Inside the Buyers' Minds | Part 1

Bruce Scheer: Thank you everyone for, making it to this webinar series with us. We're super excited. You're you're looking at, four guys that have put a lot of time and energy into thinking through this. So we've all witnessed, and we were just talking about the this morning, how we've moved into, you know, uncertain economic times. And all of us here have been through multiple downturns. Myself, I've been through four, including the Asian crisis. And each time, you know, you have this economic contraction, things happen, and we need to be aware of it. And based on our collective experience, you know, we we know we're into that type of cycle yet again.

And how do you respond? How do you take advantage of that and or or just play the best game you can based on the chips you've been dealt or the cards you've been dealt, to use that analogy. So, what we did is we designed this webinar theory series. It's a three part series to focus on well, because of this economic uncertainty, what's happening on the buying side, especially if you have a high consideration b to b solution. What's happening on the buy side? And, we need to understand the dynamics that are occurring there. And that's where Dean Edwards, one of our speakers for today, he'll be talking about that as a former procurement leader, of multiple, you know, big brands. He's got the experience to talk about what what does happen, what are those internal dynamics that we can expect, if we're trying to sell into firms like this with a high consideration b to b solution. The second part of our series is being led by Todd, former, global head of value for SKF, and, we'll be talking about how do we respond by helping our buyers buy with a with a business case. So how do we set that up, get buy in towards that, and make sure we deliver on that promise when we're partnering with our our our buyers.

So, that's part two of this webinar series. Then the third part, that's in June. That's where the three of us will come back. I'll be introducing some proprietary research that valuepros.io has commissioned to look at how do we influence the buying experience. And I saw a study last year, 59% of the influence on a bold buying decision, a high consideration solution buying decision. 59% of the of that consideration comes from the buying experience, not from the offering. So, you know, how can we as revenue leaders and revenue teams influence that buying experience, especially in these times of, you know, uncertain economic, you know, situations here that we're all facing. So that'll be, round out our series, our that three part series.

So the procurement perspective is one of the things we'll get into today, the buy business case perspective, and then the experience perspective in June. So if you registered and then, yeah, I think everybody here has, say, thanks for doing that, and you'll be invited to the other two parts of this webinar series. If you make it or not, we'll get the recordings out to you. We do have bonus materials for everybody who as well. So we'll send that

Dean Edwards: out as a a

Bruce Scheer: thank you and follow-up, post the webinar. So, let's do a quick, introduction, though, around. I'm I'm Bruce Scheer. I'm one of the cofounders of Value Pros. And, you know, Value Pros, we exist to help revenue teams, you know, create buyers that let love them. We really wanna focus on helping revenue teams both communicate communicate and quantify value that they're delivering on behalf of their customers. So that's Value Pros. We do that through content, tools, and enablement to help revenue teams.

Dean, over to you.

Dean Edwards: Hi. I'm Dean Edwards. I've worked in many procurement organizations, as Bruce said, mainly Fortune 500 organizations, and managed up to $6,000,000,000 worth of spend for companies like Levi's, Kaiser Permanente, Yahoo, Ingram Micro. So I've seen the good, and I've seen the bad. And I'm gonna share with you some of those experiences today.

Bruce Scheer: And then Todd?

Todd Snelgrove: Todd Stellgrove, experts in value and sales, marketing, pricing based on value quantification. And one thing I learned is that procurement can be our ally if we equip them the right way. That's a key learning over the years.

Bruce Scheer: Absolutely. And David?

David Svigel: Yeah. Sure. So I'm, David Svigel, a partner at ValuePros, and I bring over twenty years of experience. Bruce mentioned kind of the the tools piece of ValuePros in identifying value drivers for, our clients and configuring intuitive intuitive value selling tools.

Bruce Scheer: Thank you, David. Awesome. Well, Dean, I'll kick it over to you. Let's let's get into what's happening on the buying side, the buyer's minds, those buying dynamics. Yeah.

Dean Edwards: I'm just going through a few machinations on my screen here, so if everybody can bear with me. And, hopefully, that's coming through for everybody. Is it Bruce?

Bruce Scheer: It's looking great. Yep. It's looking good.

Dean Edwards: That's what I like to hear. Okay. So we're getting inside the the buyer's mindset. It's about seeing today the the business environment through procurement size. In particular during times of revenue and supply challenges. And I really wanna emphasize, if you don't understand and relate to procurement's pressure points, your value just isn't gonna land with them. This is absolutely critical that you understand what's going on. So, oops.

