasing clothes from an online retailer, for example, will want their parcel to arrive in time, with the item as described on the website.
Earning trust credits
True reciprocal relationships are built on trust, where each party feels confident the other will meet the agreed target and support them in doing the same. Each time an interaction concludes successfully, a trust credit is earned on both sides. As these credits are acquired, confidence in their partner grows. Consequently, if one plan does not come to fruition, their will be enough credits amassed for the other party to know this is only a hiccup, rather than a continual problem.
Earning these credits relies on transparency. If a target cannot be met, communication is key. Let your partner know in advance (if possible) of the time agreed and tell them the reasons why. You will find that most people will have patience and understand that not everything can run as planned. Hiding these glitches can only damage the relationship, demonstrating that you don’t have the confidence to be truly honest.
Invest in your stakeholder relationships
Without a continued focus on all your stakeholder groups, the imbalance this will create within your business will restrict its progress, or worse cause decline. Too great a focus on one group, will inevitably mean you are neglecting another. As part of my coaching programme, I encourage my clients to consider what they need from their stakeholders and vice versa. Spending time on this activity will increase your ability to delight and retain your key people.
Without your stakeholder groups, you would have no business. Make sure you invest in them.
If any of the themes covered in this article resonate with you, please book a free discovery call with me here…