Speaker 1: 0:19

oh my, okay. So I've got a story for you. By the way, you'll never guess what happened. What am I meant to guess? So I took my. I took my wife to the hospital for a routine appointment, just dropped her off, right. So I parked up, she's in the quick drop off thing, she's got out of the car and she's gone to her appointment. Fantastic, just waited a little minute. And then I was like, right, once she's in, I'll make sure you know she's got the right day and all that stuff, because you know she's an idiot. And uh, it turns out she did have the right day and, uh, her appointment was there. So I said I'll come back and get you in two hours. Fine, as I, as I've reversed out of the bay, right, so I've reversed out the bay, and then I'm ready to drive off down the road.

Speaker 1: 1:03

All of a sudden, that's a gunshot, hang on, bang right, and I'm like what the fuck is that right? And then I look to my left and basically there's a car, like parked in the side of my car. Um, I was like, well, this is so. What it turns out is there was so in the drop-off bays that I'm in it's like a one-way road, so there's only one width for one sort of ambulance, if you like, it's a hospital, um. And then the left hand side is, uh, disabled parking and the right hand side is, uh, non-disabled, just drop off.

Speaker 1: 1:40

So I've reversed out of my drop-off parking and stuff, and then somebody in the disabled bay from the other side has just reversed out straight into the side of the car. Um, yeah, so one I'm glad, I'm glad my, my missus, wasn't in the car, because it would have been her side of the car that would have that took the kind of brunt of it. But, um, yeah, so a couple of witnesses said like this is ridiculous, like they kind of gave me their details and said like you weren't at fault sort of thing, because obviously it's the back of her car in the side of mine.

Speaker 1: 2:11

Yeah, yeah, like literally beside, like two door panels are absolutely sausages. Um, yeah, it's weird, though, like she had a big ass, nissan, and it's like a tiny little dent on the back of her thing like you barely even notice it, and then mine's like, yeah, it's probably gonna be a write-off wow, after you spent all that money on uh yeah, yeah, after.

Speaker 2: 2:33

I spent two and a half grand to repair it.

Speaker 1: 2:36

I get about what like two months of use out of it and then I'm, or three months of use out of it and then I'm back next time don't get a car with a other magnet car, other magnet, other magnet, other car magnet.

Speaker 2: 2:51

That's what I'm trying to call magnets.

Speaker 1: 2:52

Yeah, I think I think what it was. To be honest, I think she wanted my number and she was a bit scared to ask me so what's the easiest way to get someone's number? Yeah, yeah, yeah that's what you're doing. You don't know my name is not a dirty bit, I made it up. Her name is actually donna. She was very nice, bless her, and she was very um apologetic. So I I didn't have any road rage, I didn't you know, smack her up or anything.

Speaker 2: 3:17

I was just like yeah, cool yeah, yeah, wow, well, um, I'm glad that you're alive to to tell the tale, you're, you survived it did I do a shout out last time to one of our listeners who who dropped us a message on Instagram?

Speaker 1: 3:35

I feel like I did. I don't think so, so Kieran. Kieran has messaged us on our socials and it was really nice actually what's our socials? I don't know, mate, you're the ceo of segmentation um let me have a think, ceo of social socialness.

Speaker 1: 3:55

We've got an ex account that we can't use because it's associated to a rather uh, naughty group. Yeah, um, so that's out of the question. We've got two luke's, one sip at gmailcom as our email address, and then we've got our instagram. Which is it underscore, let's talk procurement, underscore, or let's underscore, talk, underscore procurement? Okay, yeah, let's underscore, talk, underscore procurement. And uh, yeah, that is where um kieran reached out. So it's very nice. Thank you, kieran, hope you are having a lovely day. And she said uh, I've really enjoyed the podcast. Uh, the psychology and procurement was particularly interesting. Keep going with it, I think it's really different. And, uh, she's actually said she's laughing at the podcast.

Speaker 2: 4:43

So I need to find more details on that specifically, because if she finds you funny, then we've got a problem if she finds me funny, she can go in the hall of fame hall of shame, I think the second corridor that we haven't opened yet we do have. We isn't my mum in the hall of shame?

Speaker 1: 5:04

oh yeah, the nice is in the hall of shame. Um yeah, speaking of um.

Speaker 2: 5:10

I was, uh, I was just speaking to her and um, I said I've got to go because I'm going to go record a podcast. And she said she said say hi to you. She said say hi to luke. I was like what's luke?

Speaker 1: 5:25

I mean luke inferior no way did she say that, that you're absolutely chatting with her she would never say that you think I could come up with that 100.

Speaker 2: 5:37

You've been thinking about that for weeks we haven't actually recorded for a few weeks, haven't we?

Speaker 1: 5:42

yeah, so you've had plenty of time to come up with your genius idea, luke.

Speaker 2: 5:48

We did do a previous recording. That was yeah, we had to scrap that one, didn't we?

