How to Treat Your Network Providers (A Guide for Vendors)

Due to the overwhelming response of our last publication (How to Treat Your Vendors), we here at Telecommedy are proud to present a follow-up from the other side of the equation. You, Mr. Vendor, have obligations to your Network Provider as well. And we're not just talking free golf and lunches here, we're talking the basics. The kinds of things that should be obvious, but increasingly are not - at least based on the complaints that we hear from our Network Provider colleagues. So, sit back in your overstuffed chair, pull up a nice chianti, and browse through our helpfully provided and somewhat random set of rules.

Rule #1: Don't Overwhelm

This is the first rule, because it is the most often broken rule. Don't show up at a meeting with more than two of you for every one of them. In fact, a one-to-one ratio is usually too high. Seriously consider how much value every person that you're bringing will add to the discussion. Do you really need the sales director, sales VP, and SVP of marketing and sales to all show up at the same meeting?

One Network Provider contact of ours has come up with a creative way of dealing with a certain rather large vendor that is well known in the industry for bringing crowds to every meeting. For every meeting with this particular vendor, they book the smallest conference room in the building - the one with about 5 chairs - and they invite three of their colleagues. If the vendor shows up with a crowd, most of them are forced to stand outside of the room and peek in through the door. One meeting where a VP of anything is forced to stand outside and make small talk with the administrative assistant for an hour, and you can guarantee that VP won't attend the next meeting.

Less is more. Especially if Les knows all that there is to know about your product.

Rule #2: Use your executives wisely

Meetings with vendors, except in rare cases, are not photo ops. They are business meetings that take time away from your customers' busy schedules. Don't just bring an executive to set up some future relationship unless that executive can answer questions on the spot. Save your executives for the meetings that matter - signing the contract, meeting with the Network Provider executive of the same level, fixing some major screwup perpetrated by lower level executives - things like that. Remember, if your executive screws up even inadvertently in front of a customer, there is no one higher up for the Network Provider to appeal to. No one to call the Network Provider with word that the lower level malcreant has been chastised and assigned to a Siberian mining camp. If an executive screws up, the Network Provider will likely see that as an indictment of the entire company, so use them sparingly.

Also, if you show up with an executive, the Network Provider might just expect that executive to make real decisions. If the CTO or VP of Engineering can't answer a technical question or give a solid schedule when asked, the entire company loses credibility. Think about that before putting your executive in front of the Network Provider.

In the most heinous example that we have been party to, a vendor showed up with a cast of thousands, including the head of development and the head of manufacturing as well as the head of US operations. The Network Provider countered with the C-something-O and a couple of really smart SVP types. The Network Provider had been having trouble with the vendor's widgets not doing what they were supposed to - something about losing customer data on occasion and without warning, a problem that customers typically do not put up with for very long until they switch to another Network Provider. The C-something-O asked for a cause of the problem and a date for a fix. The vendor cabal was unable to answer anything more than "We'll look into it." The C-something-O asked again, several times, with increasing volume. The answer never changed. The meeting ended with the C-something-O telling his lieutenants to pull all of the vendor's equipment from the network and look for an alternative, then storming out of the room never to re-enter. Meetings between lions and Christians in accient Rome ended better.

Rule #3: Don't lie

Why, oh why do we have to state this. OK, they expect you to embellish a bit - maybe shave something off of the release date or pick the most optimal numbers. But the closer you get to the truth, the better the feedback from your Network Provider.

In one case that we were involved in, development on the widget that the vendor was proposing was scheduled to be discontinued in favor of a new, improved widget with shinier bells and sharper whistles. The official announcement was scheduled for the week after a meeting with a mammoth Network Provider, responsible for nearly all of the vendor's widget sales. At the meeting, the VP in charge decided not to inform the Network Provider about the change. One week later, the Network Provider called the VP, his SVP, and the CEO of the vendor company with a series of escalatingly profane missives expressing his opinion of the now public widget modification plan. The relationship never truly recovered, and those widgets are no longer deployed by the Network Provider.

The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth shall set you free. Or something like that. We read it in a fortune cookie and have forgotten the details.

Rule #4: Be flexible

So you're only on slide 2 and they're already asking about slide 25. Go with the flow. If you can push off the questions until later, do it. If the Network Provider inisists, answer the question. Do not be a slave to the Power Point slide.

Perhaps the person asking the question has to leave early or had one too many coffees this morning before the meeting. Or maybe he's just a jerk who has to be the smartest geek in the room. It doesn't matter. Being able to roll with the punches impresses the Network Providers and makes for a much better outcome in the end.

