A successful guide for factories and traders to get orders

The advantage of low price made in China is gradually lost. How will Chinese suppliers seek survival and development? How to formulate an effective promotion strategy? How to make the order profitable, where is the future development direction of export enterprises? Quality assurance The founder of the company Sofeast Ltd, Renaud Anjoran, shared his insights on how to get manufacturers and traders to get orders at the Shenzhen Station of the "Intelligent Future Export Series Forum".

Renaud Anjoran: My speech is divided into three parts: first, procurement how to avoid making mistakes in the early stages; second, how to retain good customers; and third, how to improve transparency in quality control and manage in the long run.

Your first impression on buyers is very important, There are three qualities you should try to show: you are precise, you pay great attention to details, and you can respond quickly. Try to present a better image to buyers. Here are some of the more common mistakes I have made here:

Mistakes to avoid in the initial stage of procurement

1. Many companies may use private mailboxes to send emails to customers. This practice is relatively common in China. In fact, this is not a very professional practice. If possible, try to use a company Email and customer emails.

Second, sometimes customers get relatively small information from you, such as company introduction, but you send large attachments to customers, such as 5 megabytes, 10 megabytes, after two Zhou sends them a large attachment, you should try to avoid doing that.

3. Sometimes it is not enough to just say $10 when quoting, it should include how the packaging is and what the payment terms are. , there should be a quotation format to provide customers with more detailed quotation information. Sometimes potential customers ask you "Can you do this? "You say 'I can do it, I can do it. "Sometimes buyers won't believe you, sometimes you might as well take a different attitude. If you can't do it, you might as well tell the buyer directly. Some suppliers specifically say that we will do our best, for example, some buyers ask if you can Ship by the end of September, and your answer is "I will try my best", so the buyer sounds like you have agreed, he thinks yes, but from the supplier's point of view saying "best effort", it may be done, but There is no guarantee, this will lead to some misunderstandings.

Fourth, there is a common phenomenon that some companies, for example, use a company name that is different from the name of the invoice when they are in contact with this customer, such as when they are in the exhibition. The company name used is different from the name of the company that sent the email and the company name on the invoice. Some buyers know that this is more common in China, and some buyers are more concerned, so you need to explain to them what is going on.

How small factories and traders can get orders

Now let me talk about what strategies different suppliers should adopt. It doesn't matter if your factories are relatively small, some buyers will look for smaller factories, but you It is not enough to have a lower price to win more business. It is very important that the manufacturer must show the buyer that they are very motivated to make the order. Although the factory is relatively small, the owner of the factory attaches great importance to this order and will Doing this order is a good strategy to win the confidence of buyers. If you are a relatively large factory, you can say which well-known companies you supply products for, they are all your customers, and you The company has a very good quality control system, how many senior engineers are there, how rich the product line is, and how to show potential buyers that it is safer to do business with you. A relatively long operating history, these are advantages that can be shown to buyers.

If you are a trading company, there is no problem, don't pretend to be a factory, some buyers are specifically looking for a trading company, why do buyers Looking for a trading company? Some buyers look for a trading company because they hope that the trading company will help them supervise the production process and be responsible for daily communication with the factory, because the buyer does not want to deal with the buyer directly, and hopes to have a special company to help follow up the order. It can also help them reduce risks and save them a lot of time. The second reason is that some buyers have relatively small orders. If they go directly to the factory, because the amount is relatively small, the factory may not accept them, so he hopes to pass a trade. Companies, trading companies can help them place some smaller orders.

How to retain high-quality old customers

The second part is about how to retain good customers, if you have good customers, it is very important The point is that you can't lose these customers, and you can't let these customers feel that you are cheating him. There are several ways to usually cause you to lose customers: 1. For example, after the customer places an order, they send you the deposit, but you tell the customer that you want to increase Second, the customer placed an order for you and shipped it, and then he placed a second order for you. At this time, you told him to increase the price by 20%, which is not good Yes, you should tell the customer as soon as possible, you can't wait until the end to tell him that you are going to increase the price. There is also a situation where the supplier tells the buyer at the last minute that we will not be able to deliver the goods next week. This method is not advisable, and the buyer should be informed as soon as possible that you may not be able to deliver on time.

There is also a big problem. Some customers have their own strict quality standards, but you can't meet their quality standards. This problem is a big problem. For many customers, if they receive a batch of If many defective products fail to meet the quality requirements, they will not be able to sell the product, and may not be able to sell it. The consequences will be serious. If you cannot meet his quality requirements, this is a relatively big problem. We want to avoid this from happening. You have to talk to the potential customer in advance. After talking, you will probably know whether his quality standard is relatively high or relatively low. This kind of quality standard is obvious. If you can't reach this customer If the quality requirements are relatively high, try to avoid doing business with such customers.

There is also a situation, like the factory will subcontract his order or change the parts, to tell the customer that these things happen every day in China, they may replace the parts required by the customer with cheaper parts, once it is found very bad.

We must have a long-term perspective. Some customers are really good customers. If you keep doing business with them for many years, it will bring you great economic benefits, such as three or five years in a row. , If the customer places an order for you for eight years, he will bring you a lot of profits. We call this long-term value the life cycle value of a customer. For example, you can still make some money from a customer's order, but there are some quality problems. You think about saving costs and don't rework him to solve this problem. In the short term, it seems to save money, but from It hurts you in the long run, and you may lose future business with your customers as a result. There are two ways to reduce the risk of losing your customers. You must set up a very professional and independent quality inspection department, let the quality inspectors check the quality, and then make a quality report. This quality report should be shared with customers, so that Clients know that you have good transparency in terms of quality.

This is a sample quality inspection report, with both Chinese and English versions. The quality inspector above will write down the quality inspection time, in which areas the targets have been achieved, and if there are any problems, they will be reflected in the report. This form looks very simple, but I don't see some factories doing it. You can make a bilingual version of the quality inspection report, and you can send such a report to customers every Monday, for example, to give them a regularly updated report. The second method, if you want to lose customers, as a manager, you should not stay in the office all the time, and take time to visit the workshop every day. It would be even better if there were the latest data on the workshop production on the wall of the workshop. The manager could observe many problems in time through inspection to see if everything was going well, which also made communication easier.