effective operations – SOLUM SERVICES

The Speed of Trust and the 3Cs

Good leaders surround themselves with good leaders. Good teams submerge themselves in good practices. Good people doing good action with good processes produce great results. It works. Great results flow. They don’t take onerous work. The people, the action, and the process make it happen.

So what does a great flow look like? Trust builds on competency, chemistry, and character. Trust greases the skids of great and right results. Look for trust. When it exists, the 3Cs are most likely in place.

There is one thing that is common to every individual, relationship, team, family, organization, nation, economy, and civilization throughout the world – one thing which, if removed, will destroy the most powerful government, the most successful business, the most thriving economy, the most influential leadership, the greatest friendship, the strongest character, the deepest love. Stephen M.R. Covey on Trust

What does trust look like?

Loyalty: When trust exists the backdoor bickering is silent. Ever have a cohort who constantly bickers? Character prevails. Loyalty extends in every direction. A disloyal worker will bring strife into every decision. Loyal people listen and learn and run with direction.

Rapid Results: When trust exists people are busy doing the next thing. The constant questioning goes away. Vision is caught and integrated into daily action. Chemistry is activated.

Right Action: When trust exists the team knows they can run and make mistakes. They are responsible to keep each other informed and know what to do. Competency is not a question.

Do The Hard Thing:

Team Building: A manager asked me recently, “Phil, what do I do when these three seem out of sync constantly? I have solid processes. The people are trained. Communication is constant. Yet, we just can’t get the flow moving?” Answer: Look for the weakened link. Somewhere, someone has lost vision or never had it. They are not with the team. Check out my series of TEAM articles on Shepherdok.net . There are some tips on structure, action, accountability, adherence, and alliance. Find the person out of sync.

If they are in a slump and have been faithful in the past, see if you can discover their angst and help them solve it. You can’t solve the issues of the soul. You can provide the right environment to heal if it has been damaged.
Do not attack them. Many managers make this mistake and lose quality team members. Not only will you lose a friend and supporter, this is an act of treason on your part. The rest of the team will sense your disloyalty to one member and you have become the joint out of sync.
If they have never shown faithfulness, release them to follow their heart. They are not with you and will destroy the rest of the team. Let me be strong here. If you have done your best and a team player resists, release them. They will not become happy because you are a great person. They will tear at the rest of the team’s joy and trust and productivity. Release them and your team can go forward. Their passion is elsewhere. Help them get to it. Be graceful and firm.

Stand strong. Build a great team. Build a better organization forward.

Prepare Your Will

excerpted from Time To Lead: Steps To Transformation For Those and Those You Lead

Leaders are able to reroute their path to meet core vision and objective.

Hezekiah was a God-Follower. It Changed His Life To Obedience

II Kings 18: 5: He trusted in the LORD God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him.

Rest in this – it is His business to lead, command, impel, send, call or whatever you want to call it. It is your business to obey, follow, move, respond, or what have you. Jim Elliot

Rule Well

Hopefully, we rule well. Our challenge is to address the issues of today that have been left unaddressed, too long. Our challenge is to set a powerful course that will reverse the manners in which we have become accustomed and find a course that will guide for decades. Our nation has lost moral compass and needs a strong thrust to establish a critical course for the future. It will be disastrous if we do not engage and adjust.

Principles Work

Leadership is leadership. Anyone can see results if they adhere to the principles. The more principles invoked, the greater the leadership. Yet, sometimes, it only takes one principle to fit with the timing of events and a great leader emerges. A leader empowered with the love and wisdom of God through Christ has a distinctive “accelerator” in results. God works with us doing miracles. (Mark 16)

Real Success

There are leaders entrenched in manipulation and avarice and greed. That is not where we need to look for example. Study them. Understand them. Avoid the fault lines. Men like Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin need to be studied. Understanding why people followed such leaders is important, but not wisdom to emulate. People will follow base leadership that touches their prurient side. That does not make a successful leader or leave a better world.

Worthy Goals

Earl Nightingale identified success as the progressive realization of a worthy goal. I like that definition. So my first test of greatness in leadership is a worthy goal. Is the goal one that builds other people? Is the goal one that adds to productivity? One U.S. company has the goal of producing the best “sin product”. Cigarettes, beer, snuff; anything that is damaging and addictive but legal for consumption is on their agenda. The greatest influence leader in that organization would not be considered successful in my estimation. There is no worthy goal in contributing to the destruction of human bodies and relationships.

