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FAQs
Included below are questions received from a wide spectrum of clients, as well as potential clients. More questions and answers will be added from time to time
as and when received. To send your questions, just CLICK HERE .
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Question :
There are many companies out there are offering sourcing services for buyers. How do I compete?
Answer:
My advice - embrace the competition, it will only make you better. Competition
is healthy as it will make us work harder to keep our clients. We will give better quality work, offer better services, etc. This is a real business so treat it like one. Give it the respect it deserves and work
hard at it. This is how we improve ourselves over time. There has been a proliferation of agents and sourcing companies over the last decade. It seems that everyone can claim that they are able to source for just
about anything from anywhere. I beg to differ.
From my experience, sourcing work is not that easy if you do not work on it systematically. Just like a surgeon operating on a patient, you need to follow
certain procedures. Try taking shortcuts and chances are you will blow the whole deal apart. Yes, you must have patience. And this is where many of those agents and companies were lacking. Many died a natural death
as many of them hoped to make a quick buck. If you want to make money in global procurement consulting you must work systematically and you must have patience. Keep these in mind and treat your clients fairly and
professionally. You will soon make your mark in the minds of your clients.
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Question :
Why should I emphasize to potential clients my position as a consultant? Why not as an agent or broker?
Answer:
Ever since day one , I have always maintained my position as a consultant. I have
found over the years that the words "agent" and "broker" have been so overmanipulated by other people that just mentioning those words is enough to turn off many buyers and suppliers. By stating
your position as a consultant you will achieve two very important goals -
1- You are recommending suppliers based on your professional views. You are free to ask and scrutinize your suppliers until you are
satisfied that you can trust them enough to recommend them to your buyers. Do not make the mistake of accepting every supplier that comes your way. Remember that you can choose who you want to work with. Remember
that your reputation (or your company's reputation) is attached to every recommendation you make. So make sure your suppliers are up to the mark or your reputation will take a beating.
2- You are
differentiating yourself from the other "agents" and "brokers" who may only have very limited experience and contacts. You have to learn to be a professional in this field. You cannot expect to
be a true professional after reading just one book. You will need some training or at least a venue where you can share your experiences with like-minded people. This is what we are offering here - a place where you
can learn about best practices, exchange views and methods, update your knowledge and contacts, discover new opportunities, network with other consultants, etc. We have plans to include a few more platforms at this
site later on to accomodate the needs of our members.
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Question :
Do I really need a contact database?
Answer:
Yes, you do. For starters you can make use of Microsoft Outlook's address book as your contact database. You can also use Microsoft Outlook for sending and
receiving emails so you already have two main components there which integrate well with each other. I would recommend using Goldmine which I have been using for more than 5 years now. Just like Microsoft Outlook,
Goldmine's contact database is integrated with its email client plus there is an integrated sales/opportunity management module which keeps me on top of things most of the time. A contact database helps you keep
your contacts organized and makes the searching process faster. For example you enter the words "steel billet" in your search and within 15 seconds you will know how many of your suppliers do have steel
billets in their product range. It will just be a matter of narrowing down the list with a few well-placed inquiries. A contact database is a must have in this business. We maintain a global database to keep things
in check. We discuss with our buyers and suppliers on how to make things better for everyone in the process. We develop systems to ensure that our buyers and suppliers can benefit from our network of contacts.
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Question :
I have seen other companies offering other services (financing help,
logistics integration, order verification, etc). Do I have to offer those services also to attract more clients?
Answer:
It depends on how you want to do it. More services means more work for you to
do. You can easily lose your focus when you have too many things on your plate. By all means if you think you can handle it then go for it. I have been doing this consulting business for nearly 12 years. Yes, there
is a tendency to think that by offering more services then you will be getting more customers. It's a bit like casting a bigger net hoping that you will catch more fish.
We(my staff and I) have tried that
approach before but we found out that we were stretching ourselves thin and as a result of that our work quality suffered. There was also the question of taking on extra staff who were experienced in those areas. So
we scaled back and concentrated on our core competency. As consultants and professional finders, our work is already cut out. If clients ask us about the other services (financing help, logistics integration, order
verification, etc) we will just refer them to our business partners who specialize in those areas.
Over the years we have come across many of them and we have used some of their services before. We know a
few good ones with excellent reputations. We will just do a JV with them where if any of our clients asks for those services we will just send them to these business partners and take our "referral fee"
from there. This is another way of making money where you let the professionals do their job properly. We prefer to concentrate on what we know best - connecting our buyers with reliable suppliers - and that is
enough to keep us busy most of the time.
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Question :
What are your primary sources when it comes to looking for buyers?
Answer:
Trading or B2B portals are a good source for buyer requests but many more companies do not go online with their buyer
requests. Infact many buyer requests are only circulated internally and not made public. Through our contacts we(my staff and I) have managed to tap into many of these “hidden circles”.
Our existing buyer
database is also an important source . From time to time we keep in touch with our buyers and in many cases they come back to us with new buying requests for other products. We believe in building loyalty and
getting repeat business from our existing clients .
Many of our buyers are also manufacturers. They buy raw materials, process them and turn them into finished goods. And guess who they ask later to find
buyers for their finished goods?
We normally play a single role with our buyers but later on many of our buyers realized that we can do more than that - we can also sell their finished goods. We can
definitely do that - we already have a buyer database.
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Question :
Why would someone
want to hire a consulting firm - instead of doing the deal themselves?
Answer:
People buy from businesses and individuals that they already know and trust, and they are skeptical of people they don’t
know trying to sell them something. Especially in today’s “Age of Skepticism,” trust has become the most critical strategy in selling more to customers and retaining them for repeat sales.
From our
experience, lack of credibility and trust is the single largest reason most new businesses fail. When you go out and advertise your product to people, unless you are a particularly sneaky marketer, they know you are
trying to sell them on something, so they are predisposed to not trust you.
Overcoming this mistrust is a major hurdle for businesses. Big businesses solve this problem by throwing huge amounts of money at
advertising campaigns aimed at overwhelming you into buying.
How does a small or midsize business overcome this mistrust? The solution is simple: Sell quality products and services and build a loyal customer
base that trusts them and respects what they sell. But this takes time and there is also that question of getting a leg inside the door first before anything else . This is where we come in as we have already
developed a relationship with the buyers .
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Question :
Does the buyer always go for the lowest bid?
Answer:
Buyers are not always attracted to the lowest bid and we do not believe in cannibalizing margins just for the sake of getting a contract. Our
service is designed around intelligently connecting buyers with suppliers that have the best equipment, capacity and expertise for a job.
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