Revealing the Secrets of Buying Recruitment Tech (without going crazy)
When did the recruiting tech stack start to feel more like a burden then a solution? Probably when there are a bajillion new tools to choose from.
And as much as each vendor wants you to buy their solution, they don't make it easy, do they? Vague claims, boring demos, and a lack of specificity on even big-ticket purchases make you feel like each decision is a chance for an expensive debacle.
So let's help you make some sense, not of tech, but of how to buy tech.
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Transcript
It may not be the hardest thing in the world to buy recruiting
James:ta, HR tech, but it isn't the easiest thing in the world.
James:There are just about 4.3 bajillion vendors out there selling you something.
James:It's not always clear what they're selling you.
James:It's not always clear what it's gonna cost.
James:It's not always clear if it's gonna work or if it's gonna fit or if you can use it.
James:And it's enough to make a TA leader say, I'll just wait till next year.
James:And a lot of you do, and I know that for a fact, a lot of you kick
James:the can down the road and I can't.
James:Complain about that.
James:I, I understand.
James:I understand.
James:That's what we're gonna talk today about not kicking a can down the road,
James:but how to make better decisions.
James:It is really hard.
James:There's a lot of good information, and we've entered a world in which
James:every vendor is a thought leader and talks about how everything should
James:work, and it makes it even harder for you to make better decisions.
James:So what we're gonna talk about today is how to make better decisions,
James:how to make better choices when it comes to buying your recruiting tech.
VO Lady:If you are thinking about making a major tech purchasing decision
VO Lady:and it's turning your stomach in knots, yeah, we understand how that works.
VO Lady:Welcome to the people NBA, the show, helping TA leaders
VO Lady:get their seat at the table.
VO Lady:This episode on Making Sense Out of Tech Tool Buying is brought to you by Gem.
VO Lady:Let's go to the voicemail.
VO Lady:You've reached the people NBA.
VO Lady:We're out shopping for our new global headquarters, so go
VO Lady:ahead and talk after the beep.
Caller:Hey, James and Brian.
Caller:This is Mike from Fathom.
Caller:I'd love to get your take on something I know a lot of us
Caller:are wrestling with right now.
Caller:How can TA leaders make smarter technology decisions?
Caller:What do you think are some of the key factors or principles they should consider
Caller:to ensure they're choosing the right tools for them and their organizations?
Caller:I'd love to get your thoughts.
Caller:Cheers, guys.
James:All right, so as you heard, we're ready to talk about how
James:to buy recruiting ta, HR Tech.
James:We're not gonna give you any examples of what to buy because we can't, as you'll
James:discover, everybody needs something different, and that's kind of important.
James:Anybody who tries to tell you, it's a one size fits all.
James:Yeah.
James:Ask better questions, but today we're gonna talk about that and I am
James:joined as always by Brian, our lovely cohot, my lovely co-host from who is
James:apparently in a whole new den somewhere.
James:Where, where are you in somebody's rumpus room?
James:Where are you today?
Bryan:What's a rumpus room?
Bryan:I feel like we need to come back to, that sounds up the 1970s.
Bryan:To me, that's all.
Bryan:I so it, I mean, it looks amazing, doesn't it?
Bryan:Look, it's, it's so cool.
Bryan:'cause like this, this doesn't work.
Bryan:And this is like, it's a podcast room in, I'm in, um, London War.
Bryan:It's
James:like you're in BrewDog.
James:It's like you're in an Ikea
Bryan:Yeah, an IKEA
James:podcast set.
James:That's funny.
Bryan:Well, if, if IKEA made podcast sets, like, I mean, it is
Bryan:a design, like there's a couple of lights and stuff like that.
Bryan:There's an on air sign, which is, is quite cool, which I'll
Bryan:probably put on Instagram soon.
Bryan:Um, but apart from that, nothing's working.
Bryan:Apart from the fact that I'm in like a, a soundproof.
Bryan:A quiet place, but anyway.
Bryan:Anyway.
Bryan:Um, but look, that's where I'm,
James:you are per, you are perfectly positioned to help answer these questions
James:because you actually do and have sold and bought a lot of HR and recruiting tech.
James:Mm-hmm.
James:I have never sold recruiting tech.
James:I have been part of the buying process.
James:So I understand the pains, I understand how much fun it is.
James:So I think together we're gonna come up with some good ideas and good
James:strategies on how to make better choices.
Bryan:Yeah, I think so.
Bryan:I think so.
Bryan:And you know, I'll have to sort of check myself.
Bryan:I might be biased in some places, so it'd be interesting to see whether
Bryan:you, whether we entirely align, um, you know, but I think there is a
Bryan:perception that buying TA Tech now feels.
Bryan:Harder than it used to be.
Bryan:I'm not so sure about that.
Bryan:There's definitely more choice.
Bryan:Um, yeah.
Bryan:And there's definitely a million and million different ways to
Bryan:configure an HR tech stack.
Bryan:I mean, let's face it, there's people that exist just to consult on your tech
Bryan:stack and give you advice and all the rest of it that make a great living.
Bryan:You know?
Bryan:Yes, they do.
Bryan:Um, so, you know, and, and for me it's almost like, do you
Bryan:remember, um, years ago this, this.
Bryan:Um, the stereo systems, you could buy individual layers
Bryan:of your, of your stack mm-hmm.
Bryan:And buy the best, like Tess turntable and you know, bang also, so receiver
Bryan:speakers, all that kind of stuff.
Bryan:Yeah.
Bryan:You know, and so the argument is do you select the elements of tech best in
Bryan:class and put your own thing together or, and be responsible for putting it all
James:together and keeping it together.
Bryan:Yeah.
Bryan:Or do you do end to end where you know you're dealing with one relationship,
Bryan:but you know, like you can't possibly get best in breed of all of the
Bryan:things across the spectrum, you know?
Bryan:So
James:yeah, you get one throat to choke, so to speak.
James:You have one person to point to and say, that broke that.
James:It, it's all you.
James:You can't blame anybody else.
James:Well, so whatcha
Bryan:gonna do about it?
Bryan:I, I mean, that's an interesting analogy because.
Bryan:In my experience, usually it's exactly what you do want to do.
Bryan:You end up wanting to choke somebody's throat.
Bryan:Yeah.
Bryan:If you go for the end to end, because you can't be best in class
Bryan:at every sort of, uh, aspect.
