Why You Need Vendors

Working with vendors is a fact of life for registrars and admissions officers. But a lot of us might feel reluctant to engage with vendors at a conference. If that’s you, this episode is a must listen! Vendors are there to support the organization (either AACRAO or your state and regional) as they provide important services to our industry, and they’re there to be seen, get their company name out, and build relationships with people rather than pushing a sale. You can ask them things! You can give direct feedback about products you use! There’s significant value to be gleaned from these interactions–for you AND the vendor.  

Key Takeaways:

• Don’t stress about talking to vendors at a conference: they’re there to get their name out and to receive feedback, they don’t expect anyone to sign a contract in the vendor hall: they know how higher education works. 
• The Corporate Relations or Corporate Liaison position in your State and Regional Association spends time building relationships with vendors to get sponsors for conferences and meetings, and to ensure that the time spent at the conference is valuable for both parties. 
• You can preview which vendors are going to be at the conference in the conference app; make a plan for which vendors you want to touch base with, which vendors you want to explore, and which vendors you just want to pick up swag for your staff back in the office.   

Host:

Doug McKenna, University Registrar
George Mason University
cmckenn@gmu.edu 

Guests:

Colleen Harms, Associate Registrar
University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
harms231@umn.edu
Connect on LinkedIn

Sara Morelli, Senior Associate Registrar
University of Iowa
sara-morelli@uiowa.edu
Connect on LinkedIn

References and Additional Information:

AACRAO Core Competencies - Leadership & Management

AACRAO Professional Proficiencies - Records and Academic Services

Transcript

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You're listening to for the record, a registrar podcast sponsored by Acro. I'm Colleen Harms Associate Registrar at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and I'm Sarah Morelli, Senior Associate registrar at the University of Iowa. And this is why you need vendors. Hello, welcome to For the record. I'm your host, Doug mckenna University Registrar at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Today is all about dealing with vendors as higher education continues its adoption of technological solutions. A full sector of industry has arisen the ed tech space and while some of us might still rely heavily on homegrown or self developped applications, I think every one of us works closely with at least one vendor source to application in our professional life. And I'd say that the average registrar staff member probably deals with 3 to 5 of them on a daily basis. Easily those applications have people behind them. And we generally refer to those people as vendors working with interacting with and sometimes even walking past a vendor display area can be anxiety inducing, but it doesn't have to be. So today we're going to be talking to Colleen Harms and Sarah Morelli about ways to lower that stress level and to make those interactions with vendors more meaningful and beneficial for both parties. So, Colleen Sarah, welcome to the podcast.-- Thanks,-- Doug. Thanks for having us. Thank you so much. Happy to be here. You both have really interesting backgrounds and because you're not the first guests from your respective institutions, let's focus on you. Tell us a little bit about yourself and the career path that led you to the registrar's office. So Colleen will start with you. It has been an interesting and long journey doug um I am, I am here for it and I hope you are too. I am one of the few people in my office that have not spent my career in higher education. I am just entering into my fifth year, both in higher education and at the University of Minnesota in the registrar's office. My background is actually in business administration. I have my master's in business administration. My undergraduate degree was in marketing and public relations, communication. I decided that was not the track that I wanted to go. And so I've lived a few different professional lives looking for just a really good match for my skill set and also something that had a little bit more heart and soul where there were people that actually cared about what they did. And that point of view comes from working for a really long time in the private sector. So I worked in residential property management for seven years. I hi we do not recommend that field. Um It is incredibly stressful, it is really demanding. There's uh a lot of positive and a lot of negative interactions with the community. Um And there's a lot of interaction with vendors. And then I've also worked in health care and in early childhood education before finding my home in higher end,-- Sarah, what about-- you? So Sarah Morelli, as I mentioned, I work at the University of Iowa, a quintessential and beautiful big 10 college town in eastern Iowa. So I lead the strategic planning for our curriculum management system which includes the academic structure, course, library degree audits and sample plans. I'm also a data steward degree audit information and a functional lead for homegrown student information system. I am a nontraditional and first generation student. I went back to school after having kids, I earned a finance business degree and then went directly into higher ed. I started working in our Treasury operations department. I kind of moved through a few roles, financial analyst. Uh I ended up managing the ID card programs for our university and our our hospital. And then one day I was feeling a little burnt out and I started thinking about roles that I want or units I wanted to work in on campus and I started thinking about, oh, the registrar's office has this Halloween parade every year and they seem like such a fun office. Literally the next day my job was posted. And so I was like, it's a sign I gotta apply for it. Never once got to do the Halloween parade because COVID hit and then it just never happened. So, five years later, um, I've been in the registrar's office for five years and I love it.