Communicating with Vendors

Do you have your own business?

Are you a vendor?

 

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[00:00:14] Hello and welcome to The Travelling Introvert. Today we are going to talk about communication with vendor's. This has come up a lot in the past month and I wanted to talk about it because it's really important as someone with their own business or you out there who might be looking to have their own business. There's nothing more important than your communication with your clients/vendor's. [00:00:34][20.4]

[00:00:36] One thing that happened is that I was working for a client and their primary communication was a mixture of a lot of Facebook and social media tagging and then it followed with some emails and Slack was suggested. Now the way they introduced me to this method of communication was they emailed me most of the time. They Facebook tagged me a lot of the time but didn't ask if it was okay. And then they also just sent me an invite to slack. They didn't explain what it was they didn't explain what they used it for and they didn't explain why it was important. Fast forward about three months and this particular vendor was an event vendor and so I was speaking at this event only to find out that Slack was their primary method of communication and a lot of really important information regarding transportation getting picked up for flights and that sort of information was only being communicated through Slack which in itself isn't great but the fact that they didn't tell people that, hey for this particular event this is going to be our main method of communication you really need to jump on this is a huge misstep. [00:01:56][79.2]

[00:01:57] Not only that, Slack is not that widely used, those people who do use Slack think everybody uses slack and that's not the case. What is the case however is that most people use email. And so why you wouldn't try and make sure that you email everyone as well as putting this information in your preferred method of communication is beyond me. And then rollforward sort of a little bit past that they actually sent out a message asking what my preferred method of communication was during the event and I gave them that information and they failed to use it throughout the event. They just did the same Slack thing and this caused a lot of confusion not on my part but definitely from other people who attended the event and were not on Slack and don't have it on their phone and all these other things whereas email you know it will get through. [00:02:47][50.5]

[00:02:48] So that's one thing about communication. If you are going to introduce communication to a client or vendor make sure you explain to them what it is and why they need to use it. It is part of your onboarding process. So if you prefer to be communicated by by voice message say so. If it's a case or email then say so if it's email plus the project management tool say so and explain why give them instructions on how to use it. [00:03:18][29.7]

[00:03:19] I know I've been onboarded with various clients of mine and they use a project management software and I just got told here you go and yes partly it is on me as an adult to learn the software but at the same time as an employer or project/client it is also nice to have it onboarding even if it's just a case of here go and look at these top three links or here go and do this and try these task and do it in our sandbox. These things make a huge difference to how you feel about a the tools that you have to use and the company and same goes for you. If you have clients that you want to use your specific software on. Tell them show them take 30 minutes of your time and do a Zoom video a live thing and show them how to use it because you want them to use it so you dont get annoyed and you want them to be comfortable with it and you want them to understand. Understanding is the key. If they don't understand how to use it or why to use it it's far more difficult to get them to use it and then there's frustration at both ends. They feel that stuff isn't getting done and you don't understand why they're not doing what you asked. So that is just a short thought on communication methods and tools and how you can use them with clients or with prospective speakers or with vender and a good way of going about it. Just explain why that's all. Explain why and let them know. Don't just invite them and expect them to know. [00:04:52][93.2]

[00:04:53] Thank you for listening. This was The Career Introvert should you want to drop me a link or send me a message email me at Janice@thecareerintrovert.com Until next time. [00:04:53][0.0]

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