Check The Core

If the core philosophy or goal or vision or mission is off center, scrap that example. Study those leaders and goals to understand the ways and wiles of mankind. Look for your own leadership example elsewhere. If you find your goals and methods following a leader with an unworthy goal, find a good closet for repentance, change your mindset, and get corrected. Some of the greatest leaders in history started with an unworthy focus, shifted, and become powerful in building communities. The ability to correct direction when it has gone awry is a quality of a great leader.

Pray with Faith: In the intensity of change, Lord, I look to You for guidance. Mold my mind, will, and emotion to be Yours.

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Risk It! The Better Way Mentality

Every progressive effort starts with a step toward change and a holy dissatisfaction with status quo.

Phil:3:13: Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,

A winner …says, “There is a better way.”.

A loser…. says, “That is the way it has always been done around here.”

Philippians 4:13: I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.

Life is full of opportunities to continue to do the same things. One man defined insanity this way: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Expectations, persistence of others, voices from the past, and other forces impugn on our ability to think new, creative thoughts about what we do.

How do you get into the “better way” mentality? A favorite saying of mine is, “If it ain’t broke, break it.” What? Don’t you mean, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” No, I meant what I wrote. “If it ain’t broke, break it.” Many times we build traditional barriers around an activity structured on preference and our limited understanding at the time. A man displayed curiousity about the way his wife cooked a roast beef. She would always cut the ends off. Thinking there must be a great culinary secret to this method he asked her why. “I don’t know,” she replied, “my mother taught me that way.” Pressed for information on the private process he went to her mother. “I don’t know,” she replied, “my mother taught me that way.” Perplexed he drove to the matron of the family’s home and asked again. “Oh,” she quickly responded, “my roasting pan was too short to hold the full roast.”

Most processes need to be repaired regularly. Now, you don’t want to tear up a good thing, so there are many other rules of change and improvement like: Always give a change time to go through the curve of lagging productivity until people learn the new way and become adept before implementing the next change. AND Any change will be resisted in strength in direct proportion to its’ potential for improvement.

Life is full of processes and a “better way” mentality will protect you from foolish failure. A computer tech went out to resolve a problem one day in an executive secretary’s office. Seemed that every time she printed a letter she first had to print all the letters she had ever printed. It took an half a box of paper to print a letter! The cost and time of doing her job that way finally overcame her embarrassment and she asked for help. The fix was simple. She was simply doing what she had been shown. Open a file, go to the end, type the letter, print it. Problem was she had only be given one file name and all the letters since she began her job were in one file that she printed each time according to explicit instructions. Absurd? Real. Fortune 500 company. Executive secretary doing something that needed to be broken.

What about the way we converse with others? What about how we walk into a meeting? What about how we greet our friends? Are those processes that could use some “better way” mentality?

Jesus broke the mold for some in the way they treated their parents in a story related in Matthew 15. God gave a principle. Honor your fathers and mothers. They made a rule that discluded them conveniently. Tradition overruled wisdom and principle, and Jesus saw through the smoke. Matt 15:6: Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12: 1-2 NIV.

Principle is principle is principle. Relationships, work issues, projects, and hobbies all present problems. When you allow others to help in the process, you prosper quicker. Sometimes they have the solution you need. Always, Jesus has the solution you need.

Take Inventory

Where do you have a process, a way of doing things that really could use some improvement by being broken?

Are you ready to give up personal preferences and do what it takes to “break it and make it better” ?

Can you think of a scripture to apply that can help you into “better way” mentality?

Make Application

Write what you are going to specifically do in the next 30 days about this.

Pray To Be Changeable

Father, quicken my mind and heart. Life is full of processes. You know the one that needs breaking and bettering at this moment. God, I can get so confused with all of the items in life. What item can I work on today? What am I doing that really does more damage than good? Where can I get a lift seeing you touch a new area of my life and give me a creative fresh approach? Cleanse my thinking, Lord. Jesus, be my wisdom, be my source, be my life giver. Holy Spirit release the fresh wind of Your brooding. Brood over my thoughts and bring order to their chaos that I might see clearly what You want to create.

