Seeking Representation or a Partnership? Check Out the Company's Culture First!

What makes a good partnership? As a talent and relations partner manager, I’m always asking myself this question. The speakers bureau industry is competitive. We all want the most popular and talented speakers on our roster. We all want to work with the Fortune 500 companies. However, since most bureaus provide many similar services, a speaker or company’s decision often comes down to the human variable: Would I want to partner with these people?

All companies form partnerships. But in the speakers bureau industry, every business transaction is a partnership with a speaker and a client company. So it’s very important the relationship is a good one if we want to stay in business. But how can you determine that the relationship will be good in advance? One way is to investigate a company’s culture through Glassdoor reviews by employees.

Recently, this happened to me. A keynote speaker said he wanted to work with our bureau over our rivals. The reason? He had done research on Glassdoor and found the employees in our bureau had only great things to say about our culture. Some of our rivals were bigger, more established, but had consistently low ratings and a slew of negative reviews from employees. It was more important to him to be represented by a company with a positive culture than one with more famous faces but low Glassdoor scores.

If you’re contemplating a partnership, consider a company’s culture before making your decision. Here’s why it matters.

1) Businesses with bad culture tend to underperform

Several business studies show when U.S. and U.K. companies have happier cultures, as evidenced by high Glassdoor reviews, they perform financially better and had better stock performance compared to their industry rivals. Likewise, companies that had poor Glassdoor ratings under-performed compared to their industry. You want to be part of a winning team. Companies that perform better also tend to last longer and their success can help your success.

2) Employees with lower morale, have lower productivity and less efficiency

According to Tower Watson, highly stressed employees have more indicators of lower productivity, with more instances of disengagement and absenteeism. So companies with poor working cultures have employees who are more likely to be unavailable or unwilling to go the extra mile for you. These employees are also probably less likely to remain cool and collected in a stressful situation.

3) Companies that treat their employees poorly will probably treat you poorly

If these companies can’t make employees happy, how are they going to make you happy? Managers and execs set the tone for a company. When leaders show respect to their employees, the employees show respect to the people they interact with. While your initial interaction with someone trying to win your business may be positive, your continuing relationship will be with all the employees and how things are managed internally, flows right into their external relationships as well.  

4) Their poor reputation can become your poor reputation

A company’s culture—especially in an industry as tight-knit as speaking—is generally well-known, and your partner company’s reputation can affect your business. A good reputation can cast a halo effect for those involved. A bad reputation can lead to lost revenue and higher retention costs. Will people begin to associate your reputation with the company’s reputation? Do you want to be guilty by association?

So, bottom line is when you’re considering representation or a partnership, consider the company’s culture. One poor Glassdoor review might not be a problem, but don’t be so quick to dismiss consistently negative reviews. You wouldn't choose to work at a place like that so why would you let them work on your behalf?

Originally published on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/seeking-representation-partnership-check-out-companys-nichols/