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It takes time to build trust in any relationship, but the bonds you develop with suppliers are likely among the most important to your business. Once you’ve developed that trust and formed a long-term relationship with any vendor, you may want to consider taking the next step: building some form of partnership.

“You can tell when you’ve reached that point,” explains Norm Brodsky, CEO of archival records storage company CitiStorage and author of Inc. magazine’s “Street Smarts” column. “You feel that, in any dealings with you, the supplier is looking out for your best interests as well as your own. In serving you, he or she does more than just give you a good price, but actively helps create solutions for you. Put it this way: When you’re dealing with a supplier you trust, price is rarely a bone of contention because you both understand what it costs for you to land a customer and you’re both up front about it.”

There are any number of ways to create what might be viewed as “partnerships” with vendors, such as vendor-financed inventory or trade credit, but, notes Brodsky, a true partnerships takes place when you and your supplier can both actively work to forward each other’s businesses.

“In our business, we use two key suppliers, a software company and a box manufacturer,” Brodsky says. “We do a lot of specialized programming for our clients, so we’ll often ask our software provider to join us in client meetings to show our clients how their systems work. On the one hand, they assist us strategically in making the sale. On the other, they often get business from our clients as a result of the introduction. On the box side, based on storage needs, our customer might need specialized containers, so we’ll introduce them to the manufacturer. When we do these things, our customers come to depend on us more, and we and our suppliers get more business.”

If you do enter into a partnership, even an informal one with a trusted supplier, there are potential pitfalls. There are only so many vendors you’ll use and not all are going to be what you’d consider partner material. Brodsky says that he’ll test a vendor before considering any type of arrangement outside the delivery of goods and services.

“The real formation of a partnership takes time and you need to get know the other party before you do it,” he says. “Before I enter into any agreement, I want to know how any supplier will deal with a problem. I want to know how they react during a crisis and how quickly they move to correct a problem. Anyone can make a product or deliver a service—it’s what people do during the tough times that tell me how close I want to be with them.”

In any written agreement, Brodsky advises clearly stating what each party is responsible for and trying to anticipate problems before they occur by mapping out as many scenarios in advance as possible. But, he adds, leave room for flexibility and be willing to make changes as needed.

“A written agreement really exists to make sure everyone is accountable to the deliverables and that neither side becomes complacent. But, with regular communication, it should never be an issue,” he notes. “I’ve always said that I’ll never review an agreement unless a problem occurs. Remember, this is not an adversarial relationship. You both have the goal of creating business for each other and to make a profit. The partnership is only as good as the parties who enter into it.” Of course, any agreement you make should be reviewed by your attorney.