Excuse me. Here we go. So the economic uncertainty. We've got paralyzed decision making. There was a a study by Deloitte in 2024 where 74% of CPOs stated that the pressure to avoid mistakes is increasing. And you've got more players coming into the mix as the focus comes down on supply and cost issues. That just leads to an extension of the buying cycle. Right now, it's about eleven and a half months as a complete buying score.

Sorry, buying cycle. And that really underscores the fact that delays are coming into the system. And in fact, mission critical spending, there was a study that said that 71% of IT procurement organizations are only engaging in mission critical spending. Any discretionary spend is getting shelved, and that's got huge implications for people looking to sell into new accounts. I wanna start by stating this two broad approaches to value realization. One is value capture. That's the traditional way that people view view procurement. The other is value creation, and that's become more of a a a drive as procurement has matured as an organization over the past years.

But as you enter into periods of economic uncertainty, there's lots of pressure coming down on procurement to move back down into the value capture quadrants. And they it's the all the old things that you've seen before, the competitive bidding, the e auctions, the demands for free services, cash control. And I know Todd can talk extensively about the folly of cash control. And that's taken away from the real value, creation that can help propel a company forward and make it successful. So huge focus on value capture coming from outside of procurement. And this, chart here captures some of those dynamics for you. There's a lot of pressures coming in. There's the budget cuts, stakeholder demands, supply continuity.

And that actually plays into the procurement, buyers mindset. They're asking, can they make their targets? There's huge demands being put upon them in an inflationary economy. So it's not only a case of controlling costs going up, they've been expected to drive costs down as the companies themselves face revenue challenges. They're looking to how do they defend their purchasing decisions. What will finance response be? Will they accept it? Will they, challenge them aggressively? And what's their reputational risk as a consequence if something goes wrong, if finance don't agree with them? And how do they tell stakeholders no? They can't do things. They can't afford a procure, a purchase. That's that's a huge issue for them. That results in the ideas that are most likely to make it being those that are low risk, fully justifiable, easy to explain, and this is where sales can really, really help.

And from suppliers, the ideas from suppliers that really install confidence into them. So in terms of procurement's pressure points, there's a real internal tug of war. They're expected to reduce cost, ensure supply, meet ESG targets, and not miss a beat. About in in a normal economy, about 40% of procurement's goals are tied to cost savings initiatives in my experience. The others make up the the balance of the 60%. That balance shifts during times of economic uncertainty, and a greater focus is put on cost savings. But there's a quid pro quo. And if if they're after cost reductions, how do you maintain supplier innovation? How do you set the company apart, make it competitive? If there's ESG mandates, does that slow down turnaround times? If there's a drive for compliance, does that reduce the time to actually make a decision? And if you're driving for supplier, continuity, does that prevent you moving to lower cost suppliers? And if sales doesn't help lighten this load, you're actually becoming part of the problem for us.

So we really need sales to come in, and help us be effective. The the core the cost control toolkit, you know all of these things. They should be familiar, fast, and believe in me, procurement knows really well how to excel execute these things. Oops. Sorry. Missing the cost management. You'll see big, big drives for cost savings, and this translates into more frequent bidding cycles. Particularly with digitization, procurement is accelerating the frequency with which it competitively bids requirements, all within, a framework of how does it actually reduce costs year on year on year.

Sometimes, multiple times in a year if they see the opportunity, Because they're being driven by finance and the business and the budget holders to actually free up cash so that they can effectively run the business. So as a salesperson, you need to bring a better playbook. Otherwise, procurement will be playing you with this one. And if I can't emphasize one thing enough, it's that you need to be proactive. You need to start now. You need so sorry. You need to positively engage with procurement and show them how you can be effective in delivering value, giving them insights, teaching them something. And they need to be practical solutions.

They need to be executable. So, oops. I'm sorry. We're going off the pelt there. There we go. So you need to align with procurement's pressure points. We took our insights and values, practical solutions. You need data backed flexibility.

It's not enough to say we can be flexible. We can help you meet your demands. We can come up with another process. We can come up with another framework for the contract. You gotta provide dealt, data to help them justify this. Then it's about, control tools, and transparency. And give them internal credibility. Don't play games with procurement because they can spot it really, really quickly.

