The Meetings Before the Meeting

Send us Fan MailYou get a calendar invite at 4 PM. A supplier demo is tomorrow at 10. The supplier is already referencing conversations you weren't part of, and your stakeholder is nodding along like the deal is done. Sound familiar?In this episode, I break down what procurement is actually doing before we ever sit down at the table: the spend history reviews, the internal conversations with finance, IT, legal, and leadership, the market analysis, and the contract landscape mapping that most of the organization never sees. I also talk about the commitment gap, that dangerous distance between where a stakeholder thinks they are in the process and where we actually are.This one is for stakeholders, but suppliers and procurement leaders will hear themselves in it too. The bottom line: a 30-minute conversation with procurement before you talk to a single supplier can save you six weeks of process and protect your project from surprises you didn't see coming.---New episodes every Monday. Subscribe wherever you listen. Website: https://procurexcellence.com Email: [email protected] Topics covered: vendor proposals, procurement rejection, discovery process, risk management, mission-driven purchasing, stakeholder alignment, supplier relationships