Anthony Iannarino is President and Chief Sales Officer for SOLUTIONS Staffing.  He is a consultant with B2B Sales Coach and Consultancy, and teaches at Capital University.

Joe Sperry sat down with Anthony Iannarino last week to discuss how his handling of business relationships contributes to his success.

Joe: How has your approach to relationships in business contributed to your personal or your company's success? 

Anthony: My personal approach to relationships in business is based upon the idea that creating value together requires a relationship based on trust.

Mutual trust allows us to share ideas and information that might not otherwise be shared to explore potential ideas that allow us to exploit opportunities together, to solve problems, and to share business metrics that help both our companies do better work together than we would otherwise.

For example, 30 days after we start a large staffing project for a call center, we will share our turnover data. Initially some of our clients don't want to share their internal hiring data, but eventually they see it's the best way to discover how we improve our results together. Sometimes we have lower turnover numbers, and we share our on-boarding process with the client to help them improve their own results.

It's not always easy to build this trust, and sometimes there are individuals within some companies who cling to the idea that vendors are disposable. But once they have a successful business relationship, they understand the great value that a trusted business partner can help create.

Joe:  How has proactive relationship management impacted both your organization's top-line and bottom-line performance?

Anthony: We schedule quarterly business review meetings with our clients. In addition to being a differentiator, this proactive approach has allowed us to improve our top and bottom line by defining the relationship as something more than a "vendor" could offer. In many cases, this approach by itself has helped a number of clients to move to us exclusively. This, in my opinion, is the response to "act like a vendor, I'll treat you like a vendor." Because we take a serious interest in our performance and how it impacts our client's performance, we are treated as something more than a vendor.

Joe: Do you have any advice for beginning relationship or account managers?

Anthony: Create value before claiming it. Understand that trust takes time to build, and you have to walk the walk before that trust will be developed as much as it can be. Have a presence. Have a presence. Have a presence. Never hide from problems or challenges, even if it makes you uncomfortable.

Thanks, Anthony!  Business Relationships Members, do you have any questions for Anthony?  Leave a comment if you do!

Anthony Iannarino is the President and Chief Sales Officer for SOLUTIONS Staffing, a professional sales coach, and a consultant for a firm he started, B2B Sales Coach and Consultancy.

Mr. Iannarino is also Adjunct Faculty at Capital University, where he teaches Persuasive Marketing, Social Media Marketing, and Personal Selling in the School of Business.