Struggling to find a distributor.

Struggling to find a distributor.

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andy-xr

13,204 posts

203 months

Wednesday 25th February 2015
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Schermerhorn said:
Am I correct in approaching the CEO's or do I have to look further down the chain of command?
There's 2 schools of thought in approaching a prospect, top down or bottom up. It often depends on the company size, smaller companies will still have loads of offers daily, but the bosses will be the ones dealing with it. Larger companies, the CEO or MD wont be arsed what new possible product comes to them. You need Supplier Relations, Buyers, Finance and then C level if they have to autograph something interesting.

Disties can be picked up easy enough if what you've got represents an opportunity. Channels on the whole are lazy though, they'll sell what they know earns them regular money, so even if you go in with 800% markup, if it's cost plus 800 of £3/week, it's not interesting enough. They need to be dragged into something, then you'll get focus once they can see the money. By and large, a distie is a credit line and insurance if things go tits up with an end customer, and they tend to come into their own when you want to sell bigger and more often. You'll have to take this out to market initially to show sales focus, traction and have a decent plan to scale to show anyone who's already selling something along these lines how they can make money quickly and often

Schermerhorn

Original Poster:

4,342 posts

188 months

Thursday 26th February 2015
quotequote all
andy-xr said:
Schermerhorn said:
Am I correct in approaching the CEO's or do I have to look further down the chain of command?
There's 2 schools of thought in approaching a prospect, top down or bottom up. It often depends on the company size, smaller companies will still have loads of offers daily, but the bosses will be the ones dealing with it. Larger companies, the CEO or MD wont be arsed what new possible product comes to them. You need Supplier Relations, Buyers, Finance and then C level if they have to autograph something interesting.

Disties can be picked up easy enough if what you've got represents an opportunity. Channels on the whole are lazy though, they'll sell what they know earns them regular money, so even if you go in with 800% markup, if it's cost plus 800 of £3/week, it's not interesting enough. They need to be dragged into something, then you'll get focus once they can see the money. By and large, a distie is a credit line and insurance if things go tits up with an end customer, and they tend to come into their own when you want to sell bigger and more often. You'll have to take this out to market initially to show sales focus, traction and have a decent plan to scale to show anyone who's already selling something along these lines how they can make money quickly and often
Thanks. Great reply.

This week all I have done is focus on is chasing customers. I have 14 schools, a sports centre and some council leaders interested. Its only locally bases but we're also planning to sponsor some athletes too in the not too distance future which will givs us some more broader exposure.

Council Baby

19,741 posts

189 months

Thursday 26th February 2015
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Form a list of the stores you want to stock your products first, in order of priority, size, potential etc.

Track down the names of the appropriate buyers, assistant buyers, buying managers and directors via LinkedIn or similar.

Do your research on each one as much as possible via the Internet individually, you'll be surprised what you can find out.

Create a presentation gift box for each one, with your brand on it, contact name, phone number and email on the inside of the lid.

Put your best products in that box which are appropriate for each buyer, male/female, age related, size of you can guess it from pictures etc.

On top of the products create a high quality infographic which very clearly lays out your USPs and margins, more pictorial than wordy, it needs to grab their attention immediately.

Personalise each one as much as possible, then send them to them.

A week after you've sent them phone them to follow up and ask what they think if they haven't called you.


andy-xr

13,204 posts

203 months

Friday 27th February 2015
quotequote all
Schermerhorn said:
Thanks. Great reply.

This week all I have done is focus on is chasing customers. I have 14 schools, a sports centre and some council leaders interested. Its only locally bases but we're also planning to sponsor some athletes too in the not too distance future which will givs us some more broader exposure.
Ace stuff

What you might want to look at in Education is buying consortiums across the LEA, they all piss in the same pot which is hidden in the County Council, so getting into one can then make getting into others easier. I guess you've found some of that out if you've got 14 prospects, somewhere within all that there'll be a central bunch of people that will make a collective buy easier. How you deliver from that in terms of timescales might get tricky if you're a single source supplier, but you should be able to get a rollout plan together with your supplier.

Have you had a sample/collection done from your supplier yet? I only ask as a friend tried something with a factory somewhere out in South America, they were cheap as anything, but their lead time was 6 weeks on basic things. They'd said a fortnight, and it was all a bit manana. It might be that you need to look at delivery times for what you've got planned and see whether that fits in with what your potential customers are thinking, just so there's no Gotchas later down the line.




Edited by andy-xr on Friday 27th February 08:01

TheJimi

24,860 posts

242 months

Friday 27th February 2015
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Small fry, but find out who the major go-to online forum & community is for the sports your stuff relates to.

Follow Council Baby's instructions, but tailor them for an online / forum environment. Look what GSF, Adrian Flux et al are doing with the stickies at the top of General Gassing on here - aim for a similar setup.



Edited by TheJimi on Friday 27th February 15:47

Schermerhorn

Original Poster:

4,342 posts

188 months

Friday 27th February 2015
quotequote all
All awesome stuff guys. Please keep it coming. You can never learn enough.