BUSINESS ENGAGEMENT
out of a meeting knowing what the result was, and why it went that way.
Gillman says that Suppliers have a role to play in reading the wider market and then feeding that back to the merchants. “We can sometimes see a slightly different angle on things that are in the news, because we’re talking to different people, and different parts of the supply chain. Merchants also hear things which they feed back to us, so we’re all working on understanding the market together. After all, we’re in this market together. And sometimes the merchant is so busy being a merchant that they haven’t had a chance to pick up the news.”
“It’s a different type of exhibition to the ones we might usually attend because you are effectively selling to the public. The show really gave us the opportunity to showcase our brand and our products, but it also gave the merchants that we worked with the chance to piggy-back onto that, and generate sales for their business. It worked really well.” Understanding what your customer needs from your relationship is also key, Andrews says. “As a bathroom supplies company, obviously the brochure is a key part of how we promote our products. It’s also a key part of how our merchant Partners promote their products as well. So, we work with them to find out if they need a QX brochure with a small tagline that says the products are available from XYZ merchant, or if they want to include our products within their own brochures. Being fully engaged means trying to understand their marketplace so that we can best help them and help us at the same time,” he says.
“Something else that we really try to push with all our interactions with our merchant customers is the importance of knowing what we want to achieve. We should always try and get something out of a call or a conversation.
At the end of the day, there’s no point in driving 45 minutes to go see someone, and sit there having a coffee. Okay, there’s a long-term relationship being built. But if both parties think carefully about asking the right questions, about what they want to get out of the interaction, then between you, you can put things in place that will benefit both sides.” Mannok, the Irish building materials company, has been very engaged with NBG for some years, ever since both parties took what Sales and Marketing Director Lee Gillman describes as a ‘leap of faith’. This was a deal which saw NBG Partners get exclusive access to the company’s Master Grade Cement in plastic bags. “They needed to know that we could supply them with the product, we needed to know that they could take the product and sell it in sufficient quantities to make the deal worth it. So, that meant we had to work very closely together,” he says.
Echoing others’ comments, Gillman says that openness, honesty and respect are key facets of increasing engagement between Partners and Suppliers. “We all need to be honest and straight with one another, but we need to do so respectfully. It comes down to trust. If I trust the Partner I am dealing with, I know that if they tell me something I might not like, they are doing it for the right reasons. Likewise, if I have to have a difficult conversation with one of our NBG Partners, I hope that the openness and honesty we really try to bring to all our interactions means they will understand the reasons behind that conversation. If we have that trust element, together we can work something out for the benefit of both parties. Properly working together means that you walk
January 2024
Gillman says he tells his team the importance of not going into a meeting with a Partner blind, to ensure the customer feels that the Supplier is fully engaged with their market and their needs. “If you’ve bothered to check out what other businesses are around them, and what they are up to, it shows that you are fully engaged with the process.”
Timescales are important Understanding the Partner’s needs is also crucial, Gillman says, particularly in terms of the timescale of asking and answering questions. “If a Partner asks us a question because they have been asked it by one of their customers, we have to remember that they will need a speedy response. If we take too long asking the question further up the chain and then back again, by the time we get the answer back to the Partner the customer could very well have gone elsewhere,” he says, adding that it’s also important to not over-complicate issues. “I recognise that these deals with Partners, our customers, are what allows me to put a dinner on my table. Engagement is about getting the communication right, doing what we say we’re going to do. It’s the old cliché of under-promise, but over-deliver, where you can. There will be times that realistically, you’re saying to the Partner, I’m really sorry that this is going to be a struggle for us. Sometimes when you say that, you expect you’ll get booted out, yet often you don’t, and the customer can say, ‘Alright, okay, well, we can work around that’. If you over complicate things that’s when it can go wrong.”
Gillman says that true engagement means understanding that both parties want the same things, to make the deal work. “There’s nothing better than a merchant saying, ‘well, you know, we‘ve had a fantastic five years. Thank you, Mannok, you’ve been a part of that’.”
THIS IS YOUR LIFE SO FAR... 11
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