Episode 9
09: How Buyers Can Develop Smart Relationships with Their Suppliers - with Sarah Scudder
Meet Sarah:
Sarah Scudder is the chief marketing officer over at SourceDay and is the host of a monthly voice of supply chain show that features people in supply chains who are doing extraordinary things. Along with this, she hosts several other shows, is a regular on marketing and supply chain podcasts, and hosts a couple monthly LinkedIn live shows.
Kris: Can you just tell us briefly before we get started on other things is, you know, what is source day? What do you guys do over there?
Sarah: Yeah, so I joined source day about seven months ago, and I run marketing. We are a supply chain technology company that automates purchase order changes. So both of our founders, Tom and Clint worked in manufacturing at separate companies. And they both realize that their buyers were spending a lot of time managing emails and spreadsheets that were coming in from their suppliers with changes to the purchase orders. So they decided there was enough of a need in the market, that they were going to go build a platform to automate the back and forth between buyers and suppliers, and send those changes directly back into the ERP. So very, very niche, very specialized. We are 100% Direct spend focused, so we don't play in the indirect space at all. And our big verticals are manufacturing, which Chris and I have in common, distribution, retail and E commerce.
Kris: So tell me, you know, what do you mean when you talk about the first mile in the supply chain?
Sarah: Yeah, so this is something that I'm pretty vocal about and very passionate about. And it's the fact that I have noticed in the last couple years, buyers ignoring the first mile of their supply chain completely, and focusing all their time and energy on the last mile. So what the first mile is in your supply chain, it's buying the parts, materials or items that you need to get your end product ready to go to ship and distribute to your end customer. So if I'm a manufacturer, I'm probably buying lots of parts and materials. So I need to be able to go find those suppliers. I need to be able to negotiate my pricing and terms, I need to be able to place the orders. And then I need to get those materials into my warehouse so I can then produce our products so they're ready to sell. If I'm a distributor or an E commerce brand or a retailer, it's buying the items from the third parties that you need that you're going to package and then resell to your end customer.
Lori: I'm curious, when it comes to building these relationships with your suppliers, what are some of the different terms that companies can have?
Sarah: So what are some of the terms that are really important? The most important is figure out how to collaborate with your suppliers and become a customer of choice. So that means that when your supplier doesn't have enough product to ship to fulfill their orders, you want to get a partial, or you want to be that customer that they prioritize, and they're going to send the products to other companies. So whatever you need to do internally to figure out with your team, how to collaborate and partner with your suppliers. And I would argue a lot of that means freeing up your buyers time, so they can focus on being more strategic, and establishing relationships, versus spending their time doing automated manual work, like working in spreadsheets, like working in emails. So really think about how you can leverage technology to automate manual tasks to free up your buyers time.
And so much more…
Connect with Sarah
Connect with the broads!
Connect with Erin on LinkedIn and visit http://www.earthlinginteractive.com for web-based solutions to your complex business problems!
Connect with Lori on LinkedIn and visit www.keystoneclick.com for your strategic digital marketing needs!
Connect with Kris on LinkedIn and visit www.genalpha.com for OEM and aftermarket digital solutions!
Transcript
Lori Highby Chris Harrington and Aaron Courtney, three broads, bringing new stories and strategies exploring manufacturing topics that
Kris:Hello, ladies so it's that time of year we're all planting, or we're not if we're not planters, I'm curious ladies, what are you guys doing in
Lori Highby:year? I've really been enjoying the tulips that my husband planted last year. So he ordered 100 tulips from Holland last year. All the
Unknown:Did you ever see that show
Erin:about the tulip bubble there was like the I don't know, like the 1800s that something went crazy with tulips like it became this commodity.
Kris:the historical tulip bubble. You should Google it. You'll get there right away.
Erin:Michael Pollan is the guy that did the show. So it's really good. Speaking of gardening, by the way, and that's cool. I don't my husband is
Kris:you're just an observer. That's it.
Erin:I know. That's lame. But Chris, how about you your gardener resident gardener?
Kris:Yeah. Two girls on a farm. We're getting ready. It is definitely planting season. So the cucumbers, the peppers, tomatoes, melons. Got our
Erin:Getting hungry. Just. That's awesome.
Kris:Yeah. I love it. All right. So we have a very special guest today. I'm so happy to announce and introduce Sarah Scudder. She is yay she's a
Erin:Fair. Skin. Cell phone
Unknown:cover is a half naked photo of Brad's urine. So everyone always smiles and looks really like happy because this is what you look at when
Erin:That's hilarious. That's awesome.
Kris:That is wonderful. So she tells us she's been trying to get a date for two years with Bradley Cooper. So to our audience, if there's anybody
Unknown:I noticed I kept quiet during the gardening. Hearing.
Kris:Green is her favorite color. So I think she has a true appreciation for plants with green is her favorite color.