Or if you do get away with it for a time, you don't wanna be in a position where procurement's trying to play catch up because they feel slighted that you haven't been open and honest with them. Yours your reputation is absolutely key to them having confidence in you. Sales, needs to act as a stabilizer, the voice of clarity in in the chaos. And that's about humanizing procurement because they feel exposed, unsure, and under scrutiny. And you need to actually bring clarity, not noise. Simplicity, not spin. And be the person they can trust to make the complex to be manageable. Absolutely key for them.

Now budgets have been constrained. Budgets have been cut. Spend has been delayed. And as a salesperson, you need to challenge the myth that there's no budget. There's the opportunity to redirect the existing budget. And that's re redirection of funds. How do you take existing funds and put them to higher, better use that delivers more value to the organization? Quantify the the cost of delays of decisions. Many companies take very, very short term perspectives.

They're looking to address the quarter. The next results are being published. And instead, sacrifice the long term health of the organization. So that's why it's imperative that you demonstrate the expense of inaction. Provide them with ROI models. And, Todd is expert at this. Show them how they can justify the sales decision, the spend, and give them the tools, models, and communications to be able to convey that into the organization with credibility. And then solution as a strategic enabler for the business.

Not enough people do that. It's about, oh, okay. It's procurement. We're gonna sell a product or service. I can't tell you how many salespeople will come in and see a procurement person and start extolling the virtues of their product, Why it's the the best thing and why they should buy it instead of trying to solve for what the problem is. And I know that's motherhood and apple pie to to sales organizations. You go in, you identify the customer's problem, you understand it and show how your solution matches up against it. Somehow, when salespeople get in front of procurement, most of them forget that learning, and forget that the procurement organization has problems that is is looking to solve as well and to help them with that.

So in order to be successful, you need to reframe your value proposition. You need to expand from a cost focus to an outcome focus. So look at the total cost of ownership, which is the full cost view over time. You'll see some procurement organizations look at it from a price times volume equation. They're typically what I refer to as purchasing organizations. As you move up the chain from purchasing to strategic sourcing to category management, value becomes more important as part of the equation for them. So very important, you look at total cost of own ownership. Look at the outcomes.

Look at the outcomes in terms of linking them to results that procurement can point to. And then demonstrate your value. Show us a good deal, even at a premium cost, because of the value that's been delivered. Don't be afraid to make that case because as much as procurement is hitting on you to reduce the costs as much as possible, they're also sensitive to, is this gonna cost more in the short, medium, long term? And how's that gonna reflect on me at the end of the day? So we talked about anchoring every cost to an outcome. You need to demonstrate measurable ROI. It's gotta be concrete. You've gotta remove any ambiguity. You've gotta show them how they can implement effectively.

And this is one of the things I find sales teams tend to overlook in their dialogues with procurement. They come in with a solution. They they believe passionately and can demonstrate that it's better than the alternative. They miss out on what is the implications for implementation. What are the change costs? How they handle those? And you need to be very proactive in engaging with procurement to address that. And then speed to value. Show that they don't have to wait twelve months for the value to be delivered. It's really important to understand what the internal rate of return is that finance measures projects by, and show that you can at least beat that.

I I know in organizations that I've been in, if there's been a proposal for a new spend or an increased spend, it's always man measured against the yardstick of, can we re get the, return on investment within the current business year? Not even twelve months, within the current business year. Does it have a positive rate of return? So be very mindful of that. That's that's a mindset they have. One of the approaches to, expanding business is to come in with a right size solution. So the trick here is to start small. Derisk the decision. Make it very palatable for the organization addressing just the immediate needs they have. And then design for modularity.

Make it easy to grow. There's components they can bolt on as they need them. And then plan for the scale. Develop a long term vision with procurement and the customer for how this will roll out once the economic tide turns positive again. Innovation. One of the things that happens during times of economic insert uncertainty is innovation becomes deprioritized against risk. And it's it's back to being the safe option. So you need to un unlock this resistance, and you need to show that by actually adopting the innovative approach, you're giving them a safe solution.

It's safer than the status quo. It's gonna meet their needs. So it has to be positioned as giving them lower exposure than the existing solutions they have, or there's gonna be a natural resistance to sticking their neck out. And back to that statistic of over seventy percent of chief procurement officers reporting that, the the need to avoid mistakes is actually increasing in their organizations. ESG, make it a strategic differentiator. Just because the priority is on cost doesn't mean that organizations don't still have their commitments to their ESG goals. And I know certain organizations are revising those, but there's plenty out there that still have public statements around ESG. And you need to leave with legal proof.