-- Absolutely-- love it. That is one of the most amazing how I got to the registrar's office stories I've ever heard and I've heard a bunch I who knew that little things like a Halloween parade could bring somebody into the office. It's a culture, right? Like the relationships you build with your colleagues and then the culture that you work through that. That's what you want out of a career. Yeah, Colleen, how did you land in the registrar's office? I know that you said you were looking for a different speed. What was it about the registrar's office that drew you in? Um So I also was home with kids for a while and when I was looking to enter back into the workforce, I was really looking for something that I could balance my personal life with my work life and you can be promised that in all sorts of professional spaces. But when the rubber hits the road and so looking for a, a culture as Sarah mentioned and pretty quickly, I found that in the interview, I was like, this is a place where I feel like I can be successful. Um I can get my kids a little bit older and then I can really focus on myself and my career. So I was in this, in between phase of, of looking for that. And on top of that, I'd heard a ton of recommendations. The University of Minnesota is a really, we're a huge employer in the state over 20,000 employees. But it's, it's really regarded as just a fantastic place to work, really good people there. I kept hearing it over and over again and was like, you know, maybe this would be maybe this is kind of the change that I'm that I'm looking for. But when I looked at the job description, a lot of that, I was like, this is the work that I love to do. I love the details. I love policy. I love data entry. It's kind of all these things kind of coming together and being able to, to do those things. Ladies and gentlemen, we found the person today is the day we found the person who loves data entry.-- So-- I love data entry and I love paperwork. Genuinely. It's very satisfying. I appreciate you sharing some of your background. It is, it helps to sort of contextualize uh some of the things that you're going to talk about with in relation to vendors and that's why we're here. So let's jump in. I want to start with your experience with your state and regional associations and So Sarah, you were the vendor relations chair. What was the corporate relations chair, corporate relations liaison. We've got many different names. I don't know if we have an official one or not. What is that? And what does that role do? So, really, we're looking for money. I've got a proposition for you. We have a conference and we need support, right? We don't want to put the financial burden on just our members to support this conference. I mean, I'm, I'm being glib here. But honestly, um when you have those conferences, the conference fees generally don't cover the entire cost of food and the speakers and everything. And so the corporate liaison or corporate relations chair uh develops relationships with sponsors companies to sponsor the conference. We try to offer a value to those companies and allow them some, some access to have conversations with professionals in higher ed that they may not have on campuses, right? You get so many from companies reaching out, say I'd love to set up time with you. And it's like, well, I'm busy, I don't want to set up time, but when you're in a conference space and you just have those conversations maybe over dinner or in the vendor hall, it really opens up another opportunity for access. This is such a fascinating insight into the way conferences unfold too. Because for me, I was going to conferences for years and years before I realized what you just said is that the vendors who are there and some of them are sponsoring and so they pay monies and then they participate in that particular way. And it just never occurred to me as a young way. We're talking way back now, way back as a young assistant registrar, stumbling into a vendor hall, I was like, look at all the shiny. But when you say as the corporate relations person or the corporate liaison, what is that when you start to develop vendor relationships or relationships with potential sponsors? And Colleen, you can jump in on this as well because didn't you serve Colleen? Same role. Yes. So it's a, it's a three year term that you kind of uh well volunteer for. Um So Sarah was the chair and I believe Sarah you were doing it for a long time on your own, correct? So I did it for three years on my own. And then when I met Colleen for the first time at a Yaco conference, I saw something in her and I was like, that's, that's who I'm passing this off to. So the tiger. So let's go back to the question that I wanted to ask. And that is as a corporate relations person or as a corporate liaison for a state and regional, what is the process of engaging with potential sponsors look like? So it's really about establishing a long lasting relationship because when you do that, you don't have to start the process all over again. For the next year's conference. We have found that we're utilizing the other conferences. So like the National Acro as a jumping off point. So