Chapter 3

Playing Fair 公平交易

……

Hi, Bill. It's Masha Black at MPPM Ltd. How are you?

Hello, Marsha, I haven't heard from you in a long time. I'm great, and you?

……(对话详见Disk 1-10)

For Your Information(背景介绍)

I did my best for my clients, but I never screwed a contractor to gain my client an unfair advantage, and that earned me a reputation for being fair. It made it easier for me to do business and get good deals for my clients. I was more effective with less effort than the other managers in the office. I got things done faster and the company's board was able to handle business more easily, especially when it came to getting competitive bids.

Thankfully, there were a lot of businessmen and women out there who were the same way and bidding out work was one of the easier parts of my job. Being fair and easy to deal with got me the bids on time with a minimum of effort. Once a bid was accepted, working out the details was friendly and quick.

When I asked for a bid, the contractor knew I was serious and the work would be done. I wasn't just getting data for a curious board that might not do the work for another year or two.What I'm getting at is that no matter how large the town where you do business is, not everyone in the town is in the same business. The people in your field are competitors and they may not share trade secrets but they do talk and from time to time you get to be the topic of the day. It's a small town, and everybody knows everybody else.

Remember there's no such thing as a free lunch. Everything has a price and somebody pays for it. A free estimate is't free. It's called free because you don't have to pay for it but it cost time and materials for the vendor to prepare. They are part of game and every proposal doesn't get accepted,but if a vendor has a choice of doing one for someone who only asks when he's serious or someone who is only testing the waters for a sale that's still months down the road, and the job will have to be bid for again, who gets priority?

If it's for information only, I tell them so. Then,the vendor knows how much research he needs and it will take him or her a tenth of the time it takes to put a formal bid. After you're asked for a bid, stay in contact with your contacts. If they lose the bid, you should call them and tell them the details about why they lose it, so they know all their work wasn't for nothing.

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