Speaker 1: 5:55

It was a bit too much of a hot topic, shall we say? Too close to home. Well too, hopefully not. Yeah, we didn't want to get cancelled, well and truly. So kieran gave us some episode ideas as well, and I think actually we could. We could probably cover one today. So a couple of suggestions and and one. Uh. Well, there's two that kind of stick out to me. One was how to grow your procurement career and another one was how to deal with senior stakeholders. So not just any old stakeholder, a senior one. How are you in general? Despite being under the weather, everything good at work, still still got a job.

Speaker 2: 6:42

Uh I do. I do still have a job. Um, I I've been fighting for it. Yeah, I have been fighting for it. Um, I've been there's a couple of times where they said you know, we just can't, we can't keep you working here because you're too, you know, you're too attractive, you're making all the suppliers just like drop their prices to an unreasonable amount and you know all our suppliers are going bust because they're just giving us the the biggest discount.

Speaker 2: 7:12

So I end up having to say to suppliers no, like, charge me more, I I don't. You know, I don't want to, I don't want it for that super price. You know, make it more expensive.

Speaker 1: 7:22

So you're making our suppliers bust, yes, over how attractive you are?

Speaker 2: 7:27

I am indeed. This is a problem. It is a hard life, but you know, someone's got to do it. That's it's like they say it's lonely at the top, isn't it? It's lonely. It's lonely when all your suppliers go bust absolutely because you've got no supply.

Speaker 1: 7:46

Um well, I'm glad you're having good problems yeah, also, uh, bad problems as well.

Speaker 2: 7:55

Um, talking about denting cars, I uh, I lent my car to my mom the other day and she crashed. It didn't, didn't, uh, didn't do as much damage as as what it sounds like. Your car is damaged too, but, um, there's a little scrape on the scrape, scrape on the bumper so she reversed into someone at what for general? Yeah, she, uh, she said she, she saw him. He saw him reversing out of this space and just floored it and thought you know, that looks like a sort of bouncy car yeah let's give it a go no, she did.

Speaker 1: 8:31

She did yell um luke, luke 10 is actually luke one. He's the only luke, you bastard, or something like that. I couldn't really tell. Um, yeah, yeah, something about being inferior, but yeah, we'll take it?

Speaker 2: 8:47

no, but but that's got me thinking should we get uh, should we get a ltp car? You want a company car? Yeah, maybe some sort of like sharing agreement that we have like, I'll have it on. I'll have it on uh. Tuesdays, thursdays, saturday, sunday, you can have it on. Brilliant, you can have it on. I'll have it on uh, tuesdays, thursdays, saturday, sunday, you can have it on. You can have it on monday, wednesday, friday brilliant, I'm actually up for that.

Speaker 1: 9:14

I think it needs to be something practical, like a fiat 500 or uh yeah, or ka, you know, you've got that sort of town driving.

Speaker 2: 9:21

You can probably get ltp1 number plate yeah, could we get some like eyelashes on it maybe, yeah, yeah and a qr code on the roof yeah, yeah, we could, uh, we could, we could do get a little fleet of them going, you know, like police cars getting written on the on the top of the uh, on the top of the car pcplod1 ltp 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 7 8, 9, 10 I remember back when uh, back in the old days when ai was taking off.

Speaker 2: 10:01

This is my sorry, this is. This is on a tangent. That's my anticipation for us releasing this in about three weeks that AI hype will have died down by three weeks. It won't be a thing anymore.

Speaker 1: 10:14

Mate, you're delusional. You're getting replaced by AI. As soon as I find the right agent, you're gone.

Speaker 2: 10:20

So back when AI used to be a thing, I asked it to make a picture of Luke 10. I said something like make a car that Luke 10 from let's Talk Procurement would have, and it was a Rolls Royce. So maybe that says we should dig in the pockets a bit deeper.

Speaker 1: 10:44

Was that without wheels?

Speaker 2: 10:47

Yeah, it was a tiny little toy car, but yeah, the listeners don't know that I'm actually three inches tall.

Speaker 1: 11:00

So you're huge then.

Speaker 2: 11:01

I'd say that's above average, probably too tall, to be honest.

Speaker 1: 11:06

No wonder why you got sold that big chair.

Speaker 2: 11:11

Anyway, I should return the question how are you? Are you settling into life as an international world famous stripper, pole dancer? Into life as an international world famous stripper, pole dancer?

Speaker 1: 11:30

I don't remember settling into that, but I can go for it. Yeah, I've got the. I don't know. I was going to say I've got the rhythm of something with no rhythm, but I can't think of anything with no rhythm other than me. So rhythm poles. Best I could do is probably just be the pole. I think that's the kind of capability that I'd bring to that scenario right.

Speaker 2: 11:53

There are worse jobs for poles, though, and I'm not talking about polish people. I think being a fireman's pole would be would be worse than being a stripper's pole. What other poles are there? Scaffolding, that would be pretty bad. Heavy weight bearing, although responsibility and maybe therefore job satisfaction Because you know your job is there to make sure a building doesn't fall over. How many people can say that? No, not many people.