Rule #5: Learn the phrase "I don't know"

It brings a tear to our collective eye to think of the Vendor-Network Provider relationships that we have personally seen destroyed by failure to comply with this simple rule. If you don't know the answer, don't make something up. Say you don't know and move on. If you lose credibility in one area, you lose it in every area. So the Network Provider wants to know how much your widgets weigh when wet? If you don't know, say so. Don't worry about being seen as an idiot - most Network Provider types like to be smarter than their vendors occasionally. It strokes their egos and - even better - sets you up to come back to another meeting and present the results of your investigation. Win-win all around.

Of course, don't take this one too far. If you don't know anything at all about the product you're presenting, you will indeed look like an idiot and that follow-up meeting may get scheduled for sometime between winter in hell and the next time the Atlanta Braves win the World Series (hint: never).

Rule #6: Be concise, but thorough

Practice your presentation before the meeting. Is it taking just a bit too long? Shave it off now, before you get in front of your Network Provider. Spending ten minutes on your company background when talking to an operations gnome who couldn't care less and just wants to know if you'll solve his deployment problem? Not a recommended strategy, as gnomes get bored easily and develop long-term grudges.

I know it's your baby and you love talking about it, but leave something for the next meeting or for the detailed discussions that come at contract negotiations. A happy gnome is more likely to lead you to his pot of gold. Or something like that - whatever gnomes hide in their gnome holes.

Rule #7: Be consistent

One Network Provider representative that meets tens of new vendors every year is known to keep a separate notebook for each vendor. That way, during a meeting he can point out specific discrepancies from previous statements made by the vendor. It makes for an uncomfortable meeting. So try to be consistent.

Check what you said last time. Compare it to reality. If something has changed - and it usually has - point that out up front. Don't let the Network Provider discover it and bring it to your attention. That's a sure way to get smacked, publicly and soundly.

In the most amusing case that we have been involved with, a startup company visited a friendly Network Provider early in the concept stage and presented their plan for a $25 widget (most widets cost nearly $100, as I'm sure you are aware). Two years later, when the widgets were finally ready for production, the cost of the widget had proven to be a bit higher - on the order of $75 each. Still not a bad cost savings, but the Network Provider pulled out a copy of the original presentation and demanded an explanation of the discrepancy. The real reason was that the original presentation had been built from calculations off of the back of a cocktail napkin. I don't believe that was the excuse given, however. Instead, something was mumbled on the lines of additional features and rising cost of widget components or some such. Very uncomfortable and quite amusing for those not directly involved.

And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make

Seven simple rules to developing a happy and healthy relationship with your Network Provider. Truly, they will appreciate the effort that you put forth in complying to these requests.

And the occasional complimentary bottle of wine and golf outing won't hurt, either.

Intermission: Cell Phones, Radio, and Theatre. Two of the three are telecomm, right?

We pause from our regularly scheduled program to bring you this interesting and somewhat telecomm-related announcement.

While listening to the radio yesterday, we were mildly entertained by this segment on NPR's All Things Considered about cell phones in the theatre.

While we at Telecommedy encourage cell phone use (as well as normal phone use, long distance use, internet porn use, or anything else that keeps us in the business), we can understand the need to occasionally be out of touch with the outside world (kids, parents, spouses, boy/girlfriends, co-workers, or all of the above). We can also understand and have experienced the annoying spectable of a ringing cell phone with a volume level set to "seismic shock" going off during the climactic scene where the chainsaw maniac hiding in the retirement home is about to pounce on the nubile young heroine.

While the radio program had a few good examples of creative announcements that would encourage theatergoers to turn off their cell phones, our creative juices got flowing and (after using a mop to clean up a bit), we developed the following announcements in the same vein. Enjoy, plagiarize, or ignore - it's our free gift to you, our loyal reader(s).

Announcement #1

Announcer: [enters stage left] Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the East Bandera Public Theatre and Cattle Works. Before the show starts, I would like to make a few announcements. First, ...

[loud cell phone ringing interrupts announcer]

Theatregoer: [speaking in stage whisper into cell phone] Hey. [pause] No, I'm at the theatre, I can't talk. [pause] Nah, I'll probably leave at intermission or something.

Announcer: Excuse me sir. Is that your cell phone?

Theatregoer: Why yes. It is.

[Announcer pull gun from pocket and shoots theatregoer, who collapses. Stagehands enter and remove theatregoer.]

Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, please turn off your cell phones and pagers now. Thank you.

