Who are your suppliers?
Claire, Plantpassion
When we think of managing our contacts, it's often only in terms of customers. But suppliers and collaborators, can take just as much work and direction, and we also need to be assertive in our dealings with them.
How many suppliers did you have last year?
I was quite surprised at how long my list for last season was:
Plant, bulb and seed suppliers both online and in person, additional cut flower suppliers, website providers, email marketing, social media suppliers. Finance and accounting suppliers, a tree surgeon, a videographer, a photographer, insurance for business and vehicle. Vehicle service and repair, compost and manure suppliers, a caterer for several events, venue supplier,
Those that have been easy to deal with have given me
Clear information about deadlines
Details of how to pay and by when
Clear delivery information / timelines
Those that have been more difficult to deal with
Have different values or standards to me
Didn't give clear payment or delivery details
Were ambiguous about what the final price would be
Changed their offering after I'd started working with them.
Example 1
I used a caterer for a big event that I was working on. Usually I cater for myself, so I didn't have any knowledge of what was available or pricing. I used someone locally who had been recommended to me, in fact their base is literally 150m up the road from my home address. It's a mother and daughter team, and when I emailed, I got the daughter, and when I phoned I got the mother. Because I needed help and advice I made several phone calls, as the emails didn't give me enough details. The mother had been to visit my field before, and was very willing to give me as much help and advice as she could. Without me asking, she offered me cutlery and crockery on a complimentary basis, and delivery to my home. It took several iterations on details to get to what was finally required, and by then it was very last minute. We'd agreed a price, and although it was over my original budget, I was happy with it, as I had so much less to do. Then there was a last minute call to say that as there was food for 3 different times over the weekend, they'd prefer to do several different deliveries so it was fresh - no problem. But when the mother turned up with the first delivery - There was far too much, - she'd transposed the amounts for 2 of the events, and I had fresh scones for 30, not 15. She also hadn't brought any crockery. Luckily I had plates at the farm, so the afternoon workshop with the scones was fine, I mentioned that she'd offered crockery, and she'd obviously forgotton.
The rest of the food was delivered on time and was excellent, but when I got the bill, I discovered -
there was delivery charged,
there was VAT added.
So although what they supplied was excellent, i'd be reluctant to use them again.
Example 2
Carol ordered 15 x 1 tonne dumpy bags of spent mushroom compost. She gave detailed delivery instructions to her field gate entrance, a phone contact number for when they arrived, and was given a delivery day. Everything was made ready and someone was at home all day. By 6pm it was dark and they went indoors.
They noticed lights at 8.30pm and by the time they got down to the gate, the driver had unloaded all 15 bags into a big pile in the field gateway. He apologised for being late, and drove off. It was only in the morning that Carol realised that they couldn’t get through the gate or move any of the bags. They had to ask a neighbouring farmer to move them all. He had to move them first so he could get through the gate and them move them to were they were wanted.
Example 3
I use Squarespace for my website and for the British Flowers Book website. I use their e-commerce feature so that I can take payments through the website for sales and delivery. For the book sales there are 4 delivery options:
Pick up from Plantpassion = free,
UK postage = £5,
Europe postage = £10,
Worldwide = £16.
The default setting is UK postage, which means that it is clear that there is an additional cost. Occasionally during the year (maybe 4 times), I've had people choose Pick up from Plantpassion by mistake, so I've needed to email them and check if they were collecting, and if they'd chosen that by mistake ask if they wanted a refund or to pay for the postage. During November, I had 3 people in 2 days make this error, and when I'd asked them they'd apologised and said they hadn't seen a delivery option. I went onto my website to check this out, and Squarespace had "Upgraded" me to Apple Pay. As it wasn't going to cost me any additional charges, they hadn't contacted me directly to explain this option (there had been a blog update), but the Apple pay only showed 2 options, not the 4 of the credit card payment choice. It was showing free collection from Plantpassion as the default, or Rest of the World £16 as the other choice.
Situations like this are stressful, so finding out about pricing, delivery and what's included in advance, and what changes there may be in the future when dealing with suppliers is very important.
Working with other Businesses
As your business grows, you may want to work with other businesses in collaboration
Workshops, and courses, photoshoots, books and promotions are all examples.
When thinking about who you are going to collaborate with, and how things will work, the questions you need to ask are.
Who's in charge?
What will each person's role be?
Will someone manage communications ?
Do you have the same values?
Are you all working towards the same aim?
Timescales? - how important is it to everyone that this gets completed?
When?
Do you really want to be collaborators, or should you be hiring someone to work with you?
Talking about money
It's the Elephant in the room - talking about money.
It's really important that it gets covered sooner rather than later.
Working with others means that results are going to be shared, but how? Is it fair for all parties?
Important things to think about:
If there are to be costs up front, how will those be shared?
Will one person be in charge of the finances?
What value do you put on your work, is that the same as your other
collaborators?
Will you all equally bring in participants?
Will you all equally do the marketing?
Large bouquet for photoshoot
Example - Photoshoot
I was asked to provide a large and wild wedding bouquet for a photo shoot. Up front I was told that there was a photographer, a make up/ hair stylist and a model involved, and the photoshoot was being sold to a lifestyle blog. I wouldn't be paid for the bouquet, but I would receive photos of the shoot to use on Social media after it had gone live on the blog.
Because I was given this information up front I knew that what my costs would be, how much time it would take me, and what results I would get. I also knew that I didn't have any say over the photoshoot, so actually when they got creative, and used the bouquet as a headdress, those photos were no good to me, but I thought the swap of materials, and my time to make a bouquet were fair to get 4 good photos that I liked.