Bryan:There's always a weak link in the chain, you know?
Bryan:Yeah.
Bryan:So, I don't know.
Bryan:Um, yeah.
Bryan:Where, where do you, where do you take the conversation from?
Bryan:Me?
Bryan:I mean, do you, do you think it's harder than it used to be?
Bryan:Oh, absolutely.
Bryan:I think you're right.
James:The, the, the amount of choice out there is is, is flat out mind boggling.
James:Just go to any conference and I know HR tech's coming up and I gotta imagine most
James:people are gonna walk, walk around like.
James:Like they cannot believe.
James:And one, the level of technology is amazing.
James:The stuff it can do is amazing, but you know what's more amazing?
James:The stuff they say it can do, the, the claims being made, the sprinkling of all
James:this technology and AI and wonderful stuff that make it sound like it's gonna all but
James:brush your teeth for you in the morning.
James:Like it's gonna do all this wonderful stuff.
James:And then you go, okay, so what does it do?
James:And when you see it, you go, oh, it does that.
James:And I think there's such a gap between.
James:The claims being made and the actual thing it does is really complicated.
James:On top of that, look, if you sell a scheduling tool, there's a lot of
James:people you can buy it from, but or buy, sell it to, but there's also a
James:lot of people selling scheduling tools.
James:So what's the best way to compete to put yourself on a higher level?
James:You don't sell scheduling tools, you sell time.
James:Now that sounds fantastic, but if I see five companies selling me
James:time, I got no clue what I'm buying.
James:I got no clue what they're selling.
James:I got no clue how it's helping me, and it actually, that level
James:of marketing just convolutes and muddies the water so, so much.
Bryan:Do you think that's the biggest challenge these days?
Bryan:'cause you and I, um, were at a conference together, uh, recently and
Bryan:we purposely walked the halls just to see what was going on together.
Bryan:Um, like I was in that hall, you know, as a, as a, a brand and a company.
Bryan:But we were looking around and I've gotta be honest, I didn't know what
Bryan:80% of those other companies did, and.
Bryan:It was actually difficult to figure that out just by walking past and reading
Bryan:the headlines of the exhibition center.
Bryan:Do you think that's, do you think that's part of the buy-in challenge
Bryan:at the moment where Yeah, there's, there's a little niche in a niche of
Bryan:a thing on a thing where it's like, we do this and we save you time.
Bryan:It's like, oh my God.
Bryan:You know?
Bryan:Yeah.
Bryan:How do we, yeah.
Bryan:How do we get to a very explicit features and benefits sort of
Bryan:place of understanding where do you fit in the landscape?
Bryan:Is it even possible to fit you into what I'm doing and is the
Bryan:investment gonna be worth worthwhile?
Bryan:You know?
Bryan:Yeah.
Bryan:Or is it just another relationship to manage and a thing that's a nice to have?
Bryan:Mm-hmm.
Bryan:But actually, if we're honest, a lot of TA leaders and I,
Bryan:I think a lot of TA leaders.
Bryan:Would back me up here, getting a hundred percent of the value
Bryan:out of what they've already got.
Bryan:Almost maybe just 20%, 25% of the benefit of what they've already got
Bryan:is probably the biggest, uh, challenge slash opportunity that they face with.
James:Yeah, way, way, way back when, when I cut my teeth at the beginning of
James:my recruitment marketing employer brand career, I was working for the agency.
James:And the agency sold a big expensive career site platform that many of
James:you know what I'm talking about.
James:And I don't have to name names 'cause they didn't pay me, so I'm not
James:gonna, anyway, they would have these three year contracts and they knew.
James:They knew 'cause it happened over and over and over again.
James:Six months before the three year, three year contract was over, they
James:had to say, okay, time to shift gears.
James:It's time to resell.
James:Because a lot of these companies would say, what exactly does this platform do?
James:You've had it for two and a half years, you bought it, didn't, somebody didn't
James:else didn't buy it, you bought it.
James:God only knows what they thought they were buying.
James:God only knows what they thought they were getting.
James:God only knows the outcome they were expecting it to achieve.
James:And here it is, two and a half years later, they're like.
James:Why am I doing this?
James:And that speaks volumes.
James:And it's not the TA leaders are dumb by any stretch.
James:They are not as technically astute as a developer or the
James:people selling them sometimes.
James:But TA leaders have gotten way smarter about technology.
James:Oh yeah.
James:But it is the teeniest tiniest slice of their actual day job.
James:Yeah.
James:Before we go too far, I wanna remind everybody.
James:There's a download.
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James:Have you met us?
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James:It's brought to you by Jim.
James:Thank you, Jim, for sponsoring this episode and this download.
James:It's all about better questions to ask, better ways to approach
James:the, the, the, the challenge of buying HR and recruiting tech.
James:So check out people mba.com and go download it is for free
James:for subscribers and subscribing is free, so everybody wins.
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James:Check that out.
James:All right, Brian, you were about to say something and I interrupted.
Bryan:Yeah.
Bryan:So before we jump into this, the, the meat and get to some really tangible sort of
Bryan:guidance on this, do you think part of the challenge at the moment is technology
Bryan:and innovation is moving so fast?
Bryan:Oh, yeah.
Bryan:That if you buy something based on the latest whistle and bell, it's gonna
Bryan:be outdated in six months anyway.
Bryan:If that, you know, so, yeah.
Bryan:So, and given how some of these things take at least six months to install.
Bryan:Oh my God.
Bryan:Don't get me started on that, but, um, um, oh my God, I could
Bryan:say so many things right now.
Bryan:No.
Bryan:Yeah.
Bryan:Be careful.
Bryan:Careful.
Bryan:You gotta keep, um, keep making friends, Brian.
Bryan:Keep
James:making friends.
James:That's what this is all about, making friends, teaching
Bryan:people.
Bryan:But does that mean that the buying considerations have, have changed, um,
Bryan:such that, you know, it's not just an update of the, the buying conditions
Bryan:and methodologies of times gone by.
Bryan:It's changed.
Bryan:Um, irrevocably now because of the rate of change of innovation, like, is that Yeah.
Bryan:Yeah.
James:Well, look, I think we talked about this episode or two ago.
James:We talked about the standard budgetary process for TA was
James:an annual journey, right?
