Line Drives and Successful Business Relationships
A few years ago I was trying to explain the concept of the moral of a story to my son. I used an episode from my past to illustrate my point. I was playing 3rd base in a little league game and Matt White (name changed to protect the innocent) stepped up to the plate. My dad was at the game and yelled out to me to “play deep”. Of course I ignored this advice and stayed where I was. My dad called out to me again, “you better play deep”. My feet remained firmly planted where they were. Our pitcher wound up and delivered and Matt hit a rocket line drive over my outstretched hand that to my knowledge is still rolling. Naturally the moral of the story was always listen to those who are older and wiser than you, but when I asked my son to tell me what the moral was, his little face perked right up and he proudly announced, “always play deep”. I was reminded of this the other day while I was in a meeting trying to fix an issue that had arisen with a vendor. While we were sure that we had made our requirements abundantly clear, what they had done was unrecognizable to us.
We’ve all been in these situations before. We’re talking, they’re talking and at the end of the conversation we each walk away with a completely different understanding of what we both agreed to. And, big surprise, both of us wind up being disappointed, frustrated and pointing fingers at each other. I suspect more deals go south because of these failures in communication than we care to admit. So how do we resolve these issues?
Without looking too hard you’ll find countless business articles stating that the key to avoiding these problems is to improve communications. Well, duh. The question, of course, is how do you do that? Let me describe how we resolved the issue with that vendor. Check this link below:
https://www.salesforce.com/products/marketing-cloud/what-is-marketing-automation/ and get some info about marketing automation and cloud marketing.
And apparently, accounting is extremely important for any business.
Accounting can be referred to as the systematic and comprehensive recording of a financial transaction relating to any business. Also refers to as a process of analyzing, summarizing and reporting these transactions to the tax collection agencies and oversight agencies.
Accounting helps the management to be able to ascertain the financial position of the business. With all accounting activities, the final report provided helps management to know the business position so they can be able to know which direction they are ending.
Accounting is very important and needed for any business transactions. It helps in recording, classifying and finally summarizing the transactions in a business. This enables coming up with a well analyzed financial document like balance sheet, trial balance among others when accounting is done properly within the business transactions. Accounting helps in decision making, planning, and controlling processes, for this reason it is always better if you use a service when dealing with accounting . It’s with the help of accounting there will be documents which will be factored in carrying out these processes. Again with these methodical documents, they help in reduction of theft and frauds.
Availability of accounting in any business transactions ignites the business to run with efficiency, effectiveness and accuracy manner on all the activities undertaken. This leads to more productions since the management will make the right decision and proper planning due to the good flow of transactions in a business.
The first thing we did was sit down with them face to face. Conference calls and webinars are nice but nothing can replace the intimacy and effectiveness of sitting in the same room with someone to correct a problem. Once we were in the room together we asked them to give us their summary of the project. No interrupting them with questions, no accusations, we just sat and listened. Just hearing what their perception of the situation enabled us to learn specifically what they thought their goals were and how they perceived our direction in achieving them.
Rather than address their conclusions directly, we then asked them to listen as we described our thoughts on the situation. After we finished, it became readily apparent to both sides where the gaps and misunderstandings between us had gotten us to this point. Having both sides clearly lay out their understanding of the requirements and the state of the project before “diving in” to “fix things” made it much easier for both sides to clearly define the issues that needed to be corrected as well as the common ground both parties had. To facilitate this process we mutually developed a written point-by- point list of the problems to further ensure that we were in full agreement on the specifics of what needed to be corrected, and more importantly, who was responsible for correcting each issue.
Finally, we concluded the meeting by clearly articulating our definition of what constituted the successful conclusion of the project and developed a mutually agreed upon written plan of action. I am happy to report that the project is now back on track and proceeding on schedule—with happy constituents on both sides.
Communicating effectively is not some type of innate or learned skill. As you can see in the example above it consists of very simple steps that we all know, but in our rush to get things done, seem to forget. Stepping back and taking the time to use them is a far more effective method to salvage a deal or a project than accusations and recriminations since it helps us maintain the relationship that we have developed with a partner or vendor while continuing to leverage the expertise that exists on both sides. Enabling both sides to hear each other’s perceptions and coming to mutual, and documented, agreement on actions and responsibilities ensures that each party feel vested in achieving a successful end result. Using this approach can even help you teach your offspring about the moral of a story. My son now understands the benefits of listening to the wisdom of his elders. And if he is ever faced with his own Matt White you can bet he’ll play deep at third.