What value can you provide to your customers beyond low prices?

We always hear a lot of complaints from foreign trade peers and friends, this industry is simply TM can't do it, relying on low-price competition....

But at the same time, we often notice that there are still a few factories or trading companies in the industry, which can still rise against the market and maintain considerable profits in the general recession, where is the secret of their success?

We should clearly understand that in the current manufacturing environment, product homogenization is a common problem in most industries, and if we want to gain the recognition and favor of customers, we must return to the essence of business: creating value.

The value created by business is largely to meet customer needs or to meet customer needs at low cost and high efficiency, and it is very important for us foreign traders to understand this problem.

Who are our customers?

Of course, supermarkets, importers, big companies.... Well, you're right, but it's not enough!

The traditional foreign trade industry chain is B2B2 (B2B...) C, if you only focus on the B behind you, sorry, you may not be able to become a great salesperson.

The user mindset is a must-have way of thinking in the Internet age and all the eras before and after it, which means that you must look at your product from the perspective of your customer's customer, or even the customer's customer, that is, the end user (that is, the last C), and any product and improvement that meets or better meets the needs of the end user is value.

The more important logic is that when our products can better meet the needs of end users, we can maintain a stronger voice in front of customers.

And what about our direct customers?

那些大公司的Buyer，Products manager，Project manager，Category manager， 他们不是我们的客户吗？

Yes, of course, and meeting their needs is one of our priorities!

So, what are their needs?

To answer this question, we first need to have a general understanding of the customer's position in the company and the functions assigned to it. is also doing procurement, whether this person is a boss or a part-time worker, there will definitely be a difference in demand. The same is the title of Products manager, and in different companies, the work content and assessment indicators may vary greatly. The Chinese title is also procurement, and the power behind it can also be very different...

Only by understanding the position and function of these people in the company can we get into their inner world, find out their real needs and meet them.

So who else are our customers?

The answer to this is actually quite boring, it is the company that buys your product....

That's right, I'm talking about the company itself, not the company's Buyer or contact, when you take this company as the object of your service, you need to consider how the company is positioned in the market, what is their sales model, who are their customers? Are you facing a high-end, mid-range or low-end market?

Next, we need to think about how to develop products for this company, reduce costs, reduce logistics links, improve logistics efficiency, increase market competitiveness, and so on.

These questions are often not the needs of the Buyer you are directly facing. However, when you have done enough value delivery to the Buyer, when your product or the value-added services you provide are placed in front of the Buyer and further transmitted to the company's senior management or boss, it is obvious that it will increase the Buyer's favorability and voice in the entire company. You get the idea.

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Next, I will combine a few practical examples to make an interpretation of "value" in order to make my point more clear:

What kind of value do we want to create for our customers?

1. End Users

Consider the end-user's usage and usage scenarios when designing and developing products, and consider the user's preferences and convenience of purchase and transportation when designing packaging... Imagining ourselves as an end user and entering their actual use and purchase scenarios, exploring the pain points of customers in the process from cognition to purchase to use and disposal, and striving to solve them, is the value we need to create for end users.

Persistently do this work, unremittingly cultivate and accumulate their own user thinking and experience, after a certain accumulation, this is your valuable capital to do sales. Imagine when you talk about customer needs, when you talk about the original intention of our design change, and the reason for our packaging design, believe me, customers will definitely look at you differently.

Usually, every time I go to a foreign exhibition, I will reserve 2-3 days to visit the local retail store (we do building materials products, and the sales channels are mainly large building materials supermarkets), after arriving at the store, I usually chat with the store Sales who is in charge of our products, I will tell him that I am the manufacturer of this product, from China, usually in the case of not being very busy, they will be happy to chat with you, if there are some small gifts with Chinese characteristics it will be better.

These people face customers every day, dealing with customer questions and complaints, so they will have enough contact points for users' psychology, questions and follow-up complaints throughout the purchase process, and talking to them about the product's gains will definitely make your trip worthwhile, or even shocked.

In October this year, I received an inquiry from a Potential customer who had been in contact for 2 or 3 years, they wanted to develop a new product, I roughly evaluated, the product is actually not complicated, so I quickly replied and got a reply asking to confirm the packaging details, and then I made a creative design for the packaging of this product, and quickly made a first version with the existing materials, took pictures, made PPT, explained the advantages of this new packaging in detail, and then, the customer was very happy and did not hesitate to give an order for 10 large cabinets...

And this so-called creative packaging design, in fact, only solves a small problem that customers have to face after buying products in the building materials supermarket: how to more conveniently move the purchased products from the supermarket warehouse to their own cars, and this pain point is due to the complaints from customers I heard when chatting with the store brother before!

I'm pretty sure they're going to get a quote from at least 3 suppliers in the first quoting session, and when we provide the complete packaging design, they hardly talk to other suppliers because they know that the value we create for them is much greater for the end user than the other suppliers.

