Zach Selch walks through how to evaluate a distributor before signing a contract. Ask what products they sell and enjoy selling, map their sales team to your needs, and verify their financial stability and operational capacity through references and an office visit. Treat it like courtship: assess fit on both sides to avoid legal disputes later.
Chapters
So if we're essentially in a courtship with a distributor, we're trying to make ourselves more attractive to them, but we also need to understand if they're the right people for us. So what are we going to ask them? What are the questions we're going to ask them? And the first question I always ask a distributor is, What do they sell today? Because I want to know what they sell today, but I also want to hear them talk about it. I want to know, what do they like about what they sell? What, what do they enjoy about what they sell? Because that'll give me an idea. Some distributors have 1,000 products, but they're only really focused on 10 of them. And they— every distributor has a favorite product. So if I can get a feel by their talking, in the same way Think about it just like a blind date. You want to get a feel for a person. You ask them about their parents. You ask them about their school because you want to hear them talk. You want to hear what they say about what they enjoy out of life and so on. Same thing with a distributor. What do you sell? What do you sell today? And I want them to talk about it. I want to hear what makes them money because they might be really good at something with a totally different price point than what I sell. Maybe I sell a high-priced Maybe they focus on tenders, and I don't want to work on tenders. Maybe I sell something that's fast-moving, and they sell something with a very, very slow sales cycle, and that's what they enjoy. So I want to know that while I interview them. I'm going to ask them about their sales organization. Who would actually be selling my product? Who would fulfill the different roles within the sales process? Because there are different roles. I've already charted it out. I've profiled my preferred distributor according to the tasks they can do, what they know how to do. So if they don't have those people, are they going to be willing to hire them? Okay. If I need somebody who knows specific information, knows how to do specific elements of the sales process, has specific Contacts, and this distributor doesn't have those people, will they hire them? That's an important thing for me to know. If I need specific technical skills, will they hire those people? Okay. So I'm going to ask them things like that. I'm going to ask them about references. I'm going to ask them for financial stability, basic operational questions. I always like to see the office of a distributor before I close the deal. Right? Those type of things are very important to me because I want to know, again, that they're going to be able to fulfill their side of the contract. The fact that I have a signature on a piece of paper, I don't want to go to court 2 years from now. I want to make sure when I'm talking to them that they have what it takes to do what I need from them and according to our agreement, to fulfill their side of the sales process. Remember, when you're ready to grow your international sales, reach out to us. We can help. When you decide it's time to grow your international sales, call us.