Marketing Within

Decades of working in corporate politics can leave you scarred and scattered. There is no need for that. In a series for American Printer, I’m reviewing tips for a specific service provision to large corporations. Enjoy and apply to your endeavors. This particular service is multi-channel marketing as an ongoing service. Many print service providers are finding survival means adapting and becoming new. Whether you are internal to an organization or serving the larger engine of an organization, the rules are similar.

Take a read and ask a question. This is only one of a series of articles addressing this service. Others cover staffing, workflow, conceptualization, and will move on to business model for effectiveness.

http://americanprinter.com/columnists/phil-larson/multi-channel-marketing-012315-ampr-phil-larson

Common Grounds: 4 As of Team: Identify Structure

Teamwork is not simple and not common. A well functioning team is powerful and poised for growth. Why do you allow areas of your company to operate with dysfunction? Do you realize the power of synergy you lose? Great teams have accountability, adherence, action, and alliance knit into performance and decisions. To adopt the Four As of Team identify where you are. Executives must lead.

For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today

were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Steve Jobs

Command and Control: This can be good practice in crisis and creation. But, it does not resemble team. A command and control structure with hierarchical dictates allows for quick obedience. It also promotes mindless action. You had better be ready to lose thoughtful workers. This is great in a battlefield of well defined parameters. It is death when you need mental acuity and engaged creativity.

Laissez Faire: Apathetic management will render apathetic results. How often have you found a manager so afraid of making mistakes that decisions linger? Indecision runs rampant and results wander further off target over time. Many times this is symptomatic of Command and Control structure in the higher hierarchy. Managers freeze because they know every decision is really made in an upper level and they have no authority, just responsibility. And that is a disease, not a management practice. Team? Not on your life. Everyone lives for himself. Finger pointing and blame shifting become survival necessities.

Helicopter Micro Management: Wow. This one is painful for every worker. Authority to make decisions may be released, but any small mistake is noted and put into the brown stamp book for later redemption. This environment breeds anger. Rewards are rare except to the micro manager, who redeems all the good points for her own benefit. There might be a team of workers gelled to mutinous intent. This is common in highly political organizations.

Staff Rules: This dysfunctional team approach is gaining ground in many organizations. Executives, directors, and managers are afraid of the employees. What if they don’t like me and my vision? What if they go somewhere else? What if they file a complaint with HR? What if, what if, and what if cause managers to check in with employees on every decision. This is entitlement mentality and will lower and lower productivity to the level of the most charismatic laggard in the shop. The danger is that managers believe this will improve morale. The exact opposite is true. People thrive on leadership that is decisive, non-political, visionary, supportive, and fair. It is not fair to allow the least productive the same reward as the most productive in a free market economy. The dichotomy of this approach is that executives begin making hidden decisions because it is impossible to please everyone. So really, you are living in Command and Control with a ruse of inclusion.

Courage and Consequence: The best team structure rewards both courage and consequence. There is a reward system for the over achievers. There is a consequence system for the under achievers. It may not be money. It may be getting more training or being included on key work teams or allowance for a flexible schedule or whatever works for the producer. Isn’t that going to be interpreted as “teacher’s pet” activity? Sure. Deal with it. That is the courage part. Courage starts with the executive and director.

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad. C. S. Lewis

Summary: Identify your team. Where are you? How did you get there? Is it where you want it? In next week’s article I address the As of accountability and adherence that make powerful and productive team. You cannot afford to lag in the first four structures. Neither can you change overnight. I’ll give you solid tips on making transitions built over time and tension and triumph.

COMMON GROUNDS: These tidbits come out of daily consternations, comments, and

concerns of real managers doing what needs done. Executives gain insight.

This article focuses on the Be Responsible triad of the operational pyramid.

Let’s talk: Phil Larson or Shepherd Consulting OK

Common Grounds: Build Better Budgets with VISION!

Budgets promote vision with numbers. They just do. A lackluster budget process represents a lackluster vision. An engaged budget process with visits to key stakeholders and excitement for new or enhanced offerings brings engagement. A comprehensive budget plan that considers and promotes the vision of your key stakeholders/customers brings good support.