James:It started in the summer you were ideating, and then in September you
James:were given a number by your CFO or your finance team, and they said,
James:Hey, this isn't set in stone, but start with this number and it's.
James:Generally 10% more or 10% less of what you got at last year.
James:So there's not a lot of huge deviation.
James:You go window shopping and you have a lot of demos, and you pick out your
James:favorites and you make your Christmas list, and then you say, okay, here's
James:my budget, and that's November and December, Feb, January or February.
James:They say, okay, here's your actual number.
James:Go and buy stuff, and you buy it.
James:And by the time you get through procurement and legal and all the
James:other fun stuff that comes with buying stuff, it's summer again.
James:And guess what?
James:The journey starts again, which means.
James:It started in, in, in the summer to ideate and to think what you wanted, and you
James:didn't get the value to the next summer.
James:Can you just for a moment, remember where we were 12 months ago and, oh, Chachi PTs.
James:Cool.
James:Now that looks so quaint.
James:It looks so sweet.
James:It's like, oh, it's a little bunny I get to have as a pet.
James:Oh, now that thing does is amazing and top of a. Thousands of other tools
James:that sit on top of it or take those same ideas and extrapolate that, and
James:that's just a teeny, teeny tiny piece.
Bryan:Mm-hmm.
James:Of course, HR and TA have got to be terrified that when they make this choice,
James:they're locking themselves in usually for a multi-year contract, and they have
James:zero clue what the future looks like.
James:Yeah.
Bryan:So
James:that is daunting.
Bryan:So just on that right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna put forward a thesis.
Bryan:Granted, I'm gonna say this upfront, it might be slightly biased towards my
Bryan:approach to business and sort of life in this space, but just, you know,
Bryan:stress test what I'm saying here.
James:Yeah,
Bryan:I think now, you know, we, I used the music analogy, uh, a while back.
Bryan:I think selecting the, the big, the big pieces of tech that are gonna serve
Bryan:you the, the best and the most, the 10.
Bryan:Yeah, the 10 good way of, you know, selecting those individually and
Bryan:having best practice individuals.
Bryan:However, if they already have a strategic partnership, and I'll use
Bryan:Gem as the example 'cause they're a strategic partner of, of happy dance.
Bryan:I'll try not make this a sales pitch for, for Gem by any means.
Bryan:But the fact is I have confidence that they, they, um.
Bryan:Can stand something up really quickly.
Bryan:It always already integrates with happy dance seamlessly.
Bryan:And like we get on famously and all the rest of it, if there's a
Bryan:problem, we figure it out between us.
Bryan:So we know it stitches together that that's one less challenge.
Bryan:Yeah.
Bryan:Headache or problem for the TA leader because they know now they're gonna get
Bryan:real value over here and real value here and when you plug it together, they're
Bryan:gonna get an an added, an added bit.
Bryan:However.
Bryan:However, for me.
Bryan:That's all very well and good and it should make implementation faster
Bryan:and have less headaches, which is a massive aspect of decision
Bryan:making for the A leagues, I think.
Bryan:But the Brucey bonus, um, which is a phrase that might not translate to
Bryan:our American friends, um, the bonus is you've got two tech roadmaps.
Bryan:It's not just one vendor with here's what we're doing.
Bryan:You've got two tech roadmaps.
Bryan:So my advice there is before making a big tech decision.
Bryan:What is the tech roadmap?
Bryan:Have you got, um, any confidence that it's not just, um, window
Bryan:dressing, hopes, hopes and dreams?
Bryan:You know, is this actually a timeline, time, timeline of commitment?
Bryan:And how, how have you come to those decisions as a, as a
Bryan:customer, how can we input and make requests and that kind of stuff.
Bryan:But if you can now see at least what is the next 12 months of innovation
Bryan:looking like and how does it contribute, not just to making this.
Bryan:This investment better, but how does it contribute to the
Bryan:value of the tech stack overall?
Bryan:Yeah.
Bryan:For me, that's gonna give you some semblance and some confidence that, okay,
Bryan:I'm gonna sign a contract here and I get peace of mind for that period of time, and
Bryan:I know I'm not gonna stand still, and I know everybody's gonna play nice together.
Bryan:So anyway, in short, my stance is select the big tent poles that you need.
Bryan:Uh, look for like, so best practice individual vendors, but look for some
Bryan:element of strategic partnerships.
Bryan:So, you know, there's cohesion and, you know, there's existing relationships.
Bryan:And insist on seeing a tangible tech roadmap for each and think about
Bryan:how that's gonna benefit and align with the priorities of, of what
Bryan:you're trying to achieve internally.
Bryan:So, yeah, what do you, yeah.
Bryan:What do you think?
Bryan:What's the pushback that makes
James:me
Bryan:think it?
James:No, no, I'm not pushing back, but it does make me take it.
James:Two things.
James:One, you're not buying the software today, you're buying the
James:software of 12 months from now.
James:That is really what you're buying.
James:So the demo you see in September is not what you're gonna
James:get in February, April, may.
James:Right.
James:It's a radically different thing.
James:Mm-hmm.
James:That is really nice because it says, okay, if I'm paying a vendor, what I'm
James:paying for is the thing, but what I'm also paying for is for them to keep their eye
James:open and go, where's everything going?
James:And to be a partner to move me in that direction.
James:Mm. The second part, which is really just a build on of that idea is
James:that it means you need a team that is comfortable with change because.
James:HR Tech used to be you build it once, it sat there for a couple years and
James:you just kind of, you knew what it was.
James:It was like the foundation of the house.
James:It was like knowing where the bathroom was in the building.
James:It wasn't changing every two weeks.
James:It was always there.
James:We are now living in the world where not only does software change, if you
James:un, if you've done any research on AI and you realize how much of the
James:software you're buying was built.
James:By ai, which means it was built and tested in a fraction of the time, that means
James:the change rate is happening even faster.
James:And if you are not willing to change and your platforms do what, what happens then?
James:And I think that deviation, that splitting from what's really going
James:on is where a lot of technological and process frictions happen.
Bryan:So to build on top of that, um, yeah.
Bryan:I think, I think the, the vision and the clarity of direction of travel
Bryan:from an innovation perspective, you're absolutely spot on.
Bryan:That's the thing to interrogate.
Bryan:And if somebody hasn't got a good answer for that, like where are
Bryan:you taking this organization from a tech innovation perspective,
Bryan:what are you trying to achieve?
