How strong is your export pitch
– are you getting buyers attention?
Buyers receive many business propositions every day. They don’t have time to study all of them carefully. Even worse, most probably your export pitch will never make it to reach the responsible manager in the company. So the key of success for your export pitch is to:
- to reach the right person within the company
- to get buyer attention within few seconds
- to have a personal feedback on your proposition within few days
How can you do that?
Summarise your unique selling points at the very beginning of your proposition. Make immediately clear why it is worth to have a closer look on your company. Design the first 3-4 pages of your export pitch as a complete presentation. The topics for the first pages should be:
- Who we are and what we do
- Why cooperate with us
- Our company at a glance
Why cooperate with you?
A good product is not enough
Develop your export pitch based on competitor analysis
A strong value proposition starts from knowing your competitors. Before you approach a prospect you should know their current suppliers, analyse their products and identify points where you feel yourself superior.
Important criteria are:
- product characteristics / product innovation
- product advisory
- flexibility in customization
- marketing tools
- lead times
- minimum order quantity
- price
Your competitive advantages & unique selling points
Identify the characteristics where you have a real advantage. Probably this is the hardest part for creating your value proposition. You need to be precise about your specific strengths!
Companies tend to make a huge list of generic statements hoping that one of the points could be the right one for the prospect.
Also very important: most probably not all of your products in your assortment are equally strong for the markets abroad. So, instead of presenting all your assortment, prioritise the products of specific interest for the specific market.
Compelling design
Invest in a decent design. Your export pitch should always be to the point, but a nice, professional design definitely helps to convince the buyers.
Identify the relevant contact person
Due to GDPR regulations before you send a mail to a prospect you should contact them and identify the relevant contact person within the company. Sending your proposal to the right person multiplies the outcome. Otherwise your mail probably will end in a waste basket.
Follow up call – call script
Having sent your export pitch don’t expect the buyers to respond. Make a follow up call after few days and try to talk to buyers directly. Especially in bigger companies to reach the category manager may require lot of calls. Don’t give up on that. Persistence for many companies is somehow a filter.
Use prospects feedback
A common mistake is considering only positive responses as success. The very first goal in export development is the feedback of prospects especially if the decide that they won’t cooperate with you. Talking to them they can provide within seconds important inside information and valuable input regarding your value proposition. Their feedback should be documented in a structured way and used within your company for evaluating and improving your proposition.
Optimize your export pitch dynamically.