our regional conference is typically the last week of October and Acro being held in April is a really good time to be able to engage, give out, save the dates. Have those conversations of, hey, this is where it's going to be really get in on their calendar because that's a huge conference month as well. The day that we're talking about, I'm sorry to interrupt the day that we're talking about is vendors are the companies who are there to present their, we got it. Yep. So just like our uh regional conference as Sarah mentioned, um ma or Acro also has vendors that come and help sponsor the event. They, I would imagine that they have a little bit of a larger budget than our um regional um conferences. Exactly. Who knows? I haven't seen those numbers. So who knows? But vendors are an essential part. Yes, for the financial piece, especially for the smaller conferences. But it is a huge mutual opportunity for vendors to be able to connect with current clients or potential future clients, see what the other competitors are doing and have those conversations. Um and then have an opportunity to get feedback from their users. And that's, that's really one of the most valuable things that I think Sarah and I have found in this process is being able to have that mutual dynamic back and forth. This did not answer and I just wanted it did we'll talk more about um providing feedback and having those 1 to 1 engagement as a participant with the vendor. But I want to stick on the sort of corporate liaison, corporate chair, sponsorship of things for the moment. How does someone become involved with the corporate relations or corporate liaison work that you're talking about? You can reach out to your state or regional organizations, uh executive committee and tell them you want to volunteer. And that's probably it probably like, thank you, volunteer organizations need so many volunteers, right? Um I think a lot of the, a lot of the setup of the committees of the regional have something similar to this. If they don't, then once again, this conversation is for you of the importance of having somebody dedicated to that role and to engaging in those vendors or with those vendors, having those relationships, establishing them so that they want to come back. Um And really being the piece that's communicating what the benefit of their attendance at your conference is, which is benefit for you is yes, that financial support, but again, it also opens up a lot of other opportunities for um just relationship building on both ends. So the corporate relations role is really about engaging with those vendors and kind of selling them on why attending your conference over all of the other invitations that they receive is really a good use of their time. And Sarah, you have talked about some of the unique or fun ways that you have made vendor participation. So sort of more meaningful or more beneficial for the vendors. Could you share some of those ideas in case people are listening and they're like, OK, we want to make this good for the vendors because we want to have a good relationship with them. What does that look like? How, how do you engage with vendors at the conference as the corporate relations person? Not as just a person attending the conference? What do you do for the vendors? What do you have them do to either get their name out or to participate in some way? I, I think even before the conference starts, one of the most valuable things that Colleen and I did was set up a 30 minute meeting with each company and whoever, whichever representatives they wanted to send, right? It might be their sales people, it might be their marketing team, whoever it is, whoever they're sending and probably a few more people, we took an opportunity to just introduce ourselves, open the dialogue and give them an overview of what the, what will happen at the conference break down. You know, each day. This, this is what we expect of you while you're here, whether you're sponsoring us or you're just a, you've got a table, you paid for a table to set up. We got really positive feedback from that. So I would absolutely recommend anyone in this role, just spend 30 minutes with each company and develop that relationship with them. We you keep hearing us say relationship building and developing relationships because that's really what this role focuses on. The first night of of each conference. We like to have each vendor have a two minute elevator pitch ready. So they get up in front of the crowd and just put their face to our members and give a quick overview of what their company does. They also vendors seem to find a lot of value to that. But also so do our members because maybe, oh I have a question about transcripts. I know who I wanna zero in and talk to. I hear there's two companies here that are gonna talk about transcripts and, and I know who to look for. So another thing we do is when we work with the program committee in our or not the program committee, the, the local arrange, we call it local arrangements committee, the people who are setting up the actual conference in the physical space, we try to connect with them and make sure that our vendor partners have visible space. We're not, we don't wanna shut their tables in a room somewhere where our members have to like trickle in to go find them and pretty easy to avoid the vendor hall when you have to go into another room. But other times we've put them in a hallway or we've put the food and drink area sort of very close where they ended traffic. So they have to go through, uh and see the vendors and it just makes it a lot more comfortable for our members to check things out and, and to have those conversations. Nice. Let's talk now about sometimes