A data informed future for picking the right partner

Guest blog by Danny Seals at Venndorly

Imagine a world, where a large body of power gives you (Head of Learning, HR or Talent) a heap of money and says ‘use this money wisely to partner with external suppliers who can help us drive performance, learning and change’ What would you do?

If it were me, I would turn to my old dear friend Google and before you know it you’re looking at a swanky website, covered in shiny statements. Then, all of a sudden, you start seeing that same product/service everywhere (thank you cookies and mere exposure effect). Then the next thing, you’re on the end of a call having a conversation with the provider - well that is if it was 2016 anyway. Lucky for us it’s 2021 and things are done differently.

Times have changed, your potential customers are savvy to the goings on of yester-year, but here’s a secret, these changes are the best things that can happen for providers and the heads of in our industry.

Consumer trends have changed, from deciding where we are going next on holiday, which new phone we want, right through to having a Netflix and chill night with a takeaway and it all comes down to trusting existing customers.

Be more social and less cookies

Having cookies follow you around on the internet as you invest 5 hrs into Youtube isn’t the helpful, unbiased approach we want as a consumer. It has been proven repeatedly that we’re more likely to buy a product if other people around us who we trust agree it is a good idea. 

This folks is social proof at its simplest. 

According to a research study by data and market measurement firm Nielsen; when it comes to marketing, social proof is the way to go. In fact, they found that 83% of buyers across 60 countries said they trust social proof more than any other tactics when it comes to making a purchase.

In another research piece done by Invespcro, it states that 26,380 reviews are posted every minute. With the importance of helping customers decide and de-risk decision making, you can’t afford to not be part of the social proof movement. Well, you can, but would you be trusted if you are not being reviewed on the site like your competitors?

As a buyer, you want to de-risk the buying decision as much as you can without the interference of an intermediary, analyst or broker who might be receiving back handers or applying their own bias.

We created Venndorly.com to avoid just that. An open, honest and transparent way to hear from the people that really matter; customers. Both the past and present of the provider you’re considering. 

Not only that, the providers on Venndorly are also driven by our mission, which is to raise the quality of the relationship between customer and provider. Every provider on the platform has an open mind set to continuous development and feedback on how they can be the best provider possible for your needs, you can’t ask for much more than that right?

This neatly leads me onto the future and how we want to help drive progression and transparency in our industry.

Staying unbiased - While there are many services out there that say they are ‘independent’ or they ‘don’t have a pay more, appear more’ tactic, we at Venndorly have struggled to find them.

Tired of seeing this approach, we decided to do something about it but creating the platform is only step one of the masterplan, in the near future we will be sharing search trend analysis, such as early signals and insight on where the industry is going.

This month alone the biggest search terms on Venndorly have been: LXP, LMS, Leadership, as well as e-learning and Content Creation, however this week alone we are starting to spot a spike for the search term Coaching & Mentoring from the UK, Germany and USA.

Data Informed: We’ll also be releasing our data informed representation of the market and we promise it won’t be sponsored by a provider, instead we will score and measure the market on reviews and customer satisfaction search trends analysis.

So, to answer the simple question ‘where is the market going?’ It’s simple. For us and Vendorly we’re in an exciting time where the leading providers, like THRIVE, are progressive, transparent and responsible, decision makers are de-risking and more importantly wanting a partner, not a provider and that’s all built on:

• Being open and transparent
• Being a progressive provider and open to development 
• It is moving from a transactional state to a partnership based on trust
• It is built on a marketplace and not reliant on a 3rd party pay-to-play matchmaker

Take a look at THRIVE’s profile on Venndorly and explore how it works for yourself.