Speaker 1: 12:26

Yeah that's true. I don't know where you've got this brain power from today. I'm quite impressed is that?

Speaker 2: 12:36

is that the word you're using?

Speaker 1: 12:38

did I say impressed or depressed? I can't remember which one I used, but it's one of those. So, yeah, no, look, I'm doing all right, I'm. I'm not stripping, but I'm still living. And I think we should look at because this is especially relevant to um, to yourself, and obviously a listener question as well is it's about growing, growing yourself in your procurement career. You know, how do you, how do you become the ultimate procurement professional? And obviously that's what this whole podcast is about. We are teaching you, lovely listeners, and you, luke 10, even though that's way harder than teaching a primary school student how to reach the pinnacle of procurement. And I have to confess I'm not there yet either. But it's a journey we're all on and I think, like you said earlier, it's's lonely at the top. But let's help some of our listeners get to the top. Let's help you at least take a step upwards, because right now you're rock bottom every single listener.

Speaker 2: 13:34

If I think is that that is that what we've decided is our target market like.

Speaker 1: 13:38

If you're having to listen to us, then you know probably something's not going right in your, in your procurement career well, I mean, look, the goal was to always help people with you know if they're doing their sips or they just don't have a clue what procurement is. Just, we talk about the high level topics, the kind of the fundamentals of procurement, a bit about what's going on, what the trends are, but in doing that, you know, if you do these basics, if you, if you listen to content out there, it helps you, you know yeah, yeah, maybe we should start with how people get into procurement.

Speaker 2: 14:10

So, yourself, you did a degree in economics. I want to say I did, damn, you did so. So there's that route, a sort of someone who wanted to do something different and then realized actually procurement's all right and then transferred. There's other people that did procurement degrees, like our previous episode that hasn't been released yet. That will be released soon in our time, but previously, before you hear this, yeah, the episode with lauren who did a master's in procurement, didn't she? She did bachelor's and then a master's in procurement um. And there's my way, where I did an apprenticeship in procurement um and I learned the skills on the job. Well, still still learning, um, what are there? Are there any other, any other ways?

Speaker 1: 15:09

I think the other way is the unintentional found myself in procurement because I joined a company doing a, b or c and then I realized that procurement had opportunity or it was something that aligned better to my skill set than what I was previously doing, so I then moved over into a procurement role and progressed from there.

Speaker 2: 15:31

Yeah, yeah. And some people say, in procurement, one of the best things is that you get to interact with more senior stakeholders and you get to not necessarily be a decision maker, but be a sort of decision advisor. Is that?

Speaker 2: 15:50

yeah yeah, is that a term? So I think that also helps people grow their careers right, because then they're going from. You know it could be quite a junior member of staff, member of the procurement team, presenting a report or a recommendation on the financial status of a company, for example, to a senior manager, which then helps them make a decision, um. So I think you're bound to, you're bound to grow if you take opportunities like that right, if you're taking opportunities to interact with more senior members of of not only the procurement team but also the the wider business yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right.

Speaker 1: 16:32

I think in a business like that, you you know, if you've got those opportunities to present or to put forward your recommendations to a senior executive team or to management or whatever it is, that's great exposure.

Speaker 1: 16:48

But what I would say is a big bit of kind of advice, at least from my perspective, is to kind of a make sure you're doing your preparation but b think about it from their perspective. So a lot of people in other departments have different goals and kind of, I guess, things that are driving their their side of the business and you need to make sure that you're aligning to it as well. Obviously you could be presenting a supplier. That's an extreme risk, but on the face of it is it either using that supplier with that is extremely risky, or having no business opportunity at all, or no suppliers and kind of having to, you're basically just crushing their dreams. So you've just got to think about the wider situation and I think if you come at it with that kind of balanced approach, you then get appreciated a bit more and then that will kind of help you develop in your continued exposure to kind of senior people and wider opportunities yeah, I guess you've.

Speaker 2: 17:44

You've got to remember that they've got a tough job right. They need to hit their target and then they'll get. They'll get basically like three times your salary as a bonus, so yeah, there's a lot there's a lot riding on it for them.

Speaker 2: 17:58

Um, no, but seriously they do. Some people say what's the what's the? What's the phrase? Again, don't come to me with problems, come to me with solutions or options or whatever the phrase is. Do you, do you agree with that being one of the ways that you should think about things? When talking to senior stakeholders, let's say, don't say I've got this problem with the supplier. Say I've got this problem with supplier. Here's option a, b and c that we, I think we could do to a to a degree, um, you don't want to over solution.

