{"id":2836,"date":"2010-03-05T19:45:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-05T19:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.certitrek.com\/nlpa\/2010\/03\/05\/four-words-to-say-that-might-avoid-a-supplier-relationship-disaster\/"},"modified":"2021-08-12T08:38:07","modified_gmt":"2021-08-12T12:38:07","slug":"four-words-to-say-that-might-avoid-a-supplier-relationship-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.certitrek.com\/nlpa\/blog\/four-words-to-say-that-might-avoid-a-supplier-relationship-disaster\/","title":{"rendered":"Four Words To Say That Might Avoid A Supplier Relationship Disaster"},"content":{"rendered":"

Businesses mess up from time to time. Even the good ones. Especially your suppliers.<\/p>\n

Supplier screw-ups can really be frustrating for a purchasing professional. And when something goes wrong, you may come close to losing your temper and doing something you\u2019d later regret.<\/p>\n

I was reminded of this when reading today\u2019s American Entrepreneur blog entry entitled \u201cCount To Ten.\u201d The author, Ron Morris, tells a humorous story about how, in a fit of frustration, he once mailed a nasty letter to a prospective client only to have the recipient call on the day that the letter was due to arrive and tell Mr. Morris that the prospective client was going to accept Mr. Morris\u2019 sales proposal.<\/p>\n

The lesson of the blog was to keep your emotions in check by utilizing resources of time and counsel. Morris writes, \u201cTime will help you to purge your emotions. A good partner or confidante can also do the same thing, and in fact, can do it in \u2018real time\u2019 by taking you by the elbow and whispering in your ear \u2018You\u2019re letting your heart make a brain-type decision here.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, in a purchasing-intensive career like my own, I\u2019ve had to restrain myself from berating suppliers more than once (or a thousand times). A technique I always like to do is to call the supplier, explain the problem, and ask a four-word question.<\/p>\n

What are those four words?<\/p>\n

How did this happen?<\/p>\n

Many times when asking this question, I\u2019ve found that the problem was caused by my own company, a reasonable misunderstanding, or even, gulp, me. In those cases, if I would have acted on emotion, I would have embarrassed myself for blaming the supplier for something that was not the supplier\u2019s fault. In the worst-case scenario, making that mistake could have spelled the end of a profitable supplier relationship<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So, I encourage you to use those four words to help you avoid a supplier relationship disaster.<\/p>\n

Recommended Reading<\/b><\/p>\n