people feel anxious talking to a vendor. And you've given some examples about ways that you can sort of introduce vendors and give people an opportunity to be like, oh, ok, I I need to talk to either them or them or both of them and not those other vendors because that's not a thing. Let's talk a little bit about strategies for an individual who may feel overwhelmed walking into a vendor hall because they're not used to talking to a vendor. Maybe this is their first time at a conference and it is, it can be intense when you walk in, especially if you go to Acro for the first time and walk into the vendor hall and it's literally wall to wall and to end of this huge space. How do you recommend people navigate that experience in order to make it meaningful and beneficial for both their own takeaways? And then also uh from the vendor perspective, I think there's two components to that. So first and foremost, I think it's breaking down for people. Why vendors are actually there? Because I think there's a lot of misconception about vendors presence to begin with. And I think there's a lot of association which is very understandable that it's more in that sales space that like mall kiosk type of feel of like, no, I don't want hair extension right now. Like I'm just trying to go and buy some shoes. No, thank you. But changing individuals viewpoints of that, that it's not, this space is not that it is not a transactional. I'm trying to sell you something and then the relationship's over because you've bought it and I've got my commission and I can move on with my day and find the next individual and our vendors know that so higher education is, is unique in the way that it's one of those industries that our relationships with the vendors are really long lasting. So if you're anything like the public university that I work for the University of Minnesota, we are huge, we are decentralized and despite our best efforts, things move kind of slowly. So even our contract negotiation process is very long. So before you even get to the space where you have a vendor and you're going to be working with that vendor for your contract term, which can be oftentimes three or five years, you're there's a whole lot of engagement before that time. So this is not a few minute interaction and you never see the person again. So I think that's really important to remember because when it, when the vendors enter this space, they're not expecting sale, they're not expecting to sell you three carburetors. And if you get the fourth, then like make them more money. And they, and they also don't attend these conferences with the belief of signing a contract either because they know how higher ed works and they know that the people that are in there are not going to be. Yes, let's do this. They, they are so well aware of that and for them, they are there also relationship building and being a point of conversation and the opportunity for feedback from people that actually use their product. So it's not to say that individuals who are making the business decisions at your institution aren't also using the product because if they're not directly using it, they're impacted by it. They at least are familiar in some space, right? And, and these, these technologies have to function in a way for everything else to work, for executive leadership to do the work that they're doing. Um So everybody's impacted, but this love fall up here. Um And I'm talking with my hands, which is not gonna be helpful because you're listening with your chairs. So just imagine me talking with my hands a lot. But when you're in that executive leadership space and you're not necessarily seeing a pain point of a new upgrade and a feature that was lost, that now dramatically impacts you and your team's ability to do your work. This is an opportunity to have that conversation and to act, say to a vendor, hey, you guys removed this feature and this is like a massive pain point. And have you heard that from other people? And I cannot tell you how many times I've had a vendor be like, oh my gosh, we just started hearing this. We didn't even realize like, thank you that that's a very real experience. So in answer to your question, like understanding why they're there, I think brings the anxiety down because people enter it as being like no eye contact, they're going to try to sell me all this and it's so stressful and it it really is. And as an extroverted person, I can find it really stressful because what is the value in this for me? Like I I truly am trying to get through my day conferences are exceptionally busy. A lot of us are also still working, checking emails, maybe we need to check in with our family. We're connecting with friends from other institutions that we haven't seen. And so the vendor hall often falls like that's very, very, very at the end of a lot of people's priority. So what we really want to bring to light in this conversation is like there is so much value there if you can one understand why they're there. And then give you some tips and tricks to bring yourself into that space knowing what the benefit is. Um And I think Sarah can really speak to. She had some really good tips that we've talked about of just bringing that anxiety down and just kind of like some, some starters and some plans that if that space is really overwhelming and Colleen, I just want to echo your point about end user feedback to people besides the help desk, right? You're not just submitting a ticket to some random help desk. You're you're talking to a sales rep who has a vested interest in making sure that you're happy and sometimes that can get along further. I think that was a really good point. As far as when you're going into the