Speaker 1: 18:32

If it's not necessarily in your gift to solution, if it's a technical issue, then I would definitely not be trying to solution something that's technical. But if there are alternative providers, I might recommend alternatives. If there are. If they say that they're financially unstable, um, you know, I could put a suggestion to say, well, maybe we can go and get a parent company guarantee. Uh, you know, or maybe maybe we can look to get the um, the source, the software, put into escrow. You know, that puts it into holding, so if the company goes bust, we can then take ownership of that, of that software. Obviously, not all companies will agree to that, but you can put those, you can suggest those alternatives that will help reduce the risk. And um, yeah, it's just, it's just about preparation.

Speaker 1: 19:16

I think when you're, when you're going in at that that sort of level, I mean stepping back a little bit.

Speaker 1: 19:21

I guess to progress your procurement career, you probably come in as a I don't know a junior buyer, an analyst, a procurement assistant, a buyer, something along those lines.

Speaker 1: 19:33

They're probably the entry-level roles in general, and then you'd be looking to go to a category manager, a senior buyer, you'd be looking to go to a category manager, a senior buyer, supply chain manager, that sort of middle, middle level, and then, of course, the ones everybody wants, which is head of procurement, your supply chain directors, um, your cpos, and I think I think, entry level to mid-level, probably progressing through those tiers. I would say consider the environment that you're in, so does your environment have that opportunity for you to progress? Are there examples in your team where you've got someone who's gone from a buyer to a senior buyer or a procurement analyst to a category manager? If that's something your company is supporting, then you know you're in the right environment to kind of grow yourself as well. If you look around and you think, well, I'm the only buyer here and then everybody else is a senior buyer but nobody's moved up from buyer for like three years or whatever. There's not been any progression. It's a relatively stale environment.

Speaker 2: 20:43

You might want to consider if you're in the right place for your own personal growth yeah, I think I think for a lot of people and I'm seeing this because my friends, uh, I seem to have started work before my friends, but my friends are now finishing uni and starting jobs and things and they're working for their first companies and I think it's tough for them to know are they working for a good company or is the company they're working for just saying, oh yeah, we're the best company out there. You're not going to find anyone else? Yeah, so what if you're looking to grow your career? Is that? Is there anything else you should be taking into account from the perspective of the actual organization you're working for?

Speaker 1: 21:29

yeah. So I mean, what you see is a good organization and what I see is a good organization and your mate see as a good organization is different for everybody. Right, we've all got different priorities. For you it might be working from home five days a week. For your mate it could be being in the office five days a week and meeting different teams. Or, you know, category it might be working from home five days a week. For your mate it could be being in the office five days a week and meeting different teams. Or, you know, category management might be really important to your friend, whereas for you you would rather be a bit more of a generalist.

Speaker 1: 21:51

So you have to kind of, I guess, kind of think about what you want from your career.

Speaker 1: 21:56

Like, are you ambitious, do you want to be a head of procurement, and are you in an organisation that at least can help you get in the right direction?

Speaker 1: 22:09

I mean, do you look at your manager and think that's somebody that I could see myself becoming in a way? I know it sounds really weird and kind of corny, but it's like you know, if I look at the, the head of procurement in the company I work for, I think you know he's, he's great at his job and I think actually if I can, if I can review contracts the way he does, or if I can learn from him, then I I see it as a positive right because I'm surrounded by positive people at a higher level, whereas if I looked at him and I thought he's an absolute fool, he doesn't know what he's doing, he's just there because he's been in the company for 25 years, then I myself would probably feel a bit more um resentful about it as well. I probably wouldn't be as into it. So I think the company has to be good, but it doesn't have to be the best, I would say.

Speaker 1: 22:53

I think especially people yeah, you come in, can you see people that have progressed? Can you see a manager that you think you can learn from? Everyone's got different learning styles, so if you find a manager or someone at a senior level who you think you've got the right skills, I would highly highly recommend asking them for advice. You know, how did you get to where you are in your career? How did you get this far? What tips do you have for me as someone just starting out? And most people will prefer to help somebody than do their do and then do their day job right, because it's it's self-gratification, it's rewarding, it's different to just constant.

Speaker 2: 23:32

you know supplier stuff so you know, don't be afraid to ask, ask those tips and kind of seek guidance as well what you should also look at is the professional qualifications that they have, for example the chartered institute of procurement and supply, aka sips, sips, sips. So have they got msips? Have they got level four? So you can start at level four. Right, that would be the sort of the first I mean people do start at. Is there a level one?

Speaker 1: 24:09

there must be a level one level one, two and three. So one is basically like you've got no clue about anything in the like like life at all. Basically it's. It's for people who have come from like a completely different background. They're really struggling, you know, they might not even have familiarity about business and what business is, so so it covers real, real, real foundational content. Um, yeah, but it's a good entryway for people who are maybe underprivileged or come from a, from a from a, I guess, a tougher background so.

Speaker 2: 24:38

So you can, you can do levels one, two and three, or you could start straight at level four, and that would be something that could could grow your, grow your skill set. You see a lot of job adverts nowadays that don't necessarily say we need you to have msips. Then they say we, we want someone who is willing to study towards msips or is already on that journey. And if you can evidence that you know I've done my level four and I'm willing to start level five, um, then that's going to get you, that's going to open up a lot more opportunities as well in your career I think your, your reason for doing it has to be right.

