Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Most of us do a pretty good job of thanking our customers… Or least we think we do. But do you ever thank your vendor partners?
As a small business we rely heavily on the work of others to get the job done. One of the smartest things I ever did (and I had no idea the impact it had until recently) was give a gift certificate to Amazon.com to Craig, the owner of CreativeTechs, the computer tech company we work with. I knew that he loved to listen to books on CD, so we thought this was a great way to thank and acknowledge him for the always serving us so well.
Computers are one of the main arteries in our business so CreativeTechs is vital member of our team. Over the years Craig, and I have become friends and he has helped me in countless ways to grow our company. While talking one afternoon he reminded me of the gift certificate we gave him and in his words said “that’s when I realized you were people I really wanted to deepen the business relationship with. I am impressed with how well you say ‘thank you.’
I think the gift certificate cost us $50. The relationship to this day: priceless.