vendor hall, I think the first thing you want to do is level set that this is a really low stakes conversation, right? Vendors are having these sales conversations and they don't even maybe they don't even consider them sales conversations, just they're having conversations all the time with people. Conference attendees may not be in that space where they're talking to sales people and their, their normal jobs as registrars or admissions professionals, they may not be having sales conversations but vendors are all the time. And as Colleen said, there is no expectation that you're signing a contract. It's just a conversation. So walking in with a level head that there's no pressure, I think is the first thing you wanna do. I think it's also important to remember. This is a low stakes opportunity to find out more on a topic that you might not know enough about or a company or a competitor to a vendor that you're already using at your institution. Maybe you're using one degree audit company and you love them, but maybe there are some pain points. And so if you get some ideas from another and how they handle things, you can bring that information back to your company, or maybe it's maybe you learn some cool tricks that you had no idea about just because you're having a conversation with an expert way back in the first season for the record. Tom Black, the Beyonce of Registrars was on and he said just that he was like, I, I asked him how he stays current with sort of technology and advancements and especially as things are moving as quickly as they are. And he said at every conference, I go talk to vendors and I ask them what they're working on. I asked them sort of what's coming up and I sort of get a feel for where they are in, in their development and without indicating that he's interested in purchasing something. And so he just wants to know what people are working on and what's new and what's, what's coming down the pike. So I think this idea that you can go into the vendor hall and engage with vendors in a meaningful way straight from the from go with. This is not, this conversation will not result in a sale, I think is enormously helpful for people to realize and to really let that sink in. So that's a fantastic starter point. What are other ways or other strategies that you might suggest for people, especially people as Colleen, you pointed out like conferences are draining. And so if you have a limited social battery and you need to portion it out in particular ways across the conference day, but you know that the vendor hall is there and you have questions for whoever. What do you suggest to those people? I think one really great tactic that Sarah and I have talked about is like making just a plan. There are all sorts of helpful maps on the conference app that show you what the vendor hall space looks like and essentially taking a few minutes to just scope things out and say, all right, we don't even engage in this space. I don't need to, I don't, I don't need to visit the commencement table. Like my office doesn't handle commencement. I don't have any particular interest in it. Um So I'm not going to look at that, but here's some spaces or vendors that we do look at and set yourself a time limit. Say I'm, I'm going to spend 15 minutes and that is it. And then you can either decide to re engage at another time or not. Um, but setting just kind of that time limit and making a plan really just breaks down how overwhelming it can be because there are, there's a lot of people, it's loud but there's often the snacks and the food too are in this space and the swag. Yeah. Well, I mean, we, we were going to get to the swag. We have not gotten to this. Yeah, but absolutely the swag is coming. But you know, sometimes even just going and like truly getting yourself a snack and scouting things out. Making a plan and then giving yourself permission to be done is definitely important in that space for registrars. We plan things out and then we document it right. You're gonna plan where you're gonna go, you're gonna take some notes on companies you want to engage with and come up with a couple of questions in advance that are just open ended. Easy questions. Tell me more about the catalog your company produces. Tell me more about this. Tell me more about that and then let them do most of the talking. Honestly. It's gonna be pretty easy. If you're introverted, just ask a question and let someone spiral out on it. Let's get to the wag. Do you feel bad walking through the vendor hall and grabbing some like the little notebooks or the squishy balls or a pen or anything like that? I think some people do I initially had reservations like Doug, as you mentioned, if you haven't been to like acro specifically before, in your first venture there, I, I hesitate to use the word overwhelming because I feel like that does have such a negative connotation to it, but I can't think of a better one of that. It's like, positively overwhelming. Like it's wonderful experience.