[Announcer exits]

Announcement #2

Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, before the show begins tonight, we'd like to you all to participate in an exciting contest where you could win a valuable prize. First, I'd like you all to get out your cell phones and pagers. [pause] Everyone have theirs out now? Come on - it only works if everyone participates. [pause] OK, got them out? Good. Now, would you please hold up your cell phones and pagers as high as you can - high enough for us to see them from the stage. [pause] Great. That's perfect.

[Bright flash of light from the area of the stage]

Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, we now have you on film, and we know what seat you are sitting in. If a cell phone or pager goes off during this evening's performance, we will have no choice but to match the picture to a name and hunt you down. [pause for nervous laughter] So, while you have them out already, please turn off all cell phones and pagers. Thank you.

And now, on with the show

There are more to be written, but the telecomm business beckons and we have miles to write before we sleep or otherwise entertain ourselves horizontally (lying on a couch watching Spongebob, shame on your dirty mind). So until next time, keep those letters and emails coming.

How to Treat your Vendors (A Guide for Network Providers)

First of all, welcome back in 2005. All of us in telecomm hope that you spent your holidays calling relatives (long distance), emailing lots of photos, and generally using up a lot of bandwidth. We appreciate it very much. You've allowed us to remain employed for a few more months, and for that we are eternally grateful - or at least a few more months grateful. And now, on to this month's much-anticipated topic ....

Vendors are People ... Usually

Every network provider has to put up with the necessary (and occasionally entertaining) scourge of vendor meetings. Vendors want to talk to you all of the time about nearly any topic and won't stop calling until you give them something - anything - to report as progress to their upper management. But it is important to remember that vendors are people too. Slightly more neurotic and desperate people with limited conversational capabilities in many cases, but still people.

Therefore, for anyone new to the business or anyone who just doesn't have a clue, this handy guide is provided to help you treat your vendors with the dignity that they deserve. Or at least to avoid making them angry enough to put hidden programs into your equipment that diverts your holiday bonus to the "close relative of a Nigerian general in charge of oil revenues under the last dictator." After all, vendors have the same goal as you - to make money by providing the best possible service to your end customers. Really. Stop laughing. There's milk coming out of your nose, now stop it.

The following rules are in no particular order, unless you consider the random order that thoughts enter the brain to be a "particular" order.

Rule 1: Show some respect

The vendor that you are meeting with is typically a hard-working telecomm geek similar in genetic makeup to you, and is truly interested in showing off his latest gizmo and hearing your opinion about it. Don't treat him like an errand-boy, caterer, concierge, or circus freak. Behavior that we have observed that should be avoided includes:

• Interrupting the meeting for trivial other tasks - such as watering the plants or gladhanding a passing colleague that you see every day. The vendor took time from their day and maybe even paid for a hotel to see you. Give them your attention in return. Otherwise, they may just urinate in your plants when you aren't looking (only applies to router vendors).
  
• Making statements like, "It's OK. You can interrupt. They're only vendors." And you're only a jerk with a very small ... frontal lobe.
• Only scheduling meetings during lunch and then suggesting the most expensive restaurant around with the expectation that the vendor will pay (also known as "vendor vittles"). You think money grows on trees? No! It grows in the bank accounts of venture capitalists.
  
• Spending the entire meeting talking about your luncheon last week with some minor celebrity or industry figure rather than listening to the vendor. In the words of the piano man, "we were all impressed with your Halston dress and the people that you knew at Elaine's." He didn't mean it as a compliment.
  
• Flip through the entire presentation in the first 2 minutes, interrupt the vendor's presentation, and announce to all present that you've heard it all before and it's all crap. Here's an idea - actually listen to the idea before crushing it mercilessly, you pompous apparachnik.
  

Rule 2: They don't like you for your sense of style

One of the saddest days in the life of a network provider peon is the day that he leaves the comfort of the network provider home and attempts to live in the world of the vendors only to discover that his net worth in their eyes dropped about 139% they day he resigned. Sure, your vendor likes you. He may even share the same interests with you, and he may even respect your capabilities and your knowledge of obscure movie trivia. But your relationship is a business one, not a personal one, and there is no guarantee that he's not just sucking up because your are a valuable source of revenue. We're not suggesting that you stop acting friendly, just that you not abuse the relationship.

