Professionals vs. Friends (or Friends of Friends) As Your Vendors

The guest post below is the second from Emily Lonigro, the owner of Chicago-based LimeRed Studio, a firm that specializes in concepting and producing marketing and branding creative for community- and environmentally-focused organizations and small businesses. Emily's previous post for us was on tips to find and retain the best clients.

This time around she focuses on the vendor side. Startups and other early-stage enterprises, take note.

Lately, everybody's writing about what to do in an economic downturn. Yep, we're in a big one. But here are two things NOT to do during one:

Cut your marketing budgets down to nothing.
Hire mediocre vendors and talent.

And here's why:

Say you decide to build a home. It's The Dream Home, better than anything HGTV could dream up – the thing you've been dreaming about since you were 12 and you can afford it during a recession (this is an exceptionally dreamy metaphor).

This home is the culmination of years of saving and moving and planning. After interviewing several architects, whom do you choose? The architect who is going to make this dream come true, the one who has been building houses for years, with the contractors on hand to get the job done? Or your brother's roommate, who just graduated from college with a BA in Art and will do it for trade?

Please tell me you chose the pricey architect. How is choosing vendors for your small business any different than this process? As a creative vendor myself, I hear more stories every day about small businesses hiring the cheapest bid, or family friend, and which end up spending more than double to clean up the mess amateurs make.

Your image and your marketing, especially in our image-conscious consumer culture, is something you cannot leave to interns. Hire professionals. Trust me.

Here are a few ways to weed out the good ones right off the bat:

Vendors who are worth their salt should have portfolios on hand and clients you can call for references.
Good vendors talk about budgets first and have their own contracts ready to go.
Great vendors might be intimidating at first, but remember: they should know their jobs better than you, right? You should be hiring experts.

Marketing, design and business development professionals who have paid dues to make it through recessions and booms know how to find your customers, speak to them and get you the best bang for your buck. It's their job. It's why they are still in business and haven't given up to go sell medical supplies.

Your small business is more important than the house you want to build. Your small business is the vehicle to making your crazy dreams reality.

Want to connect with Emily and LimeRed in person? She will be teaching workshops as part of Community Media Workshop's spring 2009 trainings. Look for her there.

How true do Emily's words ring for you and your firm? How can you take the burden of finding and working with the best vendors off of your shoulders through your workplace team building and employee engagement best practices?

Comments for Professionals vs. Friends (or Friends of Friends) As Your Vendors

Wednesday, March 11, 2009 by Sally:: I agree 100%. In theory I'm a one person shop, but because of excellent vendors I bring a team of talented people to my clients. To me hiring a good vendor is just as important as hiring a good employee. And good ones abound! Price is always a consideration, and some people don't do a great job of pricing their services competitively, so part of my job I feel, is to give honest feedback to the vendors I want to work with about their pricing, and what is "going on". They tend to be very appriative of the info, even if they can't make it work on a particular project. So, tht does bring me to what I consider the most important part...honesty. If you are playing "let's make a deal" games with every vendor, every time, you make it almost impossible for them to trust you, and when they don't trust you, you are not an A-List client to them. When I'm spending my client's money, I am extremely zealous on their behalf, but not at the expense of quality, and my vendors understand where I'm coming from on each project, so that they can give me a fair quote for what is actually involved. And I'm honest with them about the likelihood of it developing into on-going business for them, or if it's a one time deal. I'm pretty much only as good as my vendors, and find that managing those relationships is one of the most important parts of my job. I would encourage anyone who is outsourcing services to look at their vendors the same way they would valued partners, investors or clients, and they will find that they will get top-notch loyal people working for them. You should never hire a vendor just because they are a friend, but many vendors will become your friend, or at least business ally, if they know that you value their work. If you don't, they are not the right vendor for you. And one final comment in looking for vendors. In most cases my clients in theory could contract all of the needed services directly. They hire me because they don't want to. Vendors need to respect my client relationships, and understand that when they're talking to me, they ARE talking to the client. If they insist on wanting to present to the client personally it tells me that they don't trust ME, and it won't be a good fit for my client.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009 by Mark:: You bring up some very thoughtful points, Sally, thanks. I especially liked when you said "I'm pretty much only as good as my vendors." I think a lot of businesses, especially smaller ones, can learn something by thinking of the value they add in this way.