How do you see customers, as a revenue stream or as critical partners in your success? How do customers see you, as a vendor or a critical partner in their success? How about your suppliers or investors?

Every business is part of an ecosystem of mutually beneficial, service-based relationships with customers, employees, investors, suppliers, and the community.

With customers, the business provides products and services while being provided with revenue. Employees are provided with income while the business gets labor to do the work. Similarly, investors get returns, and the business gets capital. Suppliers get revenue while the business gets inventory. The community gets taxes, and the business benefits from an infrastructure.

It’s all a web of back-and-forth backscratching. 

Given this, the importance of service cannot be understated. Each of these relationships relies on it. You help them; they help you. The more successful they are, the more successful you will likely be. 

A robust ecosystem can make life easier and your business healthier. Getting there, though, requires 1) a mindset shift and 2) a commitment to stewardship.

The shift in mindset that’s required is seeing your team as larger than management and employees. You must grow your thinking to include all those stakeholders. They are part of your team. They are your extended family. 

As to stewardship, this is about behavior, or more to the point, relationship-nurturing behavior, which means practicing things like open communication, honesty, integrity, flexibility, reliability, and accountability, to name a few. Bottom line: all relationships require care, and these business relationships are no different.

So, to begin to move your ecosystem to health, you must first ask yourself how you think of your stakeholders—are they partners or just a means to an end? Then, if you can see them as partners, you must become a good steward. 

Now is the time to make a plan. Get going.

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