Opening the Kimono – Welcome to Full Transparency

Another important aspect of conscious commerce is one that makes most service providers nervous – it’s called “transparency” and in this context I mean being open, honest and collaborative with partners and clients in providing services – only then can you be in equal exchange and ultimately prosper.

Just this morning I entered into a client engagement led by a strategic partner. In the meeting with the client our partner “opened his kimono” so to speak… and made it very clear to the client that our TWO companies would be providing services together to meet their needs. Two year ago this would NEVER have happened. Instead the partner would have represented themselves as the one-stop solution and managed the whole project behind the scenes for the client keeping us invisible in the process. What’s worse is that the client would have EXPECTED something like that! And in the end, the façade would have hurt everyone and lessened the ultimate result for the client.

Instead, this time, our fully transparent approach made it possible for us to collaborate to maximize our profit, minimize cost to the client, expand the deliverable and put our collective “best team” in direct contact with the client to ensure them the best possible result for their business. Literally everybody won!

I know what you’re saying: “Hey wait! I’m open and honest with my clients!”

Yeah… Some of you, maybe. But not the way I’m talking about. You see… in a conscious commerce environment, you’ve limited your offering to ONLY those things you are truly expert at in the interest of providing REAL value for your clients. But since you offer fewer services now, you might not provide a full solution and so it’s necessary (if you’re smart anyways) to select strategic partners whose true expertise compliments yours and makes it possible for the “alliance” to provide an even better and larger service than individually before. BTW, if you don’t pick strategic partners yourself, your client will do it for you. Don’t take that chance!!

What’s important and different about these strategic relationships now is the level of openness and transparency required between all parties who are involved – much more than before. In conscious commerce, one needs to adopt an “open kimono” philosophy in order for strategic relationships and partnerships to succeed. When partners are open with each other about services and fees they’re able to structure deals that keep them in balance with one another. When a similar openness takes place with clients, each party is able to remain in equal exchange with one another and success for ALL parties is far more likely to occur.

So… go ahead and give it a try – open the kimono and see what happens! You’ll be amazed at how refreshing the breeze feels