Building client relationships

Why "partnership" is key to success

Building client relationships

In the age of instant gratification and immense competition, By Ninja knows that if you’re looking to build a rewarding, long lasting professional relationship with your clients you may have to shake up the status quo. That’s why we’ve ditched the traditional client-professional relationship and adopted the much more rewarding for all: partnership approach

 

What is the partnership approach?

Unlike the conventional client-professional relationship where the client provides a list of requirements for the hired professional to execute, a partnership relationship removes those traditional barriers. A partnership approach involves real collaboration, building long-term goals together using your business objectives as the foundation. But how do we do it in practice?

 

We REALLY get to know you...

We really like to get all up in your business... but in a nice way. 

How do we do this? Like any relationship, a business partnership begins with the initial meet up. The ‘first date’ as you would. We always aim to have this initial meeting face-to-face, ideally at your business premises, because we’re old fashioned like that. Just being on site often allows us to get a better feel for how you operate, but if you don’t have a permanent premises (which is more and more common in this digital age), a nice meet-and-greet at a relaxed location (like a cafe) often does the trick. In this meeting we will discuss in detail you, your business and your objectives, which allows us to obtain a deep understanding of your business context and needs. We usually ask you challenging questions about your organisation to really get us both thinking about how we can take your business to the next level. Because we’re genuinely interested in you. 

 

Open communication

Like all good partnerships - communication is key. By regularly communicating with each other, we’re able to work as a collaborative team to increase your business’ success and engagement. This includes frequent updates letting you know the status of your work, as well as regular encouragement of your feedback. 

Our commitment to communication also means we’re not deaf to your thoughts and needs. So while we always offer our professional creative opinion, we really listen to you. You can be assured that if you feel we haven’t quite understood your brief, we won’t behave like egotistical monsters who push onwards with our creative vision, refusing to compromise or listen to your opinions. 

Regular communication also allows you to be reassured that your needs are being heard and objectives are being met.  Frequent communication also results in reduced formality (but not decreasing our professionalism) and focuses on creating value through high quality work. 

 

Honesty is ALWAYS the best policy

You should be able to trust your partner. That’s why when we work with you, we’re determined to establish a relationship built on loyalty, honesty and trust. You’re sharing pretty intimate (in the business sense) information about yourself as well as your business objectives, internal processes, strategy and approach to decision-making so it would be in poor taste if we were to betray this trust. That’s why we’re committed to acting in a way that reassures you, by being upfront and transparent in all our actions. This includes speaking candidly about costs, our scope of work and managing expectations. We’d rather underpromise and overdeliver than the other way around.

We also behave like proper partners should. We apply our greater expertise and industry understanding to honestly highlight the opportunities and risks in any approach we take. We’ll also challenge you to think outside the box. 

 

In our experience, replacing the conventional client-professional relationship for a “partnership” approach establishes long-lasting satisfying professional relationships which subsequently leads to more creatively satisfying results for all involved.

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