Much like outsourcing specialists and networking groups, once the pitch is done you’ll tend to find that you’re underwhelmed by the after care service.

It amazes me every day how few businesses follow up or keep contact with current clients; your current clients are after all your cheapest source of leads and referrals, if there’s anyone then they should be the people we invest time in talking to but sadly most businesses don’t.

The truth is, making the next new sale is often the problem at the forefront of everyone’s mind. Most small businesses are founded by experts in their field and yet those experts end up doing most of the selling and never actually use their skills to better the products on offer.

Unless you’re dealing with a large company that has a good infrastructure to look after you once the sale is made, an infrastructure that can be sold as seen, then you’ll often find you’re sold an idea of a business that just not true.

You end up buying a marketing companies services because you trust the person and their skill set only for that person to not actually have anything to do with your interaction with the business.

The reason this happens is because sales are so critical for a business survival that it’s often the last bastion to be handed over to other people.

Businesses will bend over backwards to make the first sale yet once it’s done the service you receive will rapidly fall away.

This decline in service happens in most industries. It could be that the first thing you had made by a marketing company was a logo, and then you got the website. Or it might be that you’re importing products based on a sample you had provided.

It’s a basic rule of fact that the first time you buy something is not the time you want to run your keen eye over the products you receive it’s actually about the 3rd time you make a purchase.

Around about the 3rd time is when the realisation that the company needs to profit from you sets in. It’s when businesses start to look to cut corners and reduce the workload in order to improve their profit margins.

I’ve had this happen to me several times; be it service companies that pass you off to newer less experienced employees or manufacturers that change the components they use in order to cut costs it happens all over the world.

It’s one of the many reasons why it’s better to cultivate multiple supplier options than put your eggs into one basket. I’ve had to change supplier several times until I found one that believed in the service they provided rather than the sales they make.

So far I’m working on a ratio of 3:1 of bad to good. Everyone says the same thing in the interview so the only way to find out the truth is to test them out.

Chapter Summary:

• Cultivate multiple supplier options
• Your suppliers will never be as good as their first sale
• Watch out for supplier quality going down hill
• You’ll sign up to a person who will never actually work with you

Read our next blog post “The government doesn’t understand you”.