Avoid greenwashing. It stands out really quickly and it kills your credibility. You have to show evidence. You need to highlight compliance and how you do your reporting is gonna make their job easier. And then really, really important, it helps in the cost argument, demonstrate how, value is delivered through the ESG programs, whether that's cost saving or risk reduction. And then emphasize the reputational gains that it will make them look good internally and externally. They go with your solution because it fits with their ESG goals. Let's get to working with procurement.

You need to win, by working with them proactively. Waiting doesn't help you at all. You need to be proactive. You need to be outcome orientated, and you need to oops, sorry. You need to collaborate effectively with them. And collaboration is not a soft term. It's a strategic push. And Todd's mentioned on many occasions, you can achieve an awful lot by working with procurement.

And they're under pressure to save cost, to deliver the supplies, to be effective and not make mistakes. And they're at the same time, they're dealing with this inflationary economy, the supply constraints and everything else. Your ability to come in and help them, support them is real value for the procurement team and will lead them to champion you. We talked about outcome focused. It's got to be there. It's critical. And offering flexibility. What are the different approaches you can take? How can you structure the contracts diff differently? How do you structure your, your your payment in terms of milestones and delivery? How do you, change the the the processes that you're adopting to make it more effective for procurement, and less costly for them to transact with you? Absolutely critical.

And then lastly, give them the internal tools. If there's one thing that drives me nuts, it's let me describe the situation for you. Procurement people tend to shift from categories of expended expenditure as their, as their careers progress. And they have to learn a new category as they move into that area. And there's a learning curve. And loads of people trying to influence them. Loads of history in their in their own company as to about how things should be done. There are very, very few companies, suppliers out there that provide buyer guides to help the procurement folks navigate through that process.

And to be effective, a buyer guide has to be neutral, unbiased, and factual. And, honestly, the the suppliers that get the best credit credibility are the ones that point out the areas where they're not proficient as well as the ones where they are and why they're still a good choice. But that honesty really resonates with procurement. And that leads us on to the necessity of building a business case that's robust. It's not enough to have the value. You've got to help procurement sell it internally because procurement are going into a closed door meeting with finance and the stakeholders, making recommendations on behalf of cross functional teams. And they need to have a comprehensive effective value business case to present to finance. And you need to be confident they can represent you effectively even though you're not in the room.

And that's really the preview to the next episode because Todd's gonna walk you through how to make those business cases that get green lit. And I invite you to reflect what internal tools are you currently providing today to help your procurement, counterparts be successful in championing you as a solution. Oops. The right one there. So that's the main body. This is me and my contact details. I am now working with sales teams, trying to help them understand the procurement perspective, how to actually engage effectively with procurement teams, the different type of procurement teams, the different kind of procurement personas. So welcome any dialogue there.

That being said, Bruce, I think we're open to any, questions people may have.

Bruce Scheer: Yeah. Absolutely. If you wanna stop sharing there, Dean, and let let's get into a discussion.

Dean Edwards: Do that. Let me oh, just takes a little bit of jiggery pokery on my side.

Bruce Scheer: There we go.

Dean Edwards: And And now I have to there's my mouse cursor. There we go.

Bruce Scheer: Awesome. Okay. Yeah. I I had a curiosity, Dean. Just based on your experience, what percent of, sellers show up and help shape that business case when once it gets to procurement?

Dean Edwards: 10% or less. 10% or less. Seriously. Most do the bids, drop it with procurement, have an indication that they got the business, maybe get into contractual negotiations, which is a whole other night nightmare and can be easily fixed. But they don't help build the business case to sell the proposition in. A lot of the time, that's procurement's fault. They don't engage the sales team to to come on board. But they again, sales needs to be proactive in offering that to the procurement organization.

Bruce Scheer: Well and, Dean, another question. What percent of deals, for procurement to approve require a business case even before this period of economic uncertainty?

Dean Edwards: It's driven by size, but, generally, anything over about 500,000 will require a business case. Mhmm. And, typically, a million dollars and up are landing on the CFO's table, and procurement's expected to actually signal whether they approve or not. So there's organizations I've worked for where the CFO would not approve a deal unless I personally endorsed it. If it was coming across his desk, I had to give the green light to it. So the lesson there is sales teams that think it's really cool to try and work, around procurement, they they are gonna find it's a very tough road. I would tell you in about 90% of the cases with the CFOs where I've had to give approval, if I haven't had my approval, the the the, project doesn't go ahead.

