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This reminds me the first time I got in the process to sign a 1MM contract. I kept pushing for a price reduction and the sales guy kept giving me clues of how t

by postit 5y ago

This reminds me the first time I got in the process to sign a 1MM contract. I kept pushing for a price reduction and the sales guy kept giving me clues of how this would affect commission. I had no idea that he was talking about my commission. It was so ridiculous that I involved compliance and shit scaled pretty quickly.

gnfargbl 5y ago
Did you get as far as finding out the level of bribe that the sales guy was offering? I'm curious about the going rate for corporate graft.
notyourday 5y ago
When I was signing off on a dotted line, I have adopted the Walmart approach from the early nineties -- vendors willingness to wine and dine us meant that the price was still too high. It worked surprisingly well as a signal. We were able to get our costs cut in nearly half on very expensive gear.
- cutemonster 5y ago
  How did you find out that they no longer wanted to wine and dine? E.g. they usually contacted you, but stopped?
  - notyourday 5y ago
    Across multiple vendors ( deal value ~2-5 million a year per deal ) the progression of where the sales people wanted to talk to us pretty much always went like this: massive wine and dine [5-6 people from out side, two to three stops a night] -> dinners in nice restaurants [ 3-4 people on our side] -> lunches in nice restaurants [1-2 people on our side ] -> lunches [ me or me +1 on our side] -> coffee [ just me ] This roughly corresponded to initial price down to "you are killing us" price, the later being additional 35-50% discount off the initial proposal ( which would typically be their published price less 20-30% to begin with )
    - cutemonster 5y ago
      Those progression steps happened with each vendor? A vendor started with massive wine, and ended with coffee in the last meeting? (As you might notice, I don't know that much about sales) (Rather than just one sales meeting with each vendor, and you observed a trend across many vendors) From massive wine and dine, to coffee, made me smile :-) I'm surprised that wine and dine apparently works (with many people but not you). To me it honestly sounds a bit boring and I'd rather go to the gym maybe. And even if the food and company was really nice, it'd be just a one time thing (or a few times) but the contract would be ongoing for years
      - notyourday 5y ago
        > Those progression steps happened with each vendor? A vendor started with massive wine, and ended with coffee in the last meeting? Multiple vendors followed the same pattern. In all cases we were already pre-qualified as a potential customer/existing customer expanding the account value and the vendor was pre-qualified as a possible vendor. They knew they were in the running to sell us the gear ( and service contract on a top of it ) and we did not disqualify them outright. > I'm surprised that wine and dine apparently works (with many people but not you). It is so popular that Walmart made accepting it a fireable offense for procurement people as they crunched the numbers and found that suppliers willing to wine and dine were closing deals at the higher prices.

by postit 5y ago

gnfargbl 5y ago

Did you get as far as finding out the level of bribe that the sales guy was offering? I'm curious about the going rate for corporate graft.

notyourday 5y ago

When I was signing off on a dotted line, I have adopted the Walmart approach from the early nineties -- vendors willingness to wine and dine us meant that the price was still too high. It worked surprisingly well as a signal. We were able to get our costs cut in nearly half on very expensive gear.

cutemonster 5y ago
How did you find out that they no longer wanted to wine and dine? E.g. they usually contacted you, but stopped?
- notyourday 5y ago
  Across multiple vendors ( deal value ~2-5 million a year per deal ) the progression of where the sales people wanted to talk to us pretty much always went like this: massive wine and dine [5-6 people from out side, two to three stops a night] -> dinners in nice restaurants [ 3-4 people on our side] -> lunches in nice restaurants [1-2 people on our side ] -> lunches [ me or me +1 on our side] -> coffee [ just me ] This roughly corresponded to initial price down to "you are killing us" price, the later being additional 35-50% discount off the initial proposal ( which would typically be their published price less 20-30% to begin with )
  - cutemonster 5y ago
    Those progression steps happened with each vendor? A vendor started with massive wine, and ended with coffee in the last meeting? (As you might notice, I don't know that much about sales) (Rather than just one sales meeting with each vendor, and you observed a trend across many vendors) From massive wine and dine, to coffee, made me smile :-) I'm surprised that wine and dine apparently works (with many people but not you). To me it honestly sounds a bit boring and I'd rather go to the gym maybe. And even if the food and company was really nice, it'd be just a one time thing (or a few times) but the contract would be ongoing for years
    - notyourday 5y ago
      > Those progression steps happened with each vendor? A vendor started with massive wine, and ended with coffee in the last meeting? Multiple vendors followed the same pattern. In all cases we were already pre-qualified as a potential customer/existing customer expanding the account value and the vendor was pre-qualified as a possible vendor. They knew they were in the running to sell us the gear ( and service contract on a top of it ) and we did not disqualify them outright. > I'm surprised that wine and dine apparently works (with many people but not you). It is so popular that Walmart made accepting it a fireable offense for procurement people as they crunched the numbers and found that suppliers willing to wine and dine were closing deals at the higher prices.