Strategic partner or vendor?
If you type in ‘vendor’ in the Word thesaurus you get some of the following alternatives:
• Salesperson
• Hawker
• Peddler
• Dealer
While there is absolutely nothing wrong with any of these descriptions or occupations, I would never actively use the term - vendor - to describe Clarity and the services we provide to other agencies and organizations.
This isn’t a question of being snooty-pooty about labels, but rather a differentiation we want to make because we believe in adding value. A vendor offers clients a template menu of services at fixed prices and what you see is what you get. Simple. This is not the Clarity approach.
We believe that the best, most effective work comes from building long-term partnerships with our clients and sharing insights based on our collective experiences, market and industry knowledge etc.
Even though you may engage us for one specific job, we like to see how our ‘piece’ fits into the ‘bigger picture’ and if we can work together to improve on this. Great ideas never occur in a vacuum – it takes sparks to start the proverbial bonfire!
Mar 12th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Hi Roz: Very true! I believe that if you call yourself a vendor, all that craftsmanship (or craftswomanship) flies out of the window. I always think of vendors as those people dealing with factory folks. Talk to any factory person and they will say, oh yes, my vendor came today for a meeting. Ugh. What an ugly word. I would prefer to be called anything except a plain old vendor. I suppose people who deal with arty stuff (words, design, things you cannot mass produce) aren’t really vendors. We’re specialists of our craft. Yup. That is what we are. Don’t you agree?
Mar 14th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Absolutely! Spoken like a true writer Krista!