Product Startup Podcast Episode 204: How to Find Wholesale Buyers for Your Product

00:00:00 Kevin Mako: Hello, product innovators. Today we learn how to find wholesale buyers to sell your new hardware product in large volume.

00:00:06 Kevin Mako: This is the Product Startup Podcast, a show to learn from top leaders in hardware product development,

00:00:12 Kevin Mako: prototyping, manufacturing, product selling, and everything in between. Hosted by Kevin Mako,

00:00:17 Kevin Mako: the leading expert on product development for hardware startups. Welcome back, everyone. Today I'm very

00:00:23 Kevin Mako: excited to introduce Collin Mitchell to the show. Collin has been in the sales space for over 15 years,

00:00:28 Kevin Mako: including selling over 5,000 SKUs of product through his first of many companies that he founded.

00:00:33 Kevin Mako: He is currently the Managing Partner at Leadium, a full-service selling agency for helping companies scale up their sales efforts.

00:00:39 Kevin Mako: Today, Collin will share some valuable knowledge for inventors, startups and small manufacturers on how to figure out what types of wholesale buyers there are,

00:00:46 Kevin Mako: 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.

00:00:54 Kevin Mako: Now, on to the episode.

00:00:56 Kevin Mako: This show is produced by Mako Design.

00:00:59 Kevin Mako: The original firm providing end-to-end consumer product development services tailored specifically to hardware startups, small manufacturers, and inventors.

00:01:08 Kevin Mako: Take your product from idea to store shelves at MakoDesign.com. Now on to the episode.

00:01:16 Kevin Mako: Hey, Collin, welcome to the show.

00:01:17 Collin Mitchell: Hey, Kevin. Thanks for having me. Glad to be here.

00:01:19 Kevin Mako: Well, we're really excited to have you on today to talk about selling direct to wholesalers, distributors or really anybody other, corporation or an individual body, somebody who sells in.

00:01:30 Kevin Mako: volume new hardware product innovations. This is one of arguably the largest sales channels,

00:01:36 Kevin Mako: especially for a new emerging hardware startup. I know there's a lot of buzz in and around selling direct to

00:01:42 Kevin Mako: consumer via Shopify on your website or via Amazon or Kickstarter and crowdfunding campaigns. And all that is a

00:01:47 Kevin Mako: great option that many hardware startups, of course, should at least at a minimum, take a look at.

00:01:52 Kevin Mako: But there is a much bigger market out there, and that's selling to people who sell on. And it sounds scary.

00:01:59 Kevin Mako: if you've never sold product before and you've never worked with the sales processes before,

00:02:04 Kevin Mako: it seems like a daunting venture. But Collin, you're here today to talk about how any hardware startup

00:02:09 Kevin Mako: with their new innovative invention, their new manufactured product, how they can start the process

00:02:15 Kevin Mako: of prospecting for these types of buyers, building your list and then moving it on and actually

00:02:19 Kevin Mako: selling products to those people. Before we get into all that exciting conversation for today,

00:02:25 Kevin Mako: Collin, just give us a bit of a background on your history of how you became a success story that you

00:02:29 Collin Mitchell: are today. Yeah, so I've been in sales for 16 years. In that time, I've had several

00:02:35 Collin Mitchell: companies, exited a few of those. And the first company that my wife and I started together

00:02:40 Collin Mitchell: selling technology products, we scaled that business from zero to five million in about 26 months

00:02:46 Collin Mitchell: with the sales team. And that was kind of the most relevant experience that I have probably to your

00:02:51 Collin Mitchell: audience is with selling products. And I think that part of it, which is probably relevant to your

00:02:57 Collin Mitchell: audience is being really specific on who we sold to and building a list of who we wanted to

00:03:03 Collin Mitchell: target and staying really true to that and not venturing out of that. That's so important in list

00:03:07 Kevin Mako: building. So let's dig into it. Let's start high level. What is the starting process? What do you need