Unknown:And I appreciate Lori's green headphones because they are almost exactly the source stay green. So she's bringing her a game today.
Kris:Fair enough to send her the model and everything
Lori Highby:I will I can do that.
Kris:So Sarah is the host of monthly voice of supply chain show that features people within the supply chain, who are doing extraordinary
Kris:topics. So Sarah Scudder, thank you, and welcome to the broadcast.
Unknown:Yeah, so excited to be here, I've been on the road, which is really exciting to get back out and see people in person I just attended
Unknown:that I was able to attend a little tired, you don't get much sleep, You're up early and out late and then had a long flight. But it was it was really,
Kris:No, that's awesome. I know that for all of us that have been getting back out there. After that break of not doing those, it can be very tiring.
Unknown:Yeah, so I joined source day about seven months ago, and I run marketing. We are a supply chain technology company that automates purchase
Unknown:order, do you want a partial, we can't ship it out of the warehouse in Atlanta, but we can ship it out of the warehouse in New York, do you still
Unknown:decided there was enough of a need in the market, that they were going to go build a platform to automate the back and forth between buyers and
Unknown:parts, materials and items, lots of purchase orders and lots of suppliers.
Kris:Yeah, perfect. I think, you know, that introduction is really good for the company, for our audience to understand how this might be a really
Unknown:Yeah, so this is something that I'm pretty vocal about and very passionate about. And it's the fact that I have noticed in the last couple
Unknown:materials. So I need to be able to go find those suppliers. I need to be able to negotiate my pricing and terms, I need to be able to place the
Kris:Yeah, I think that that's a great explanation. You know, even for me in all my years in manufacturing Rain. I haven't heard people refer to it
Unknown:Yeah, so a lot of times when I'm speaking with buyers, they are dedicating most of their time, if not all of their time and resources on
Unknown:mile is. And the reason people have been prioritizing it so much is because if you miss a delivery date to a customer, you can completely lose that
Unknown:that last mile, doing what ever they can possible to get the products to the consumer on time or as quickly as possible. While I think that's super
Unknown:mile.
Lori Highby:Great stuff. Yeah, no, I love that it totally makes sense. And I'm curious, when it comes to building these relationships with your
Unknown:Yeah, so there's been a pivot, well, at least smart buyers are focusing on we instead of I verse them. So when I started in supply chain,
Unknown:them as a partner. And I would argue the most important stakeholder in your business today, are your suppliers. Without your suppliers, you have no
Unknown:to fulfill their orders, you want to get a partial, or you want to be that customer that they prioritize, and they're going to send the products to
Unknown:spreadsheets, like working in emails. So really think about how you can leverage technology to automate manual tasks to free up your buyers time.
Unknown:a third party to do that. So once the supplier ships it, it's out of their control. It's now the third party's responsibility to get that product to
Unknown:when your supplier actually gets the product out the door, the other thing you want to make sure that you do is that you take ownership of your
Unknown:which is the actual delivery date. So when does your product actually arrive in your warehouse? And again, many times the supplier does not
Unknown:possible. All right, great advice. Yeah,
Lori Highby:that's great. summarise collaborating with your suppliers, I think that makes so much sense to get positioned as the customer of choice
Lori Highby:this third party kind of being in the possession of it, though. So there's there is a little bit of there's a lot of risk and trust that's being put
Unknown:maybe can you speak to that just
Lori Highby:a little bit?
Unknown:Yeah, it's been there, the market is so competitive and supply is so limited that suppliers are expecting to be paid as soon as it gets out
Unknown:pre order significant amounts of inventory, so you have a safety stock. And that's money that you are now going to have to tie up and inventory that
Erin:You just described the First and the Last Mile. And it sounds like at every point along that journey, those the relationships that you have
Erin:speaking about customer reviews. And you know, this is a phenomenon that has really emerged with the moving business online. And we, in fact, I just
Erin:those that have moved to e commerce? What's your kind of major takeaways? And then this is kind of a two part question and follow that up with
Unknown:So Ecommerce has exploded in the last couple of years and companies are no longer limited to foot traffic or local regional
Unknown:the challenges that a lot of ecommerce brands have had is because they haven't prioritized the first mile, and they're prioritizing the last mile
Unknown:shipments, they need to know when something is shipped, when something is expected to arrive all those things that we just talked about. But what
Unknown:not going to arrive. It you know it got eaten up by the dishwasher. I mean, you could make up some funny stories about it and send it to them. So the
Unknown:got things coordinated with my family. And if that bed doesn't arrive, and I don't know about it, I'm going to be pretty upset. Because it not only I
Unknown:terrible review. Because I was communicated with ahead of time. So whatever you need to do as an E commerce brand to set proper customer expectations
Unknown:absolutely read reviews, I look at not only how many stars, but I go in and I read comments, I see how the company responded. And if you consistently
Unknown:there's the domino effect of that person leaving a bad review. And then other people seeing it and not ever purchasing from you as well.
