Vendors

< rant >
Working in the world of advertising has exposed me to a number of things such as the billable hour, working until four in the morning, working on Saturdays, caffeine addiction, and many other wonderful things. One thing that I could do without, however (other than clients), is vendors. Sure, my life would be infinitely more complicated if I had to rely on solely on my internal teams to accomplish everything, but at least there would be some form of accountability.

I simply don't get it, when my clients come calling, I respond as fast as I can and with as complete an answer as I can - what can I say, I'm a hell of an account exec. I take my job seriously (that's why I'm blogging mid-day...), I work hard, and get rewarded by both my supervisors and my clients. That's how the client, vendor relationship works - I am a vendor for our clients. Why can't our vendors treat me the same way?

A call on Monday should get a return call on Monday (or at least an email), not a call on Wednesday. Simple requests should be easily handled, not made to be more complicated. And why are they always quick to remind you when you are 20 days post job completion and that invoices are due in 10 days? Ugh.

I have found in my experience that booth vendors and web vendors are the worst offenders. If you need a booth built for a tradeshow or an online/interactive piece constructed, it almost seems that you'd be better off doing it yourself. Sure, you might need to acquire a few new skills and work some longer hours, but wouldn't it be worth saving yourself the headaches of dealing with the vendors and, hell, you've worked till four in the morning before anyway...

This, of course, is not to say that there aren't great vendors out there...they just seem to be increasingly hard to find. So my advice to you? Start shopping for vendors early in the process, and never settle on price alone...'tis not worth it.
< /rant >

-ranting jonathon