Distributor Sales Development
If you have a finished product the first natural place to sell would most likely be in your home market and maybe in neighbor countries.
If you are an American company then you probably do not need to use a distributor as your home market is so massive. The bigger the home market the lesser important selling international is. Longer term it is obviously important selling international.
If you live in a small country like Denmark then you should probably from an early phase have an international sales strategy.
If you are in Denmark you can probably sell direct to Nordic countries. But as soon as you are out of those you often need to work with distributors. The further away you get from your own legislation and culture the more important a good distributor becomes.
So how do you find a good distributor?
I would say that there are 2-3 efficient approaches
- Scope out competitor webpages and the like. Many of them will have listed their distributors. Speak to distributors. Learn what you can.
- Search out relevant conference, have a stand if you can or just go there and speak to people. If you have a good product and a stand you can probably just lean back and distributors will come to you
- Maybe find somebody with a big already existing network if you can tap into
Remember to be enthusiastic towards potential distributors but have a sound skepticism. The world is full of people with secondary agendas and remember to go after the easy business first.
If you need any help on distributor sales give call me or send me an email to see if I can help you out.