How to sell like the Chinese manufacturers? What does your contact (potential buyer) need from you? When you are running a sales team, you need to help your consultants tune in. Fine,,, help them do what??? Well help them to help their contacts, build a relationship and build a win-win deal.
This post is a transcript of a sales meeting at Ellen Clothing Manufacturer with L. Lemaire (partner at ECM), Kim and Thuy (consultants at ECM).
A Long Term perspective is the Cornerstone to doing Business.
L. Lemaire: So Kim, Thuy, do you realize that there are regularly new contacts coming up with something along the lines of:
What’s your minimum order, i want a really small run of clothes. Then, later I will order large quantities as my business expands.
Kim – We read emails like this quite often.
Thuy – Yes me too.
L. Lemaire: And what do do from there?
Kim: Well, I build the best possible deal for them. That’s my job as a consultant, right?
A maximum of work for the salesperson for the minimum order:
L. Lemaire: That’s right Kim. It’s your job to calculate all the costs for your contacts. And then the contact asks you what the new price would be if adding one printed logo. Am I wrong on this one?
Kim: Completely true, legitimately encouraged by greed, the contact sometimes ask me to re-calculate the cost of making clothes several times. I go through re calculation based on a new quantity, a different fabric, a different number of colors and associated dying baths. Being good at Maths helps a lot!
L. Lemaire: That’s why we do our best to educate our public. We explain how to build a good order of custom made clothes, so that the contact can play around with the numbers almost by himself.
The consultant ends up working harder for smaller orders. At ECM we do it anyway because a smaller order is also a better order for new clients getting started in the clothing business.
How Chinese Manufacturers integrate the Long Term perspective in their Sales Pitch:
Well, you know I sometimes receive email from Chinese manufacturers (colleagues and competitors) and I noticed that they very often finish their copy with something along the lines of:
We hope to establish with you an everlasting business relationship which fruits will reproduce themselves forever. Funny, no?
It’s a bit like they have integrated a long term perspective in their business / sales pitch. One may challenge that a Kind Regards can do the same job.
What do you think about integrating a long term perspective to a sales pitch? It is possible that our Chinese friends have understood long ago that they are not only in the business of selling a private label clothing line.
They are also in the business of selling a lifestyle to a business manager. Ever lasting is almost the same than Life long. The supplier, in this case, is selling with the perspective of a life where everything goes well and client orders keep rolling.
Positive forward thinking is a key ingredient to managing a sales position. I believe our Chinese friends have made a great example of positive forward thinking.
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