-- It's-- a gentle assault on your senses. It's uncharted territory. Maybe that's the best you. It's just it's that in that uncharted territory. Yeah, you can't, you just don't really know what to expect. And so in the beginning, it was kind of like, can I take this and they're like, please? So I think something that's really helpful is that if you visit the vendor hall at the end of the conference, they are like, I have to ship this back and I don't want to, I don't want to have to put this in my bag. Like they are actually like here, I will dump out like this bowl of pens into your, you know, welcome bag. So if you think about it from that perspective that no, they truly are trying to, to move these things along, like there is an aspect of this that is just marketing and having your name on things like pens and books and different stuff brings brand awareness-- because-- you bring those back to your institution, you've got them on your desk or you give to your staff your staff gives them to somebody else and somebody else three months later is like, huh, it's got a company name and a URL. So let's check it out-- kind-- of a thing. I don't think you need to have an MB A to understand marketing budgets, right? These companies have marketing budgets and they want to spend it. And as Colleen mentioned, like the shipping back is a pain for them. And that brings me back to having those 30 minute conversations with each company. One of the things the one of the biggest needs they had was how do I get my cases and gear to the hotel? How do I pick it up later? It's something I didn't realize that would even be an issue, right? But negotiating that, where, where do they send their stuff? Who's going to watch it? How do they ship it out later? So just keep that in mind, I guess that again, a fascinating tidbit of logistics that I have never spent a single moment contemplating. I just thought like they rolled it in and set it up. That's crazy. You got it. Does the hotel offer those services or do you need to find a fedex location for them? That's close by so that they're prepared? One thing that we did find is that typically because I agree with you. Do we, when we first got this question, I was like, what? I don't know. Good question. I don't know. The hotels do other than having guests stay at their hotel, they put on events and conferences. And so if you have a hotel that is unfamiliar with how to handle vendors, bringing things into their space, I would honestly rethink the hotel that you're hosting the event at. Like that is that is actually going to kind of highlight that they are not in an event, hosting space or maybe ask to speak to somebody else within the hotel. So it's an interesting point because the vendor or the hotel is also a vendor. And so having a relationship with the hotel is the same as having a relationship with a vendor. And you need to develop it. You need to make sure that you're communicating and you need to level set expectations. So great point-- and I interrupted you,-- sorry. And if you're scared of vendors, you're going to realize that they're everywhere, they're all around. Something else to think about is as your local local committee is setting up the relationship with the hotel and signing a contract, see if there's any writer where maybe they can only store one box of vendor stuff or uh that was something I think we came across one year the year that Colleen and I did this as a as a Cole where there seemed to be a limit on the number of cases that they would store and then we were going to get these exorbitant charges. So check the contracts with the hotel. Yeah. And to that point too, another thing that I found really interesting is that they're often ship it so they're packing these cases and they're often moving from conference to conference. So they're not even necessarily shipping them back to like their central office. It'll be like, I'm coming from Florida and I'm flying into Des Moines to your conference and then I need to arrange for the fedex to go ship it to this other location. All of those logistics you do not need to deal with. And if a vendor asked me to deal with that, I would say no. Um but I think it's, it's helpful just to understand that background that again, these people, they're professionals, like they go from conference to conference to conference and they are a wealth of information, they will tell you what they need and they know what they're doing. And so that really helps too. If we kind of come back to that anxiety provoking conversation, it is so much more nerve wracking on our end. This is what they do for a living. What haven't we talked about about engaging with vendors and making those engagements, positive, meaningful, beneficial. I really wanna hammer in how higher ed is a unique industry for vendor relationships and seeking end user feedback. We as higher ed professionals have as much to gain as those companies that are trying to sell us products to, right? And, and the uniqueness of the long term relationship which may or may not lead to a sale. I think it's important when you think about looking for a new student information system, that's not something a university who's gonna spend a lot of money to send student data somewhere is gonna go into. It's not a decision that you go into lightly. And so those decisions take years if there, whether it's the initial, like maybe we should switch or if there's an actual RFP. And so for vendors to have easy conversations with users, not even decision makers because those, those users may be like I had this great relationship or great conversations, they seem so knowledgeable. They have all these opportunities for us. Those end users can take that information back to the decision makers on campus. Yeah, so an RFP is a request for proposal and many public institutions in particular require rfps in order to have some level of expenditure. So if we're looking at entering a contract for 3 to 5 years with a vendor, most public institutions have to go out to RFP to engage in that kind of contract negotiation. What's your experience with RFPS? We'll probably do a whole other episode on rfps alone because there's like the requirements gathering part, there's the how to rank and read and review the submissions that all the vendors provide. But from uh dealing with vendors and participating with vendors perspective, what's your experience with RFPS? Colleen, I heard you love them and