Speaker 1: 25:23

So you're not doing it just for the next pay rise, you're doing it to improve your general skill set. Obviously the next pay rise helps like who doesn't want that? But you have to be thinking of when you're doing it, everything you are picking up like mendelo's matrix. I mean, they drill that into you from from, you know, lesson one. That's the sort of thing where you think, well, why are they so insistent on that for three, you know, three, four years of content when you go? Well, actually it's because it's actually really useful and you can use it in your work environment. And if you, if you took like a mendelos matrix or stakeholder mapping or whatever you want to call it, whatever you want to look at and present that, like you know, you apply it to your own organization and present it back. It looks great like, it really looks like you're. You know you're taking on board what you're learning. You've given it a go in practice. So definitely to go from entry to mid-level, you're probably looking at your qualifications being being great.

Speaker 1: 26:17

The other thing I would say is and looking at, um, what kieran asked, and kind of, just how do you, how do you, how do you um progress your career? Exposure is a word you mentioned earlier, luke, and it's it's the best thing for any career, I think, and it's it's not necessarily exposure within your own organization, um, not necessarily exposure to stakeholders. It's whenever you're, whenever you're doing a sips module, say, you're in a training school, speak to the other people, just connect with them on linkedin. You know, reach out, build your network a little bit. Sips have different branches, all geographical locations. You can join a sips england level. You can join sips middle east and north africa as a level, if you wanted to. But you can also then go to your local branch, which is like SIPs Harrow or SIPs St Albans or SIPs Manchester, and if you do that, you've then got people in your area, reasonably close to you, who all have a vested interest in procurement and SIPs and you can see what they're doing in their companies.

Speaker 2: 27:22

You can, you can learn off them, you can pick up the material yeah, and there's also potential that, you know, if you connect with them on linkedin, they might one day be hiring for a job you find really interesting. Yeah for sure, and you can, uh, you've got, you've already got the the relationship with them, unless, like me, you've um a half-assed class clown in um in the sips, in the sips, uh, study sessions yeah, you've promoted the podcast, haven't you?

Speaker 1: 27:54

in the sips?

Speaker 2: 27:56

I did. I did send you that yesterday screenshot. We did our. We did a sips um yesterday screenshot. We did our. We did a sips um study session yesterday and they were talking about mendelow in that again, and I did, I did promote the ep with nick from market dojo. Um, they're impressed the the tutor, rick nice guy. He was impressed that. He was impressed that, uh, we, we managed to get someone as high up as the chief operating officer and co-founder well, I think the good thing about nick, not rick, the good thing about nick was that he, he's.

Speaker 1: 28:38

When they founded it, there was only a few of them and it was. It was a pipe dream to play more golf and you know, at some point somebody else has brought into their idea and supported them, and then they've grown and he was really supportive, and that goes back to what I was saying a short while ago. You just look for people that have done it, have achieved it, have got to what is something that you aspire to be, and ask them right, even though I know I think Nick reached out to us actually because he liked an episode, but on the back of that, we asked him if he'd like to be on an episode, you know. So there's, there's a wonderful saying about was it you? You miss 100 of the shots you don't take, and you know procurement is his, is his world, it's what he's built his company and I mean tech's probably his world, more than procurement, to be fair, um, even though he's spot on with both of them and he's more than willing to give us his time, and it's been the same for me, um, with with people that I find almost, almost interesting as mentors.

Speaker 1: 29:38

So I've got a couple of people in in the company I work with at the moment who are acting in a mentor capacity for me and it's kind of a two-way thing right. So some one of them wants to learn more about contracts and how they work and how they can get a bit more comfortable with them. But I've asked her to teach me about managing difficult stakeholders. So people who are particularly shut off to procurement or shut off you know they've already got their pre-formed opinions and all of that good stuff and she's, you know she's not in procurement but it's. It's that, that two-way learning, and it's been, it's it's paying off already, to be honest nice mate.

Speaker 2: 30:14

Yeah, I barely, uh, I barely see you around much anymore. That's how, um, that's how active you are fighting like batman, fighting, uh, fighting crime, but fighting what's it called, what's the phrase of um?

Speaker 1: 30:31

like rogue oh, rogue spies yeah no, I'm talking about internally, maverick that's mavericks yeah fine enough, maverick, maverick uh purchases that's it.

Speaker 1: 30:43

I mean it's weird and sometimes you've got to be selfish, right, so you might be in an organization where you're not.