Organizations work through new budgets at different times of year. However, as the New Year approaches you ponder end of year purchases, vendor deals, moratorium weeks, supply arrangements, staff, rent, and a myriad of miniscule items specific to your shop. Do it with vision.

Visibility: G Vision - Future et visible. Make sure the right decision makers understand you are watching out for their needs. Visit, call, listen, and integrate their ideas. Help them see how what you do accomplishes their goals. Put out a simple brag sheet on some special accomplishments.

Integrity: This is not the time to fudge numbers and hesitate. Admit defeats and mistakes. Project confidence you have plans to go forward and be there. A newer stake holder in a shop walked up to me one day, faced me squarely, and asked, “Are you going to be here for me?” Be there.

Sensitivity: Some of your best stakeholder/customers may be going through a rough budget. Learn from them. Find ways to creatively assist them through your services. Another may be planning to explode and need more. Find the balance. Make sure you are not steamrolling past another’s need or vision that catches you in a surprise battle.

Influence: You are who you are. You are the expert in your services. Go ahead and be a little bold. Communicate confidence and concern and competency to your customers. Update them with new ways you can serve them and changes that might affect their future. Take care of your normal alerts concerning mail, paper costs, etc.. Then consider something not as evident and show some proactive interest in their world.

Opinion: This is a good time to be assertive. Don’t be aggressive. Do be assertive. If there is a conversation ongoing that might affect you and your team, put in your two cents. Show you care and show your personal ownership of serving the needs of the organization.

Necessity: Make sure all the necessities of the organization are handled in your budget. It can be easy to look to the exciting items and expansion. That is good. Daily operations must continue performed with excellence. A good in-plant can invisibly handle necessities and become overlooked. Communicate you are printing those 200,000 or 2,000,000 pieces of necessity a month alongside all the extras and expansions.

Summary: Tying dollars in clear ways with visibility, sensitivity, influence, opinion, and necessity can give a total VISION to your budget for decision making stakeholders. They are buried in their own budgets of which you are a line item. Make it easy and supportive for them. When you need the extra push for added software, online systems improvement, facility build out, equipment, training, or people, they will remember you well.

Your budget covers every area on the THRIVE pyramid. Consider them all.

Let’s talk: Phil Larson Shepherd Consulting OK

Manage Well: The 3 Questions

Bring a team into high productivity and positive morale with “The 3 Questions”. Managers must master these. Imbed them into your psyche. Repeat them in your sleep. Make them your meditational mantra. Get it.

What is the down-line impact of this action? How often do you have problems in production or sales or finance because of an inadequate exploration of this question? What will happen in accounting if we promote this new product line at 5% markdown? What will happen to other product lines? Can marketing adjust in time for the sales season? Will production be ready to handle sales volumes?

Put off this question at maximum risk of failure. Even the simplest action in a sequence of workflow has to pursue an expanded understanding before change. If we print this at a new size, will the finishing team be able to handle it? If we promote a new advantage to our product will it meet compliance guidelines? When we implement this change to our computer program for billing will it cause extra workload at 3am that affects another unrelated cycle? There is no end to implications of one actions on other team action. No one can know them all. But you need to ask.

Who else needs to know? How familiar is your team with the interaction of what they do with others? Do you have workers living in a vacuum? Have you taken time to educate them about interplay with other departments, people, teams, divisions, customers, and vendors? When you change the usage of a machine, it might be wise to include the manufacturer in the discussion. Ask often, “Who else needs to know?”

What is your information plan to include them? When do they need to know? Do they have access to enhanced information that might help you make a better decision before advancing?

Work with a production team with large dependency on delivery cycles proved out value here. The delivery team was constantly a day behind. They were only being informed at the time of pickup. By moving the information to them at time of beginning of production, a day was cut out of delivery cycle to the customer and orders increased with increased customer satisfaction. The sales team also needed to know at the same time instead of being informed only after delivery. This enabled them to engage the customer along the path with pertinent and reliable information. Who else needs to know?

What is the best use of my time right now? After you ask the first two questions, answer this one. Too often we ask this one and answer it only considering what we know and what we are doing. We need to consider what others know and what they are doing. A project launch could falter due to conflicting priorities in the organization. A customer order may not be deliverable as requested due to a supply shortage and should be renegotiated. After considering the plans and availabilities of others and related resources, we may want to work on an entirely different project or action and time this one in front of us into another day or week.

