Don’t let Murphy to mess with your BizGift project

The nature of BizGift business means there is always some sort of trouble on horizon. It is pretty much impossible to have things going smooth. What is possible however is to lower the likelihood of disaster.

First of all - do not be suicidal and do not promise impossible to your customers. It is very tempting to say OK to every request from client in order to secure the deal. But this may and will came to haunt you. Yes, most of the things can be done, but not all can be done within the time and budget constrains of a BizGift project. You will not get paid for your promises for the goods delivered. If you promise and do not deliver, you end up paying !

Make sure you select a reliable supplier. Get references from people you know, use suppliers that you had good experience with previously. If you still do not know, choose a market leader in your area, there is always a reason for someone to become a market leader. Take the pricing into consideration, but do not make your choice solely based on price. At the end, you often get what you are paying for …

Once you select your supplier, make sure you brief them well. Not every supplier can read your mind.

Then when you secure the order remember that is when the real trouble starts. This also when you have no way to back off anymore …

“Murphy’s law is an adage in Western culture that broadly states that things will go wrong in any given situation, if you give them a chance. If there’s more than one possible outcome of a job or task, and one of those outcomes will result in disaster or an undesirable consequence, then somebody will do it that way.” - from Wikipedia

So here are few examples of possible problems:

• While you were closing the deal with your client, someone else beat you and occupied your supplier’s production facility. There is no chance you will make the order on time.

• The moment you place the order, your suppliers apologizes (in the better case) to you for making mistake in calculation and gives you nicely (in the better case) two options - higher price or no production.

• Due to time or technical constrains you concluded the deal with your client without having the final product ready and approved. While fine tuning the product in the preproduction stages of the order you and your supplier realize, that what was ordered actually can’t be done …

• After you place the order your supplier changes the payment terms, take it or leave it. The new conditions are either impossible for you to comply with due to your cash flow or simply too risky to accept.

• You loose your cool during a routine meeting with your supplier, and the supplier simply walks away. You get dumped …

• You conclude the deal, you are ready to place the order with your supplier. Then you find out the supplier closed down the business.

This is in no way exhausting list of possible trouble. The closest you get to the complete list would be by checking out the Murphy’s laws. So watch out, do not let Murphy to mess with your BizGift project.

Photo: www.murphys-laws.com

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