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A supply yard can only be as good as its suppliers when it comes to creating business. Finding reliable, affordable suppliers with a dynamic variety of supplies to fill your needs is an absolute must to keep your customers happy. Check out the DeFeo Materials course on Setting Up Your Landscape Supply Yard for a detailed look at not only how to cultivate a strong relationship with suppliers, but also a plethora of other details on starting, running, and maintaining a successful landscape supply yard business from the people who have years of experience in the field. Here are the takeaways for finding suppliers that can support your vision.
Understanding Supplier Dynamics
When initially analyzing potential suppliers for your landscape supply yard, there are many factors to consider. Obviously, a supplier's inventory plays a huge role in if/how much you want to interact with that outfit. Many suppliers specialize in unique materials, becoming experts in their fields. It helps to establish good relationships with multiple suppliers, depending on your inventory needs, to ensure you have access to the whole array of materials and equipment you need.
Within this choice of suppliers, consider some other factors beyond just simply the inventory list. Ask yourself the following:
Where are these materials sourced?
Is the supply chain reliable for this supplier?
How do you want to balance quality versus cost?
At the end of the day, you need a supplier that can reliably deliver products of the quality that you desire without overextending yourself financially. With these ideals in mind, there are plenty of advantages to working with trusted names in the industry such as DeFeo Materials for quality, consistency, and reliability.
Building Supplier Relationships
Once you have a supplier pinpointed, establishing that first bit of communication can be crucial to setting the right tone for a successful long term business relationship. In that first meeting:
Research
Know who they are and what they can provide to establish that initial connection.
Professional Presentation
Looking and sounding the professional part helps build the trust that this could be a good, long-standing business relationship.
Open Dialogue
Hear what they need from you and communicate the foundation for how your two businesses can collaborate.
Mutual Benefits
Highlight why this relationship would benefit both parties from the financial and professional perspectives.
With a first impression established, business talk is next to happen. Coming informed to negotiations on price and supply is crucial. Understand market rates, keep in mind that both parties need to win for this to be a successful relationship. Levering your volume to potentially get access to bulk discounts is great business. Regardless of what you want, be clear on your terms so that both parties are clear on payments, quality assurances, and delivery schedules. From there, get your agreement on paper to clearly outline payments and deliveries alongside how disputes will be resolved should they arise. Next comes maintaining those relationships after the initial deliveries; this will come in our next segment.
Evaluating Suppliers
After initial agreements, continuing to evaluate your suppliers performance and their contribution to your success is key to maintaining a quality business. When evaluating your supplier, always be considering:
Material Quality
Has the supplier maintained the quality of supplies to meet your standards?
Reliability
Are deliveries on time? Are they often in stock?
Pricing
Is the supplier still providing competitive pricing for what they offer.
Customer Support
Do they respond to your concerns and adopt changes when appropriate?
Any good relationship stems from a solid line of communication. As such, there should be constructive feedback that goes both ways to ensure that reviews/complaints are heard and resolutions are found. While feedback can be direct in specific instances, surveys and transparent reporting are great, regularly scheduled ways to maintain a constant flow of feedback and improvements. Based on performance and market changes, renegotiating terms can be in order at a point in time to maintain a healthy relationship for both parties. All that said, sometimes relationships have to be cut for the sake of business. When exiting, keep the following in mind:
Contracts
Understand the contractual terms of your relationship to make your exit legally eligible.
Transition
Are you able to fill the gap made by the exiting supplier seamlessly to maintain business?
Communicate
Always be professional and transparent when transitioning to maintain good relations.
Feedback
Constructive reasoning behind moving on from a party can be beneficial to both parties moving forward in their respective businesses.
Supplier Risk Management
Relying on a single supplier is asking for trouble. Whether they or their supply chain run into an issue, your business can be out of inventory and losing customers. Having a diversity in suppliers is the way to manage your risk as a business. This includes multiple suppliers located in different places with different product ranges to ensure that no external factor can break your supply chain. Plus, diversification gives an extra hand in negotiation with suppliers with the idea of an alternative supplier in the midst.
At the same time, contractual protections can provide a safeguard for your business through clear terms, penalty clauses, plans for unforeseen accidents, and a process for resolving disputes. It helps to maintain an eye on the external factors impacting your supply chain. This includes tuning in to global/local news on information pertaining to your chain, regulation communication with your supplier to understand their perspective on business, and running analysis/understanding scenarios when new laws, natural events, or other factors can impact your products. Always have a backup plan:
Alternate supplier list to contact during emergencies
Inventory buffers to survive temporary delays in supplies
Maintain relationships with other suppliers such that you can get a deal in place quickly
Always review and refine your process with the suppliers to find the ideal path for your business through growth and market changes
Maximizing Supplier Benefits
A supplier can provide more benefits than just the physical products you want in your supply yard. For one, strong relationships and bulk purchases can reduce costs, give more negotiation power, work into constructive long-term contracts, and have an overall budgeting benefit as costs are reduced and operations streamlined. Exclusive deals are a great way to use a supplier to make your yard especially unique in the face of competition. This, in turn, helps build loyalty in your lot and the product you provide.
With both parties being interested in the success of the other to maintain the relationship, co-marketing opportunities arise to share campaigns and spread name recognition. Co-marketing is great for event sponsorships and bundled promotions to reach a wider audience all while sharing, thus reducing costs. Always use your relationship with the supplier to provide feedback and further enhance both your business endeavors. Encourage two-way communication to achieve:
Regular reviews - Hear any comments/feedback
Problem solving - What issues do we have that need to be solved together?
Continuous improvement - With both parties striving to succeed, improvements should be discussed to streamline processes and continue to improve
Conclusion
Supply yards can only be as good as their suppliers. Finding trusted suppliers with quality products is the key to your success as a supply yard. Maintaining relationships with these suppliers is critical as you continue to branch out and implement safeguards against specific supply chain emergencies. Be sure to continually evaluate not only your business, but your suppliers to ensure you are getting the most out of your business. Keeping communication clear is huge for implementing improvements for both parties while continuing to provide services that keep all businesses involved happy. For a more in depth look at finding suppliers for your landscape supply yard alongside numerous other aspects of starting and maintaining a supply yard, check out the How to Run a Successful Landscape Supply Yard Business course at DeFeo Materials!