Dear Supply Chain Pro,

This may be the most important letter you read all year.

Here’s why – Negotiating contracts is a pain for you right now. Suppliers are marking them up and your legal department takes weeks to review things that you needed to have done yesterday. Even when legal approves the contract, you still end up having endless supplier performance problems.

Is this how you envisioned spending your career?

But that’s not all. You have another big problem, and it’s killing you every day on the job. Here’s the purchasing cycle: a SOW or Spec is written for goods and services. You then solicit for goods and services. You then negotiate for goods and services. You then contract for goods and services. And then somehow you and your end user magically expect PERFORMANCE RESULTS at the end of this process – and it never happens. What’s worse is that you’ve been taught that learning negotiation strategies and tactics are the key to landing deals and getting great negotiation results, but it hasn’t made you the rock star of your department.

It never will. Somehow all the experts had said these two skills are enough. They’re not. Negotiation strategies and tactics are not enough. If you want to be a negotiation godfather, a negotiation genius, someone who everyone turns to for the most difficult negotiations…someone who gets paid more and more every year because you are too valuable to lose, you need to know not only how to influence, but also how to do total cost analysis.

Should cost, must cost, and total cost models – are you using these critical tools in every negotiation? If not, you are leaving money on the table and stifling your career – while your suppliers laugh all the way to the bank.

You landed in purchasing by accident.

Your boss landed in purchasing by accident.

Your peers landed in purchasing by accident.

And then, if you go far enough up the chain in your organization, eventually purchasing reports to someone who doesn’t understand purchasing.

If this were a recipe for a cake, even a dog wouldn’t eat it.

Every single purchasing professional lives in this kind of environment, where people who didn’t plan for this profession are trying to teach you how to do your work. Are you wondering why your career isn’t moving like it should?

Measly 3 – 5% raises. Infrequent promotions and getting passed over for positions you want. Not even getting interviewed for positions you apply for. Is this how you want to spend your purchasing and supply chain management career, stuck under a glass ceiling? Are you wasting your days on firefighting activities?

Do you have 4 – 6 hours free every day in your schedule?

Or are your days ravaged by unplanned activities, emergencies, fires, supplier problems, customer issues, emergency emails, useless meetings, and many other activities – none of which show up in your status report or your performance review.

Is this any way to spend your time?