Power up Partnerships
“5 Steps to a more results focused vendor/client partnership”
I had an interesting year in 2009 from personal and professional perspectives. As a new VP with Eagle’s Flight my quest was to truly become an “Eagle” in my all areas of my life. That meant reporting to the CEO, biting off a huge sales goal and attempting to navigate through a down economy. It also meant growing in amazing ways professionally while expanding my thinking around executive leadership. Oh and by the way, do this all while still living up to my email signature mantra that begins, “Father, Husband...” To say the least I was in for a ride.
Have you ever made a decision that you knew would impact every aspect of your life only to get about a month into that decision and say, “What was I thinking?” Not me. I go into things with my hair on fire and travelling at two hundred miles per-hour. I lead with instinct, gut or whatever name you have for that little voice inside you that constantly says, “GO THAT WAY!” It is a strange life, to be the one people look at with eyes of curiosity mixed with a little fear, yet it has always worked for me. Eagle’s Flight and I are a powerful combination because the programs are a little like that in the sense they make a person curious.
What drives us to truly learn as humans? Contrary to what you see in classrooms, it is not long Power Point presentations, catchy phrases or hours of a training professional lecturing us about our behavior. Ultimately the driving force in unlocking our human potential is experience. When you were a child you did not learn to ride your bike because someone spent three days with you, in a classroom, showing you elaborate presentations on the mechanics of the bicycle. You never went to seminars about how to unlock your inner rider. So how did you accomplish learning the seemingly daunting transformational skills necessary for riding a bike on your own? You just got on the darn bike and rode it. Certainly you often fell off, skinned up your knee and even crashed a time or two, but if you learned how to ride a bike you did so through experience. The transformational power of experiential learning is a container in which anything is possible around the individual’s own growth. So when I embarked on my journey in January of 2009 I came with my own sense of fearless accountability but armed with the most powerful weapon in the learning world today, experiential learning. What I experienced changed the way I work so hopefully it will help you as well.
The year was challenging no doubt. Many of my clients were loosing budgets for training in droves, many more were shifting budgets, and in several cases the sales close process seemed to drag on forever. There was a sense with every engagement from the simple one program, ten thousand dollar “Promises, Promises!” to the larger two million dollar roll out projects that it was becoming more and more difficult for companies to get a decision made about learning. Even with all of that challenge I was determined. To me there was one permeating thought I just could not get out of my head - leaders down to the front line employees needed Eagle’s Flight. Companies were desperately trying to plug the holes so as to not drown in an economic downturn tidal wave, yet they were forgetting that without people growing, learning, and unlocking fulfillment through mental expansion, ultimately the tidal wave would come from within the organization. In every meeting I would listen to the needs of my contacts but I could hear the underneath message, “Todd I agree with you, but they are not letting me spend money.” Something had to shift in this relationship if I was to assist them in educating the senior leaders about the RESULTS of training. This meant this was going to only happen if there was a total understanding that I was their partner who genuinely cared about every person in their organization. My mission then became very simple. Be a partner and leverage the engine of experiential learning to the fullest. Showing that Eagle’s Flight was without a doubt the most innovative company in this space made one part easy, proving that I was a partner….now that was the challenge.
What is a partner? Truly?
Being married for a while now and having three amazing kids I can say with certainty that a true partnership is complex. Regardless of its complex ever changing nature however, a true partnership needs one element that without it the whole partnership is doomed to failure. Transparent trust is an element my wife and I established early on. We live by it. Sometimes the day is messy with kids needs, our individual needs and the needs of all around us. There are days where we have rather challenging discussions. What we always agree on however is that we are partners fully engaged in the experience of marriage together. We share it all to keep the trust strong. In our marriage the saying is, “I appreciate all of you.” Trust then is the base of, in my mind, all client/vendor partnerships. Including Transparent Trust, here is my complete list of E.A.G.L.E partnership principles:
Engage Transparent Trust – This is the foundational base of any partnership. When interacting with clients or vendors go into it with your cards on the table. Instead of hiding facts, company relevance or the details of your needs, share them. If I am there to show you how Eagle’s Flight could help you meet the needs of your company, you must tell me the needs. If not, I will be flying around in the dark. Eagles have great eyesight, but we are not psychic. There is only good that can come from mutual and Transparent Trust. If you are not willing to build this foundation then don’t allow the initial meeting to take place.
