Should You Like Your Supplier?
There’ll be several of your colleagues who’ll vehemently disagree with the statement “getting the most out of your supplier means you need to like them”.
They’ll say, on the contrary, to get the most out of your supplier, you need to “treat ‘em mean and keep ‘em keen”. You need to show them who’s boss and take every opportunity to score points over your “adversary”. Anything less is signalling a sign of weakness or compromising your position.
Not only are these attitudes outdated, I also think that they’re misplaced in the B2B world where relationships are typically long-term.
In markets dominated by one or few participants, suppliers have choices, too. They can decide whether or not they want to do business with you. If the balance of power lies with the supplier, they can also choose the premium that you’ll have to pay for being difficult to deal with. Yes, such a thing exists.
But it goes deeper than this.
Irrespective of what the tough-guys in your organisation may think, suppliers are human beings too. Surprise surprise, human beings tend to respond more favourably to being treated like fellow humans. Politeness, courtesy and integrity go a long way to building value-creating relationships.
Where a sense of liking exists between buyer and seller, both parties are more likely to want to help the other person achieve their goals, come up with creative solutions to challenges and act as advocates for the other party within their respective businesses.
Whereas if such a feeling is absent it can lead each party to pursue a competitive or combative stance, leading to frustration, relationship strain and deadlock.
Liking your supplier doesn’t mean that you go soft on them though, letting them off the hook on performance issues, giving them a free-pass to increase pricing or to breach any aspect of your contract or ways of working.
I find that it’s helpful to be “warm on the person, tough on the issue”, separating the human from the problem at hand so that the strength of positive feeling acts as a catalyst to finding a solution.
But what if you really dislike the other person, so that “liking” them is not even a remote possibility?
I’d start by doing some soul-searching and thinking about what it is that you might be doing to contribute to this feeling. Is it just that they have a different point of view to your own? Are they just too “different” to you (opposites on the social styles matrix)?
In my experience, there’s some good in everyone. Suppliers (or colleagues) don’t go out of their way to be annoying, disruptive or wake-up thinking about how they can stymie your career.
So, it’s a question about how you bring that “goodness” out of them, and in so doing, achieve your objectives.
Find out what you have in common with them (family, sports, foods, hobbies or anything) and take the time to talk about your areas of common ground before you talk business. This can have a profound impact, give it a go.
Give your counterpart a genuine, sincere compliment, too. Everyone loves a compliment - it’s almost irresistible for us not to respond positively - especially when it’s natural and genuine.
It could be about their work accomplishments (new responsibility they’ve acquired or a project they’ve delivered successfully) or external achievements like charity work, how they’ve built a house from scratch or they’ve toured across the world in their campervan. There’s so much you could compliment them on if you use your imagination.
I challenge you to try doing these 2 things, not just with the supplier you’d like to influence, but with anyone you come across. It will increase your likeability phenomenally, drawing people towards you. You’ll be happier as a person and more successful in business.
