204: Build a List of Wholesale Buyers for Your New Invention

Collin Mitchell has been in the sales space for over 15 years, and his expertise is evidenced by his success in selling over 5,000 SKUs of product through the first of the many companies he has founded. He is currently a Managing Partner at Leadium, a full-service selling agency that helps companies scale up their sales efforts. Today, Collin will share valuable knowledge for inventors, startups, and small manufacturers on how to figure out what types of wholesale buyers there are, which ones are ideal for your particular product, and how to build and manage a list of these buyers so that you can grow your wholesale selling efforts quickly.

Here are the key takeaways from the episode:

• How to successfully sell directly to wholesale buyers by forming the ideal customer profile.
• Find the buyers who are best suited to your specific product.
• Rank your potential buyers from most important to least important.
• First, identify companies within your industry, then identify the specific contacts.
• There will be vast competition when trying to get the attention of these buyers.
• Go one step further by comprehensively researching your buyer so that you can position yourself above everyone else reaching out to these high-value buyers.
• The more information you find about your buyers, the better!
• Use multiple sets of databases to find this information.
• Your phone is one of the most powerful tools that you have to reach out.
• Before you pick up the phone to reach someone, be prepared.
• Don’t limit yourself to one channel in approaching product buyers.
• Reach out many times, be persistent!
• It typically takes 15 to 20 touchpoints before a buyer commits.
• Don’t take anything personally when forming a list of wholesale buyers for your new invention.
• A no should be looked at as a positive thing, as you are refining your list to put more effort into the best people that could potentially carry your product.
• As you start to get traction with some buyers, you can use that success to persuade others.

Collin Mitchell Links:

LinkedIn | Leadium

The Product Startup Podcast Links:

https://www.ProductStartup.com/

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Mako Design Links:

https://www.makodesign.com/

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Kevin Mako Links:

Instagram | LinkedIn | Quora | Facebook | Twitter

Producer: MAKO Design + Invent is the original firm providing world-class consumer product development services tailored to startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. Simply put, we are the leading one-stop-shop for developing your physical product from idea to store shelves, all in a high-quality, cost-effective, and timely manner. We operate as one powerhouse 30-person product design team spread across 4 offices to serve you (Austin, Miami, San Francisco, & Toronto). We have full-stack in-house industrial design, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, patent referral, prototyping, and manufacturing services. To assist our startup and inventor clients, in addition to above, we help with business strategy, product strategy, marketing, and sales/distribution for all consumer product categories.