Who creates a business model where you give away value? And still make a living?
When we help you find the best vendor-partners to meet your training needs, our preferred partners pay us a referral fee (since we’ve brought them new, well-targeted business without the cost of sales). What value-add does that enable us to offer without cost?
- This blog/newsletter – which takes hours of time invested each week.
- Consultative advice to you on vendors that will best match your needs.
- A Job Board (and some informal resume-forwarding and job matching, as a number of you know).
- A Lunch-and-Learn for your department on Vendor Selection (contact me about this – it’s been a great help to several companies already. For those outside the NY/NJ/CT/MA/Philly area, I’d need to charge only travel expenses).
- A constantly-growing network of people (from the client and the provider side) that I can tap into for you, and that you can tap into (via my LinkedIn network).
- BBQ sauce? Yes, see how you can even get some free BBQ sauce by contacting us this month for Vendor Recommendations!!
From the beginning of this business venture 2 years ago, I decided that Impactiviti would succeed based on adding value, sharing, and networking. Idealistic? Yes. Realistic? Yes!
Steve,
I agree with you 100%. I’ve found that when you add value, your own value grows.
Because sometimes I’ll give point someone in a certain direction or let them pick my brain (ad hoc consulting), because I tend to not nickel & dime clients but rather look at things contextually, because I write newsletters, because I blog, because I volunteer to my local professional associations, people realize that I’m not out only to make a buck and they actually tend to trust me more.
I tend to call this corporate karma 😉
Kristina
I too agree with your approach to client service. If a client calls about a project that is out of my league or comfort zone, I always make the effort to provide several references to other vendors who can help them.
I’ve had several clients who routinely call with questions of grammar or punctuation, which I am happy to answer because the time I spend is minimal but the benefit is that I stay in their address books.
To survive in a service industry you have to provide service. If I wanted to charge by the minute I would have become an attorney.