Bryan:What are you trying to solve for?
Bryan:If you ask those questions, you're gonna get some idea of like, do you
Bryan:really understand me and what I'm trying to achieve inside this organization?
Bryan:So that's the first thing.
Bryan:The second thing is, um.
Bryan:More and more now, the tech stack is the tech stack and the actual technology
Bryan:is becoming the commodity item.
Bryan:The differentiator is the relationship, the customer service, the proactive
Bryan:nature of, of what that looks like and how is, how are you gonna iterate for
Bryan:continual improvement going forward.
Bryan:How do you respond to something, a critical challenge, problem, issue?
Bryan:You know, what does, what does that look like?
Bryan:I think we are.
Bryan:We are absolutely sprinting towards an HR tech world where actually it's not
Bryan:the tools, it's how you use the tools and the customer service layer and the
Bryan:relationship on top is what's gonna be the differentiator and the thing that makes
Bryan:a difference between making a tech stack sing and dance and actually get results
Bryan:or just living with it and sort of, yeah.
Bryan:Trying to deal a bubble through.
Bryan:Yeah.
Bryan:You know, because, um, let's face it.
Bryan:In, in HR tech, let's take the last 10 years, I think.
Bryan:Um, customer service in some respects, I can think of organizations
Bryan:where that's just a joke.
Bryan:Yeah.
Bryan:You know, customer service, customer like support tickets.
Bryan:I mean, that's where your soul goes to die in some cases.
Bryan:Yeah, pretty much.
Bryan:Um, and that's just not being put up with anymore.
James:Yeah.
James:I, I think it's interesting because to me, and the thing I've always
James:thought about when I look at new technology is when someone.
James:Design built, coded, whatever, and I know there's a lot of hands that
James:go into a good piece of software.
James:No, it's, it's very, it's, let's be fair at this point, it's never one
James:person's vision put forth into the world.
James:Mm-hmm.
James:But even collectively, there was a point of view, right?
James:There's a difference between, I can think of 10 different platforms that all make.
James:Perfectly serviceable career sites.
James:Mm-hmm.
James:And to me, they're all radically different from one another.
James:And it's because I have a sense of what that company's point of view is.
James:And when you have a point of view and you understand that vendor's point of
James:view, you can kind of get a sense of, oh, so when new technology happens, they
James:will probably build X, Y, and Z. Mm-hmm.
James:And that is so powerful because I'm thinking about a platform that I
James:know and I'm not gonna name because this is, you know, this doesn't.
James:You know, I don't wanna, I'm not gonna get into that, but they have
James:a really nice career site platform.
James:And of course AI happened and everybody kind of went, oh, oh, we gotta have ai.
James:And so what they did is they built tools that said, Hey, we're
James:gonna generate blog posts for you.
James:What?
James:I mean, I get seeing the AI and I get seeing, hey, there's
James:this thing that it does.
James:Yeah.
James:But what I thought their point of view was, it's a tool that gives the insiders
James:power and authority and agency over their content and to build it and to do it.
James:And what they thought their POV was.
James:The content is easy to build and I, that's when I realized that.
James:My POV was wrong and that I could not predict what that company was going to do.
James:And it's really important to have a sense of this company is here
James:to serve a particular audience, to serve it in a particular way.
James:There's a reason it exists, there's a reason there's a happy dance,
James:and there's a reason that there's a phenom and there's a reason.
James:There's a. Whatever, like name them.
James:I don't care.
James:They're all different.
James:And it's be not because the technology though, that's part of it.
James:It's because of the point of view.
James:And I think that's so critical to understanding it.
James:And for those of you paying along, we had an outline.
James:We have thrown it away by the way.
James:It's, this is a really, it was a way more interesting conversation.
James:If you want more of that structured stuff, it's all on the download.
James:Go to people nba.com.
James:It's sponsored by Jim.
James:Anyway,
Bryan:Brian, you are
James:going to react to that.
Bryan:I, I re, I really, I mean, I couldn't, I couldn't
Bryan:agree more with that statement.
Bryan:And there's lots I could say to Wex lyrical about
Bryan:basically make this into a, an, an advertisement for happy dance.
Bryan:Which, which I won't, but I think the more interesting thing for our audiences.
Bryan:Okay.
Bryan:Give it everything you've just said there.
Bryan:How redundant is the current traditional conventional RFI process now?
Bryan:Mm. You know, because.
Bryan:Everything you've just said makes perfect sense and will resonate
Bryan:with the audience, I guarantee.
Bryan:But then when you get an RFI at the moment, like the conventional
Bryan:RFI off, the off the shelf, the questions that like brutal, they
Bryan:just don't make any sense anymore.
Bryan:Yeah.
Bryan:You know, and it is brutal and it does take hours and hours and
Bryan:hours to fill in some of this crap.
Bryan:Um, and I think there's some fundamental aspects missing.
Bryan:So digging into like the most tangible concrete.
Bryan:Guidance and advice on how to fundamentally change
Bryan:that to deliver value.
Bryan:What do you think there in terms of RFI process?
Bryan:What are some of the fundamental question categories missing?
Bryan:Or do we just blow it up entirely and take a different approach?
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James:It is so complicated, and by the way, I, I think of in terms
James:of RFP, I don't know if that's a British American differentiation.
James:I know RFIs request for information, but it's requests for information
Bryan:or request for pitch.
Bryan:Proposal, you know, and, and we see both or proposal.
Bryan:Yeah.
Bryan:So we, we see both.
Bryan:Sometimes it's just information to begin with.
Bryan:Yeah.
Bryan:Then you pass that and then you get to proposal and then maybe
Bryan:there's a pi, you know, so it could be very convoluted and you know.
James:Yeah.
James:So to get to the way the question you're asking is, it, is is hard
James:because the way procurement, and I'm about to make an enemy here, the
James:way procurement has structured this model is it is designed to help.
James:Them figure out ways to create as much competition for this
James:thing that you want to buy.
James:As many alternatives and substitutes, if you're an economics major, to say, okay,
James:this company that you wanna buy from is 3% more than these three other companies.
James:We can use that information to beat the price down because
James:their job is not to be nice.
James:Their job is to lower prices for whatever they're buying.
James:Mm-hmm.
James:That is their core remit.
