3 ms·

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.

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.