that you have volunteered as a permanent RFP participant at the U I might have some PTSD after doing an RFP. Um But that was because of a series of unfortunate events. We basically just let everything go wrong, that could go wrong. We had our um amazing director at the time who I whose name I will keep anonymous leave. During that time, we had some um big interim changes. We had our it person leave who was in there. Our, our purchasing contact within our department had medical leave in the middle. His boss retired during that time. They were not kidding. A lot of things went wrong. It truly was kind of almost as if I was in a joke. It was, yes. It at to a point got a little comical after the tears. But all that being said like that's, that's sometimes life though is that you have all of these different things that you're not expecting and you can plan for. Um welcome to Higher Ed, right? And then all of a sudden a legislative, you know, decision comes down that nobody is planning for and you get this project work that you weren't anticipating. Like that's just the world that we live in. So to some extent, it was like, well, yep part for the course at the same time, it, it was really challenging and really difficult. But the professional development opportunity that I had out of working on that project was immense. My background is not in technology. And while I find myself to be literate when it comes to using technology, like I know how to use the fax machine and different things. It it was really new territory of how to work with our central it department within our own department, some of our technology resources there and be the middleman between these conversations and ensuring that these vendors that we were looking at were going to be able to serve our needs essentially in a language that I did not speak. So from that space, it really put me in the room with a lot of people that I wouldn't normally be in the room with. And I think one aspect that I brought to it from my business background was absolutely no hesitation. I do not know this space. So I need to find somebody that does and have the confidence to grab that person and invite them into my working group because I can't, I cannot fake this. There is just a part of this that I, that I'm unfamiliar with. And the the business decision if we go with a vendor because I didn't understand how our implementation process would work or if this even integrates with our system, that's like a pretty big mistake. Um This RFP was with our um it was for our transcript and our diploma vendor. So for both print and digital, some of that work we've been doing in house. So it also was a pretty big shift. It was a pretty big sell as well by in house printing all of our diplomas for over 50,000 students just at the Twin Cities campus. If we bring in our other campuses, it's a lot more um is that we were by hand stuffing those envelopes. I know another PTSD that will be for another day. Um So moving to a vendor was essential for us, we were, we could not sustain that level anymore. And we were like, there are people that can do this that are going to provide us with greater quality assurance, cheaper costs, you know, all of the things that come with that move, but sometimes in higher ed, that's not the automatic idea that a lot of people have. It's, this is how we've always done it. Why would we change it? Um And so I knew that it was a high stakes decision that if it didn't go well, there were going to be a lot of, a lot of impact. So I really just kind of embraced the unknown. I was really open about the stuff that I knew and the stuff that I didn't and was like, I'm bringing you in here because I don't know and I need you to know. And within that space too, I was able to really establish a lot of relationships with other departments, as I mentioned, that I wouldn't have gotten to work with in the past. Yeah, you're feeding into my, uh, sense that we need to have a whole episode on rfps because this is all great. I want to dig into like many, many aspects of things that you said. But I will not for now because we're just going to stay focused on vendors. Sarah, have you done RFPS? Are you involved in the RFP process? Years ago? I was a participant in one but nothing major. We have a homegrown student information system in Iowa and we build so many things. I mean, we certainly worked with other companies and vendors, right? But the first response is how can we build it? Like, let's build it better here. One of the coolest parts of my job honestly is that we have a homegrown student information system. Very robust. Yeah, Michigan State used to have one as well when I was there and then I left and now they don't, don't, that's neither correlated nor caused I think touching on the, the professional development space and opportunities that are there for all, all different higher ed individuals, regardless of what your role is. A lot of the feedback that we've gotten is I don't make contract decisions. Why would I go into the vendor space? Um And we've also gotten some feedback that individuals thought that they might be stepping on toes or might even kind of get in trouble um by having those conversations with a vendor because they're not in that space and just feeling like really siloed and our stress was really, again, going back to that piece of understanding why they're there to help break that down and get more to a place where everybody's kind of having the same conversation with each other. And realizing that this is an opportunity for you to grow your knowledge set and to get have these end user types of conversations, provide feedback or even find out about updates that are coming. I mean, so much of us are really