Bruce Scheer: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I think I you had mentioned to me that if you if you say no, there's a 10% chance that might move forward, 90% chance that it says dead on the vine right at that point. And, so so interesting that one out of 10 sellers actually helped shape the business case that that carries that internal dialogue. That's pre this period of, economic uncertainty. I'm hoping some of the sharper sellers might realize, gosh. Dang.

You know? And you said before that, you know, even before this period, such a high percentage of deals require a business case, especially over a certain number, internally, whatever that that rate might be. But only one out of 10 sellers is doing that. So there's a huge, huge gap there in You're just helping buyers buy.

Dean Edwards: Even at the 10%, Bruce, not all of those are demonstrating the value. They're they're just helping with the the cost times the volume, maybe TCO, total cost of ownership, as a criteria. But what they're not doing is demonstrating the full bird value proposition to the organization.

Bruce Scheer: Yep. Yep. So anyways, huge gaping opportunity even before this period. Now that we're in times of economic uncertainty, and then Dean just laid out, you know, what is that response, especially with the cost oriented orient, focus. How can sellers show up and do a better job of that? And, Todd, I know you're gonna just really lay heavy into that in in our next, webinar series. And, again, if I yeah. For everybody out here listening, if you've, if if you need to get that job done, no better guy to bring to that that knife fight than Todd, I I must say. But, Todd, I'm sure you've got questions too.

You've been thinking about David as well if you've got any questions to kinda fire at Dean.

Todd Snelgrove: And we've all got different industry experience. But when Dean said 10% show up with a business case, my experience is 90% of those I could drive a truck through. They're so bad. And I've got a list because Sharon, pretty weak, though. I hate to say what not to do. But that just because it's a business case doesn't mean it's a believable one, it's accurate, and the customer feels confident taking it up there. I've seen one I won't get into it. Spelling mistakes and the likes.

That's one comment. And then this is going back a while ago, Bruce, but my colleagues would say, the customer will never ask for a business case. Okay? Terminology is different in every company. Do they ask for justification? Is there a budget threshold? I mean, ask the question in different ways. Would it help you get the approval for this if I brought you a business name or something? Because they might not come to you. The bid didn't say we needed this, so why should I do it? And I'm like, go in your own company and ask for a million dollars and not have to write a business case. I wanna come work for you. Because odds are your boss is gonna ask you why.

And if you come in and say, because I like the guy and he's fun, probably not a good enough answer to get a million dollars.

Bruce Scheer: You bet. Yeah.

Dean Edwards: The, a thing I'd add on to that, though, is a lot of times when the budget's been formulated, the the stakeholder will talk with a given supplier to try and build the budget up. Mhmm. And that becomes defact the business case that they run run with throughout the whole project. And even if that supplier isn't successful, nobody's practically going back or very few people are practically going back to to the winner of the process to say, help me justify this and show me where the value's coming from. And that there's a interesting corporate executive board, statistic which showed that deals, that weren't tended to or managed effectively lost 75% of their value over two years. Whereas those where people actually try to realize the value, work it, and drive the whole process forward, So a 25% increase in value over the original value proposition.

Todd Snelgrove: Hoping the customer get the the value, the success is more than just, here's the business case. Thanks for the order. See you around because, you better you better fortunately when you come back the next day.

Dean Edwards: I and this is an area where both procurement and sales have to do a lot better because they're always chasing the next opportunity, the next project, and they need to spend more time on the ones that they've actually delivered to realize that value. Because from the sales perspective, that can lead to a lot more sales.

Todd Snelgrove: Mhmm. For sure.

Bruce Scheer: Hey, Dean. We do have a question, Sebastian. Thanks for asking it in the chat. But, Sebastian or I'll I'll read your question. Dean, you mentioned that there is risk aversion when there is economic uncertainty. How do procurement teams weigh up the pain of change, cost, and their associated risks when making decisions?

Dean Edwards: Okay. Thanks for that, Seb. Basically, what we're looking at is what is the actual cost to affect the change? What is the time? Costing also includes the internal resources, the amount of focus it will take away from, other opportunities. How could we have used those resources elsewhere? And then what is the likelihood of the project actually failing or not delivering against the the benefits that it's supposed to realize for us as an organization? And Hillmont will certainly spend a lot of time trying to appraise that, and will do so with a very skeptical eye. They're they're looking to disprove things as part of, the acid test for the supplier. Will it actually deliver what we expect it to deliver?

