I'm creating this thread to document the journey of a new business and to show others the process of going from A to Z. "A" being an idea. "Z" being traction or failure. We're giving ourselves a 3-month runway to prove this idea, after which we either fail or prosper.
The concept in short: Bringing factories and buyers together. Helping factories sell, and helping buyers optimize their supply chain so that they can be as competitive as possible.
In the past three years, I've brokered over 8-figures in international trade for mentors, friends, and a fair bit for myself. To date, I've taken no commission and plan to take no commission on the existing deals going forward. This is just something I was doing on the side.
However, I fully plan on creating new deals and taking commission on those.
Why?
1. There's a lot of money to be made.
The concept in short: Bringing factories and buyers together. Helping factories sell, and helping buyers optimize their supply chain so that they can be as competitive as possible.
In the past three years, I've brokered over 8-figures in international trade for mentors, friends, and a fair bit for myself. To date, I've taken no commission and plan to take no commission on the existing deals going forward. This is just something I was doing on the side.
However, I fully plan on creating new deals and taking commission on those.
Why?
1. There's a lot of money to be made.
- At let's say $10MM in sales, that's $300,000 in commission. Any serious importer is doing at least a million in purchases a year. If I get ten small importers, I can hit my goal of $10MM in sales.
- For my main business (other thread, hasn't been updated in awhile), I'm by far the best in my niche in Chicago, and wouldn't be surprised if I was top 5 in the U.S. Why am I so confident? Well, for starters, we're selling to competitors that have teams of sourcing agents. If I can outcompete the competition, and create enough margin to still supply the competition and make a profit, then I know I'm doing something right.
- I may not be the best in the world, but as long as I'm in the top 10 percent of importers, I have a skill that I can offer.
- Lastly, I've done this process plenty of times already and saved mentors and friends millions of dollars. I've never charged, so that will change the dynamic, but not by much. The value is there, just have to sell it right.
- Foreign factory reps are hired not based on sales skill, but English ability; top English speaking talent does not work for factories, leaving average talent to choose from. These are the individuals driving international trade. I may be bad at sales when compared to @458's team, but I'm nowhere near as bad as these reps.
- Now let's say you're a foreign factory. How do you sell? Alibaba. Bidding on random contracts. Or if you have the budget, then you dump a ton on a tradeshow where you need to have the best booth to stand out?
- To summarize: These factories don't know how to sell, and have offered me on countless occasions a commission to sell for them. It's time to take them up on their offer.
- Most importers have highly inefficient supply chains. They use Alibaba, find a supplier, and then pay a premium over time since they're limited in their skills. If they were able to find an optimal factory and lower their costs even 10%, or improve their quality by 10% for the same price, then they would be able to take a significantly different approach to their business. With the potential China tariffs, there's even more reason to care. We can lower costs, provide better quality, and diversify a buyer's supply chain - limiting potential trade risk. There's a lot of value to be had.
- On the other side, the foreign factories are really bad at selling. Even the top factories in the world have mediocre sales reps. They are filtered based on English ability, and rarely become cream of the crop salespeople. If we can provide the factories with native English salespeople, then we're already lightyears ahead of what's available in their hiring market.
- 3% is a small fee. It's enough to bake into regular operations and go unnoticed, but big enough for us to make money at scale.
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