00:03:13 Kevin Mako: to think about as a hardware startup going, I want to sell product to volume-based buyers? What's the first

00:03:19 Collin Mitchell: thing to start thinking about? Yeah. I mean, if you're looking for distributors, wholesalers,

00:03:24 Collin Mitchell: retailers, whatever the case is, you want to be as specific as possible. I think that often

00:03:31 Collin Mitchell: the biggest mistake that people make, the very beginning of your sales process is, who are we

00:03:37 Collin Mitchell: going to target? And we often call that your ideal customer profile. And maybe, depending on

00:03:43 Collin Mitchell: what it is that you sell, that list could be very small and super niche, or it could be quite

00:03:49 Collin Mitchell: large, right? There could be, you know, lots of distributors, lots of wholesalers that could potentially

00:03:54 Collin Mitchell: you know, sell your product, carry your product for their resellers. But you want to basically

00:04:00 Collin Mitchell: find the ones that are best suited and focus on them first. And don't deviate from that, right? And

00:04:06 Collin Mitchell: that could be maybe there's only a handful. Maybe there's only a dozen or two dozen. Or maybe there's

00:04:10 Collin Mitchell: hundreds, right? But the first thing is identify how many potential wholesalers is there that could

00:04:16 Collin Mitchell: carry your product. Build that list and build out your criteria of what that is. Maybe

00:04:22 Collin Mitchell: their geographical location, maybe the size of those companies, maybe the amount of revenue

00:04:27 Collin Mitchell: that they do or how many similar products like yours they carry or don't carry. Build out this

00:04:33 Collin Mitchell: criteria so that you can be very specific. And then you can rank those in order of which ones

00:04:39 Collin Mitchell: are maybe the best suited for you to target first and rank them all the way down to the bottom. And

00:04:44 Collin Mitchell: then at the end, kind of have the basic information of those companies, the revenue that they do,

00:04:49 Collin Mitchell: where they're located, types of products that they carry, and so on.

00:04:52 Collin Mitchell: on, then you can take it a step further, and you want to start to enrich it with the contacts,

00:04:57 Collin Mitchell: the people that you're going to need to reach out to. Those are probably the purchasing agents and

00:05:02 Collin Mitchell: stuff like that. Maybe if it's a smaller wholesaler, there may be only be a handful of those. If it's

00:05:06 Collin Mitchell: a larger wholesaler, it could be that there's certain buyers for certain commodities. And then that's

00:05:12 Collin Mitchell: where a lot of people stop. It's like, okay, I got the list of accounts. I've got the person that I need to

00:05:17 Collin Mitchell: reach out to. Now I can go reach out. And I want to tell you that don't be.

00:05:22 Collin Mitchell: like everybody else. Take it a step further. And what you can do is you can find out as much

00:05:28 Collin Mitchell: information. The beauty of technology today is data is very accessible. We've got social media.

00:05:34 Collin Mitchell: We've got people who write blogs. There's people on LinkedIn, maybe even TikTok, who knows.

00:05:40 Collin Mitchell: There's lots of information that you can find out about these people. And the more information that you

00:05:46 Collin Mitchell: find out about these people, the better. Because then you can reach out in a really personalized way.

00:05:51 Collin Mitchell: Maybe you can know what their favorite sports team is. Maybe you know that they have kids. Maybe you know what they

00:05:56 Collin Mitchell: enjoy doing on the weekend. And you can really customize regardless of what channel. You know,

00:06:02 Collin Mitchell: maybe you call them on the phone. Maybe you email them. Maybe you reach out to them on social or all of the

00:06:06 Collin Mitchell: above. The more information that you're armed with before you reach out to that person is going to make a huge

00:06:13 Collin Mitchell: difference and allow you to stand out. Because you got to remember, there's probably, I don't even know,

00:06:20 Collin Mitchell: maybe hundreds of people knocking on these people's doors constantly, trying to get their attention,

00:06:26 Collin Mitchell: trying to get them to carry their products. And you've got to think about how you're going to stand out.

