Episode 99 | Vendors Are Friends, Not Food

Question

Hey Work Wives, this is Jennifer from Henderson, Nevada, and I have the weirdest question. I have this vendor that approached me, and we had a sales conversation. I did a demo and like, at the time I thought we had a way to use their services, but we don't anymore. And some of that's because, you know, the client we were going to use this vendor for has changed, and also we've kind of pivoted away from that type of client generally, and he keeps emailing me, and I, like, don't know what to say to him to just be like, "You're wasting your time," but I want to be nice about it. Like, he was incredible for me, like bent over backwards, gave me probably more demos than he ought to have, and I just like, want to let him down gently, you know? I know this is money for him. So...I'm looking for some advice on maybe how to write that email. But, yeah, that's my question. Like, what do I say to a vendor I'm like, not mad at — it is a good fit, but we just can't use them anymore, you know?

Summary

We’ve talked about how to handle vendors that won’t leave you alone (see Episode 96, a.k.a. Vanessa’s rant about “breakup emails”), but how do you let down gently a great vendor you just can’t work with right now?

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