You might know someone who says "NO way, we sell on relationships, that's how our industry works!"
Okay, but have you ever heard the following from a long term client or prospect...
"we really appreciate the work you did on this project and you had a really good program, but for this one we really thought that ABC Inc. had a better XYZ and their price was a little better than yours..." or "our corporate / regional office told me I had to use ABC, there was nothing we could do about it...out of my hands!"
Relationships are indeed important, providing a chance for last look, a trust level when our price is higher but worth it, and established beach head for clients not to change. However, in the last few years the person we have the relationship with now may not be the ultimate decision maker and the priority for dollars is under far more scrutiny that it has ever been before. There is enough scrutiny to void a long term relationship.
Relationships that turn into "friendships" can also interfere with the account manager's ability to ask tough probing questions for fear they will hurt their relationship, only to find out later what they should have asked earlier. Relationships can seemingly put us in a "box" that traditionally defines what we can and cannot do, only to hear after the decision something like "oh, we didn't really think you guys did work like this, so we didn't really include you..."
Solution: Have good up-front verbal agreement with your relationship clients that "when we lunch we lunch and socialize, but when there is work at hand, I need your permission to be a skeptical stranger that's re-learning what you really need for the first time and ask tough questions to see if it's work / service we should even be bidding on, is that okay?"
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