Experience University Podcast

S6E9: Dealing with Vendor Issues

April 26, 2022 Extraordinary Events Season 6 Episode 9
Experience University Podcast
S6E9: Dealing with Vendor Issues
Show Notes Transcript

This episode was a topic requested by a listener who was dealing with a lot of vendor relationship problems.  How exactly do you effectively "deal" with an "annoying vendor"?  Well - there are many things to consider!  Are they "annoying" because of a bad attitude, bad communication, or bad organization?  Are you interacting with them on zoom/in-person or via email?  Listen in for Dr. K's pro tips on how to effectively manage this relationship!

Things mentioned in the podcast:  7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Habit 5 ; Masterclass course - The Art of Negotiation

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Hello, hello everybody. It's time for episode number 101. It is a beautiful day today and this week the temperatures are up. Yesterday I actually just put up a fence at my house. We're getting an above ground pool. My daughter's so excited, lots of great outside time. And I'm going through all of my emails and my messages and my requests and I got an ask for a specific topic and so I wanted to jump in and talk about that topic on the podcast today. Now I won't label the podcast how the request came in, but the request was to talk about how to deal with “annoying vendors”. This is a very small industry that we're in. There are key players. The world is so much smaller than you think. It's so funny because I'll talk to my students and I'll say this is a really small industry, and you just don't get it. You're like, okay, I'm in Lincoln, Nebraska. And there's all these other cities, and there's all these other countries, and there's 1000s and 10s of 1000s and hundreds of 1000s of people in this industry, but it really is a super small industry. 

I'll share one story and then I'll jump right into it. Right after I moved to Kansas, oh goodness, five or seven years ago, I went to an industry meetup, a PCMA meeting in Kansas City. I was sitting at this meetup and I looked at this woman and she looked at me, and I said, I know you and she's like, I know you but we could not figure it out. Her sitting there like, is it this, nope, this or this, nope. I have no idea but we knew we knew each other. She looked me up on LinkedIn and she sent me a friend request. And we had one friend in common, who was a sales representative at Caesars in Las Vegas. And the minute that we saw her name, we knew instantly, we said okay, three years ago we were on a fam trip, a familiarization trip, in Las Vegas at Caesars. At the after party, the sales representative had taken a small group of five or six of us to the bar and restaurant on the main floor, and we ended up sitting next to each other at the bar and the group of five of us, we were all just talking, we sat there for maybe an hour, an hour and a half. And after that we never saw each other again, and then three or four years later, I'm sitting in Kansas City, my first two months in Kansas. And we sat there and we said we know each other. The world is so small you just never know when you're gonna run into somebody that you know. And there are core people in this industry that have been everywhere, and people get poached everywhere. I know a ton of people who started in Vegas and then they were in Texas, and now they're in DC. People move around in this industry all the time, so you never ever want to burn bridges. 

Alright, I wish you all could see the giant hand motion I just did. It was like the whole tada or like a rainbow motion like okay, let's get going. We're going in. It's a small industry. We've acknowledged that now. When you have vendors that are annoying or bad, chances are they're not going to last in this industry forever, but if they do, and if you encounter them, we want to know Dr. K's pro tips for dealing with annoying vendors. 

Now we have to acknowledge several different things here. One, you have to acknowledge why they're annoying. Are they annoying because they have a bad attitude? Are they a bad communicator, or do they have bad organization? These are the three most that I see in terms of vendor or vendor issues. Maybe I'll call the episode vendor issues. Those are the three main ones that I see. Typically, if you're a bad communicator, it's really easy to fix and set communication guidelines. If the vendor is bad at organization, or if you're bad at organization, and it's making that vendor relationship difficult, that can also be fixed, per se. Could be fixed if you acknowledge it or they acknowledge it and you work on it. The bad attitude, those that have bad attitudes typically don't make it as long or if they're just someone who holds a grudge on their shoulder, or they're super competitive or compare. Those are all different things to take into account. So first, identify why you find your vendor annoying or why you have maybe a less than positive relationship with your vendor. 

Then, when we're talking about how to interact with our vendors, there's two main things. There's the in person or voice or Zoom communication and then there's email communication. I'm going to start with a voice or zoom or in person, and then we'll move on to email. The tips that I share here for the in person, auditory, visual - I just want to point out it's not just for vendors, it's also for clients, it's for colleagues, and it's for your own personal relationships. It's for your friendships and your romantic relationships. These are just great tips overall. 

