The first week of sales is behind us and I think we locked up 9 suppliers to pay for the site. We even got our first sale on Tuesday and had the check in hand by Friday! Nice (and thank you Mid-States Supply).

My time is taken up training the customer service / technical support person so I can only spend so many hours a day making phone calls or doing demonstrations. More time will clear up after this week when the training ends and I can be out doing this 100% of the time.

I have to really focus on the Contractors. There are many approaches to take but they all revolve around helping them find qualified suppliers for whatever their project needs at the right price. This lets them keep their eyes on the project and out of the trailer. We can help with sourcing as well as keeping their contacts in an easy to manage format.

This week we should close about 3-5 more suppliers. I'm only working on the lowest hanging fruit right now until my time frees up. Oh, yeah... business cards have been ordered as well as the sign on the window for the front door of the office! HAHAHA!!! Really critical stuff!

There is a lot coming to a head at work. JobsiteBuying.com is finished with testing and goes live tomorrow, our JobsiteBuyingLIVE service starts pretty soon, and we are turning our supplier database upside down by moving it to a custom built application in MS Access.

There actually are 2 databases. One is for our sourcing business that is only for JobsiteBuying suppliers and the other is for our procurement side and is open to just about any supplier and commodity. The JobsiteBuying database will be kept in just that department but the procurement database will be available to everyone.

The 2 big improvements are

1. You can select the zip code of a project location as well as the commodity type being sourced. Without needing to click anything a result pops up that shows only those suppliers that are relavent. The previous database would only show suppliers by commodity but you had to visually scan for the suppliers that serviced particular areas.

2. We also put all the sales contacts on the Suppliers main page that is accessible by double clicking the Supplier name in the search result. It's very handy to see everyone's phone, email, and title in one easy to read spot.

Most of next week will involve moving our contacts to the new databases. We can't import very much becuase there was no uniform way of data entry in the old database. There was no accurate way to map the transfer. Oh well, lesson learned about that.

    I have needed to buy a CRM solution for some time. With jobsitebuying.com going live next week it will be necessary to keep track of which Contractors and Suppliers I've spoken with and how everything is progressing. It will be very handy when the other territories such as Kansas City and Chicago start up to see how the salespeople are spending their time.

     I looked at Act! and SalesForce. SalesForce seemed to have better user reviews so I signed up for a free 7 day demo. To make the story short, it seems like a good fit and I signed up for 1 year of access (there is no software, it's an online app) for $99. I can add up to 5 other users at the same price each.

     The system also came with a "call center" for logging problems and issues, something I've had on the JSB.com bug tracker for a long time to help with Critical Sourcing's problem resolution process. Bonus!

     I can add accounts, contacts, leads, opportunities, calls, tasks, events, notes, documents... and everything ties to the right account or contact in an easy to track way.

     So, 2 thumbs up for SalesForce. If it becomes 2 thumbs down I'll post something about it later.

Our web based e-sourcing application specifically for the industrial and commercial construction industry will finish testing May 1 and go live May 4. Whew!

The site is up and running at www.jobsitebuying.com and you can read a little more about the application at www.criticalsourcing.com

We will be opening sales/service territories in St. Lous, Kansas City, Denver, Chicago, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and Memphis. If you know someone who has strong sales or procurement skills and knows area contractors then I may have a great job for you!

The link below deals with a beachwood supplier for the brewing process at Anheuser-Busch, makers of Budweiser and other beers. http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/the-platform/editorial-writers-notebooks/2009/04/the-new-a-binbev-chipping-away-at-traditions/

This is a great example of an owner looking to reduce costs by bidding out the bulk of materials required to a single supplier. I live in St. Louis and nerves are still raw about AB being sold to a foreign company, so anytime it looks like the "little guy" is being screwed it makes the news.

On one hand there is an American company that has been producing beachwood to AB for over 60 years. On the other is a foreign company that has been supplying AB for a much shorter period of time. Well, the bids went out and the foreign company had the best pricing and met the specifications. American company is closing its doors...

Did AB make a bad decision? Not from a cost point of view. But faced with a similar decision, keeping the economy of the US in mind and the bad press over the last year about no longer being an "American" beer... I may have made a different award.

Our largest client has been in a nasty outage/turnaround at a power plant in Illinois. Many requests have been last-minute notifications with deliveries required ASAP. Generally this is nothing new and is very much what makes purchasing for industrial contractors different from manufacturing where more planning is generally the norm.

But we haven't done a good job at all on this project. Deliveries have had terrible backorders, unqualified suppliers have been given orders, and nothing has been easy. I'm sure there will be a meeting at the end of the job where we will have to explain just why our performance was not up to the usual level.

