The Ties That Bind

By Jodi Sorensen, director of marketing, Smartsheet.com

Don’t underestimate the value of good vendor relations

Regardless of what size company you work for, establishing and nurturing strong relationships with vendors can be just as critical to your success as building lasting relationships with your customers. The more you can do to make it easier for your vendors to work with you, the more they will recommend your company to others who want to do business with you. When designing a vendor relations program it’s important to consider what processes can be addressed that help make it easier for vendors to do business with your company.

One example of a company that has put a great deal of time and effort into its vendor relations program is Homeclick Ventures, LLC. Homeclick is a one-stop online shopping site that lets do-it-yourselfers find decorative household items like kitchen fixtures, outdoor heating lamps and patio furniture. What’s surprising is that this small company with 35 employees manages over 300 brands and well over a million items. For Matt Hardgrove, director of marketing, Homeclick, LLC, it’s quite a challenge managing interactions with hundreds of marketing managers, designers and artists who create the content that populates the website.

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