I'm a big advocate for all the different personality tests. And for StrengthsQuest, I have a top five, everyone gets a top five, and my number one is relator which means that I'm able to relate to other people quickly and deeply. And these are some of my top tips that I would use for any of my relationships. So I hope that you find them useful. Some of them are going to be like Dr. K really, you had to record a podcast on that. It's easy, but putting it into practice is a lot more difficult. 

So the first thing that I do, way easier said than done, is I don't take anything personally. It's not about me. You have to trust that everybody is doing their best. You have to give grace that maybe someone's having a bad day. I don't take anything personally against myself. You are coming at me. You have negative things to say or you're acting with a bad attitude or you didn't communicate something properly. It's not because you have it out for me or you don't like me or you're trying to get me fired, or any of these things. You're not trying to start drama. Maybe they are, but I don't think like that. I try really hard not to take anything personally and again that's easier said than done. I just trust that people are trying. It’s all going to work out in the end. And I think that's the coolest thing about events is that you have this positive optimistic mindset that it's all going to work out. Now granted, you can't be naive about it and just trust that things are gonna work out and then never do anything about it. You have to put that thought into action, but it's all going to work out. 

The second thing that I do in addition to not taking it personally is I'm always trying to stay calm. I also try to have a calm tone of voice. I tend to be a person that uses a lot of hand motions. I tend to use a lot of vocal variety. My voice is up and down and all around and I get energetic and I get passionate, but if I know that the other person is having a rough day or they have high emotions or big emotions, then I try to cut the vocal variety a bit and I try to keep a calm voice. Sometimes I'll quiet it or I'll make it go a little deeper. These are great tips with kids as well. I find that my history in event planning and also as a relator has made me a more effective mother because it’s all these things of not taking it personally staying calm. So when your kid sits there and says I hate you for the first time - you're like it's not personal. it's not me, I'm not gonna go to the bedroom and cry that long. So staying nice and calm cutting back the vocal variety. 

The third thing that I do is I just truly listen. And I don't listen to respond. And I don't interrupt. One of the greatest things that I've read or heard is from a variety of sources. One was the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. They really talk about reactive and proactive listening. And I found that I used to always probe. People would tell a story and then I would maybe interrupt to ask a question, and I was thinking that that was a sign of active listening. Hey, I'm showing interest in your story by asking you this question, but it’s actually not perceived that way. It's typically you asking for a self serving question or trying to find some way that you can relate to the story. And oftentimes with people who have ADHD can actually offset their story a bit or take them on a tangent or not the point that they actually want to get to. So I really try not to interrupt now. I tend to do a lot of head nods and I’m just listening. 

Oftentimes when I listen, then I'll do reflective listening. And this comes from a Masterclass that I took. I'm part of the master class - Masterclass.com. And so all the experts who talk about all the areas they're passionate about, it’s really fascinating. I love the stories. And there was an FBI negotiator, hostage negotiator, very high stakes. And he had a whole session on reflective listening of saying, okay, this is how you can show you’re in the story, but then also you're kind of probing, but you're not actually asking any questions. You're serving as a mirror to the person that's talking. So say I came up and said I'm feeling really frustrated, because my mom hasn't been to visit me in 10 years. The reflective listening might say, I see that you're upset because you feel like your mom doesn't care because she hasn't visited you. And that's way different than asking the question, Well, why hasn't your mom visited you? Because that goes on a whole other tangent. Oftentimes when you're reflective listening and you're serving as a mirror, they will validate or not validate, and then they'll continue talking. So maybe I'd say yes, I'm so frustrated and this is because my mom does this and this and this and this but she doesn't really find the time to do this. Right? So just as an example. And oftentimes by doing one or two of these reflective listening scenarios, you can actually learn what the real issue is. And this is really important in these vendor relationships that you're talking about. Oftentimes a vendor or client will present what they think is the issue, but it's not actually the real issue. So doing this a little bit can help you find the real issue. 

And then last in this type of scenario - there's a lot of different tactics, I'm kind of doing a top four - is I ask my friends do you want me to hold space for you to talk or do you want me to try to solve the problem? Number one marriage tip I ever received and let me tell you, it works really well with vendors. Is the vendor just complaining about the supply chain? Is the vendor just complaining about this third party person? Is your rentals person just complaining about the electrical person? Or do you need to solve the problem? Oftentimes, our brains automatically going to solve their problem mode and they should be in the hold space. I can sit here and I can absorb and take in all the information that you want and I can empathize with you without trying to solve anything. So those are the tactics that I like to do when I'm on video or just talking to someone on the phone, those are really nice for in person.

