Be An Exciting But Honest Potential Customer

4 tips on How to be an Exciting but Honest Potential Customer

In this blog post, I will share with you some tips on how to be an exciting but honest potential customer:

1. What I like to do when visiting the trade show, first I walk by, I pick up brochures, I sit down and I circle the suppliers that are worth talking to.  If you start talking to everybody, you’re going to end up wasting your time and theirs.  It’s better just to do a quick walk through, and then say “I want to spend 15 minutes with this factory's booth, I want to spend 30 minutes with that factory.”
2. You go back, and you sit down and say “I’m not going to ask you about price right off the bat.  Let me tell you why I think I can be a good customer for you.”  You explain that perhaps you can help them open a new market, or you can help them understand certain technologies that only you understand, or that you’re a good buyer, and you buy a certain amount of units every year, and you pay on time.
3. Don’t go in there saying “You want to do business with me because I can buy a million units,” unless you really can by a million units.  Because if you convince them to do business with you based on the premise that you’re going to order a million units and then you don’t, they’re going to feel slighted and try to either cut corners to make more money or find ways to get additional funds out of you.
4. Have a little elevator pitch, ideally a minute or less, not too complex, just to explain who you are. Think of what would the seller want to hear?  But be honest. What would excite them? You might say “We’ve been in business for 20 years. We’ve established relationship with the major retailers. We’re always bringing out new technology. We’re looking for a long-term manufacturing partner that we can grow together.”  You have to explain things a little bit upfront so that when you eventually ask “what’s your price,” they actually want your business, and they give you a good price.