James:That is what they're there for.
James:To make sure you don't actually spend 4 cents more than you absolutely have to.
James:To do that, the most effective and efficient way to do that is to
James:take any idea that you're buying.
James:In terms of outcome, in terms of a process, in terms of a tool, whatever it
James:is, and break it down into as many key components and core elements as possible
James:to the point where you're thinking, you're, you're asking for a glass of
James:water and I've given you a cup of oxygen and a cup of hydrogen, and said, what?
James:What's the problem?
James:How do you evaluate water?
James:If I'm giving you hydrogen and oxygen, you can't.
James:Hmm.
James:How do you do that?
James:But that their, their job is not to evaluate quality.
James:Their job is not to evaluate outcomes.
James:Their job is to lower price, and the RFP process does not serve hr. The
James:RFP process does not serve the client.
James:It serves procurement.
James:Now I'm a big fan of a guy called Blair Ends.
James:Who wrote a couple of books about, uh, pricing and, you know, he,
James:he, he talks about salesmanship.
James:He also is a hater of procurement on a lot of levels, which I kind of take him.
James:Um, and it's a Canadian, so we're making this even more multi global.
James:And so that's what we do.
James:But his model has always been.
James:If you are trying to sell something as a vendor and you are forced to
James:go in the RFP process, what they are saying is, we don't value you
James:significantly more than someone else.
James:We wanna put you all in the same exact shape bucket so we can pick
James:the cheapest or the right one, and that that is the goal of a vendor to
James:do what they can to just go around that process as best they can.
James:Building better relationships with the client be, could be showing your
James:value in a different way or describing the value in a different way.
James:There's a lot of ways he gets into it and I don't want to kind of, you know,
Bryan:regurgitate.
Bryan:Yeah.
Bryan:But the argument there is to compare apples with apples though, you know,
Bryan:the argument is if everyone goes through the same process, we can.
Bryan:We can judge you against, but it's,
James:and phenom are not the same.
James:But in procurement and RFP, they are the same.
James:What exactly are you comparing?
James:And I think it's completely unfair, and this is why I go back to the POV.
James:If you understand what a company is trying to achieve, who it's trying to achieve it
James:for, how it's trying to achieve it, that is where the conversation needs to be.
James:Not is the ability to post a, a post six, you know, 2 cents instead of one set.
James:Like, that's not, so what's, what's
Bryan:the.
Bryan:What's the learning and advice to a TA leader listening to this, who's
Bryan:now just more frustrated than they were at the start of the conversation?
Bryan:Because I, yeah, I, sorry, I, sorry.
Bryan:To kind of wrap
James:you up about your
Bryan:frustrations with procurement.
Bryan:Yeah.
Bryan:I feel you.
Bryan:I feel you.
Bryan:You're right.
Bryan:I, I, you know the bear a bit.
Bryan:Are there, is it a case of, is it a case of we, we insist
Bryan:on two or three questions.
Bryan:That we want to be featured to be in the the RFI process.
Bryan:And if that's the case.
Bryan:Yeah.
Bryan:Like what, what are we asking to get the real value?
Bryan:'cause basically what I'm hearing from you is like, it's almost like, um, you know.
Bryan:Stock car racing, you know, it's like, well all the cars
Bryan:are the same, aren't they?
Bryan:You know?
Bryan:Yeah.
James:Well, you know, are they, are they, I dunno.
James:Cars, metaphors are perfect and I love car metaphors because
James:everybody knows what a car is.
James:And if you looked at an RFI for a car, you'd say has four wheels, has air in
James:tires, has a steering wheel, has a radio, has a boot or a trunk, has some seats,
James:it has a chassis that is crush proof.
James:It has a, yeah.
James:Glass.
James:So I can see out of it.
James:And you're doing great.
James:Volvo Ferrari, same thing, right?
James:Ha ha ha ha.
James:No.
James:And in fact, they are not in any way, shape or form substitutes for one another.
James:I think if you're gonna have to, if you are going to get jammed and stuck in
James:RFP or RFI process and you have to use the questions they give you, and I get.
James:You may not be in a position yet to push too far back, and our whole getting
James:at the seat of the table is kind of part of this process of helping you
James:push back where it's, it doesn't fit.
James:I think you have to inject one or two questions, and they have to be
James:about in the space of 200 words.
James:Explain your differentiated value.
James:One of my favorite terms of all time, because that is a loaded term and
James:it says not, don't tell me what your features are, don't tell me what
James:features cost, don't tell me, you know what, uh, programming stack you are.
James:If you integrate with Google or don't integrate Google,
James:or whatever the hell it is.
James:Yeah, but more about how do I understand.
James:How these 3, 5, 10 platforms, which I'll ostensibly do the same
James:thing, how is yours different?
James:So that I, as the TA leader, can say, okay, I see all the, the, the,
James:the details side by side and I'm gonna eliminate three companies
James:because they don't fit what we need.
James:Perfect.
James:Thank you.
James:That's helpful.
James:It's about elimination.
James:Now you narrow it down to who has the story.
James:We were trying to tell who's got the differentiated value that serves us most.
James:That is where I would try to lean in injecting questions into an R-F-I-R-F-A.
Bryan:So I don't, I don't disagree with what you've just said, but I've
Bryan:got a slightly different take on it.
Bryan:But Yeah.
Bryan:But, but um, basically I think we've just both agreed that
Bryan:procurements are a necessary evil.
Bryan:They're, so here's what I think, okay.
Bryan:Procurement, go and do your thing.
Bryan:Here's the seven or five vendors or suppliers that you know we're, we want
Bryan:you to consider, put them through the ringer and tell us, pass or fail who
Bryan:you are comfortable with, and we don't care what questions you ask and what you
Bryan:put 'em through and all the rest of it.
Bryan:Wow.
Bryan:Just tell us who gets on the other side of it and then give us three.
Bryan:Mm-hmm.
Bryan:And we'll that we then run our own process and you are out of it because
Bryan:now you are happy with whoever we choose.
Bryan:Yeah, and we run our own process because what we wanna know is all of the things
Bryan:we wanna know, like what's, what's gonna happen when it breaks, what's gonna
Bryan:happen when we find out it doesn't do that thing that we thought it would do?
Bryan:What's, yeah, what's gonna happen when, you know, compliance changes and the
Bryan:law changes and you know what's on your.
