When Connie Customer looks at a potential supplier, what does Connie want and need to know? 

Reverse the roles for a minute and put yourself in Connie’s shoes.  What would you want to know if you were looking at a potential supplier? 

At the end of the day, the thing you want to know - the ONLY thing you want to know - is that, if you select the potential supplier, the potential supplier will help you meet your business goals.

In order to reach this conclusion, you will probably want to look at a variety of things such as:

• Does the potential supplier work with customers that are like you?
• What has the potential supplier helped these customers do?
• How has the potential supplier worked with these customers?
• When issues arose, how did the potential supplier deal with them?
• What results did the potential supplier help the customers achieve?

Past experience of a firm is not a guarantee of future results.  A supplier may have been great in one context for one customer, but might be unable to help a different customer or the same customer achieve a different goal. 

Now that you know what Connie needs to know, what can Connie do to make sure that the potential supplier helps Connie achieve her business objectives?

Filed by Coleen Davis at 2:58 pm under Achieving Goals, Business Acumen, Negotiations, Planning Tips