Bruce Scheer: I love it. Yeah. And we'll speak, towards our our third part of this webinar series. But around the buying experience, it doesn't end with signing the contract. It's delivering that value. And especially in times of economic uncertainty, you wanna grow that value within your existing client base. Make sure they're getting the value. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So and and then you're gonna miss that memo.

Dean Edwards: Yeah. One of the things sales teams tend to miss is procurement is really plugged into the organization and knows what's going on. Mhmm. And if you've been successful with them, if you've helped them achieve their goals, if you understand them and align with them, they're much more inclined to identify opportunities that you haven't realized in their organization to increase the value to you as an organization.

Bruce Scheer: Yeah. Dean, I'd mentioned to you in one of our previous calls that, you know, I had and David had the honor of being, you know, on a a vendor of record for Alcatel Lucent. But because of our, our winning streak and value streak for them and then also working with procurement on that, making sure our deals get got approved and into play for the organization, that one of the heads of procurement became a a, you know, a friend. And and if something was moving in the account that we weren't involved with, chances are we'd get involved invited to it. You know? So it was a it was a blind spot for us, but procurement very often would help us be invited to the table because they knew there was initiative. And and that buyer, or for that initiative, wasn't considering all the best players, and hence, we'd get invited to the table.

Dean Edwards: So here here's an interesting stat that sales really, really needs to absorb. Procurement is typically 67% of the way through the process before they contact suppliers. So it it's imperative that you have a proactive relationship with them them that's actively managed so that you get insight as to what's going on earlier in the process. Because by then, we've researched the suppliers, we've understood the market, we've framed our specifications, and you've missed all these opportunities to help shape the bid documents, the selection criteria, and the outcome.

David Svigel: Dean, I have a I have a question for you. I'm hearing from some of my clients that customers are looking to consolidate the number of suppliers. Yeah. And and and they're wondering, like, you know, how do I get to be that supplier? What's driving my customer's behavior towards that consolidation? Do you have any insight into what's going on there?

Dean Edwards: Totally. So this is a lot about managing tailspin, concentrating power into a select number of suppliers in exchange for economic advantage. So, if you take a typical benchmark of a couple of years ago, it was benchmark was about 5,000 suppliers per billion dollars worth of spend. Best in class was somewhere between two and a half and 3,000 vendors. It's not uncommon to come across organizations per billion dollars of spend with 25,000 supplies. So that's one of the drivers. Reduce the tail spend, concentrate it in exchange for better

Todd Snelgrove: terms,

Dean Edwards: both for the the customer and increase revenues for for the supplier. But to do that, you need to become, as much as possible, a one stop shop within that category. What are the all the services, products, capabilities that you can bring to that relationship in order to be successful? It's not just about sacrificing your your pricing to come in and win the business. It it's much more than that. And if I can, there's there's a fallacy around e auctions. If you do get dragged into an e auction, the assumption is that the lowest price is gonna win. Any good sourcing organization, that's just one of the points of reference. They're looking at the quality.

They're looking at insurance and supply, innovation, all these other criteria, as well as what the price is in order to come up with the right solution. So in periods of consolidation of suppliers, it's very real. Be proactive. Go out there. Show them how you can pick up more of the business, with the right terms, the right service, the right quality. There's nothing wrong. It might not happen a lot of the time, but there's nothing wrong in actually asking, the the buyer for what spend data is. What is out there? What is the size of the opportunity? Where else are they spending money with? What suppliers that you could actually come in and provide those goods and services for them?

Bruce Scheer: Thank you, Dean. Hey, everybody. We just got a couple minutes left as part of our scheduled time together. Any other questions? This has been such a great dialogue.

Dean Edwards: I'm surprised I haven't read the issue of, consultants yet, Bruce.

Bruce Scheer: You wanna talk about that for a little bit? I know that's a hot one. Probably something people aren't thinking about.

Dean Edwards: As consultancies are seeing challenges to their other books of business, they are increasing, their forays into the procurement world. We are seeing compound, annual growth rates between eight to 14% as they're out there recruiting procurement folks, building their capabilities. And they're pitching typically into finance or to the CEO, promising cost savings and driving those. And I've worked with some excellent, organizations, consultancies doing procurement, projects. And I I've worked with some that are just interested in slashing the cost come what may because the way the contract is set up is on a share of savings. And I've always considered that to be really, really dangerous, because the propensity to just go for the lowest cost rather than what serves a long long term interest of the client, can be very detrimental. So the way to counter that is, again, get back to the value argument. Empower procurement.