Erin:Yeah, I love that over communicate basically over communicate and transparency. You know, I'm going to ask both Sarah and Chris, to kind of
Kris:Yeah, I can jump in first, just because I was I was having thoughts while Sarah was talking. You know, the bed was such a great example. In
Kris:waiting for to put their machine back into production. And they might have a crew that's waiting and there might be some Um, safety protocols they
Kris:absolutely is important. And the same would go with reviews, obviously, the I agree with Sarah, if you are making those transparent communications in a
Unknown:so I'll answer that from a software perspective. So companies who have software often do new releases. So they're going to make upgrades or
Unknown:Or they can't access what they used to be able to access. And they're going to quickly become very frustrated and upset and contact your customer
Unknown:customers. And what do you think they're going to ask after they engage with your customer success team? Well, why didn't you tell me this ahead of
Unknown:please please have a clearer communication process on what that looks like. And I would actually argue it should be two pronged, there should be an
Unknown:submit their questions ahead of time. So we have things ready to go. And then people could submit their questions live and feel like they were heard
Erin:Awesome. That's good customer service. Right. That's, that's what we said, keeping the customer happy.
Lori Highby:Yeah, I want to I want to jump on the b2b review conversation as well. But sir, I love everything that you're sharing right now. I think
Unknown:I mean, really, I should have said it's three prong because after it goes live, I feel like there then there's a whole nother set of
Lori Highby:Yep, absolutely. And I think we've talked about this on the show before but one of the things that I'm a big preacher and believer in
Lori Highby:to travel to Next we want to stay at this hotel or that when we want to eat at this restaurant or this one we want to buy, you know, the iPhone or the
Lori Highby:standpoint with a software a product, the customer service, the overall experience that they're having with that company. So it is extremely vital
Unknown:Yeah, and there are sites like GE to, for example, if you're in the b2b space that are, they allow a buyer to go online and search for
Unknown:going to highlight those reviews. So having those reviews is really essential and important in all those different aspects of marketing as
Kris:Oh, this is such great advice. And it you know, what I love about this whole conversation is this, there are marketing later leaders in this
Erin:Oh, goodness, you know, I always like to get kind of off the map on this one. So hold on, ladies. Yeah, there we go. Um, I get this newsletter
Erin:of what we were talking about, because AI is playing a bigger role in everything from supply chain, to communications and marketing. AI is
Erin:going to continue to inform what we think of as like the future. And I just thought that was an interesting framing. Very Laurie, yeah. What did you
Lori Highby:no, I want to go so many different directions with that I brought to the table. All right. I got other things to do today. All right,
Lori Highby:understand what they had in common. Oh, yeah, fascinating. So there's three traits that they've published in this really concise thing, and I'll share
Lori Highby:second one is to apply a test and learn mindset, I mean, digital moves and changes so quickly that you have to be able to adopt, evaluate, you know,
Lori Highby:everything that you do. Everything needs to be focused on making sure that your actions are responding to the changes in the overall customer behavior
Erin:Really cool. We'll put that. Can we link to that in the show notes? Okay, definitely. Very cool.
Lori Highby:Chris, what about you? What have you learned recently,
Kris:I learned that there are actually more muscles in a smile than in a frown.
Erin:Oh, cool. And I knew I
Kris:was going to do so much smiling in this episode that I thought I should bring that Because apparently, I don't know if you guys had
Erin:It's like a workout.
Kris:That's exactly what I said is I'll be working out with the girls today on Brad's, you know, it'll be just fine.
Lori Highby:And when I love it, when you said that we all just had this big smile on our face. We can't see that. But it was great.
Erin:laughed so much been with somebody and we're like, this hurts.
Lori Highby:Like it's been working out so hard.
Kris:I feel like there's probably a lot more muscles that would be utilized in the full laugh like the full. They didn't say that. It has to
Erin:You know, I think during the pandemic, we all got real good at that. Because that's all there was they call it the smize. Like you have to smile
Kris:Sara, can you share what you just learned?
Unknown:I'll share two things, one marketing specific and then one supply chain specific. So for marketing, spend as much time as possible with your
Unknown:everything. Nice supply chain for what I learned, just kind of reinforced at the conference I attended this week is when you are implementing new
Kris:Oh, I think that ties right back to your article, Lori, focusing on the customer and then the adoption and the flexibility to change. So that's
Unknown:Yeah, so best way to reach out to me is on LinkedIn, you can follow me shoot me a connect request. I also have a couple hashtags. You
Kris:Wonderful. Thank you for being here today and sharing all your great knowledge.
Unknown:Yeah, thanks, ladies. Thank you
Lori Highby:all the info in our show notes of Right Great show ladies.
Unknown:This wraps up today's broadcast. If you're looking to shake up the status quo at your organization, or just want to connect with these broads,