Speaker 1: 30:51

You're not particularly happy or you know you're you're. You're biding your time a little bit looking for your next role, but you should still try and make the most of what your environment is and what you can do, because there will be good people in any company that you're working for and if it's not, good people in the procurement team. Speak to the finance team and learn a little bit more about P&Ls or accounting and how they, and pick it all up as you go along like just be a sponge, because that will help you with your own career growth and what you find is, especially at the senior level. Directors are often comfortable talking about other people's roles areas in a conversation, so they will be familiar with finance pnls, they will be familiar with kind of legals, contract reviews and standard contracts and they will be familiar with profit targets or incentives from a sales perspective and you kind of look at them and you go, okay, yeah, so they know that strategic input yeah, their their job, one of the parts of their job.

Speaker 2: 31:56

Their their job one of the parts of their job. Say, for example, for a finance director. A lot of times procurement teams report into finance directors. The finance directors have got to know about procurement as well as the finance element of their job. And I suppose it goes the same for, you know, procurement might, might, incorporate some facilities management in there. For example, if you want, if you want that high level job now we're talking about going from mid-level to high level you've got to be able to have those skills across the, across the board, which I think is quite good and we've. We referenced this in a in a previous episode with uh, with lee, when we did procurement, um, procurement, god series. Oh yeah, the royalty where he took he was talking about procure. In procurement, you get a massive range, uh, of sort of like a view across the whole business. Basically, yeah, and you're expected to know, you're supposed to have capability in loads of different areas yeah, I mean you kind of grow and progress to the

Speaker 1: 32:59

senior level you are definitely at a senior level, I think at a at a lower level. You see it in any profession. So if you look at a newly qualified lawyer, they might struggle to articulate legal terms to an everyday dave. You see what I mean. And we might do the same with our procurement terms. We might reference a particular clause in a contract and panic and not know how to translate that into what it actually means to the business and why it's a problem or why it's an issue.

Speaker 1: 33:28

It's really interesting because I was kind of in a fairly senior meeting yesterday and I mentioned the words prime flow downs and the senior exec looked at me like what and I just took for granted that that was something that I just knew as terminology. Right, just taking the contract between us and the customer and then putting some of those terms in our subcontracts and it. It's weird because that's to me that's like common knowledge, but it's absolutely not. So remember that you do have your own niche and kind of benefits, but it's at a senior level. It's how do you communicate those to the relevant stakeholders? Another thing I'd want to touch on and I don't know if you do much of this, but kind of online forums are you involved in anything like that at the moment?

Speaker 2: 34:19

I do, I do follow, but I don't think I've ever posted on the procurement forum on reddit. Seems to be quite a lot, uh, americanized and um. The way they do things is is different to how we do things. But yeah, I do, I do follow a little bit. Why is that?

Speaker 1: 34:38

no, it's quite good. I was gonna say the reddit. Um, the reddit forum is really interesting, and also the linkedin. There's a couple of linkedin forums for procurement professionals that are linkedin groups that are quite big, be honest, and you see people posting really useful content in there. And again, it's all about soaking information in or just having that interest, and I think to really progress to the senior levels, you do have to be interested in what you're doing as well. Like you don't just see it as a day job to earn money. You're happy with the value you're giving. You want to be a procurement know you. You want to be a procurement professional. You want to be the best.

Speaker 1: 35:17

But I'd even say to kieran you know progression's not always linear as such. Like you, might. You might work your way up to become a senior buyer, right, and then you might go. Well, I've learned a little bit about contracts here. I've learned a little bit about finance. I don't really fancy going up to being a supply chain director or a senior supply chain manager or whatever. I might. I might want to try. I know I might want to try law, yeah, and then you can. You can move sideways and it, you know you might not be an instant progression, but you could then become a lawyer who specializes in procurement you know procurement law or whatever or you could you could become a finance manager who specifically helps budget for third parties, because your company doesn't do it very well you could become some sort of emergency worker like a fireman or ambulance person or a we are firefighters yep firefighter, but only for procurement people very specific yeah, if, if the, if the um office blocks on fire, you run up and you only save procurement people.

Speaker 2: 36:29

That's, that's specialization.

Speaker 1: 36:32

Yep, that works how do you deal with?

Speaker 2: 36:38

imposter syndrome. What is imposter syndrome? Can you give me a definition? I'll give you an example it's.

Speaker 1: 36:46

It's the feeling of you're not good enough or you're not ready to be in a particular role. So you know, let's just say I've been a buyer at company A for three years. I managed to land myself a job as a senior buyer in company B.

Speaker 2: 37:02

I've just started there and it feels like they know way more than I do yeah, I guess that's natural to to be thinking those kind of feelings when you're, when you're transferring companies. I think what, what often gets forgotten when you, when you are kind of like going for a new job or when you're starting a new job, is not only do you have to remember and know all the procurement technical knowledge and you have to have the soft skills as well and meet all the new people, but you have to sort of be able to work in a different environment. So, on three different fronts you've got to pick up new skills right. And if you're trying to compare yourself to people who've been working there for five, ten years, of course that's not going to be a fair comparison because they've had a five, ten year head start on you. Um, I think it's important to to kind of not not, or try at least I know it's difficult try to not compare yourself to other people.