00:06:30 Kevin Mako: That is such powerful advice. I appreciate how you broke it down from initial ideation through to getting

00:06:35 Kevin Mako: hyper-specific. I could tell you that does make a major difference. You and I, we get hit constantly.

00:06:41 Kevin Mako: How many hundreds of either emails or LinkedIn outreaches or whatever else? And very few actually put in the effort

00:06:50 Kevin Mako: to create a tailored message that's logical in that original engagement. And all it takes

00:06:56 Kevin Mako: is a little bit of customization or a little bit of understanding of who that person is, what they truly

00:07:02 Kevin Mako: need to set yourself above 95% of the other people reaching in. So it's a really easy way that

00:07:08 Kevin Mako: if you do your research, you set yourself above before you've even introduced the product to these people.

00:07:12 Kevin Mako: And why not take that edge and have that advantage as you go into the process? Now, break down a little bit

00:07:19 Kevin Mako: for everybody that's listening that's maybe never gone through this process before. What

00:07:23 Kevin Mako: tools and resources do you like to use in order to start figuring out this information? Where

00:07:29 Kevin Mako: do you find your data? And then how are you actually amalgamating that data onto a spreadsheet or

00:07:35 Collin Mitchell: whatever else? Yeah. You need a core database, something like a Zoom Info or an Apollo. There's less

00:07:42 Collin Mitchell: expensive ones like Lusha, LeadIQ or even a seamless AI. There's so many data tools.

00:07:49 Collin Mitchell: And I don't want to say that any one data tool is necessarily better than the other, because

00:07:54 Collin Mitchell: a lot of it depends on who you're targeting, right? What market you're trying to sell into,

00:07:58 Collin Mitchell: what type of data you're looking for. And so you need one core database. And I would even recommend

00:08:05 Collin Mitchell: two because having two data providers is better than having one, because there's going to be gaps

00:08:11 Collin Mitchell: and you'll get better coverage across the board of your entire total addressable market.

00:08:15 Collin Mitchell: Also, some data providers might have insights.

00:08:19 Collin Mitchell: that you can't get otherwise, like maybe technologies that they use, if they're hiring,

00:08:23 Collin Mitchell: just other insights about the company or even the prospect individually, maybe social handles.

00:08:28 Collin Mitchell: Another good reason to have multiple data providers is getting mobile data. The phone is probably

00:08:34 Collin Mitchell: one of the most powerful tools that you have, and I don't think that's going to change anytime soon.

00:08:39 Collin Mitchell: People getting spammed on social platforms and people having way more email in their inbox than they want.

00:08:44 Collin Mitchell: The phone still remains one of the most powerful ways to reach people and introduce your

00:08:49 Collin Mitchell: products. So being able to reach them directly on their direct aisle or their mobile

00:08:54 Collin Mitchell: rather than going through like a phone tree or calling the main business line, those are going to be

00:08:58 Collin Mitchell: a huge advantage for you when you're reaching out to these people. But the key is before you pick up

00:09:03 Collin Mitchell: that phone, make sure you're prepared, right? So all that research that I talked about,

00:09:06 Collin Mitchell: all that information that you might be thinking, well, I'm going to use it to write this well-crafted

00:09:10 Collin Mitchell: message. You're going to want to have that information accessible when you pick up the phone and call

00:09:14 Kevin Mako: them as well. Now, those are powerful databases and anybody can just go on and sign

00:09:19 Kevin Mako: up and I think it's a relatively nominal fee, especially as a small startup, to use many of these

00:09:24 Kevin Mako: databases. So it's an easy way to start your research. And through those databases, they have all

00:09:29 Kevin Mako: kinds of search criteria that you can look up. Keep in mind, you can also use what's public out there.

00:09:33 Kevin Mako: You can use LinkedIn, social media, Google to figure out who these people are, what they're doing.