Summary Simplicity: These 3 questions are priceless practice for any manager for self decisions and for training team members in their decisions. After working with a team for a season on these, you will find they become masters of the top manager rule. What is the top manager rule? NO SURPRISES. These questions eliminate the element of surprise and provide a foundation for a self managed team.

Ask them often.

What is the down-line impact of my action?

Who else needs to know?

What is the best use of my time right now?

Be Busy Building Better Business,

Phil

Phil@shepherdok.com

405.388.8037

Presence Communicates Production Priority

Managers and leaders communicate priority by where they spend their time. Production teams make America happen. A walk through a production press room tells the workers they are important and what they do is important. Stopping by the front desk in the morning and looking the receptionist in the eye followed by a specific word of appreciation tells the company that guests are important. Openly discussing decisions and gaining feedback from the team along the way gives them a stake. Presence communicates production priority.

30 years of overseeing production teams 24/7 leaves me with a little insight on helping a shift through their day. Every shift is a day in itself. Each one needs right attention and priority.

Every meeting you attend, every walk down the hallway, every lunch in public communicates your deepest heart. You are being watched. An encouraging word, a kind action, opening a door for someone else, or a playful interchange all communicate compassion and priority.

An ancient proverb tells us to not muzzle the oxen as they tread grain. One visual picture we draw is of an ox pulling along in a field being harvested. He needs to munch a little every once in a while. He needs to gain benefit while working, not just at the end of the season. Your presence and encouragement is one of the daily benefits you can give with little cost and great results. Corporate parties, big meetings and bonuses help. They can never replace personal attention and involvement. Presence communicates production priority every day and communicates concern for the people.

Early In The Day Sets A Tone
A manager starts the day for work teams. A little whistle up the hallway in the morning tells the team it is a bright day. P lesant greetings communicate positive expectation and confidence. It is not just physical presence but emotional engagement that builds a productive team of individuals bound by mission.

Middle Of The Day Stimulates
By mid day in a production crew, sales team, customer service group, or any other set of individuals bound by mission, there have been problems. Opportunity to turn dour has come many times by noon. This is one perfect moment to inspire and prioritized. Where you spend the last minutes before lunch tells the team where to focus.

A purposeful and thoughtful communication to key team members on priority projects can keep problems from dominating. Customer service needs to keep moving while issues are resolved. Down equipment needs attended. Production schedules may need adjusted considering current availability. Sales teams may need a pep talk to overcome any weight of complaints.

End Of The Day Rules Over Tides
By the end of a good day, there have been powerful moments and struggling moments. Tides have pressed against the team attempting to bring them to defeat. They need presence. They need reinforcement that the customer is king and the team is in your heart. You need to let them know you are one their side. Before you go home, visit the oncoming team and give them the same whistling start you gave the first team.

Summary: Presence communicates production priority. Production is the ox of your company. Sales must happen. Production must run seamless. An ancient proverb tells us to not muzzle the ox as he treads the grain. Consider your time and attention and presence as unmuzzling the oxen. Invest in your people. They are the strength of the company.

Be Busy Building Better Business. Have a Great Day!

Phil

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Make a definitive difference in the community!

I need your help. I need you to join me for lunch. (It is okay if you want to just give to the work also if you can’t come.)

On Sept 16th at 11:45am join Carey Casey, CEO of the National Center for Fathering, Hon. James Lankford, U.S. House of Representatives, Chuck Bowman, Larry Campbell, Imagenet+ Consulting, R.K. Black, Kimray, Tom Hill, keyevado, Shepherd Consulting, Willow Creek Golf and Country Club and others.

Understand the immense fatherless crisis impacting our nation, state, and your neighborhood.
Get insight on positive action you can take to change the statistics.

Your registration goes directly to works in progress at Tulakes Elementary in North OKC, Epperly Heights Elementary in Del City, East OKC, West OKC, Dad’s University, and Matamoros families. Through the support of a friend, lunch expenses are covered. That means your registration goes directly to the work.

You can join for golf afterwards, if you would like. But, I need you to join me for lunch.

