Most business relationships that we enter into in our life are transactional. I want to buy that car. I want to sell my house.
Those relationships have the transaction as the focus.
And once that transaction is complete, the relationship is over. In other words, there is, at the closing, a parting of the ways.
Other sorts of relationships, for example, the standard concept of an exclusive contract between, for example, a radiology group and a hospital, involve creating a relationship that continues past the closing. Instead of being the end, the closing is the start of the term. It’s not like the delivery of the car, which is transactional. It’s the beginning of a relationship.
But query at the same time, when you’re selling that hospital on the creation of a relationship, whether you also go to the next level, being not simply the creation of a relationship between your group and the facility, but the creation of a transformation for the benefit of the facility.
What are you bringing to the facility that will change it, that is, will transform it for the better, as a result of entering into the relationship with you?
That’s a far more powerful selling proposition. It’s uses a more powerful set of actions to cement the relationship between your group and the facility. It also requires another way of thinking.
It’s not just a continuation of providing coverage from “x” hour to “y” hour five-days a week, and a slightly different schedule on the weekends. Rather, it’s a series of interactions that are aimed at improving the facility so dramatically that their position is forever changed and continues to improve and evolve. If you can do that, they really have no logical choice but to continue to do business with you, moving into the future.
So, think about that: Transaction. Relationship. Transformation.
What would you rather obtain? What would you rather provide in order to maintain the longest possible profitable business relationship?