00:09:39 Kevin Mako: Are they being written about in articles? Are they writing on blogs or other articles? Do they have a

00:09:44 Kevin Mako: podcast? All these sorts of things that you can really quickly start to learn who these people are,

00:09:48 Kevin Mako: especially for your high value individuals. Now, you already mentioned it earlier in the conversation,

00:09:54 Kevin Mako: rank your folks. So you're going to start building this list and then you're going to start

00:09:58 Kevin Mako: attributing a rank to it. So the more specific, the buyer to your particular type of product in the

00:10:03 Kevin Mako: geography or whatever else makes them a really, really good buyer. You want to put them at the

00:10:07 Kevin Mako: higher levels of the list. People here are less certain about, maybe more generalistic. You'll put lower

00:10:12 Kevin Mako: down the list. But up those high prospect ones, use your databases to find information and then use

00:10:17 Kevin Mako: the web to find even more information. And that's going to build a whole variety of things that you can

00:10:22 Kevin Mako: look at and spend the time and the effort to figure out who are those people. What do they want to

00:10:26 Kevin Mako: see how to your product? How does your product suit their needs, then gives you the ammo to do the

00:10:31 Collin Mitchell: research and go after them. Yeah. And I think the important thing is, is don't limit yourself to one channel,

00:10:37 Collin Mitchell: right? You might be more comfortable reaching them out to them on a platform like LinkedIn, if that's

00:10:42 Collin Mitchell: maybe a platform you're active on. You might be more comfortable picking up the phone and calling them

00:10:46 Collin Mitchell: if that's maybe something you've done in the past, or you might just think, well, email's probably

00:10:51 Collin Mitchell: the best route. You really don't know because you're better off reaching out to them on all of those channels

00:10:57 Collin Mitchell: and it has a lot less to do with you and it has more to do with them. Some buyers are going to be easier

00:11:03 Collin Mitchell: to reach on the phone based on their personality type or whether they pick up the phone or not.

00:11:08 Collin Mitchell: Some prefer email as a communication style. If there's somebody who's active on a platform like

00:11:12 Collin Mitchell: LinkedIn, that might be the best place to reach out to them. So you're better off reaching out to them

00:11:16 Collin Mitchell: across multi-channel and it'll be different from prospect to prospect where you get

00:11:21 Collin Mitchell: their attention and where they tend to respond to you. Yeah, it's worth the effort because keep in mind

00:11:25 Kevin Mako: that these folks could potentially, any one of them could potentially be a multi-million dollar buyer

00:11:30 Kevin Mako: over the course of the next few years. You've already done the hard work of designing, building,

00:11:36 Kevin Mako: innovating the product, getting it to production, getting production going. So if you're at that

00:11:40 Kevin Mako: level, then why not put a little bit of research, even if you've got a full-time job and this is this whole

00:11:46 Kevin Mako: product businesses on the side for you. It's not a full-time gig to do this research. You can

00:11:51 Kevin Mako: approach it on the weekends, but I would say do it consistently. Add to your list, continue to research.

00:11:56 Kevin Mako: I mean, look at this as a fun journey. You're filling in the puzzle pieces. Who out there in the

00:12:00 Kevin Mako: world could buy my product? And then when I identify who they are, how do I get at them? How do I prove to

00:12:06 Kevin Mako: them that my product is really something they're missing out on? Keep in mind that it's their job

00:12:11 Kevin Mako: to find new products that sell. That is why they are in the position.

00:12:16 Kevin Mako: that they're at, especially the more senior the buyer, the more experience they have with

00:12:20 Kevin Mako: identifying the next hot product and getting it into their particular distribution network

00:12:25 Kevin Mako: before their competitors do. So it's their job as well to find you. So you've got to realize that

00:12:30 Kevin Mako: this is a two-way street. You just need to figure out how to show them that your product best

00:12:35 Collin Mitchell: matches the need that they have or the gap that they're trying to fill. Exactly. Sometimes it's

00:12:40 Collin Mitchell: timing. The thing is don't reach out once and think, oh, they didn't respond. They don't want my