Be proactive. If they're able to show that they're making the progress, that they're delivering against the expectations of the organization, and you're part of the solution, you've positioned yourself well. If you find yourself in the middle of a consultant, program, the same still holds true. Demonstrate the value, articulate it, work with procurement, and even with the consultants to demonstrate that value to them.

Bruce Scheer: Sounds good. Any any last question, Todd or David as well, any, to round out?

Todd Snelgrove: I guess maybe it's more for the sales side, so we'll leave it for a few weeks. But it's amazing when we all have a CRM system, whether it's Outlook. How well, maybe it's a better way to put it. How many salespeople come back in six months and check? I thought the solution was gonna bring this value to you. Let's find out what it's realizing and how many say goodbye. I mean, what if I visit you? I could have that capability. But today, everybody's got a even a sticky note. Call back my good customer and see how I did.

Dean Edwards: Very, very few is the answer, Todd. It's an incredibly low percentage, and I think that's structural to both, procurement and the sales teams. There is a focus within procurement and supplier management, supply development, and how does that go forward. But they're so resource constrained. There there's few organizations that can do that to the extent that they want. And the sales team's under, under the gun to keep delivering more revenue and achieve their targets, which makes it hard for them to look back. But as we've said, that's how you can really expand the the revenue stream with your existing customer, which is a lot easier than going out and acquiring a new customer for its sake, and really building that value case for them. And and the suppliers that do that are unfortunately too far, few and far between for my liking.

But it it's a two way street. You can't say it's the sales team's fault. It's also, the customer's fault as well. They've they've got to invest the the resources in fully realizing that value. I can tell you, out of the companies I worked for, only one engaged a formal look back process to make sure that the projects actually delivered the value and the rate of return that was put into the initial business case. Yeah. So it's it's it's Which is crazy.

Todd Snelgrove: Crazy because more and more businesses are going to this customer success or I'll pay you based on value. And all I heard from some salespeople before was, we're not sure a solution would deliver the value, so I don't wanna go back and measure it. Yeah. He got it before. They just made up a number and gave it to somebody. It's like, if it's not realizing the value, it's probably, I hate to just determine, easy fix. We, you know, change them or upgrade that or do that. And the businesses that bought the solution, that got the value, they were usually easier to meet with than a back to procurement saying, I talked to your team.

This is what they said the value were.

Dean Edwards: So what one of the things that's, really tough is procurement will come in and demonstrate, okay. This is the value. These are the cost savings if they're they're looking to drop money down to the bottom line. What happens is the budget holder typically takes that money and spends it on something else. And at the end of the year, finance is turning around to to procurement and saying, well, where the hell was all this value that you delivered? Because we can't see it anywhere. Uh-huh. And then, yeah, do we go through convoluted mechanisms to actually capture the cost and and the the cost savings and drop it to the bottom line, which doesn't do wonders for procurement's relationship with the internal stakeholders. But it's rare for me to see other other departments within your organization take up that bat baton and run with it.

Bruce Scheer: Well, you guys, on on that note, I know we'll talk more about that. How do we get this sitting right, especially for the the vendors that wanna win more and more often and keep their their valuable clients and grow those valuable clients. I know our next session is just gonna be really rich in that regard. So so we've, we've hit the procurement perspective. Dean, thank you so much for helping us understand the internal dynamics, how the buyers' minds work, what changes in times of economic uncertainty. Todd, I know you're totally gonna deliver on how, you know, how do we show up now? How do we partner with the client, with on the buy with the people on the buyer side, put that energy into, you know, setting up the business case, measuring for it, getting that time for for to the first impact scheduled and agreed to and how we're gonna measure it and proving value so we can grow that value for that account and and grow our business, our revenue number. So that's gonna be super critical. And then we'll again, our our third one in June, we'll round out with a how do we drive an overall value experience that our buyers are just gonna love and make us the vendor of choice.

So, anyways, on that note, thank you everybody for showing up. Dean, thanks so much for the energy you put into your presentation. And, Todd and David, thanks for for your wisdom and and shaping this whole thing and getting this underway. So, I'll go ahead and end the session now. We'll send a recording out to everybody and some bonus materials as well, and then we'll see you on the next one. Thank you so much. Have a great day.