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- [00:01]
A
Think enterprise software is too costly, too complex and takes too long to get up and running? Think again. Workday Go makes simplifying your small or mid sized business simple. HR and finance together on one powerful AI platform right at your fingertips. Workday Go gets you live fast and fits the needs of your business. Find out what Workday Go can do for you. Go with Workday Go.
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This episode is brought to you by Planet Visionaries in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. I often think about the big ideas in the future that we're building together and honestly, climate news feels heavy. But here's the thing. There are people out there doing incredible work that actually gives me hope. And that's why I want to tell you about Planet Visionaries, hosted by Alex Honnold yes, the free solo climber who is turning his focus to the biggest challenge of all, protecting the only planet we've got. Alex brings his signature curiosity to conversations with the people reshaping our planet's future. In one episode, he talks to Mark Ruffalo, conservationist and actor, about how he has leveraged storytelling to galvanize community and how we can rethink energy and spark real change. These aren't doom and gloom conversations. From Arctic scientists to explorers and activists, every episode reminds us that optimism isn't wishful thinking, it's a strategy. And it's working in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. This is Planet Visionaries. Listen or watch on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you're listening to this podcast. This episode is brought to you by Pura. After the holidays are over and you start to settle back into your usual routine, you might find yourself just craving less less clutter, less noise, less work. Pura helps you reset your space with premium smart home fragrance diffusers that are completely customizable without requiring a complicated setup. Right now, you can get a free Pura home diffuser when you subscribe to $0.02 for 12 months, set schedules, adjust intensity, and come home to the calming effects of your favorite fragrance with just a few taps in the Pura app. Get your free diffuser while the offer lasts@pura.com. You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas and conversations to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. Almost every time I open a social media app, I see content about budgeting or how to control everyday spending. But in this talk, procurement expert Wolfgang Schnellbacher flips the script money habits and shares why. For him, everyday spending is actually one of the most powerful and overlooked skills we have in our toolbox. Drawing on lessons learned from elite corporate buyers and personal scenarios, he tells us three deceptively simple rules that can turn our routine purchases into smarter, more intentional decisions.
- [03:18]
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I've got two questions for each one of you. Question number one. How much money did you spend in your entire life so far? That already takes a bit to estimate, right? And question number two, did you spend your money wisely? If you hesitate now and are not so sure, it likely means you're not a good buyer, frankly, because you have not even defined for yourself what good buying truly is. And that sorry for the bitter truth, despite your buying things pretty much every day. And good buying can have such a massive effect on your entire life and through your lifetime, you will spend a fortune, if not several fortunes. Considering we're in Dubai, spending it more wisely will either make you have to spend less or for the same amount, make your life more luxurious, comfortable, sustainable, fun, or whatever else you want it to be. And the good news is, there are people you can learn it from. As a procurement leader in bcg, I work with them throughout the world. High tech companies, auto manufacturers, American big pharma, Middle Eastern oil companies. From Swiss clock manufacturers to Middle Eastern mass producers. They all have to buy a lot of things. Steel, spare parts, intellectual property rights, fruit. Just last week, I did a live auction for a Norwegian salmon farm for fish. My promise to you is if you learn from their combined knowledge of these professional procurement teams, you will be a good buyer for the rest of your life. And on top, it's easy. It only boils down to three rules these companies do. One, prioritize on what really matters. Now that sounds simple, doesn't it? The truth is, it's not. Because there's a few words missing. Prioritize on what really matters for a group together. In every company, in almost every household, there's a few players. And even for yourself, you're oftentimes not so sure how to prioritize healthy food versus cheaper prices. How about a more comfortable buying experience versus sustainable products? Do we pay extra just to make our neighbor jealous? You might laugh, but I'm from Germany and you might argue we built an entire auto industry purely on that feeling. Now, professional buyers, they actually read the corporate strategy. They align with business partners to find out what is it really that makes our company better. The superstar buyers go even further. They graphically pin down what are the priorities and then share with everybody for your life. Maybe at the start, it might look like this during education. Start of Your career, you don't have so much money and therefore you want to have fun. But you have some cost consciousness. A bit later you might found a family, get children, and you care a lot about quality of the food, of the toys, of the furniture, just to have it all right for them. Maybe a bit later. You care a lot about comfort. You just want to have an easy going lifestyle. Now the core thing is to be a good buyer. You don't have to follow a predefined set of rules. It's just for yourself and your loved ones. You need to have these priorities very clear. And now we are already at rule number. Influence your allies. Imagine the following situation. You're off to buy a new car. You arrive at the dealership and the first thing that happens is your kids climb into the car, they have dirty boots