I had a great conversation with a top-exec yesterday about the changing relationship between huge corporations and the small businesses that sell to them. His take was that the way very large companies have used their power to drive down prices at their smaller suppliers has done some serious damage to many of those suppliers. As a result, some of the big players can no longer depend upon their smaller partner. He thinks that lots of the big guys are starting to realize that and re-evaluating their relationships with smaller partners.

I was , therefore, interested to read this post on Anita Campbell’s Small Business Trends:

Large businesses and small businesses increasingly operate in a finely-balanced and symbiotic ecosystem. Each needs the other. The major shift is that big companies slowly but surely are recognizing this. Instead of the typical competitive or vendor-buyer relationship that big companies and small businesses traditionally have had, the relationships are getting much more complex and interrelated and cross-reliant. This manifests itself in innovation programs, such as Proctor & Gamble’s trail blazing www.pgconnectdevelop.com, to things as simple as big companies plowing money into websites and resource centers that have nothing to do with the product they are selling, necessarily, but focus on general advice to small businesses, such as Intuit’s Jumpup.com. The result has been an explosion of free resources available to entrepreneurs and small businesses supported by Corporate America.

As Anita says, “This is a key trend for all of us as small business owners and entrepreneurs.” Think about your relationships with much bigger customers. Are they ready to treat you like a partner rather than a desperate suitor? What are they willing to do to help you serve them better?

It might be a conversation worth having.

Everyone I talk to says the economy is their biggest challenge right now. Then I met Steve. Steve owns four small companies in the outdoor sports equipment industry. He has identified precise niches and he holds a leading position in two of them He sees the economic slowdown as a great opportunity.

“When customers are spending less across an industry, most everyone loses revenue, and most everyone reacts in the wrong way. They cut costs, they lay off people, they do anything they can think of to reduce expenses and maximize margins. That creates opportunities for me.” What will Steve do? He plans to acquire his biggest competitor, hire some new key people (who used to work for other companies), and steal customers from businesses that have weakened their positions by cutting too much.

Not all of us can afford to buy out a competitor right now. So what can we learn from Steve?

• Some of your competitors will lose customers when they close locations, cut back on customer service, reduce marketing efforts. Go get those customers!
• A lot of great people are looking for work right now. That makes it a good time to get the key people you’ve been looking for. Look to hire the people you need to grow. They’re out there now.
• Your employees are worried about how slow times will affect them. You don’t want them brooding. Re-engage your staff by put them to work devising ways to strengthen the business. Make it clear that you want to emerge from slow times stronger than ever and you need their help to do it.
  

In short, if you want to make the most of opportunities created by a slow economy, don’t think about how you’re going to survive the slowdown, focus on how you’re going to come out of it in a stronger position than ever.