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Getting to Vendor Love
- 1. Getting to Vendor Love or How to build successful vendor partnerships Keith Berner keith@kberner.us
- 2. What are we talking about here? This presentation is about project vendors, not commodities suppliers
- 3. Partnership! Zero Sum = Death Win-Win = Zen-Like Happiness
- 4. Do Your Part Forging a partnership and getting to success requires hard work from you and the vendor. This presentation is about the part you can control: your actions and behavior.
- 5. Prepare! Long before you sign contracts and begin the project, there’s plenty of work to do.
- 6. Internal Preparation • Gain executive sponsorship • Determine criteria for success • Identify internal stakeholders and cheerleaders • Clarify lines of authority
- 7. Know Your Topic • Research, research,research! • Reach out to peers • Get insight from vendors you already know
- 8. Get Enough Vendors Get the Right Vendors Seek recommendations from: • Other nonprofits • Professional peers • Listservs • Local service ratings
- 9. Evaluate & Select (1) • Develop a thorough RFP with clear criteria for evaluation • There is no bonus for long RFPs • Avoid unnecessary requirements
- 10. Evaluate & Select (2) • Treat all potential respondents fairly and equally • Don’t provide a level of interaction with one respondent that you don’t provide to all
- 11. Negotiate Yes: Make a deal that is good for you and the vendor. No: Try to get service for less than it costs to provide.
- 13. Fixed vs. T&M Fixed-Cost Pros • Apparent budget certainty Fixed-Cost Cons • Encourages low-balling • Can hurt quality and timing • Prevents explicit, mutual balancing of priorities
- 14. Kickoff Meeting (1) • Set communication rules & schedule – Talk by email or phone? – Who is authorized to contact whom? – Who are the decision-makers on each side? – Will there be a set communication schedule?
- 15. Kickoff Meeting (2) • Set interim milestones and deliverables • Reaffirm criteria for success • Reaffirm budget & deadline
- 16. Advocate Advocate to the vendor for your colleagues. Advocate to your colleagues for the vendor.
- 17. Listen Be humble and learn from your vendor.
- 18. Talk Success depends on trust. Trust depends on honesty. Honesty requires proactivity.
- 19. Golden Rule
- 20. Finish Learn together Celebrate together
Editor's Notes
- Hi, my name is Keith Berner. As you ’ll see, I know nothing about creating pretty PowerPoint slides, but I do know a bit about building and keeping positive relationships with vendors.
- This presentation isn ’t about vendors who sell you cables or screen wipes. Rather, this is about the vendors you work with over a period of time to accomplish something complex, where cost is is only one criterion.
- I hope you noticed the word “partnerships” in the title of this presentation, because that’s the goal. If you set out to create a mutually beneficial relationship with your vendor, you get success. Don’t nickel and dime or angle for advantage. Those roads lead to hell.
- Forging a partnership and getting to success require hard work from you and the vendor. I don ’t mean to be letting vendors off the hook: there’s another presentation out there for them. But this one’s for you.
- Start getting your ducks in a row early -- long before you go out looking for a partner. Start by defining the purpose of your project and making sure it maps to organizational goals and objectives. Make sure you have executive sponsorship before moving forward.
- You can ’t have a peaceful, productive relationship with a vendor if your own house isn’t in order. How can a vendor possibly succeed for you if you don’t know what success is and who among your colleagues and superiors will be judging it?
- Sorry, kids -- you have to do your homework before you hire someone to solve your problems. You don ’t have to be smarter than your potential vendors, but you better be well enough informed to be able to express to them what you’re trying to achieve and understand their responses.
- Get the widest pool of candidates you can. Use all available resources to recruit a sufficient number of potential vendors to be interested in your project. If you don ’t have enough apply, your odds of finding your perfect match ain’t great.
- Create your RFP to make responding as painless as possible. Excellent RFPs can be very brief. Don ’t ask for information you don’t need, but do be clear about your bottom lines so you won’t get proposals from those you’re not willing to consider.
- Don ’t sabotage yourself. Be exactingly, excruciatingly fair. Not doing so will rob you of the ability to conduct an unbiased appraisal and get the best vendor. Bad karma -- or even legal trouble -- could result. Speaking of karma, don’t forget that the vibe between you and a prospective vendor is an important selection criterion.
- When you get to contract negotiations, don ’t forget that your vendor has every right to make a living. If you press too hard for a a price advantage, it’ll be like squeezing a balloon -- it’ll come out somewhere else: you’ll end up with a sullen vendor who resents you and the project.
- You know the classic saying: “Fast, cheap, or good. Pick two.” It’s inevitable that you’ll have to set priorities among the points on this triangle.
- And this relates to fixed-price vs. a time-and-materials contracts. In order to win your business, a vendor might low-ball a fixed price. Then, when she realizes she isn ’t making what she needs to, she’ll have to come back and ask for more or reduce quality. Far better, it seems to me, is to agree on rates and then balance priorities mutually and explicitly as the project progresses.
- Begin your project with a kick-off meeting. Remember that this is a partnership -- decide together how you like to communicate and when. Make sure lines of authority are clear. And, whatever you do, protect the vendor from being drowned by unfettered communication from everyone and his uncle.
- Establish milestones to assess progress and make mid-course corrections along the way. And make sure there are no gaps between your and your partner ’s understanding of what defines success. And reaffirm that you’re on the same page about budget and schedule.
- Once the project gets started, one of your most important roles is to make sure everyone understands and respects each other. Your ultimate loyalty may be to your organization, but your organization ’s success depends on a happy and productive vendor. So, you’ve gotta advocate in both directions.
- You know your organization and your job better than the vendor. But your vendor -- your partner -- knows more about what they do than you do. If they didn ’t, you wouldn’t have hired them. Listen and learn from your vendor. Be willing to adjust as you go.
- Silence doesn ’t help complex relationships. If something isn’t working, get it out on the table. Conflict left unaddressed festers and explodes. Trust requires back and forth. You might want to remember this tip at home, too!
- Here ’s another tip that doesn’t just help in your day job. Put yourself in the other’s shoes. Try and understand their perspective, even if you disagree. Especially when you disagree! Say thanks often and give public praise when it’s deserve d ,
- You did it. You succeeded together. And your partnership has enduring value beyond the trade-off of cash for product. You can learn to do even better next time with a cooperative post-mortem. And enjoy the enhanced reputations you and the vendor have earned.