You can sponsor more, but, I need you to join me for lunch.

Exceptions Are Not Rules: 3 Safe Guards

The life of a manager would not be complete without that wonderful day where she finds herself stumped as to why a staff member acted in a certain manner inconsistent with policy. After several months of training a colleague, you find them going a different direction than guided. It is inevitable. It will happen.

The next surprise is when they tell you it was your idea. What? My idea? What incredible bump do you have on your head that caused such a thought? Have you lost your mind? Where did you get that idea?

Then you remember. You remember the question you answered last week in the middle of a major emergency. A customer needed an exception to your normal policy for a critical project. You authorized the team to process the job in a different manner. It was an exception needed and specific to that day and that job and that customer. Now, it is a rule. Now, it is embedded in the minds of staff as the way to cut a job short.

Of course, if you take this exception route on a routine basis you will lose all your profits, mix up customer work orders, and generally destroy the business. One time on a special project is okay with manager discretion. Any time on normal jobs with a staff discretion is chaos.

Every manager must understand exceptions, communicate them clearly, and contain expanded usage.

Understand Exceptions

The impact of an exception on the minds of team members is big. They watch you, manager. They take clues for action from your action. When you step out of the normal, they believe it is okay to do the same anytime they so choose. Get it? Get it! Guard it.

Understand your own decision. You cannot simply make an exception without understanding and being able to explain to someone else.

Exceptions are not meant to be rules; however, if you don’t take the next two steps, they will become rules.

Communicate Clearly

Exceptions will cause a problem. They will. You have order and rules to prevent problems. Okay, accept that and be prepared to contain the problem. Of course, you accommodate for that in your decision. Explain the problem. Explain the accommodation. Explain why this is a onetime decision. Be prepared for questions and distrust. Yes, you worked hard to communicate why you would never do what you just did and then you did it. But, it was an exception, right? You really did have a reason other than you just wanted to do it? Right?

Let your leaders and decision makers know this is an exception, why you made it, and how they might follow your logic in their next decision. Logic? You had some, right?

Contain Expanded Usage

After an exception, reinforce the rule. Take time to pull documentation if necessary and explain why this is a onetime decision and why not to do it with any regularity. Be honest. Did you do it for political purposes? Then explain the urgency of the situation and protocol you followed. Did you do it to prevent Don’t hide behind, “Because I said so.” That is weak and lacks open communication to the team.

Summary: Do these three things when you make an exception and they won’t become a rule.

Be attentive and cautious when making exceptions that they really fulfill your direction.

Always enjoy managing the exceptions and the disciplines.

Be Busy Building Business Have a Great Day!

Phil

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I need your help. I need you to join me for lunch. (It is okay if you want to just give to the work also if you can’t come.)

You can join for golf afterwards, if you would like. But, I need you to join me for lunch.

You can sponsor more, but, I need you to join me for lunch.

The People We Serve… Consider Well..

The People We Serve… Consider Well… This is a great comment on the Print Production Professionals group from one looking for great service.

Jayne Bennett • I believe solid relationships are built on positive working experiences, mutual education and growing trust. Suppliers can create those positive working experiences through performance and service. They can also earn my respect when they bring me up to speed on something they offer or can offer ways to enhance what I do for my clients/end users. Brownie points if they try and understand my clients’ needs and industry/marketing challenges. They can establish, nurture and grow trust through performance, honesty and integrity.

Yes, folks, price is important! It always will be. But it’s not the only game in town and buyers who look solely to price aren’t adding ANY value as a buyer. As a buyer, I try and hold up my end of the teeter-totter by sourcing judiciously (let’s face it–as a supplier, you do NOT want to get another quote you know you aren’t suited for–it’s a waste of your time), communicating thoroughly and honestly and being a fair, but admittedly demanding, customer.

In my opinion as a buyer, you can build strong relationships and still get the pricing and service you need–there is no need for browbeating and haggling. I source to those who are equipped and able to do the job–the competitive pricing flows from there. My vendor pool is bidding on work that suits their shop, not to try and put a number under my nose and hope I bite this time. In fact, when you have to perform the impossible, isn’t it great to have someone in your corner who WANTS to make you look good vs. one that grudgingly has to do so because it’s a “good job to get in this market?