The Point

When I read this blog, I found a lot of correlation to raising children. Don't promise if you can't deliver and don't threaten if you won't carry through. I know my son was a fussy eater. One day he was given a choice to either eat the supper or go to bed. It was only 5PM and he choose to go to bed. Needless to say, we would have been the losers in that battle so out came the peanut butter.

As procurement professionals, we are in constant negotiation. These tactics from sales associates often include various types of strong arming.

The auction tool is something that is used quite frequently in procurement. There are many different strategies and approaches. The blog this week is from Market Dojo and discusses their new feature, Japanese auctions.

In the Flip Side, Buyers Meeting Point takes knowledge from sales training, webinars, blogs, and whitepapers and flips them so supply management professionals can apply the information to their own challenges. Negotiation is one of those areas where this concept works particularly well. After all, negotiating is negotiating, regardless of which side of the table you are on. This week we will hear from ‘The Accidental Negotiator,’ Dr. Jim Anderson about negotiation.

We have all been in stores when the sales clerk comes up and asks if they can help you. What is our standard response? "No thanks, I am just looking." 

As a procurement professional, we use different terms but the message to the sales teams is the same. I am not parting with any funds until I am good and ready!! With the Sales Guy interview last week, I thought it would be good to look at sales blogs for some basics on how they get beyond our "No thanks, just looking" excuses. 

On January 31st “The Sales Guy”, BMP’s undercover sales advisor, was the featured speaker on the Strategic Sourcing & Procurement Group Call. We recommend that you become a member of the SS&P Group if you aren’t already.

If you are interested in learning more about The Sales Guy and the insights he has offered through Buyers Meeting Point, you can read our Posts from the Flip Side or submit a question to him to be answered in our blog. You can also listen to the call recording on demand.

Do you have a question you'd like to ask The Sales Guy? Submit it here and we'll track him down and get an answer. All answers will be shared anonymously on 'The Point' blog so we can all join in the conversation.

Last week I attended a webinar called “Negotiating To Win: Strategies And Tactics For Sales Professionals”, presented by ValueSelling Associates. Even though the intended audience was sales professionals, negotiating is negotiating, regardless of which side of the table you are sitting on. As a reminder, if you like the “Flip Side” perspective, check out our sales blog and resource directory for our favorite sources of sales information.

Other than a brief introduction of each panelist at the beginning of the event moderated by ES Research, this was an entirely unrehearsed, unscripted discussion among four industry experts in the area of selling and negotiating with the corporate procurement function. Live questions were taken from the audience via telephone.  There were no slides. One of the speakers on the call described procurement and our processes as being "like trying to get a peek behind the curtain of Oz".

“Do not arouse the wrath of the great and powerful Oz. I said come back tomorrow.”

-- The Wizard of Oz, 1939

As I mentioned in my weekly update on PI Window on Business Monday night, the end of the year is just around the corner. As sales people are highly motivated by their quarterly and annual targets, you may start to feel some extra pressure to make decisions so that your suppliers can book a sale before the close of the fourth quarter.

The more complex societies get and the more complex the networks of interdependence within and beyond community and national borders get, the more people are forced in their own interests to find non-zero-sum solutions. That is, win–win solutions instead of win–lose solutions.... Because we find as our interdependence increases that, on the whole, we do better when other people do better as well — so we have to find ways that we can all win, we have to accommodate each other....

—Bill Clinton, Wired interview, December 2000.^[3]

 

Applying proper motivational techniques can be much harder than it seems. Steven Kerr notes that when creating a reward system, it can be easy to reward A, while hoping for B, and in the process, reap harmful effects that can jeopardize your goals.

-Wikipedia, Incentive Theory

We are all familiar with the line from the "Jerry Maguire" movie - SHOW ME THE MONEY! In procurement we are often asked to SHOW ME THE SAVINGS! The blog of the week discusses just that which is why I selected it.

"Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort." –Paul J. Meyer

This Blog by Anthony Iannarino captures that philosophy exactly from the Salesperson's perspective. As a procurement professionally, it applies as well.

I’m taking a break from the usual this week, and rather than covering a webinar, I’d like to share a new series of YouTube videos with you. Don’t get your hopes up – there are no home movies of cute cats falling down stairs or into grocery bags. Instead, I’d like to introduce you to a series of 5-7 minute videos made by Dr. Jim Anderson of Blue Elephant Consulting, and the writer of “The Accidental Negotiator” blog.

Do you have a question you'd like to ask The Sales Guy?  We've got his ear and he's willing to help. Just send your questions to INSErT a contact form for the blog and we'll get you an answer.

Buyers Meeting Point attends many sales AND procurement webinars/webcasts. One of the interesting things about seeing both sides is that you start to notice trends. Sometimes those trends are aligned, and sometimes… well, read on and see.

Only SIG members can listen to archived recordings of their webinars. If you are a member, you’re in luck. If not, it’s not too late to register for an upcoming webinar – they do one each Tuesday. The following are our notes from attending this week's event.

Do you have a question you'd like to ask The Sales Guy? Send it to us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and we'll track him down and get an answer. Each week we'll share one question and answer here on BMP.

Do you ever stop to think about the fact that most suppliers know their competition better than we do? When you write the questions in an RFP, think about whether any of them reveal who the incumbent is or show a preference for one supplier based on their specific capabilities - all of our efforts to hide suppliers' identities from each other may be a waste. It is a small world.

No, I did not mistakenly use horrible grammar in the title of this article. Bear with me and you'll see. This week I attended a FLIP SIDE webinar by the TAS Group called "The Competitive Difference - Customer Collaboration and Sales Execution". I have a page or two of notes, and you can listen to the full recording here, but I took one primary thought away from the webinar:

Anyone with experience similar to "The Sales Guy's" has seen some crazy things from procurement people. We've all made mistakes, but from time to time, a mistake is so big, or a tactic fails so poorly that it becomes a life lesson. Read below - and don't miss the moral to the story at the end...

Do you have a question you'd like to ask The Sales Guy? Send it to us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and we'll track him down and get an answer. Each week we'll share one question and answer here on BMP.