2. First point of contact

I'm using the term first contact here, because intuitively, this person is the link to your client's company, and that person could be the boss, product manager, purchasing, purchasing assistant, or other role of the company. Of course, there are times when we need to skip the first point of contact to find the decision-maker or key person, and this issue is not included in this discussion for the time being.

Generally speaking, this first contact person is a role with a certain purchasing authority, if the other company's company is not large, the first contact may have absolute decision-making authority, then his needs will be relatively simple: better products, lower prices, better payment terms, because these will become his interests or profits.

In this case, the first contact will usually have a higher level of understanding of the product, and their potential needs may also include: your understanding of industry trends, R&D capabilities, etc., and your degree of connection with industry leaders. Because these people are the owners or partners of the company, their needs are to improve the competitiveness of their company, which may not only be the quality and price of the product, but also may contain more far-reaching meanings.

So as sales, our value will be more reflected in the knowledge and understanding of the industry as a whole, where your industry experience and knowledge will add value to the products you sell, and they will usually pay a certain premium for these.

What if it's a buyer of a big company? His demand is often better products, lower prices, better payment methods...

These are the needs on the surface, in fact, their psychology is not like this, their real needs are often: you have to have peer sales experience (I also bought this product for the first time, where do I know so many technical details, fortunately, our competitors are looking for you to buy, I should not be wrong to buy). You have to have professional sales (I don't want to bother a lot, I still have a lot of products to purchase, it's best to forward the boss's email to you directly and you can help me reply). I want to have predictable benefits myself (the purpose of price reduction is never the goal, the purpose of price reduction is only to make a deal, and I am ready to buy a new car next year)...

Every company's situation is different, and everyone's needs are also very different, and at times like these, you often need to consciously pay attention to this information during the conversation.

For the first contact, fully understanding their needs, dispelling their concerns, meeting these needs in a targeted manner, and cooperating with them as much as possible to complete the procurement of this project are all value points that need to be considered by excellent sales.

3. Client company

Having a deep understanding of our client's company is also very important for our foreign trade sales work. Your follow-up will only be meaningful if you fully understand the customer, and not let the follow-up turn into harassment.

What we need to know includes: the market positioning of the customer company, the customer group, the sales method, the source of market competitiveness, the current procurement channels, the product transportation method, how the inventory is carried out, how the marketing is carried out.... And so on, the purpose of understanding these questions is twofold:

First: the deeper your understanding of the company, the more targeted your sales strategy will be, from the positioning of our products, design to price negotiation.

Second: find out the pain points or weaknesses in these links of the customer company, and propose solutions, this is a big move, done well, and the power is amazing.

Tell an old story

In May 2014, we received an inquiry from the American supermarket A, because our main battlefield is in Europe, we don't know much about the American market, but the scale of supermarket A is huge.

So in the next few days, I did some market research, provided some technical information, completed the first round of quotations, and successfully won the first round of supplier selection (about 20-in-5 elimination).

The main reason why we won this round is actually that I exaggerated our experience with B supermarket in the United States. (In fact, we have only had a few rounds of negotiations with B, but in fact, we have not made a deal in the end) here we also see one of the buyer's demand points: "peer sales experience." ”

In July of the same year, the customer's Buying Trip, (including Buyer/ Product Manager/International Purchasing Manager/ General Manager of China Purchasing, etc.) we made very adequate preparations: in the Presentation, we analyzed the products of their existing competitors and provided our competitors, including several categories of products that have already been purchased and two categories of products that have not yet been purchased. Unsurprisingly, Buying Trip was very successful and left a deep impression on them, completing the 5-in-2 process, but that was still not enough.

Because we have a very strong competitor, and the supermarket has been purchasing from a local importer, and the domestic supplier of this importer has an advantage over us in terms of scale and experience, so how do we win?

I had a few personal meetings with their buyer and made it clear that she supported us on a personal level, but the final decision on this order was not made by her alone, so if you want to win this order, you have to win by surprise. So, I shook my wit, I made a special trip to the United States, and collected a lot of first-hand information in the stores of Supermarket A and the stores of their competitors.

After coming back, we conducted a detailed study on the packaging and storage methods of the products with our technicians, sorted out the problems existing in the process of their current inventory goods, listed many unreasonable packaging designs and pallet designs, and gave our solutions and optimization solutions...

In September, a large-scale presentation was made in the purchasing office of the other party, and these long-term office veterans saw the mess of the existing supplier Mass.

In stark contrast, our impeccable solution, all the packaging is more suitable for their on-site stacking and storage, and the number of pallets stacked has been adjusted to fit their forklifts...

In the end, it should not be difficult to guess, we won the final victory, all of our previous Proposal product lines got orders, and we were the only supplier, and there were more than 100 large cabinets!

To sum up in one sentence

Whether it is foreign trade sales or domestic trade sales, there is no big difference in its core: if you provide convenience to customers, you create value for customers. The more value you create for your customers, the more competitive you add to yourself and your business.

Don't always attribute the problem to "the product price is not competitive", "the company's products have no advantage over peers", etc... You know, in addition to the company and products, value also comes from you more often.