Speaker 2: 38:05

Um, where possible, and if there are little things that you can do to to get to grips with things for example, if the company's got standard contract templates, reading those through to make sure you have an understanding of it before you try and negotiate with a supplier or, you know, getting to grips with the company's processes, sitting down with someone and asking them how does this process work, or what's that process work or what's that? Um, that could probably help you to kind of reduce the. What I'm trying to say is basically there's a lot to learn when you're starting in a new company. What are the ways that you could try and find to kind of build up your knowledge bank and?

Speaker 1: 38:55

I mean, I would, I would, I would say that you've got. You've got to where you are, you've been given the job because the people hiring believe you are good enough. So as long as you haven't lied for your teeth to get the job, then used AI, yeah, exactly, then you are. You are qualified enough or good enough to be in that room just as much as anybody else, and that's the bit you just remind yourself. You know that I've got this job because I've earned it, because of everything I've done previously.

Speaker 1: 39:21

And one thing I am terrible at and I really, really want to improve is keeping a tab of what I've done, what I've achieved, because actually I don't know if it's a procurement thing, but more often than not we're quite humble. I don't know if humble is a word, but like we don't really say that we won the bid or we don't say that we, you know, we did X, y, z. We're quite often, because we're part of a team, we're providing that kind of guidance and things like that. We're and things like that. We're almost achievement shy.

Speaker 1: 39:53

And I think actually writing down the things you've been involved with and what you've managed to do, like if you've negotiated a contract with oracle and managed to get oracle to change even one standard term. You're a good negotiator because oracle don't move for shit right and it's. Look, and then you see what you've done and you go oh my god. When I first joined as a buyer I'd never negotiated in my life. But yesterday I got an SME to agree to our contract with no amendments or with a few minor amendments. Or I had a call about IP and I was comfortable talking about it and they're all big things and you should be proud of it. But it's so easy to forget to log what you're doing.

Speaker 2: 40:32

My first manager, when I started my first procurement job, said that I should make an excel spreadsheet and write down all my achievements. I'm, is it still empty? I didn't. I didn't do that. Uh, it would be. It would be. The document would be too long if I'll corrupted I mean, I think I.

Speaker 1: 40:52

So when I look back at the last four years for myself personally, I can go like I've had quite a few changes in my career and I can go. I can talk through the SIPs qualification, I can talk through some of my learning points, but actually some of the deals that I've negotiated I probably would need to go and do some digging again and dig it out and be like, yeah, this is, this is what I've done and it's also difficult because because sometimes the the trouble or the the most difficult part is down to the people you're negotiating or the people that sat on the other side of the negotiation table.

Speaker 2: 41:28

So it could be, you know, a 50k contract yeah, that you know. The supplier just doesn't want to move. It's being really difficult and it's taking ages versus a contract that's four million pounds or 10 million pounds, when it's actually quite easy. Um, so how do you kind of put that into into words or how do you sort of measure that against other contracts.

Speaker 1: 41:56

Unfortunately, we live in a world where it's all about measuring and and actually putting your neck on the line and or putting your hand up to volunteer or getting involved in those larger value deals is primarily what's going to stand out. But if you don't get that exposure, you can look at complex deals and you can explain. You know you had a supplier who was particularly stuck on their IP. They didn't want to, they didn't want to share any jointly created IP with the end user and you negotiated, you explained it to them, you negotiated it and actually that's a big win for the scenario. But you probably have to talk, to talk through it a little bit. As opposed to where you're saying I led a 10 million pound deal. That automatically sounds pretty good. Yeah, even though it was guaranteed and it was the easiest contract you've ever gonna have to put in your life.

Speaker 1: 42:48

But there's notoriously difficult companies to negotiate with as well and if you ever do negotiations with those, don't be shy to mention that you've reached a successful outcome. You've got a significant discount, you've put in place deal registrations and the other thing is total up your spend. So if you're responsible for a category or a particular spend area, it might be £10,000 contracts here and there, but actually, when you then put it all together're looking at two or three million pound annually. And then your cv says oh, I'm responsible for two to three million pounds of annual spend, um, for this company. It sounds good, you know, and it is good. It is good, it is something you can be be proud of, right yeah, sure, so shall we summarize?

Speaker 2: 43:35

let's summarize if we can remember what we said. So we said anyone can, can get into procurement, no matter what your background is. Yeah, but see if you can use that background, if you can use what your sort of specialism pre-procurement is, to help boost your career. Um, take on new opportunities with senior people, put your hand up for things, um, whether that be, you know, leading some sort of smaller project or kind of presentations to, to senior management, some sort of governance type call um developing skills like soft skills, like communication, negotiation, uh, problem solving. Yeah, also hard skills, although with hard skill, would negotiation be a hard skill? Maybe it would be I think it probably it can probably be classified as both yeah

Speaker 2: 44:42

but yeah, um, but develop your soft and hard skills. Um. Also a way to do that and develop skills is is through professional qualifications like sips, probably some other ones around negotiation or some sort of if you are a category manager, some sort of technical courses you can do on whatever your, whatever your category is is based on um networking as well, massive. Make sure you you will try and build up a network, whether that's on linkedin, um or, like me, you just have loads, of loads of best mates everywhere.