As I was thinking about this it occurred to me that it could be a slump. Just like some of the best hitters in baseball can go several games without seeing first base it seems like we were missing some routine swings at pitches. Those hitters see the same 88 mph fastball thousands of times a season. Some days those pitches end up in the upper deck. Some days they whiff.

The way to get out of a slump is to get back to basics and practice. As there is no chance I would explain our mistakes as "being in a slump" to our client it would be simple to say we forgot the basics. We didn't qualify our suppliers (our stance was open), we didn't follow up critical orders with delivery updates (we didn't swing through the pitch), and we failed to recognize a systemic problem with how this job was being run (we took our eyes off the ball).

So, it's time for myself and the purchasing agents involved to go back to reading some basic process reminders and work a little harder at getting our game back to where it was. All-Star level!

You can't make all of the people happy all of the time. Knowing that, there will be times the performance of either you, your office, or your staff will fall short of expectations. How should you handle it?

If the complaint is even slightly valid, fall on your sword. Take the blame for the issue fully and on behalf of everyone who may have led to the letdown. There is a difference between fault and responsibility... the responsibility is always yours, if not the fault.

There are varying degrees of error. If the mistake or instance was of little consequence assure the internal customer a lesson has been learned and won't be forgotten. If the problem is bigger move on to your problem resolution processes. In all cases assure the person bringing up the complaint that it is being reviewed and thought of. Follow up with some type of resolution or explaination in the future.

If you are faced with a constant low-level back chatter that  "purchasing always makes mistakes" but nobody can ever seem to give specific issues or instances please let it be known to everyone involved that you have an open-door policy and welcome any/all constructive criticism. Never argue, just listen.

Nobody is perfect. Avoid being defensive and always look to be as helpful as possible. When you are faced with criticisms that are unfair or inaccurate just remember that there is a reason the blame is heading your way. Find out what that reason is and improve or change it. Your reputation will go a long way!

It's time for me to revisit the scorecard used to measure the suppliers I do a regular and significant business with. The form I currently use has worked in the past, but it has been several years since I've looked around to see if I can find some ideas to incorporate into the process.

I'll start with the internet then call some Contractors I know who are using scorecards to see if we can exchange some ideas.

When I'm done I'll include a link to our new scorecard. The one we currently use is at http://www.criticalsourcing.com/News/SupplierEvaluation.xls.

One idea that jumps out at me is to find a way to tie actual circumstances of non-conformance or errors to the scorecard. I have been thinking about adding an issue tracker to our website, there may be a way to get both the scorecard and the issue tracker working together.

Another idea is finding a way to review the scorecard with the suppliers I measure. It could be a way to align objectives and let them know what is important in determining how spend is allocated and PO's awarded.

Anyway, I'll write more about this later as I get into it. Have a great week!

3:00- A truckload of tools and supplies needed immediately for a jobsite 4 hours away on GOOD FRIDAY?

8:00- Unloading should be done.

Nice!  (Jenni and Doug get the credit)

I had a meeting with a pipe mechanical company yesterday near St. Louis and spent most of the time discussing how their purchasing process works. It soon became clear that they were a typical "reactionay" company where requisitions were usually an emergency and there was rarely time for the competative bidding process to take shape.

Yes, there are going to be circumstances where you dig a hole expecting to find pipe A but instead find pipe B. You had expected to work on pipe A, had the materials for pipe A, and now find yourself stuck until you get the proper pipe B items can arrive to the jobsite. This happens, and nothing will ever change.

However, all too often a contractor waits until the morning of opening that hole before he orders the excavator, shovels, safety supplies, trenching equipment, and radios. Why? It was pretty clear yesterday that digging a hole was required. Wouldn't a little bit of planning be prudent?

Sometimes I think Critical Sourcing is victim to its own success. Because we successfuly manage our suppliers and have a grasp of what can be acquired with short notice we have managed to get the excavator, shovels, etc quickly and the superintendent never realized he was on the brink of not working that day.

Also, it greatly limits the pool of suppliers a purchasing agent can use if things are always an emergency. A supplier may keep a warehouse of tooling and supplies that can ship to a jobsite, but there is no chance of getting items same day or first thing next morning. Many of those suppliers have competative prices that you are locked out from taking advantage of. You are stuck with only the local suppliers when you are dealing with last minute orders.

So, Supervisors... let us save you some money and ensure you get what you really need. Please don't wait until the last minute before letting us know what you need to keep working. Thanks!