My
goal is to deliver to you bankable savings ideas that you can use to
lower the cost-of-goods for your business or improve your negotiation
technique the next time you haggle with over the price of a used Porsche
911. The advise in this blog works regardless of your industry or the
size of your purchase. One of the most important benefits you'll
discover is that by practicing the strategies and tips offered, you'll
become a more confident and more seasoned negotiator. One last thought
about this initial post, if there is interest the beat goes on with new
material posted weekly. Anyone who knows me will earnestly testify that
I am not a writer and have zero interest in keeping a journal. I do
have some interesting stories and occassional I may drop the name of a
famous or infamous character that I've worked for or done business with
over the years.
To
solve the foodservice purchasing puzzle requires learning how to time
your purchases to commodity markets by anticipating surprise
situations and how your will react in ways that result in securing
better prices than you competition. Not every account is a "A" account
so you have to stake out your pricing turf to avoid the odds being
stacked againt you if you expect to execute a winning appraoch. If you
don't have the time or staff to follow the commodity markets,
informally talk to sales represntative about what merchandizing managers
are saying about future prices, and understand that taking 3-bids
without benchmarketing the base cost-of-materials is a waste of time,
then find one of the many experienced purchasing consultants in our
industry and pay them a few grand per month to work with you.
What Fred's Purchasing Insights blog can do for you is provide you with the information tyour need to get the best deal available, which often means you need to travel around hidden profit centers or walk past the easy rebate or bill-back offered by manufactuers or group purchasing organizations. These guys fall into several catogories, deflectors (pushing you away from your best price) skimmers (don't add value to the transaction) or no-nothings that couldn't find the bottom-line or net/net cost if they were handling both sides of the negotiation.
I'll close this initial post with the title of an article that I wrote for Foodservice.com a few years ago, "WHY INTELLIGENT PEOPLE OFTEN BLOW IMPORTANT NEGOTIATIONS" before they call 911.
To Greater Profits,
Fred
