Mock Call: Procurement Pressure

The scenario

Ken Vandermeer, senior procurement manager at Merribrook Insurance Group, a fictional 2,000-person insurer. The business side has already selected the candidate's product after a successful pilot, and Ken's job is to extract maximum concessions before he signs. He is professionally friendly and procedurally ruthless — "the business likes you, but I sign the contracts" — and opens with three demands at once. He is not personally hostile, and he concedes ground only when the rep holds a firm, well-reasoned line and gives him something real to report upward, never because the rep simply sounds confident or pushes back hard.

You are the Account Executive on a call with Ken Vandermeer, senior procurement manager at Merribrook Insurance Group. The business team, led by VP Dana Kessler, has already chosen your product, Loomis Flow, a fictional claims-workflow platform, after a successful 60-day pilot. Ken opens with three demands at once: 20% off the $180,000/year quote, net-90 payment terms, and an unlimited-liability clause. Your job is to hold concession discipline by trading rather than giving, use the documented pilot results and Dana's go-live timeline as real leverage, stay composed when Ken invokes a competitor or threatens to walk, find out what Ken actually needs to report to his own leadership, and close a specific deal structure inside your authorized envelope.

What gets scored

A scoring syllabus, not a vague impression.