In one of the more humbling examples of this error, the C-something-O of a major carrier left his position during the boom years to make his fortune with a small startup company. He firmly believed that he could introduce that small startup company to his contacts in the major vendor community, resulting in a near instantaneous merger with plenty of wealth to pass around (or perhaps keep for himself, one never knows). What he discovered upon joining the small startup was that the vendor community in general despised him and gleefully rejected his every appeal for an audience. Vendors who used to open their doors at the drop of his hat or whim of his fancy (and he had some fancy hats) suddenly had no time. And what was worse, others within the network provider community resented his leaving as well as his newfound compensation package, and orders for equipment dried up at the small startup company. The small startup company eventually died, but that may have just been a coincidence. There was a lot of that going around at the time.

The basic bottom line here is that some vendors can truly be friends with network providers. But if you're not following Rule 1, don't expect a gold watch from them when you retire.

Rule 3: Be on time

Your vendor has set up a meeting with you and you have agreed. Your vendor probably flew or drove a long way, endured a low-budget hotel, and has eaten poorly prepared beef-based products for the last day just to be in your presence. Try to be on time. Perhaps you could even let them in a bit early to set up their laptops and projectors. They appreciate the little things - there are so few given out these days.

Rule 4: Be honest

Perhaps the most important and least implemented rule of vendor relations. Vendors really do want to hear your honest opinions. Tell the truth. This goes two ways - don't overstate requirements and problems and don't understate your opinions of the products.

Rule 4a: Don't overstate

Hitting the first one first (just because it's the closest), some network providers have a tendency to put outrageous requirements in their official communications. And vendors, especially new vendors with little experience in customer requirements interpretation, typically do their best to meet those requirements. Those vendors are then summarily crushed when the actual purchase order goes to an incumbent vendor that didn't even come close to meeting the stated requirements. Did the network provider lie to the poor vendor? We'll never say that in any media that can be mass reproduced. Let's just say that the vendor didn't talk to enough people in the network provider's organization to truly understand what was needed to meet current networking goals. (Define networking however you feel it is appropriate.)

In one particularly egregious example from the mid-1990s, a major telecommunications company which changes its name more often than Cher changes costumes put out the call for a certain type of technology in their newest high-speed fiber optic equipment. Several busy little vendors scurried off to work on the problem, and at least one abandoned their current technology completely to be the first and best to come up with the newly required technology. The excited little vendors even got to place their equipment in the highly coveted network provider laboratory, where network provider gnomes poked and prodded at it occasionally for many months. The gnomes gave helpful feedback on the technology, and all seemed to be going well for the busy vendors until the actual purchase requirements came out. Lo and behold, the requirements did not include the new technology, but instead only included the technology offered by the incumbent vendor - who had not spent one single Canadian nickel on the new technology. Apparently the lab gnomes were overridden in the decision making process by the actual deployment trolls, who were much larger and had real experience with a real network deployment and had no use for the gnomes' fantasies. As you may imagine, this little tale did not end well for the scrappy little vendors who followed the gnomes' advice, some of whom are no longer in the telecomm business. The incumbent vendor did very well, though, so at least someone was happy.

The moral of this story is tell the truth on requirements. Don't just go fishing for the coolest new thing because you read something about it in an obscure magazine. Perhaps your vendor has even thought of that new technology and rejected it for a valid reason. Ask them their opinion. They will be glad to give it back, with interest. Leading them on and then dropping them may be fun in the short term, but long term it reduces their confidence in you and your opinions.

Rule 4b: Don't understate

Just as important as not overstating is avoiding understating. So many very nice people who work in network provider organizations don't want to offend their vendors by pointing out the holes in their product lines. Really, that's all very nice and not terribly useful to the vendor. Vendors tend to come out of meetings with nice people thinking that they have exactly the right solution and that orders for a million units are on the horizon. They get very depressed when the orders don't appear, and depressed vendors are not a pretty sight (visualize lots of soggy power ties and empty martini glasses at airport lounges). Really, vendors want to hear the truth.

If your vendor is proposing a new widget that is brown and you require your equipment to be blue, tell them! If your vendor believes that your network should be based on semiphore and you think otherwise, tell them! Better that they hear it now, before they have completed development of that multi-million dollar brown semiphore system. We're not suggesting that you be rude, but even rude is preferable to polyanna.


Thank you for your attention

These rules aren't all that difficult, and they should be obvious - but they aren't. Print out a copy and paste it to your wall to remind yourself of the inherent humanity of the lowly vendor. Perhaps read "Death of a Salesman" again. Aloud. In front of your staff. Before long, you will have a healthy and happy vendor. And if they don't respond in kind, screw 'em.


Coming next .... How to Treat your Network Providers (A Guide for Vendors)