Bryan:Tech roadmap in 12 months time.
Bryan:Do you play nice with the other vendors and all of that stuff?
Bryan:Yeah.
Bryan:But procurement, that's got nothing to do with you anymore because
Bryan:you've given us these three.
Bryan:You don't care.
Bryan:And they're all viable.
Bryan:And I think if, if it's separated from hygiene to common sense, practical,
Bryan:what's the right solution and what's the relationship looking like?
Bryan:I think then everybody wins, you know?
Bryan:Yeah.
Bryan:And then procurement are gonna want to come in at the 11th hour
Bryan:and try and get, pull 3% knocked off the, you know, whatever.
Bryan:Yeah.
Bryan:But we've all been at that rodeo and we know what that looks like.
Bryan:Yeah.
Bryan:So I would separate it and just make that distinction.
James:I think that makes perfect sense and I, I, I, I completely abide by that.
James:I think procurement will have some issues because I think given that their remit
James:is too lower prices, that power exists on the back end, not the front end, and
James:so they like to lean a little more on the back end rather than the front end.
James:That being said, I wanna introduce a new subject, but
James:taking off on this idea of RFP.
James:I dunno if you've read the book Jolt, the Jolt Effect, fantastic book.
James:I highly recommend it for anybody who's in sales.
James:But it is this idea that they, so covid happened and all these sales calls
James:suddenly got funneled through some technology like Zoom type tools, right?
James:So suddenly all these platforms were being able to record sales calls and so you
James:got Gong and you got some other platforms that were recording all this stuff and
James:they looked at hundreds of thousands of sales calls over the course of two years.
James:And they were finally able to say, okay, well tell me, how'd that sales call go?
James:Did it turn into a sale?
James:Did it, what did it turn into?
James:How did it go?
James:And they were able to do a ton of research on sales.
James:And you know, it is, you know, did it fail in procurement?
James:Did it fail here?
James:Did where, where is the, you know, how did things fall apart?
James:And one of the biggest takeaways I saw was that even in an RFP
James:process, which suggests that the company has money in their hand.
James:They have a need for the thing they're going to buy.
James:They've got a burning need.
James:They're going to get it to do happen.
James:That almost 50% of it goes to a no decision, meaning it just disappeared.
James:It just got ghosted.
James:It all fell apart.
James:They chose no solution.
James:And the thinking there is if you need a new CRM.
James:TA leader, do you do all the research on your CRM?
James:No, probably not.
James:You probably hand it to a recruiter or an employer, brander or a recruiting
James:specialist, somebody with a little five and a half seconds worth of
James:time who can actually do the work.
James:Now, that person just has been handed a time bomb.
James:Because you have said you are now in charge of helping me decide which
James:is the best X, y, Z platform to buy.
James:You don't know any better than anybody else.
James:And so you Google, how do I buy a CRM?
James:How do I buy a website?
James:How do I, and you get all this information like, ah, I don't know what to do.
James:And you know that if you pick wrong, you are in trouble.
James:Because if you pick wrong, the TA leader is, has functionally picked
James:wrong and they are in trouble.
James:And that always runs down, downhill back to you.
James:And so there is an incentive for most companies in these situations to say,
James:I. I do not wanna make this call.
James:So what I wanna do is kick the can down the road.
James:Maybe next year my boss will give this project to someone
James:else and it won't be on my hip.
James:It won't be a problem I have to solve.
James:And I am stunned by the number of companies or deals and
James:RFPs where it goes nowhere.
James:And I think the biggest challenge is.
James:We have, you know, I say we, I'm not a vendor, but companies
James:have not made it easy to buy.
James:They have, and I get it.
James:Like it's, I'm gonna, they come by it fairly procurement's part of it.
James:Mm-hmm.
James:How complicated it is, the marketing, all of it.
James:It's very complicated, but they haven't spent the time making a company feel so
James:comfortable saying, I absolutely buy that.
James:And I'd be crazy not to buy that.
James:And I know it's gonna work and I know I, I can call someone when it doesn't work.
James:That is where.
James:The, the real sticking point is, and I think companies need to do
James:a better job not looking good.
James:Oh God, this sounds really familiar, but looking specifically different about what
James:it is they offer to, who it is they offer and how it is different from others.
Bryan:Yeah, it is interesting.
Bryan:Yeah.
Bryan:React.
Bryan:Yeah.
Bryan:Well, the first thing that comes to mind is, um, the biggest challenge
Bryan:we face as an organization is, um.
Bryan:Our biggest competitor is no decision.
Bryan:You're absolutely right.
Bryan:Yeah, exactly.
Bryan:Exactly.
Bryan:No decision.
Bryan:Um, and I do wonder, like what the hell is driving that?
Bryan:You know, it's politics or, you know, so there isn't, there is another sort
Bryan:of theory here, um, and I think you alluded to it earlier, keeping your
Bryan:eye on the ball in terms of what does success look like in terms of, let's
Bryan:just say we've got this tech stack and it's all stacked, like we want it.
Bryan:What are we trying to achieve?
Bryan:What does success look like?
Bryan:How do you think people, specifically TA leaders need to think in terms of
Bryan:trying to, um, keep it simple stupid in terms of what does success look like
Bryan:and create and if, if it's possible to get alignment in internally and get
Bryan:everybody bought in to what that is?
Bryan:'cause I think if you can achieve that, and if you say it fast, it sounds easy.
Bryan:Um, then in theory the buying decisions and bringing people along with what
Bryan:you're trying to achieve should be easier, but yeah, easy said than done.
James:Right?
James:Exactly.
James:And I think most TA leaders rationally, rationally, 'cause
James:what else are you gonna do?
James:They rationally say, I'm buying this product to help me do X, and
James:doing X has X, Y, and Z kind of ramifications and outcomes and outputs
James:and changes to my KPIs, and moves the needle in all sorts of various ways.
James:And they focus.
James:Almost exclusively on that.
James:And I think the missing piece to all of this, and Brian, I know you got some
James:stories for, what I'm about to suggest is that it's all well and good if rationally
James:buying this tool gets you those outcomes.
James:But what happens when your team doesn't want to use it when
James:they've decided, this is stupid.
James:I don't wanna do this, I'm not gonna use this stuff.
James:This is, I like the way I used to do it.
James:This is, why are we changing so much?
