It takes time to trust

Starting a business is easy.

You get your partners together. Everybody is brimming with ideas. Everyone wants to help out and contribute. Everybody looks forward to a company that will bring in the big bucks.

And so the office is prepared. The hiring commences. The business cards and the official stationery are printed, and the brochures are given out. There are business lunches everywhere as you try to present your company product offerings hoping that your prospect will be impressed and will give you business.

This stage is the hard part.

Some prospects love the free lunch, but when it comes to giving you business, they’ve got a thousand and one reasons why they cannot give you the account. Others say they will call you after they present the proposal to their bosses, and they never do.

What about those who say they are interested, and then grow silent the following day? Then they call you again and your hope is revived, and then they disappear from the radar. These clients drive you insane.

Allow me to relate to you my personal experience.

Some years ago I made an incredible presentation. I addressed every need the prospects had. I offered incredible solutions and put in a lot of add-ons and sweeteners just to make sure I got the account. Everything went smoothly. I was excited, because if the deal would push through, then that alone would be the largest single transaction in the company’s seven-year history.

I thought I had the account. There was only one problem: the client did not give me the order. There was no term transaction, there was no consideration of other options, there was just nothing. That year my company did not get the account, and the training requirement was given to another company.

But the funny thing was that the client would still call me. He would ask questions about other things, many of them trivial. I maintained that relationship and continued to help them.

Two and a half years later, this prospect asked me to see them.

“Francis, can you help us with a resource speaker for an event we have?” It was not my area of competence, so I helped him with another resource speaker and tried to negotiate a good rate. The prospect was happy. But I did not have any business from them.

I entertained the thought that this prospect was taking advantage, that he wanted to get my advice without paying for it. But this time the prospect asked me if I could provide another proposal and a presentation similar to the first one I gave—with revisions and updates of course. I gave a brilliant presentation. And once more nothing happened.

When the prospect called I was so tempted to just say, “I’m busy. Do not waste my time.” But I didn’t. Client or not, the guy needed help, and if it was within my competence, I would. And I did.

One day the client called me and told me he would buy me lunch.

Yeah right! I thought to myself. So he could pick my brain, impress his boss, and give me a zero for my efforts? Fighting the urge to be cynical and skeptical, I showed up for lunch and to my surprise he told me, “Francis, give me your available dates.” He proceeded to hand me the biggest training contract I ever had during those years. That client remains with me until today.

During lunch I made a bold move. I asked some very serious and risky questions: Why was it that you never gave me the account some two years ago when I knew that my services and my offer was just as good as the one that you purchased? And why did you continue to communicate with me even though you did not give me the account?

The client looked at me, smiled, and said, “It takes time for us to trust a vendor. We saw that you continued to help and that your advice really made sense. We knew that you understand business, and that you were not in it just to make money from us, and that you sincerely wanted to help us. We knew that, because you helped even though we did not give you the business.”

That was so huge a lesson for me to process.

Trust is the foundation of business, and it takes time for the client to trust any supplier or vendor. In my case, it took years. But now it’s been years and we are still in business together.

What a wonderful thing to learn. Business is in it for the long term. It’s relational, not just transactional. And thinking back, I sure am glad I continued to maintain communications and served the client. Just one thing more: that day, the client did pay for lunch.

(Mark your calendars. Francis Kong will team up with renowned speaker and author Krish Dhanam on May 15 in a whole day seminar entitled Achieving Peak Performance at the EDSA Shangri-La Hotel. For further inquiries, contact Inspire at 09158055910 or call 632-6310912.)