Assumptions No More! – Instead discover each other. Most of my first meetings with partner clients are spent in discovery. After all, I need an intimate understanding of the company’s history, team, leadership, needs, and challenges if I am to innovate solutions with you. Often the vendor can feel a little like a doctor with a closet full of remedies if you, the client, would only tell the truth about the company’s medical history. The lesson here for both vendor and client is to ask questions, discover and never assume anything. I don’t want to put your leg in a cast if it’s your head that hurts.
Get Flexible – “There is nothing more flexible than water and nothing more powerful.” That flexibility is the key to success throughout business is certainly most prevalent in the partnership between vendor and client. Often, the complexity of human interactions causes us to stand our ground or not move from our point. Inflexibility is many times caused by a strong sense of ego. When your ego, or the need to be right, surpasses the need to get results in the partnership flexibility dies. When you engage the ego you are essentially Edging Greatness Out. In partnership there is no win, only desired/promised results or not. Be flexible in your approach to the other by listening and using phrases like, “yes and” instead of “I’m sorry but” As our CEO Phil Geldart often will say, “When listening to others, imagine a chalkboard in your head. When a person starts speaking to you that chalkboard is blank. As they continue to speak imagine they are writing their intent of their words on the chalkboard. Then be flexible in your response based on the intent of their words.”
Leap in for Results – Many times people just start talking. On the vendor side it is usually because they want to get their service message across quickly. The vendor then works vehemently toward an information dump. On the client side the response is more about vague concepts designed to feel standard so as to not give away the challenges of that particular organization. (See partnership rule 1) A true, vendor - client partnership is different. In this level of interaction we only respond for results considering all of the other partnership principles, related context and needs. Leaping in for results literally means that you leap in when the time is right with a passion for achieving the desired outcome. If you are on the client side it also means that as you sell your vendor into the organization do so with that same passion. Think about it this way, in every interaction both from vendor and client, you should be working to close to the next phase of the partnership. Clients can learn a great lesson here. For example, one of my clients called to download literally EVERY initiative he had for the year. Then he said, “Tell me where you see Eagle’s Flight helping here.” Now, that is Leaping in for Results based on Transparent Trust!
Engage their Passion – I call this the heart of the partnership. What is it that makes the partner tick? Do they love baseball, food, family, or work itself? Whatever the passion you as a partner must engage that passion. Get to them on their level. One of my partner clients at a multi-billion dollar organization loves to be involved in the process of developing programs. When his company was interested in using Eagle’s Flight for a roll out to all of their ten thousand employees I kept reminding him that he would be involved in the process of developing the custom content. His passion was ignited to say the least thus creating a joyous experience working with him on the project. We could all feel his passion coming out in the work. Dare I say, it made the project even more enjoyable?
When I took on the year of 2009 I did so as a Father, Husband, and VP Business Development. My incoming sales revenue topped out in the millions, I watched our youngest son walk for the first time, my daughter got her first stitches, my wife and I took our first vacation in four years, I brought someone on my team who is becoming an Eagle, and (by using the partnership principles illustrated above) my clients became something more than merely clients. Through partnership we learned to trust each other and achieved amazing results. What will 2010 hold for the economy, or business at large? I don’t follow trends or listen to the news so you won’t get that perspective from me. What I do know, is that 2010 will hold for me many more opportunities to make new partnerships, and to experience new ways to solve challenges for my existing clients using Eagle’s Flight experiential learning. The real question is - what will 2010 hold for you? I hope this article gives you some insight into what is possible. After all what companies really want are eagles not pigeons.
Go be an eagle!
By Todd Mitchem
Father, Husband, Business Development
Eagle’s Flight
www.eaglesflight.com
Todd Mitchem BIO
With over sixteen years in the, training, entertainment and learning worlds Todd Mitchem brings a unique blend of business, personality and engagement to everything he does. Todd is passionate about helping clients initiate change and solve challenges within their organizations. Successfully doing this time and time again is one of his greatest professional accomplishments.
Eagle’s Flight
Eagle’s Flight has been an innovative leader in “experiential” learning for more than twenty years. These cleverly masked business simulations have allowed clients to engage both the head and the heart of their employees. In order for these experiences to be effective, Eagle’s Flight works diligently to understand your business needs and to apply relevance to the participant learning.
The Eagle’s Flight offerings include skill-based program development, conference training events and substantial leadership initiatives. In addition, a large portion of Eagle’s Flight’s expertise is in custom program development. Within each of these business segments, the point of difference remains the same – a focus on results, driven by a unique experiential approach and brought to life by dynamic people.
