Purchasing and Negotiation Training

Robert Menard, Certified Purchasing Professional, Certified Professional Purchasing Consultant

Two decades of delivering training seminars to thousands of purchasing and supply chain professionals across the US and abroad has been a continuously rewarding, personally enriching, and invigorating learning experience.  Allow me to share some of that accumulated knowledge so that all practicing supply chain pros seeking to upgrade their expertise will know exactly what to demand. 

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General 

• DO NOT insult the customer by talking about you.  If you have not prepared the audience in advance by sending ample introductory preparation material, you do not belong in the speaking/training business.   
• Respect the audience. The practicing adult professional arrives at the training session with a wealth of experience.  He/she has been bored before by uninspiring speakers and bland material; they may be jaded but with good reason.   
• The rule of, “Don’t tell ‘em, SHOW ‘em” dictates and control the learning environment. 
• Within 45 seconds of your first word, invite them to participate.  I use the zany tactic of asking them to raise hands if they grew up wanting to be a purchasing professional. 
• To paraphrase the advice to Chicago voters, “Get attendees involved early and often.”  They have valuable input, want to express themselves, and add texture and depth to the learning experience.   
• The input of the first few and brave attendees encourages the more timid and quiet to join the experience.  If the speaker/trainer is competent and skilled, he/she becomes the facilitator, never the lecturer. 
• The adult learner wants to work with the material, hear minimal lecture, and voice an opinion often, especially during report out opportunities. 
• NEVER READ the slides (or anything else) to them.  If they cannot read on their own, your eloquence will put them to sleep.  If you have a particularly relevant commentary, pit it in a hand out that they can read at their leisure. 

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Methodology 

• The ideal room set up is round tables (5 to 6 foot diameter) seated crescent with all chairs facing front.  This setting puts small teams in intimate contact.   
• Avoid classroom seating; it invokes unpleasant scholastic memories in the minds of many participants who did not like school.  If unavoidable, assign teams of “front and back” tables for interaction.  It does not work as well as round tables but a pro speaker/trainer must be able to kick butt from any position.   
• Use a variety of media to appeal to the different learning styles of the participants.  This means slides, carefully crafted verbal presentations, skilful questioning, occasional music and video snippets, written and verbal exercises, oral recitation by participants, round table talks, and other interactive techniques. 
• Capitalize on the small team dynamic from the beginning with an Ice Breaker exercise. The Ice Breaker exercise should come within the first seven minutes of the training session sets the tone for interaction.  Have them appoint a “Reporter’ to explain the team’s exercises and a “Scribe” to write on the flip charts set out at one per team/table.  
• Have them name the teams for fun but also for post seminar report; it will help them to recall, relive, and reinforce the experience. 
• Make liberal use of frequent spot exercises and occasional formal exercises.  Have them record their input on the flip charts and get as many teams as time allow to “report out” on their work.  Exercises may be the single most important component to effective training.   
• For corporate in-house training seminars, customization to the work place is essential.  Canned one-size-fits-all programs are the sign of an amateur. Allow time for participants to exchange ideas and chatter during exercises 
• To reinforce the learning experience, issue a Final Report that recaps the participants’ input.  I find it helpful to retain the flip chart input of the teams for this purpose.    
• Presentation style is important as it encourages or forecloses interaction.  If the seminar leader speaks too much, he/she is telling everyone else to be quiet.  Liven it up, make the material come to life.  If you do not know how to do it, invite proven talent to do it for you. 
• Participation, participation, participation  The trainer must know how to encourage, promote, and control it or the day will be very long indeed. 

Knowledge and Skills

Most of the purchasing and supply chain crowd approached education and training from a skeptical position.  Recognize that these are the facts of a purchasing pro’s life.  Because they are actively engaged in a career, effective training for purchasing pros must be a blend of knowledge and skill.   

If the trainer you are considering does not have all these horses in the barn, go to another barn.