James:If you can't get your team excited for this change and for this new technology.
James:Don't spend the money.
Bryan:Oh, absolutely.
Bryan:I mean, you could, you can take that philosophy and principle
Bryan:into every aspect, can't you?
Bryan:You know?
Bryan:Yeah.
Bryan:I mean, how many times have you seen an employer brand be built in isolation,
Bryan:and then you expect hiring managers and recruiters to be your biggest
Bryan:champion and help you activate with Don't make me cry, vi and excitement.
Bryan:It's not the forum for me to cry, but it's a, you know, it's the perfect analogy.
Bryan:Those that you know, and then wha wha you know, it launches
Bryan:and people are just like, what?
Bryan:You want me to do what?
Bryan:No, no, no.
Bryan:I'm, I'm gonna carry on saying the same thing that I've been
Bryan:saying 'cause it works and da da.
Bryan:Yeah.
Bryan:So resistance to change is just a good old, fundamental human thing that
Bryan:we all just need to sort of accept.
Bryan:Unless of course, unless of course you start where you tend to end.
Bryan:Ah.
Bryan:And you bring people along and say, Hey, we have an opportunity
Bryan:to improve things around here.
Bryan:What are your biggest pain points, frustrations, challenges, issues?
Bryan:If we had a tool, what would you want it to do?
Bryan:Like, how can I make your life better?
Bryan:Yeah, yeah.
Bryan:And then if you bring people along with, do you know what you just said?
Bryan:Well, that's going into our RFI process and I'm gonna solve that for you.
Bryan:'cause I think that's really interesting.
Bryan:Oh, by the way, we've narrowed it down to three.
Bryan:Here's what they said in answer to your questions.
Bryan:What do you think is the best answer here?
Bryan:And like, is there any other follow up?
Bryan:You know, bring people along.
Bryan:Then you know, you know great people.
Bryan:Some great people will deliver something and present something, and you walk away
Bryan:thinking, wow, they're smart, you know?
Bryan:But the best people, they'll deliver something and the audience walks
Bryan:away feeling smarter themselves.
Bryan:Yes.
Bryan:Right.
Bryan:You know, how do you, how do you create an environment where that's the outcome?
Bryan:And I think, you know, that's, that's part of the challenge.
Bryan:And, and like we've seen this and that's part, that's partly the vendor and
James:that's partly the TA leader's job.
James:That is a experience.
James:Absolutely.
James:Absolutely.
James:So,
Bryan:so hold on Brian.
Bryan:Nuts and bolts.
Bryan:Tactical, go.
Bryan:Okay, go ahead.
Bryan:Go ahead.
Bryan:Nuts and bolts.
Bryan:Practical, tangible time of, you know, what are some of the things that.
Bryan:Vendors and suppliers won't tell you.
Bryan:And like, what are, what are some ways to hack this process?
Bryan:You know, what are, what are the critical things to look out for?
Bryan:The questions, the killer questions to ask and to make sure are nailed on when
Bryan:you're making these buying decisions.
James:Uh, there are so many, and then it is, it is a, a game of
James:asking better questions very often.
James:Here's the challenge.
James:You are a TA leader.
James:You have incredibly deep knowledge of your company.
James:Its politics, its inner workings, the processes, how it all fits.
James:You know your company inside and out, but you don't know a hundred companies.
James:You just know the one.
James:Maybe you know what you used to do three years ago, four years ago.
James:The vendor has a broad.
James:Perspective.
James:'cause they talk to five companies just like you every single day.
James:And they're asking them generally the same kinds of questions.
James:So for me, as you're, 'cause I think you're, you know, that, that sense of
James:relationship and understanding what their point of view is and understanding
James:what this is not the nuts and bolts of what does it do and how does it do it.
James:'cause I think you're smart enough to kind of, in a demo in
James:a q and a session, suss that out.
James:Right.
James:The real question is, tell me how most people use this.
James:Tell me how other companies find success with this.
James:What do they like about this tool?
James:What do they not like about this tool?
James:Where is the challenge here?
James:And I think that starts to open the conversation up a bit, and I think the
James:other side of that conversation is, can you tell me two or three other companies
James:who do something very similar to you and how they are different and who they are?
James:Perfect for.
James:This gets back to POV.
James:It gets back to your position, your differentiated value.
James:There are a dozens of scheduling tools.
James:They can't all be the same.
James:Can they there?
James:Some of them are perfect fits for somebody, but if they all say we're the
James:best scheduling tool, how do you pick?
James:And those are the kinds of questions that get beyond the, Hey, was this
James:built on j plus or c plus plus or is this a blah, blah, blah, blah.
James:I don't know, Ruby on Rails.
James:Honestly, if they even use Ruby on Rails anymore, I don't even know.
James:Like that, who cares?
James:What you need to know is, is this the right fit for me and my situation?
James:And if you can pull out from them understanding one, what's your broader
James:perspective on what's going on and, and with all the people we talk to.
James:And two, how do you differ?
James:You are way ahead than most people buying tech right now.
Bryan:So.
Bryan:I think to build on top of that, I think the, the one thing that I would appreciate
Bryan:as on the vendor side and I advise TA leaders to be sort of upfront with is
James:yeah,
Bryan:talk about, it's almost like the sort of employee brand
Bryan:give and get approach as well.
Bryan:Like, you know, talk about the harsh realities, not just the sort of.
Bryan:Strengths, benefits, opportunities.
Bryan:Tell us about the politics of like, what's it like to deal with this organization
Bryan:and what we're gonna need as a partner and as a strategic alliance to get
Bryan:things over the line and get things done.
Bryan:Yeah.
Bryan:The challenges that we're gonna face, you know, the sort of politics,
Bryan:the difficulty with our tech.
Bryan:Uh.
Bryan:It company and internal divisions, all, all that kinda stuff.
Bryan:Be be clear.
Bryan:Be clear with that and get some sort of response.
Bryan:Tell me a story when you've overcome something similar to
Bryan:the culture that I'm describing.
Bryan:Yeah.
Bryan:You know, and you know, our company is this size where, you know, we're we,
Bryan:we were started in Japan, you know, these are our principles and these,
Bryan:these are our, we're highly regulated.
Bryan:We're
James:not well regulated.
James:Yeah.
James:We're very collaborative.
James:We're not, we're very consensus driven.
