{"id":3259,"date":"2013-05-24T18:34:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-24T18:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.certitrek.com\/nlpa\/2013\/05\/24\/the-supplier-interview-question-that-most-procurement-professionals-are-embarrassed-to-ask-but-shouldnt-be\/"},"modified":"2021-04-07T10:02:51","modified_gmt":"2021-04-07T14:02:51","slug":"the-supplier-interview-question-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.certitrek.com\/nlpa\/blog\/the-supplier-interview-question-that\/","title":{"rendered":"The Supplier Interview Question That Most Procurement Professionals Are Embarrassed To Ask&#8230;But Shouldn&#8217;t Be"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here is one more question that I feel is essential to include in any supplier interview\u2026<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif\"><b><span style=\"font-size: 11pt\">\u201cAre there any factors about selecting a supplier for this contract \/ order \/ project\u00a0that you\u00a0are worried\u00a0that I am not considering?\u201d<\/span><\/b><span style=\"font-size: 11pt\">\u00a0 As procurement professionals, we jump from project to project, product to product, and market to market.\u00a0 That can make it difficult to be a true expert on any one product, service, or market.\u00a0 As such, there is the risk of not understanding the nuances of that product\/service\/market enough to make an optimal decision.\u00a0 Asking this question can flush out relevant details that should be considered.\u00a0 Of course, you also need to be good at distinguishing relevant details from sales puffery.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif\"><span style=\"font-size: 11pt\">Knowledge is power in a negotiation and you always want your supplier to feel that you are the more powerful force in the negotiation, so there is risk at coming off as subservient to the supplier by asking this question.\u00a0 Therefore, it is important that your body language convey\u00a0confidence and that you respond with something that communicates your organization\u2019s expertise like, \u201cWell, I just want to assure you that we have thoroughly prepared for this procurement and are taking into account all relevant factors into this decision.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif\"><span style=\"font-size: 11pt\">While your intent of asking this question may be for you to learn, your supplier doesn\u2019t have to know that.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-family: Georgia\">Recommended Reading:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.certitrek.com\/nlpa\/blog\/courses\/7-critical-steps-of-effective-supplier-selection\/\">7 Critical Steps of Effective Supplier Selection<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/lms.nextlevelpurchasing.com\/\"><b>NLPA Learning<\/b><\/a><\/span><span class=\"s2\"><b>:<\/b> Looking for authoritative procurement templates, tools, webinars, and more? Stop trying to create resources from scratch and start taking advantage of having exactly what you need right at your fingertips in <a href=\"https:\/\/lms.nextlevelpurchasing.com\/\"><span class=\"s1\">NLPA Learning<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here is one more question that I feel is essential [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":4114,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-procurement"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v19.4 (Yoast SEO v19.13) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Supplier Interview Question That Most Procurement Professionals Are Embarrassed To Ask...But Shouldn&#039;t Be - Next Level Purchasing Association (NLPA)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.certitrek.com\/nlpa\/blog\/the-supplier-interview-question-that\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Supplier Interview Question That Most Procurement Professionals Are Embarrassed To Ask...But Shouldn&#039;t Be\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here is one more question that I feel is essential [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.certitrek.com\/nlpa\/blog\/the-supplier-interview-question-that\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Next Level Purchasing Association (NLPA)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/NextLevelPurchasing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-05-24T18:34:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-04-07T14:02:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.certitrek.com\/nlpa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/11\/nlpa-images-124.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1067\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Galo Matagay\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@nextlevelpurch\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@nextlevelpurch\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Galo Matagay\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.certitrek.com\/nlpa\/blog\/the-supplier-interview-question-that\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.certitrek.com\/nlpa\/blog\/the-supplier-interview-question-that\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Galo Matagay\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.certitrek.com\/nlpa\/#\/schema\/person\/72d094fab77892483dfa6e061cb27eaa\"},\"headline\":\"The Supplier Interview Question That Most Procurement Professionals Are Embarrassed To Ask&#8230;But Shouldn&#8217;t Be\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-05-24T18:34:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-04-07T14:02:51+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.certitrek.com\/nlpa\/blog\/the-supplier-interview-question-that\/\"},\"wordCount\":289,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.certitrek.com\/nlpa\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Procurement\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.certitrek.com\/nlpa\/blog\/the-supplier-interview-question-that\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.certitrek.com\/nlpa\/blog\/the-supplier-interview-question-that\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.certitrek.com\/nlpa\/blog\/the-supplier-interview-question-that\/\",\"name\":\"The Supplier Interview Question That Most Procurement Professionals Are Embarrassed To Ask...But Shouldn't Be - 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