Many times small business owners open up an LLC or a corporation and focus solely on their relationship with their clients, but it's also important to build strong relationships not only with your clients but also your vendors. The way you want your clients to treat you is how you should treat your vendors. Sometimes business is not always about paying the cheapest price, but paying a fair price in exchange for quality service. I'll use an example of a restaurant buying fresh flowers daily from a local florist, now if you're the florist you become accustomed to the restaurant's business daily, if the restaurant stops a delivery one day, you'd probably wonder what the problem was. As the restaurant owner, it's important to let your vendor know what the problem is and maybe they can fix it, if you're getting a cheaper price elsewhere and you have a good relationship with your current vendor, sometimes it's best to not switch, or to ask your current vendor to match the price you're being quoted. Many times if you've been doing business with your vendor long enough, they will have no problem in providing you with extra discounts or services, as they are happy to retain your business. The best thing to keep in mind is to treat all clients and vendors as you'd like to be treated. It's a pretty simple concept and we all learned it as children, but it still holds up today, and not just in personal relationships, but business too.

Small business isn't just about making the quick dollar and sending your client away with no reason to return, a small business is about building relationships with not only clients but with other small business you work with. In order to keep those relationships healthy you must nurture them and treat every client and small business with respect. If you do business with a vendor, they've most likely obtained your business by having reasonable rates and good service, and it's the reason why you stay with your that vendor. Often times other vendors will call offering the same product or service at a slightly lower cost, and though cutting costs is important, it's not always the right solution. If you were to leave a vendor you've been working with for years, you're going to have to build a new relationship with a new vendor, often times you'll expect the same quality service, but they've got to cut their costs too in order to offer you the lower prices, so you never know what type of service you're going to get.

For example, we here form corporations and form llcs, often times we get calls from clients who are satisfied by us simple answering our phones, because there are many services like ours that tend to give their clients the run around by having them hold for a very long time, or have the caller go though several menus before speaking to an actual person. Simple things like that set your service apart from others.

If you're happy with your current vendors and feel that you pay a fair price for their services, there should be no reason you should seek to change, like the old saying goes, "if it's not broken, don't fix it." Also when you keep a good relationship with your clients because they will often times refer their friends when looking for a service like yours. You can also give incentives to your current clients for bringing you new clients, for example, for every new client they bring they could get 10% off their next order. It doesn't have to be a huge incentive, but you've got to make them feel appreciated. These tips we're providing may not work for everyone, but for the most part, it's what's helped not only us, but those we know. Good luck!