how are you today I hope your day is going well if you're watching this video
I want you to sit back and relax because this is the fun video series of sizing
them up what we're gonna do is to ask very casual questions to quickly size up
your suppliers sales rep the supplier themselves and the trading companies so
you don't waste too much of time engaging with them and talking to them
and then later find out that they are not the good supplier
this is not like inventory planning training videos is so serious it's all
about cash this series is going to be fun so sit back and relax let's get started
okay let's begin by sizing up the supplier sales rep the sales rep on the
supplier side most likely it's going to be your one and only the single point of
connection between you and your supplier because nobody else within that company
is going to speak English to you the sales reps communication skill their
attention to detail their product knowledge it's going to make it easier
or more difficult for you as an entrepreneur you're starting out to
build the business to deal with a sloppy sales rep it is such a headache and in
the long term you know what they're gonna become your
indirect employee you have to manage them so right off the bat right after
you get the initial RFQ before you even officially qualify this supplier less
size up the sales rep and find out if it's just a good one let's ask her some
casual questions you can ask as many questions as you want to but you know we
don't want it to sound like we are you mesta gating so here are the first three
questions I would like you to ask the first question is I am so excited to
work with you how long you have worked for this company
the reason you wanted to ask this question is not because you care about
their employment stability you wanted to ask this question because you wanted to
know if they have any good product knowledge the longer they have been
working for the same company the more product knowledge they have if you give
them your competitors product image they can tell you whether they made it or not
they have seen a lot of different ways to try customized this product if you
have some ideas you ask your salesperson they can probably tell you what works
what doesn't so their degree of product knowledge is tied to the number of years
they haven't worked for this company the longer they have will work for the
same company the more knowledge they have accumulated over the years because
of this sometimes you can even overlook some of the areas
you're not that happy like their English skill is just not
that good it's broken English but so what if they have a such a deep
knowledge with the product they have a worked there for so many years they can
help you launch your product that is the most important result you want so what
is the threshold in terms of number of years we prefer the sales rep to have
worked for this company I think two years anything less than that she's
still learning so when I asked the sales rep how long you have worked for this
company if I hear oh I worked here for six months a year or even two years I
just feel like oh boy she's still learning I have to pay for the tuition I
have to babysit with her not good but if I hear someone worked there oh three
years or four years or five years I am excited because not only they have
the product knowledge the person who worked for a company for many years have
a certain degree of a power an authority that will make the negotiation faster
and make the communication much more efficient you got the point right so
from the very beginning how long you have worked for this company this is one
episode of assessing them up video series if you're not training with me I
encourage you to sign up so you can log in right now to watch the other episode
I got some tricky questions to size of the supplier and find out quickly if
they are trading company you're gonna spend thousands of dollars in your
sourcing I'm committed to give you the most practical knowledge so you can
learn a lifetime skill to build a business save money and be successful at
it anyway I wanted to thank you for
spending time with me today until next time I'll see you soon