Once you know whom to sell to, find out how the company buys.
Are supplies bought nationally, regionally or both? One way to find
out is to get a copy of the company's annual report, which
usually provides substantial information about what and how the
corporation buys.
Another avenue is contacting the company directly. "If
companies want to do business with Sprint, they start by calling
the Supplier Diversity program, and based on their product,
commodity or service, they are referred to a supplier diversity
administrator," explains Terry Smelcer, manager of supplier
diversity at the telecommunications giant. The administrator will
make a determination about suitability by phone or, if necessary,
ask the entrepreneur to send more information.
Some companies use The Thomas Register of American
Manufacturers (Thomas Publishing Co.) to find suppliers. Being
listed in The Thomas Register could give your firm an edge
because the directory allows companies to search for suppliers by
name, product type or geographic location. While manufacturers,
wholesalers, distributors, exporters and importers must operate on
a national or global scale to be featured in TheThomas
Register, firms selling statewide or locally can be listed in
the Register's sister publication, the Regional
Industrial Buying Guide.
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While all this research may help put your company in front of
contractors--or at least get your name in a few databases--it might
not necessarily net you an order because of the sheer volume of
suppliers you are likely to be competing against. Sprint, for
instance, has 13,000 to 20,000 companies in its database. Of
course, smaller companies have a smaller pool of suppliers and
subcontractors, but it still takes a lot of work to get on the A
list.
So how do you stand out in a crowd and get the attention of
buyers and people who make the subcontracting decisions?
Dupont's Blue says one key is learning to succinctly describe
your company so that when buyers read your literature, they know
immediately what you do. "Come up with some key descriptive
words so that if it goes in our database and we do a key-word
search, we could find your description," he advises.
Persistence is also crucial. If the company doesn't buy your
product or doesn't need it when you first approach it,
contacting the buyer every three months or so will keep you in his
or her mind.
Perhaps most important is your attitude. "You've got to
be willing to invest a lot of time and be committed to the
process," says Gasper Mir, co-founder of Mir Fox &
Rodriguez, a Houston-based company that provides accounting, tax,
consulting, strategic planning and training services to government
and the private sector. "You have to communicate how committed
you are to promoting your community, developing your staff, and
providing opportunities to others."
In addition to his commitment to helping others, Mir is active
in the Houston business community and serves on the boards of
various private and nonprofit organizations. This brings him in
contact with Fortune 500 CEOs and gives them a chance to get to
know his personal capabilities, which may pique their interest in
hearing or seeing what he can do professionally.
Understanding and meeting a company's needs helped put Salt
Lake City-based Galapagos Software Inc. ahead of its competition.
Started in November 1995, the three-person firm has a
subcontracting agreement with Wave Systems Corp., a 30-employee
company in New York City that develops electronic commerce models
for firms such as Simon & Schuster and the William Morris
Agency. Galapagos is incorporating one of its software designs into
technology Wave Systems is creating.
"We approached Wave Systems because we knew they were going
to need a better way [for people] to find information,"
explains Galapagos' president, Scott McCarty. He was able to
secure the contract because he had a working relationship with
people at Wave Systems who knew his and vice president of
technology Shaili Jain's reputations as programmers. "Yes,
we knew these people, and that was a foot in the door, but that was
secondary," says McCarty. "The most important thing was
that we had a solution they really needed."
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