Playing from the Weak Position

Every once in a while life will deal you a simply rotten hand of cards. You’re in the buyer’s office, ready to begin negotiating a renewal of your annual contract.  Last year, you were able to negotiate somewhat better prices than your competition was offering, because of your high service levels, responsiveness, and other added values.

Unfortunately, during the last year, there were a couple of shipments where every item ordered came in one size too small due to a major foul-up in your computer systems, and last month the move to your new warehouse totally disrupted deliveries and almost everything was late, and there were three major billing errors that took you three weeks to clear up with your own accounts receivable people.

Yes, we’ve all been there, and it’s not fun.

Now, one way to approach this would be simply to say, “Everything’s fine. Nothing bad has happened in the last month, so let’s move forward” and try to just brush it off.

And sometimes you can get away with that. But if you can’t, then you might want to consider playing from the weak position.  (Continued on page 22)

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