Yesterday, I had the pleasure of talking to CEO of a UK based business development firm. We have been looking for a Sales Partner in UK for a while. The call was to discuss a potential partnership. I was extremely pleased with the way the communication progressed. We ended the call with an agreement to re-connect next week after doing more research.It was a very "open - mature- progressive" conversation.
Many conversations that I have had did not progress the same way.Either I was too much willing to jump in or the other party was. The problem was these associations did not last long.
I think if a curve is drawn relating "time to start an association" and "time for which the association lasted", it would take a bell shape. When time to start an association is very short - the association life is short. When time to start an association is "medium" - the association has maximum life span. And when time to start an association is too long the association is short, as well!!
Well how do you explain the third case - very long time to start the partnership --short life. My observation has been that in this case there is a persistent scepticism or even "lack of trust" which keeps on nagging the parties even after the association starts and the moment the first trigger happens, the partnership collapses.
Our associations (and here association refers to partnerships, customer relations, even employee associations) follow the above curve. There have been a few exceptions, though. In all the exceptional cases, both parties had to put an extra amount of effort to really make the partnership work.
- Udayan Bose
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