Guest feature by John Ellis
Stronger Together.
Right at the start of this pandemic, one of my long term Mailing House clients reached out to me as they had several opportunities that they wanted to work with me on. Literally as the pandemic hit and affected all business in the UK far and beyond anyone’s realistic expectations, we worked together even closer on these projects and this then led to further ideas and developments. Let’s face it, the additional resource during lockdown was time – we all had much more time to stop, sit down, and look around us to consider all options. Together we identified opportunities and worked together on them, bringing together a wide range of skill sets which enabled us to approach these new opportunities with a full 360 degree approach.
The company’s performance figures for July have demonstrated a record month for them both in relation to turnover and more importantly their underlying profits. August’s financials (whilst not yet finalised) are also indicating a further record month, which is amazing at any time let alone in this current business climate. September’s forecast based purely on booked-in work is already looking like it will deliver amazing numbers as well.
What we did isn’t revolutionary in any way, shape or form. We literally sat down together and stated clearly what we can do to help each other, discussed what we both needed, and then worked together from there. We have set aside clear time every week to work together with clear objectives and have simply worked towards them – not ignoring the underlying current economic climate but trying to embrace it and identify current opportunities.
A true partnership is not simply working together but gaining mutual benefits so that the overall results are better than the sum of all the parts.
What has my client got out of it? Increased turnover, increased profits, new clients, and a real feeling of injected energy and enthusiasm into their business.
What have I go out of it? Increased turnover for me and for Citipost Mail, but more than that – much more than that! I genuinely feel part of their business now and this much closer working together has helped build a much stronger bond than a business-based relationship ever could. Now it really is a true partnership where we have both gained so much more than would ever have done if we had been working independently of each other.
We have committed to spending at least one diarised full day a month to work together becoming completely immersed in this business, looking at everything that we can do to find, win, keep, and grow. It’s very exciting.
Let me get to the main reason for me sharing this story. I implore any of my contacts to look around and reach out to anyone in their direct network and see what you can do to help others first. Mutual gains will become far more rewarding and in the long term I am sure that this will deliver value to your relevant businesses. Most of us have connections that we could lean on more and that would be more than happy to support each other.
If I can help anyone using this blueprint to try and work with their network or to try and replicate this process with them then please reach out to me – I am always more than happy to help.
You can reach me here: https://www.linkedin.com/johnrellis/
