Does Reducing our Carbon Footprint mean Less Meetings?

I had a first this week.

A bit of background: We are currently putting together our Christmas catalogue and generally we like to meet our prospective new suppliers before we do business with them.  This is normal for many of you – and I employ 5 sales people who do the same for us i.e. drive round the country visiting customers and prospective customers.

Well, one of these potential new suppliers said that they didn’t want to come to Henley-on-Thames for a meeting as they were trying to reduce their carbon footprint!  I haven’t heard this one before!  Whilst his aims are admirable, it didn’t provoke a great sense in me of wanting to do business with this company.  I then started to question myself and think how much of our travelling around the UK is necessary?  The trouble is that business works essentially due to relationships.  Everything is to do with relationships.  You might have the greatest products in the world, but unless you build relationships with customers and suppliers and other third parties, you won’t make your millions!

This particular company has products that we will probably only do as part of our Christmas catalogue, so as a one-off we will probably go ahead without a meeting, but with our suppliers for the bulk of our business from our all-year-round range it would be impossible to take on a new supplier without a face-to-face meeting.  Our supplier relationships are all about partnership and I don’t think this is possible without a face-to-face meeting.  Do correct me if I am wrong!

Sure, there are ways of reducing our business miles.  We don’t use enough the technologies that are now available – e.g. video conferencing.  We are just introducing a weekly “conference call” for our sales team of 6, which will reduce the frequency of physical sales meetings in our office.  However, there really is no substitute for meeting and eating together.

I’m off to Mexico now for a trade show – oooops!