Speaker 1: 45:21

Um you, you never know when it will come in handy. I know it's. It's not always. People don't like to say you know, it's all about who you know and stuff like that. But actually, if you're making the right connections, you know people in different careers, in different paths, different businesses. You just never know what's going to happen. You might meet someone you think, oh my god, they're the driest person I've ever met. I'd never want to speak to them again. But just just leave the door open, right, because they might. They might be looking to set up a procurement function in a brand new company and they need a procurement transformation director and they remember you and they liked you, you know. So, um, yeah, just leave the door open and, and I say just, networking is really important, yeah and then the other ones I can remember that we said are uh, think about mentoring.

Speaker 2: 46:12

If there's someone that you you want to be like, or is there a sort of specialism that you want to target as well, make sure you use them as a mentor, and so when I, when I say like, about wanting to be like, I wouldn't necessarily say you know, you might look at me and go.

Speaker 1: 46:30

I definitely don't want to be that guy like, look at his hairline, it's gone, he's finished. But you might look at. You might look at me and say, well, he's good with stakeholders and that might be the bit that you, what you focus on, right. So it's not necessarily like you want to just become that person in their entirety or you want to. Yeah, you know it. Just you might not like some of the bits about some people. You might just want to hone in on their skill set and wonder how they got to where they are. If you think it's something that you would want to be better at, right for me, I look at you and I think you're great at cardio.

Speaker 2: 47:02

So if I, if I needed to know how to sidestep really fast or wanted to improve my lung game, yeah, then I would definitely definitely come to you, you know yeah, if you wanted to know how to give out cards or blow a whistle really hard, then I'm your man, I'm your man, mate, and for you, if I, if I wanted to know how to, uh, how to drop some some what's the right word for it?

Speaker 1: 47:33

stink bomb type riz are you gonna say um corporate riz?

Speaker 2: 47:41

corporate stink bomb, riz. It's like that's my niche. It's quite. It's quite impressive, though, because it is does work like a stink bomb, like it doesn't. It doesn't even have to be directed, it's just all the people in the surrounding area to sort of get kind of like rizzed up, rizzed, yeah, yeah, it's a good thing, if I missed anything from the uh, from the summary no, no, exposure is a good one.

Speaker 1: 48:05

Um, and just just wanting to be, wanting to be better or wanting to, to to be in those roles right, because we all want great salaries, but actually some, some people, it might be enough to be, to be the role they're in and they might just want to settle right. But I would say, just just write stuff down. If you want to, if you want to be in five years time, you want to be a I don't know procurement director, write that shit down, make it real, list steps on how you're going to get there. You know list little things. You know I'm a member of the SIPs forum, I'm a member of this society, or whatever and build your network, educate yourself, understand what the top five things in procurement are going to be for 2025 or 2026 and you know ai isn't going away, unfortunately for you. So get to grips with that.

Speaker 1: 48:58

If you learn how to, if you learn everything you need to know about ai, contracting laws, ip what's it doing with your information? What's it doing with your data? What's it doing with security? Is it secure enough? Really get involved in ai, because companies are shit scared of it. They're shit scared of what it is doing with your info. So if you can review these contracts, you can provide assurances. You know you're comfortable in reviewing those kind of agreements. You're ahead of the game. You'll become a desirable, successful individual right but that's not easy.

Speaker 1: 49:30

I'm not saying that it's like the easiest thing in the world to do, because it's the forefront of what's coming and another big important thing is listening to let's talk procurement podcast.

Speaker 2: 49:44

If you, if you can say in an interview, oh yeah, this podcast I listen to, called let's talk procurement, then you will automatically get the job.

Speaker 1: 49:54

If you say, if you say, it's chico time, no, don't say that that's our, uh, that's our code phrase if you get the qr code that takes you to our show tattooed on your forehead, you'll get any job ever yeah, that's how it works.

Speaker 1: 50:18

Alright, cool he looks horrified by that thought. Well, look, if anyone else has got any, any topics they would like us to cover. I think there's still a couple of good ones that have been raised by Kieran that we can, we can cover in future episodes. You can tell that your success and growth in your role is probably linked to stakeholder management as well, because obviously they're the ones who open the doors to your opportunity and your growth. But if you've got any ideas, any questions, anything you know you'd love us to cover, then drop us a, drop us a text using the text us function or the socials, which were mentioned earlier, also in the bio.

Speaker 1: 50:56

I won't go through them again, but thank you for listening if you've got this far, drop us a five star review, drop us a comment telling us how much you love us, and we'll see you in the next one. Probably sounds good see you later. See you later.