truly heavy into the data space and a big upgrade or even a small upgrade. How many times have we been told this is going to be a small lift and all of a sudden, you know, it brings your system down and sometimes, you know that information is coming from the top down. And so it's not that people are not trying to communicate. It's just a lot to make sure that everybody is in the know all the time. And this is an opportunity to be like, hey, are you guys planning any type of new versions of your software? Are there any updates that are coming? What's on your road map? What's on your road map? Yeah. Um And you are hearing that word of mouth and you may be hearing it even before your leadership team, but that can even just help you prepare, give that again. Initial feedback of being like, OK, awesome. You guys are moving to a new version and if you remove this feature, I may have a mental breakdown, please. This is your it team. You can't take this away from us. And again, I've actually had them be like, oh, thank you. Like, I'll make sure to spread that on, you know, or pass that on and whether or not that institutes huge change, but it really can. Again, they want you to be happy. And oftentimes some of these teachers are not necessarily huge lists on their end. It's just if they don't know that it's essential or if they think something else replaces it, but it really doesn't offer the same functionality. You know, sometimes they just go with that and it's just a decision and then they could have gone in-- a different direction if they had feedback-- so critical for people to engage with vendors in meaningful conversations when they have them because they're there and you're there, you might as well either learn something or share something last offer that a lot of them are like super wonderful people. And through this, I agree, I agree. This is another thing that is unique about higher education. In my experience, I worked for IBM for some time before I entered the higher ed space. And my experience with vendors in higher education is that they are lovely people almost to a person and engaging them with, with them is very easy. And so it, it lowers that stress level again. And so go into the vendor hall, chat it up with people want to echo your sense of encouragement for people to do that. Closing thoughts.-- Vendors,-- great people don't be afraid to walk in. You're going to just have a conversation, you're at a conference to learn and engage and it's not just sitting passively in a conference session, right? You can also learn from those conversations, great opportunity and continue those relationships when you can afterwards. If they said if you drop your business card in their bowl and they send you an email, you can say we're not interested at this time, but it was so nice to meet you just just be a nice person and thank them for reaching out because you may need them in a couple of years, right? Also, we got some good feedback from our vendors that if you get emails, they are completely happy for you to say I'm not interested. Take me off my email list. I think some people get hesitant to the oh, I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna get all these emails from different things or different things that I'm not interested in. Um So keep an open mind because it may be something you want to connect with in the future and it's ok to say no to, you can say that politely and that's ok and it's a good skill to learn. This is a good space to get comfortable with saying no, somebody gave us some feedback at Acro, a vendor gave us feedback at Acro that getting to know faster is just as valuable as yes, I'm interested because they can reallocate their resources. If they know that you're not interested, then why are they going to keep you on their list and reach out to you every couple weeks? Don't be afraid to say no. Just like Colleen said, that's wonderful, Colleen Sarah, thank you for being here and for sharing some wisdom and tips and tricks for making those vendor interactions meaningful for helping people come up with ways to address their vendor phobia of going into the vendor hall. And also for sharing some of the insight on ways that state and regional conferences and the national conference work with vendors to have them sponsor and participate in meaningful ways. This has been fantastic. Thank you both for being here. Thanks for having us Doug. Thank you so much. Thank you to Colleen and Sarah for sharing their strategies for engaging with vendors. Which ones stand out as something you'd actually try, which ones resonated the most. All right, everybody. It's go time. The general election is right around the corner, November 5th 2024. I hope that you will participate in this most basic of rights and freedoms. Vote for our future. Spread the word. Make a plan to vote, bring your friends to vote. Thank you for listening. I hope that you found some of the tips for interacting with vendors useful and that maybe one or two of you will consider volunteering for the corporate relations role with your own regional association. Until next time, stretch your legs before you vote, drink some water while you're waiting to vote. Be kind to each other with your vote. I'm Doug mckenna and this is for the record. It's weird. It's already weird. All of this is going to get snipped and tagged at the end after the fourth record. Hooray. So just fy, sometimes I like to throw a little Easter eggs, nuggets in there. Like, for example, on the academic calendar, I did a spoof of Alexander Hamilton at the end and sang it with the words of academic calendar, but only maybe five people have heard that ever because everybody stops listening after the guests sign off.