{"id":11212,"date":"2021-04-07T03:16:27","date_gmt":"2021-04-07T07:16:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.certitrek.com\/nlpa\/?page_id=11212"},"modified":"2021-09-28T10:03:15","modified_gmt":"2021-09-28T14:03:15","slug":"the-negotiation-before-the-negotiation-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.certitrek.com\/nlpa\/news\/purchasing-articles\/the-negotiation-before-the-negotiation-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"The Negotiation Before The Negotiation, Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Negotiation Before The Negotiation, Part II<\/h3><\/div><\/div><\/div>

PurchTips edition #420<\/p>\n<\/div>

Do You Know Enough About Your Supplier?<\/h4><\/div><\/div><\/div>

In the previous edition of PurchTips, I wrote about the need to know about your supplier as a key\u00a0part of negotiation preparation<\/strong>.\u00a0 I also introduced the first of three specific things you need to learn about your supplier prior to negotiating.\u00a0 Here are the other two things:<\/p>\n

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  1. Who is the decision-maker?<\/strong>\u00a0Your negotiation strategy can involve persuading your counterpart to change his\/her mind, giving your supplier the ammunition necessary to lobby a behind-the-scenes decision-maker to change his\/her mind, or demanding to deal directly with the decision-maker.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t know who the decision-maker is, you can\u2019t know which strategy to use.\u00a0 And, if you use the wrong strategy, you aren\u2019t likely to succeed.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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    1. What deadlines does your supplier have?<\/strong>\u00a0Deadlines are powerful in negotiation.\u00a0 Many times, a party to a negotiation is willing to concede on something they long defended simply to conclude the negotiation before a deadline.\u00a0 You can use this to your advantage.\u00a0 But only if you know the deadline that your supplier needs to meet!\u00a0 Situations that may drive supplier deadlines include things like:\u00a0 Wanting to meet a sales quota for a month, hoping to close a big deal by the end of a quarter so that executives can report it on a quarterly conference call with investors, desiring to begin production before vacation season disrupts the number of production employees available to work on your order and so forth.\u00a0 As you can now understand, there can be many reasons why a supplier may want to conclude a deal sooner rather than later.\u00a0 There\u2019s also the possibility that your organization may be in more of a hurry than the supplier.\u00a0 Knowing deadlines can feed brilliantly into your\u00a0negotiation strategy<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      I know that some of you reading this article have never probed a supplier for the valuable information discussed in this and the previous edition of PurchTips.\u00a0 So, Part III of this series will provide sample questions you can ask your supplier. Stay tuned!<\/p>\n

      NLPA Library:<\/strong>\u00a0Looking for authoritative\u00a0procurement templates<\/a><\/strong>, tools, webinars, and more?\u00a0 Stop trying to create resources\u00a0from scratch and start taking advantage\u00a0of having exactly what you need right at your fingertips in the NLPA Library.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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