James:We're very autonomous.
James:Exactly.
James:There's so many ways.
James:Yeah.
Bryan:All of that stuff and you know, tell me a story when, tell
Bryan:me a story when, and then one of my favorites actually is, um, I
Bryan:wanna speak to one of your customers that have had a, a significant
Bryan:problem in the last six months.
Bryan:And for me, I got a lot of vendors just like will come out in cold sweats.
Bryan:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Bryan:With that.
Bryan:But you know what, it's so, it's such a great opportunity to understand
Bryan:how you deal with challenges.
Bryan:You know, was it, was it responsive?
Bryan:Like, was it, you know, collaborative in, in navigating
Bryan:a challenge or the rest of it?
Bryan:Like how was it, um, solved for, what's the relationship like afterwards?
Bryan:Mm-hmm.
Bryan:Everybody.
Bryan:Let's, let's be clear.
Bryan:Yeah.
Bryan:Everybody has a customer.
Bryan:Like that, where they've had a significant problem in the last 12 months.
Bryan:Right?
Bryan:Take that, and it's not that problem.
Bryan:It's how you solve the problem and move forward with a
Bryan:relationship that's positive for me, that's, and there's no such,
James:there's no such thing as a perfect engagement, right?
James:There's no such thing as a perfect install.
James:It doesn't, they're not Lego pieces, man.
James:They don't just click and you're done.
James:There's a million.
James:Elements that can go wrong.
James:So if the question isn't, will it go wrong?
James:And, but the question is, I know it will go wrong on some level.
James:How will we overcome?
James:It's not about, I need to find that one client I had from six months
James:ago where we solved the big problem.
James:This is, hey, I wanna share with you my client list so you can
James:talk about where do the challenges happen and how do we overcome them?
James:I think that makes perfect sense.
Bryan:Absolutely.
Bryan:Plus, uh, if you are an organization in transition and change.
Bryan:Um, and you're signing a three year contract.
Bryan:You want some Yeah.
Bryan:Comfort that your partner can pivot.
Bryan:And be agile and the world might be different inside your
Bryan:organization in six months.
Bryan:Absolutely.
Bryan:How have you dealt with that in the past?
Bryan:You know, and it's a great way to eek out any hidden costs or any
Bryan:challenges that might, you know, delay things or as I say, cost you
Bryan:more money or all that kind of stuff.
Bryan:Like you wanna know the rocky road of if we're in this together Yes.
Bryan:How's it gonna feel?
Bryan:When things go wrong or we need to pivot and change, or we need to
Bryan:suddenly scale up massively, which is a nice problem for any vendor,
Bryan:but have you got the bandwidth?
Bryan:You know, all of those things.
Bryan:Um, yeah, that makes sense.
Bryan:If you have those conversations and people haven't got a war story or
Bryan:a very good example of how they've dealt with something similar, then you
Bryan:know, it could come down to chemistry.
Bryan:It could come down to like the whistles and bells and that kind of stuff.
Bryan:Personally, I think it's a really important aspect
Bryan:when buying tech these days.
James:Yeah.
James:Well look, if this has not been the best 40 minute conversation you've had
James:about involving the words procurement, uh, R-F-P-R-F-I, I don't, I don't
James:know what, what are you listening to?
James:'cause this is the best one I've ever heard.
James:No question.
James:So if you've enjoyed this and you want more of the nuts and bolts and
James:how do you do it, and the questions to ask, go check out the download.
James:It's people NBA.
James:It's all brought to you by Jim this week.
James:Thanks so much, Jim, for being a sponsor for this stuff.
James:We're doing it, we're moving the needle.
James:We're trying to get everybody, all TA leaders to understand that it's, you.
James:Don't just get your seat at the table by flipping a switch.
James:It is a million little pieces and a million little processes, and this
James:is, and being able to make smart choices and ask tough questions and
James:build great relationships with your vendors is actually an element.
James:You're, you're, you're building partners.
James:If that's what it's really all about.
James:This is how you do it.
James:So hopefully this conversation, this download has been super, super valuable.
James:Um.
James:We're, we're just gonna keep plugging along and we hope that
James:you get something out of it.
James:And if this is in fact the best conversation you've ever heard about
James:procurement you have, now, of course it's James, of course it's, but now you're
James:illegally obligated to tell someone.
James:That's what I'm saying.
James:It's the law.
James:I'd not in charge.
James:Somebody just wrote a executive order saying it's true.
James:So it must be true.
James:So please, if this is a useful conversation and you like the
James:idea of helping TA everywhere, get their seat at the table, let
James:people know about people MBA.
James:Brian, any final thoughts before we wrap this thing up?
Bryan:So I would, I would, specifically with this conversation, I'd love
Bryan:some feedback from TA leaders.
Bryan:We've covered a hell of a lot more about this topic in the download.
Bryan:Obviously, there's some real practical guidance in there, which I think
Bryan:is like superb, but you know what?
Bryan:I really, really, really would love?
Bryan:I want some feedback from our procurement friends, so please, ta leaders go, go
Bryan:and digest this, and either we've created monsters or maybe we've just greased some
Bryan:wheels and you can make more friends.
Bryan:But either way, I'd love some feedback from your procurement friends.
Bryan:Is this moving the agenda forward or is it, um, just getting one
Bryan:over on your procurement buddy?
Bryan:So I want, I want some feedback and I look forward to that.
Bryan:Brian, I didn't know you needed more friends, but it's,
James:it's good to know.
James:I'll, I'll introduce you around.
James:Thanks James.
James:It is procurement.
James:Thank you.
James:Alright everybody, thanks for listening and we will see you next week.
James:Uh, we're having a bigger conversation.
James:We've got a really interesting downloadable next week.
James:Yes, that's all the teasing I'm gonna give you right now.
James:So check it out.
James:Subscribe to the people mda.com and we will see you.
James:Next time.
James:Bye.
VO Lady:It looks like Brian made some decisions on the worldwide headquarters.
VO Lady:Do you think he'll give James A. Key or even the address?
VO Lady:Anyway, thanks for watching.
VO Lady:If this really was the best conversation you've ever seen involving the words
VO Lady:procurement and RFP, you are legally obligated to share it with someone.
VO Lady:It's not some city regulation, it's the law, so you might as well do it now.
VO Lady:Tell them to go to people nba.com and subscribe.