Ask for what you want!

I'm finding an interesting phenomenon. When I want something, and I ask for it, I can usually get it. I've worked with a lot of clients this week on contract negotiations. Sometimes they are negotiating for better terms with my company. Sometimes I'm helping them get better terms with another vendor. I find that it's easy to make assumptions about what is possible and what is not. The result is that when we make an assumption about what can or cannot be done we fail to ask the question. We fail to ask for what we want. A good technology partner should be an advocate for you. They should find a vendor who is flexible in their terms. This week I had a customer who was in a lot of pain and wanted to switch vendors. I was helping them get a new contract and vendor in place. The catch was that they were going to be consolidating some of their locations within the next year. The best pricing was on a 3 year term. I asked the vendor for 3 year pricing and the ability to consolidate some locations together in the next year. This would mean that the customer would be reducing the amount of services they would be paying for once the move occured. Guess what? The vendor agreed to our terms! I believe this is because they know that this will give them a long term customer. They know that they will benefit over the long term. If we would not have asked for this we might have been stuck in a contract that did not serve the best interests of the client. I was truly surprised and encouraged that this large publicly traded company was willing to be so flexible and helpful in the contract negotiation. It just goes to show what can happen when you ask for what you want!