on, and they yell and tell you how much they love it. The colors, design, the design, everything. You're already a bit on your back foot, starting to negotiate. And the car dealer basically tells you that right now, cars with dirty seats are a bit rare. He can't do anything on the price. In that moment, your wife gives you a look like, please don't mess it up. I also want this car so much. You will very likely not not buy the car. You will for sure not buy it at a good price. In business, the good buyers say no. They have to align with their allies upfront. Who's going to say what in a negotiation, after negotiation, before a negotiation, only if these things are clear, they can ensure they really strike the best deals. The superstar buyers go even further. They have the ability to influence the stakeholders on what they really want. Let me tell you about the inverting method. I once had a workshop with a big railway company. We were supposed to reduce the cost of big steel tracks. And we had a group sitting there of rather old buyers, basically telling us everything is optimal. After 60 minutes, I was still in front of an empty flip chart, panicking a bit. My colleague, however, was very cool. He just turned around to the crowd and said, let's forget this exercise for a moment. What would you do in the following situation? You just get a new boss, he's younger than you and he's firing you. It's unfair. And the only thing you can do to strike back is in the next three months, when you're still in the company, increase the cost. Do you have any creative ideas to increase the cost without just raising prices? And now the idea is we're flying. We could buy two long tracks. We have to cut. We could buy too short. Tricks we have to weld together. We could buy too many and we have to put on stock. We could order too late, so we have to pay a fee. We could pay too early to not have interest rates. We could pay too late to pay a fine. All of a sudden the flip chart was full and my colleague turned around again. Are we sure we are really at the optimum in each one of these dimensions? And when you're buying a car, you can do the same with your family. What would we have to do to increase the price? We could buy it in the spring in an expensive city, only go to one dealer in a rather high class part of the town. We could state right away, we will only go to you to the dealer. We could tell them how much we love the car. We could not ask for a rebate. And once you've listed all these things and then turn it around, then you really come close to what's an optimum. To me, the inverting method is also a great reminder. Good buying can be fun and good buying can be creative. And now we are already at rule number negotiate from strong starting positions. People might think strong negotiations have something to do with strong arming somebody, with being mean, with being aggressive, almost yelling at people. The opposite is true. It starts way before and it has a lot to do with the alternatives you build. You need to align what are alternative suppliers, what are maybe alternative products, good buyers, Maybe even extend the usage of the existing solution just to ensure they're not under time pressure. The superstar buyers go even further. Sometimes they destroy alternatives just to make a point. Now that sounds a bit odd, doesn't it? But in this world, you learn best from extremes. And let me tell you an extreme historical example. In 1519, Hernando Cortes arrived in Veracruz, Mexico. He only had 500 soldiers in front of him, the vast Aztec empire. What he did is he gathered his people on the beach, made sure the Aztecs saw him, and then he dismantled and partly sunk his ships just to make a point. We will not go back now. What does this mean now for good buying? What does this mean for my life? I know a couple who was supposed to buy a house and they had two alternatives. Alternative one, they loved, but it was slightly too high. Alternative two, let's call it house number B. They didn't like as much, but they could afford it. Now the owner of house A, which they really liked, was playing them, putting them on the long bench, basically waiting for a better offer to come in from somebody else or from them. At one point the wife just made a notary appointment for House B, went back to house number one, to the owner, and basically said, this is our goodbye meeting. We sadly will not come back. Here's our approval of the notary appointment for House B. Thank you for all the discussions. Only then, when it became serious, the owner of house number one gave in. Only then they were able to strike through. There was no yelling needed, no bluffing. It was just a plain playing of the alternatives from a position of strength. Whatever you have spent in your life is gone. Whatever you will spend next. Think about these three rules and you will spend your money wisely. Thank you.
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That was Wolfgang Schnellbacher at TEDCG in Dubai in 2025. If you're curious about Ted's curation, find out more@ted.com curationguidelines and that's it for today. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. This talk was fact checked by the TED Research team and produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, O. Friedman, Brian Greene, Lucy Little and Tansika Songmar Nivong. This episode was mixed by Christopher Faizy Bogan. Additional support from Emma Tobner and Daniela Balarazo. I'm Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed. Thanks for listening.
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- [14:00]
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Hey, it's Adam Grant from ted's podcast Work Life, and this episode is brought to you by ServiceNow. AI is only as powerful as the platform it's built into. That's why it's no surprise that more than 85% of the Fortune 500 companies use the ServiceNow AI platform, while other platforms duct tape tools together. ServiceNow seamlessly unifies people, data workflows, and AI connecting every corner of your business. And with AI agents working together autonomously, anyone in any department can focus on the work that matters Most. Learn how ServiceNow puts AI to work for people@servicenow.com My dad taught me a.
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