Wednesday, 20 February 2013

When the buyer wants too much - how to say 'no'...

S:    Sorry, we don’t give Early Payment Discounts…

B:    We have a new policy on invoice payment and we are asking all suppliers for Settlement Discounts

S:    I appreciate you have to ask, but I would like to explain why it is not going to happen with our business

B:    So, you are refusing to cooperate with one of your biggest customers?

S:    Cooperation is not the issue. I could say ‘no’ and walk. But, given our relationship, I felt you deserved an explanation

B:    Well, It better be good…

S:    As you know, based our £1m annual sales to you, a 1.5% settlement discount would be £15k

B:    So, no big deal…

S:    Hang on, there’s more... Being an ethical company, we would have to offer our other UK customers the same discount, amounting to £2.3m on our £150m sales

B:    So you are not interested in growing your UK business

S:    I didn’t say that. Because we are a global company we would have to offer the discount worldwide, amounting to £38m on our £2.5bn turnover, so you can see why it’s not going to happen.

B:    I don’t know….

S:    So if your company needs a line on our invoices reading 'payment discount', no way. However if you simply want to earn an extra £15k on our business, there may be ways…

Buyer:             Sounds interesting…
SuperNAM:    Great, now let me tell you what we want…

Adventures of SuperNAM,  Part 13


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