{"id":47292,"date":"2026-08-13T15:37:52","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T15:37:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/?p=47292"},"modified":"2026-08-13T15:37:52","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T15:37:52","slug":"the-value-of-relationships-and-social-capital-advantages-of-the-incumbent-vendor-part-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/the-value-of-relationships-and-social-capital-advantages-of-the-incumbent-vendor-part-7\/","title":{"rendered":"The Value of Relationships and Social Capital: Advantages of the Incumbent Vendor \u2013 Part 7"},"content":{"rendered":"

Social capital is another area of advantage for the incumbent vendor. As the entrenched vendor, you have undoubtedly established and grown relationships with important customer players, including champions, management, key users, system admins, etc., as well as built relationships with Purchasing, Legal, Accounting, IT, Data Privacy, Security, and other departments.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve developed good working relationships. Vendor and customer teams have established comfortable processes for communication and interaction that are now familiar to both parties. Your implementation team and your customer\u2019s team have shared and overcome the challenges they faced, together, and your customer success folks have developed rapport with key users and managers.<\/p>\n

This is valuable social capital that you\u2019ve established, in contrast with your competition who would have to develop these assets separately. And while the competition\u2019s salespeople might be known by your customer, they have not earned the trust and credibility that you have generated through a successful implementation process and resulting realization of value.<\/p>\n

You are the proven vendor! Reinforce this when competitors loom and when you discuss renewals, expansion, and other sales opportunities.<\/p>\n

When you have successfully completed a difficult, but satisfying mountain climb with one expedition company, wouldn\u2019t you prefer to work with that same organization when contemplating a new adventure? They know your food tastes, your preferences, your stamina level, your allergies; they\u2019ve laughed at your jokes and listened in appreciation to your travel stories. It\u2019s a comfortable relationship!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Resources:<\/p>\n

Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6<\/p>\n

https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/blog\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Doing Discovery<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Doing-Discovery-Important-Enablement-Processes\/dp\/B0B8RJK4C2\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Social capital is another area of advantage for the incumbent vendor. As the entrenched vendor, you have undoubtedly established and grown relationships with important<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47293,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-47292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advanced_topics","tag-blog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47292"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47294,"href":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47292\/revisions\/47294"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}