"Dance with the One that Brung Ya"

As an inventor and product developer, I rely on the advice and expertise of many others during the feasibility stages. Sometimes I'm not even sure what kind of vendor or service I need, but usually I can tell if a company is patronizing me. "Sure, we could do that?" is not the same as "How could we help?" 

While I wouldn't commit to hiring someone right away just because they agreed to meet with me, I still think it is important to respect their early input. If a vendor takes the time to work with me by making suggestions and doing actual upfront work then I'm not going to take their effort and shop around. Someone else could maybe do it little cheaper or faster, but that's not how I want to do business. 

My business goal is give my customers something they value. My personal goal is to make it worth my time and effort to do so. If my pens are worth $X to a customer it won't matter to them if it cost me $.01X to produce or $.99X. They will buy it. It might not be worth my time at $.99X, but that's for me to decide. The same relationship holds between me and my vendors. If their product or service is worth $X to me I will buy it and it doesn't matter to me how much it cost them, even if it is only a tiny fraction of the price.