After the Getting to Know You and Mirroring ploys are in play (described in my earlier blog entries), the vendor will likely next use the "Making an Impression" ploy. The ploy is exactly what it sounds like—it’s an attempt to impress or awe you. The intent is to ingratiate you, obligate you, influence you, make you accessible at the whim of the vendor, and make you less demanding and more accommodating. Another purpose is to make you more susceptible to other ploys. Making an Impression is effective if you let yourself get sucked into it and carried away by it.

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There’s nothing subtle about this ploy. The vendor will invite you to events such as dinners, shows, travel, and sports entertainment with the intent of trying to impress you. Think expensive wines, chartered jets or first class flights, limos, suites, top entertainment, etc. The ploy works on the unsuspecting... Who doesn’t like to be impressed, live the high life, or rub elbows with celebs? Once you get a taste of it, you’ll feel obligated to the vendor for that “nice thing” they did for you and, maybe, because you’d like more.

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Hopefully, your own personal ethics or your company’s ethics policy is going to stop you from accepting whatever the vendor is offering you. If you start accepting the vendor’s offers, you’re on a slippery slope. Worse, the vendor knows that he or she can “buy” you. I’m not implying that you shouldn’t socialize with a vendor—in fact, quite the opposite. I think, for example, going to lunches and dinners with vendors is extremely important and not going is actually detrimental to the business relationship. Clearly, there are times when you shouldn’t socialize with a vendor, such as during a competitive bid where the vendor will be providing a proposal. There are also times that you should absolutely socialize with a vendor—provided that the social setting isn’t extravagant. For example, if a vendor that you currently have a relationship with asks you to dinner because his or her boss is in town, you should make every attempt to go. Why? First, it’s a great chance to interface with the vendor. Second, it makes the vendor look good with his or her boss that you think enough to take time outside of work to go to dinner.

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For more on this ploy and counter tactics, check out "The Contract Negotiation Handbook: An Indispensable Guide for Contract Professionals". Also, if you’re interested in reading my general rantings and ravings on purchasing topics, check out my Vendor Management Office blog.

So, what comes after the "Getting to Know you" vendor ploy I discussed in my last blog entry? Well, now that the vendor has gathered some personal information about you (such as your age, marital status, educational background, and hobbies), the next step is for the vendor to make sure you're paired up with someone that is extremely compatible. The vendor wants to make sure that their representative has the ability to maximize his or her quality time with you, like when the vendor rep invites you on a golf outing, to a sporting event, or what have you. Vendors will use the information they gathered in the "Getting to Know You" ploy in an attempt to stereotype you and frame how they communicate and interact with you. Vendor staff may even change their voice tone, pitch, or style of speaking to "mirror" yours in order to gain your confidence; hence, the "Mirroring" ploy.

Have you ever experienced a situation where, early in a new vendor relationship, the vendor rep is quickly replaced by someone else? The result of the vendor rep switch-a-roo is that you suddenly have a vendor rep who just so happens (as you discover later) to have many things supposedly in common with you. You may also get the feeling that the vendor’s staff are clones of you in how they talk and dress.

That's where the saying "birds of a father" comes into play. Homogeneity is the fancy word for it. Generally speaking, people like to surround themselves with those who have similar appearances, characteristics, traits, and attributes. For example, being a little stereotypical, people from the Southeast generally don’t like conflict and have a harder time getting along with someone from the Northeast (who tend to be more direct).

Understand that vendors want to do everything possible to garner your faith and confidence in them—and to manipulate and influence you. Don’t let the vendor’s Mirroring ploy lull you into a sense of friendship and confidence. Hold your vendor accountable and be forward and direct—even if it’s not your nature to do so. Vendors may not like you so much as they would otherwise, but they’ll certainly respect you more.

The "Getting to Know You" is a starting ploy for vendors, meaning that it occurs at the onset of a new relationship between vendor and prospective customer. Just like the name of the ploy indicates, it’s all about vendors getting to know you so that they can gather information from you that benefits them and that can be used to influence you. The more personal the information, the better. They’ll use what they know in order to make them as appealing as possible to you and to befriend you.

To figure out how to spend quality time with you, vendors will scan your office for personal information. If you have a picture of yourself fly fishing on your desk at work and the vendor has been to visit you, don’t be surprised if the vendor calls you in a week and says that he or she “just so happens” to have an extra pass to a fly fishing tournament. If you have a model racecar on your desk, you can expect to be invited to a car race. One of the reasons that a vendor wants to meet you so badly at your office is so that they can gather information about you. It may sound a little paranoid, but that’s how vendors are trained. If you don’t believe me, try it—put something on your desk that relates to a hobby or an interest you have and I can practically guarantee that the vendor later contacts you and “just so happens” to have a ticket, pass, or what have you that relates to that something that is on your desk.

Sure, it's flattering that someone has taken so much interest in you, but just remember why... The vendor is there to sell to you, not really to become your new best buddy (even though that's what they want you to think). Recommendation: Always maintain an arm's-length relationship with vendors.

Some of the ploys and tactics that I'll describe in this blog are explained in greater detail in my book, The Contract Negotiation Handbook: An Indispensable Guide for Contract Professionals. The book contains more ploys and tactics, as well as counter-tactics to vendor ploys. You can get the book on Amazon or on Lulu. You may also be interested in my book, The Vendor Management Office: Unleashing the Power of Strategic Sourcing, also available on Amazon and Lulu.

Hello Fellow Purchasing Professionals!

In my blog postings, I'm going to focus on negotiation tactics and ploys. So what the heck are "tactics and ploys!?" Quite simply, purchasing professionals (you) use "tactics" and the dark side (vendors) uses "ploys." In other words, tactics are good : ) and ploys are bad : (

If you’ve ever taken a marketing class, you’ve heard the term “puffery.” Basically, puffery is legal advertising that extols whatever the vendor is selling using subjective opinions, superlatives, and similar mechanisms that are not based on specific fact. In other words, a vendor has the legal right to tell you little white lies. If vendors can do that, then what do buyers get to do? Well, you’ve probably heard of bluffing, and maybe have even used it in a poker game. In the context of negotiations, bluffing is a generally accepted business practice where pretense is used to imply that one’s position is stronger, cleverer, or more determined, etc., than one’s position really is. So there you have it…if vendors can tell little white lies (ploys) and you can use bluffing in poker, then it’s probably OK to use bluffing in negotiations (tactics).

So, stay tuned to my blog for tactics, ploys, and counter-tactics. I'd love to hear what tactics you have up your sleeves or what nasty little vendor ploys you've experienced, so please comment!