A short list of companies who could actually carry you.
A list of two hundred distributors is not a result, it is a spreadsheet. What you need is a dozen companies who sell to your buyers, have the staff to support your product, and are not already tied to a competitor.
- Criteria
- Long list
- The cut
- Handover
Named companies, with reasons.
Part of distributor recruitment
The problem
The long list is easy. The cut is the work.
Anyone can scrape a directory. Knowing which of those companies would take your call, and which would be a waste of a year, takes judgement and local contact.
Too big to care
A large distributor will take the meeting, take your samples, and never place an order. You are a rounding error to them.
Too small to deliver
An enthusiastic small firm signs quickly, then cannot fund the stock or cover the territory they promised.
Already spoken for
They carry a competing line and will not say so on a first call. You find out three meetings in.
The honest part
From the outside, every one of them looks credible.
Websites are marketing. The things that decide whether a distributor can sell your product are not published anywhere.
- You cannot see which competing lines they already carry from their site
- Financial health and payment behaviour are local knowledge
- Whether they have technical staff or only a warehouse is not on the About page
- Reputation among buyers is the single best signal and the hardest to search for
What we do
We qualify on the things that decide the outcome.
Each company on the list gets checked against the same criteria, and you see the reasoning for every inclusion and every cut.
Fit with your buyers
Do they already sell to the customers you want. If not, they are starting from zero too.
Capability
Technical staff, stock, service, coverage. Whether they can support the product after the sale.
Conflict
Which competing lines they carry, and whether an exclusivity clause already blocks you.
Appetite
Are they actually looking for a new line this year, or protecting what they have.
How a round runs
You end with a list you could work through in a month.
We would rather hand you twelve companies worth meeting than a hundred names you will never call.
Criteria
We agree what a good distributor looks like for you, in writing, before we start scoring.
Long list
Everyone in the channel who could plausibly fit, from trade sources and our own contacts.
The cut
Each one checked against the criteria. Cuts are recorded with the reason.
Handover
The shortlist, the reasoning, and the named contact to approach at each company.
Two of the companies we had chased hardest were the two our own shortlist cut first. They carried a direct competitor under an exclusive.
Questions
Answered plainly.
Not covered here?
Ask it on the call. If the honest answer is that this module is not what you need, we will say so and point you at the one that is.
Book a callUsually somewhere between eight and twenty, depending on the market and how specialised your product is. If the honest answer is three, we will hand you three and say why.
Only as far as qualification needs. Full approaches happen in the first meetings module, once you have approved the list and the pitch.
We will qualify yours. That is often the quickest engagement: you have the names, and what you are missing is which of them are real.
No, and be careful with anyone who does. We commit to the work and the meetings. Whether a distributor signs depends on your price, your product, and their year.
Also in distributor recruitment
The rest of the work.
The first move
Who is worth meeting?
Send us the list you have, or the market you want. We will tell you what qualifying it properly would take.