And then the second one is the email communication. First, the main problem I find with vendors is just communication in general. And I hope everyone that's listening, just laughs along with me. Communication in general. Especially nowadays, we have this really interesting intergenerational workforce and we just assume that young people like texting and old people like email, and that is not true at all. Especially in the events industry, we want to have a lot of things in writing, which is my tip number two, put everything in writing. And that's when you have to decide how formal is your communication? How do you address people, do you address people? Do you need to be super fancy all the time? You need to sit there in your head and say will this get forwarded to somebody else? Is this the persona I want to show? And this leads more towards if you're having difficult vendor relations, because your vendor is a bad communicator or bad at organization. These are really helpful things to do - is clarify your communication. Do we need to have once a week 30 minute meetings and then I’ll follow up with minutes and things we agreed upon via email?  That then is in writing that we agreed to this and then you can write back and say you disagree or not? Or are you going to send me emails? Are we going to do everything through email? But even if you decide to have an in person or phone meeting, it's really important that you follow up and say, hey, this is how I understand that we agreed on all these things. Absolutely important. 

The third thing that I find to be really helpful with vendor relations is just asking what they need for me. I think sometimes we all just assume that I'm paying a vendor to do a job and it's up to the vendor to do that job. But there's a lot of times that vendors actually need things from us: answers, floor plans, estimated attendees, if there's any changes in the venue. That can actually lead to really difficult vendor relations if we're not communicating that. If I tell my vendor this and I don't update about anything, and they show up on site, and it's not that and then it's really difficult….they might be really offended and you might not even know that you offended them. They might feel blindsided. Then when you go to work with them again, they have a grudge or a chip on their shoulder because they feel like you're not communicating the things that they need and they don't want to work with you. And you might never even know that you did that because they might not tell you. So I always ask what do you need from me? I do that in probably every follow up email like hey, thank you so much for agreeing to do this event. This is what I understand. We're gonna have two stage lights and we're gonna have three lapels and then a handheld mic, I'm gonna do this, is there anything that you need for me? That helps a ton. 

The fourth tip that I have is always being honest and authentic. I don't put on a persona. I am who I am. If I'm going to work on this vendor relationship with you for a long time, I don't want us to have fake faces. I want to be able to talk about who I am and my thoughts and my designs. And hey, let's try this really unique, cool thing that nobody else has done. I try to be honest to a fault. But with that being said, I don't ever talk bad about a negative or annoying vendor. I just choose to recommend others. So if somebody were to sit here and say “hey, which audio visual rep would you use?” I wouldn't go into saying I don't use them, they're horrible, I had a bad experience with them. I would say “hey, I really really love this company B over here. They're so insightful. They've got such great service.” And then if people ask for recommendations very specifically about Company A, I might say, ”you know, I worked with them once. I didn't have as good of an experience with them as I had with Company B, but it might just be me. I don't want to say that they're a negative company overall. It's just maybe they didn't jive with my particular event or my particular purpose or mission, we just disconnected.” And that's okay, there's nothing wrong with that at all. 

The last kind of suggestion, which is not a suggestion to be okay with vendor relations, it's not to be afraid to pull out. If I am not getting along with this vendor, we just don't jive, even though it's a small market, maybe you're the only rentals in my market - I can choose not to work with you and I can choose to bring in somebody else. We are surrounded by different companies now. We're an interconnected world. COVID has really helped a lot of things in terms of I'm willing to ship, I'm willing to drive, I'm willing to get business. And we have a lot more options now. I don't have to choose rentals from Lincoln, I could choose rentals from Kansas City or from Omaha or from Des Moines, and they're willing to drive in. I'm not afraid to pull out… in a nice way. I can sit there and say you and I, we don't necessarily see eye to eye on what event design looks like or what the vision for my event looks like, and that's okay, because you're still a great person, and you're still in my circle and we're still gonna see each other every single local networking event. It's just I don't have to hire you. Right? You could stay respectable and you could just minimize your contact with them, and that is A-okay. 

All right. This is a kind of a little bit of a longer episode, but I hope that what you heard was useful. I hope you got some great tips and some great resources. I'll drop the masterclass and the other resources that I mentioned in the podcast in the show notes. And I hope that this was worth your time. I never take your time for granted. Thank you all so much for taking the time to make the time. I'll talk with you soon.