Ask a better question; write a better brief. You’ll get a better answer.

There is a truism[1] in professional services that you get the client you deserve. The reverse is true too; you get the supplier you deserve. If you are serious about getting value out of the money you spend with consultants, agencies and advisors – or any supplier – then invest time in the brief.

I’m in a privileged position of working mostly in quasi-interim client roles and get to see the world from both sides. I’d characterise most buying processes as passively abusive. That’s not good.

Procurement teams: Play a proactive role in making the brief better. Intermediaries likewise. If you want to play a role in vendor management and add-value beyond haggling, this is a great way to do it:

Be clearer. A better brief isn’t about more detail it’s about more clarity. When a supplier asks for “more detail” that might mean “keep sending me stuff and saying stuff so we can try and make sense of this” – they would of course never say that. Before you send more, consider clarifying and reducing.

Be accessible. Of course the supplier wants to meet the decision makers and budget holders in person and build a relationship to sell better. They might also want to hear the real brief. Too often I’ve seen the sponsor begin a potential supplier meeting with “Shall I summarise what we are looking for?”; most of which is brilliant but doesn’t appear in the brief.

Be honest. We all tend to overstate our position because that makes us look better and is easier to say. I once had a client say at the end of a pitch “Look we don’t need to do any of this we just need to look dangerous because we’re selling the business.” – The supplier can only answer the brief you give them.

Be aligned. Don’t expect a supplier to be able to reconcile your differing internal opinions in a competitive selection process if you’ve not been able to achieve that yourselves. The supplier won’t have your perspective or insights. If you can’t align then make that an explicit ask to the supplier either in the process or as part of a project.

Be human. Most procurement decisions boil down to “Did we like the team we met?” no matter what the Supplier Selection Criteria Framework Scoring Chart Excel says. Fact.[2] So use participation in a process to explore and clarify the brief instead of hiding behind the adversarial faux-formal procurement process. If you don’t have time then see fewer people. If you can’t bear it then down select now.

Be respectful. Suppliers put a significant amount of time and emotional energy into a pitch. Roll with that, make the most of it. Just because the whole thing isn’t costing you money doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be taking it seriously. If you don’t believe the supplier has the potential to be selected then let them down gently as soon as you realise they aren’t right.

Be inspiring. Clients need to pitch too. When a supplier reads the brief our objective should be to make them thinking “This is brilliant. We want to work with these people. We need to get our best people working on this.”

Be as you’d be. Selection processes happen in their own little worlds. They are important decisions – so why run them in a way that’s completely alien to how you would actually operate the relationship. An 'Agile at Scale RFP' is about as ironic as it gets; please write eight short essays on various aspects of the matter safe in the knowledge the sponsor won’t read any of them.

Next time a supplier drops out of a pitch or politely declines an invitation to tender don’t think 'Excellent. The short-list is making itself.', instead think 'Are we getting the suppliers we deserve?'

[1] By putting a footnote to things like Wikipedia you can assert truth. [2] See above.