Article – Avoid short-sighted demands on your vendors
Take the Long View When Negotiating With Your Vendors
Thursday Bram
American Express OPEN Forum
January 29, 2010
An insightful piece about vendor management and maintaining relationships with the people that are helping you to grow your business by providing you with access to materials and services. At the core, you want to make sure that you have a mutually beneficial relationship with your vendors, one in which you get a good price and they make a little bit of profit, to ensure that they stay in business and want to continue to work with you. I’ve watched too many short-sighted business owners try to beat up vendors for every last dollar, only to later discover that they don’t get the attention that they want, that short-cuts were taken or that they have been “fired” by the vendor because they can no longer afford to do business with them. Pay on-time (or early to get cash discounts) when you can and be honest with vendors and work out payment arrangements when you can’t. They are your business partners, whether you like it or not, so keeping them in the dark will only injure those relationships long term.
