How to Help Industrial Buyers and Win More Business

Industrial buyers want your help in making their job easier. It’s as simple as that. Don’t over think it.

How can you help them? Let’s take a look at the typical day of an industrial buyer to help identify areas where you can offer more support:

Identifying Viable Suppliers

Buyers spend a large portion of their time looking for you and not finding you. They have a good idea of the products and services they need, but can’t always tell if you are a good fit. How do you combat this? Simply, be where they are looking. You must proactively position yourself in the platforms your target audience uses. Word of mouth is not good enough to consistently grow your business.

Reviewing Product Specs

After engineering determines the functional requirements of a part, the procurement specialist is tasked with finding multiple options fulfilling on these needs. The more product data you can offer, the easier their decision making becomes. Be sure to offer all specs, charts, graphs, images, videos, and CAD files when appropriate) to aide them in choosing you.

Verifying Details

Despite your best efforts, there will always be more questions from the procurement team. It’s their responsibility to dot the I’s and cross the T’s. Provide clear directions to get to the proper resources at your business for all manner of inquiry. The faster you can help them get all questions answered, the less time and reason you provide for them to contact your competition.

Maintaining Existing Supplier Base

The procurement team is constantly reviewing the existing supply chain to identify deteriorating services or potential threats to “business as usual”. It is possible that an incumbent supplier can no longer maintain the delivery schedule or quality that is required. Provide a publicly available document that clearly explains how you can step right into their supply chain and begin to fulfill on their existing need. This can act as the “golden bolt” to solve their problem.

It’s all about having the right stuff, in the right place, at the right time. By providing the buyer with everything they need, you stand a better chance of winning the next opportunity.

For additional insight on what buyers want and need, download our eBook.