00:12:45 Collin Mitchell: products. You got to be persistent, you know, and there's a balance of being persistent and being

00:12:50 Collin Mitchell: annoying, right? You don't want to be annoying and follow up maybe too much or too often. So a little

00:12:56 Collin Mitchell: bit of space in between following up, you know, spreading it across multiple channels is really

00:13:02 Collin Mitchell: what's recommended. But don't give up, right? Because typically it's going to take the average is like

00:13:07 Collin Mitchell: 15 to 20 touches before somebody actually ends up responding to you. And most people give up

00:13:14 Collin Mitchell: before eight. So if you're persistent, you continue to follow up. Sometimes it has nothing to do

00:13:20 Collin Mitchell: with you, has nothing to do with your product. They could be out of the office. They could just be

00:13:24 Collin Mitchell: busy. They may be intended to respond to you, but had other priorities. So don't take it personal

00:13:29 Collin Mitchell: because rejection is a huge part of this. But don't give up too early because you know, you might miss your

00:13:35 Collin Mitchell: shot because you didn't just stick with it and continue to follow up. That's very powerful advice,

00:13:40 Kevin Mako: especially for people who are new to the whole concept of outbound sales, let alone for a hardware

00:13:45 Kevin Mako: product. Because one of the big fears is the fear of rejection. So if somebody's new to it,

00:13:51 Kevin Mako: they'll send that one email with hopes and dreams. They finally built up the courage. They're excited.

00:13:56 Kevin Mako: They draft the perfect email. They've done their research to draft that email. And the email's been sent

00:14:01 Kevin Mako: and then they sit there and wait. But the reality is you're reaching out to somebody who's busy.

00:14:05 Kevin Mako: And it's your job to continue to hit them on those different touch points on a variety of

00:14:10 Kevin Mako: channels to the point where they either say, yes, I'm interested, or you're bugging me and I'm

00:14:16 Kevin Mako: interested. That's okay. In fact, I would look at it so far as to say, don't be afraid if it isn't

00:14:22 Kevin Mako: the right fit because then it wasn't going to be a sale anyways. So no harm has been done. You've reached out

00:14:28 Kevin Mako: and even if you get to the point where you're either bugging them too much or it truly isn't a great

00:14:32 Kevin Mako: fit, no harm, no foul, because you're just doing the best of what you thought was presenting a great

00:14:37 Kevin Mako: product to them, for whatever reason it wasn't.

00:14:40 Kevin Mako: And you got a no answer. On the flip side, though, is by doing that process, especially over a large number of people, inevitably, you're going to hit that certain person or a variety of different people who it is the correct fit and who you did hit a number of times to the point where they actually got, you know, the right timing like you say, or the right approach within their business model or their buying cycle, which is really big, especially in hardware. You can finally get them at the right time and they make that order. Well, isn't it worth it to go through a bunch of nose to get that one yes?

00:15:10 Kevin Mako: All you really need in the hardware space is one big buyer, and that makes you a massive hardware startup.

00:15:16 Kevin Mako: So it's worth the effort to go through and not to worry about the rejection and don't even worry about it if it's

00:15:23 Kevin Mako: not the right fit for them as well. I think if you have that approach going into it where you realize you can only

00:15:28 Kevin Mako: gain from this, then it's going to overcome that hurdle of the fear of rejection or the fear of reaching out

00:15:34 Collin Mitchell: too many times or whatever else. Absolutely. And I think that you can even shift your mindset here a little bit

00:15:40 Collin Mitchell: that a no is a good thing. A no is a positive thing. I know is a win. And that might sound a little

00:15:46 Collin Mitchell: ridiculous. But part of reaching out to potential buyers for your product is refining your list

00:15:54 Collin Mitchell: to the people that are good candidates to carry your product. So that means if you have 100 people,

00:15:59 Collin Mitchell: each time you get a no, you're refining that list to a smaller, workable amount of people that could

00:16:06 Collin Mitchell: potentially carry your product. So, you know, it's better to get a no than no response that

00:16:10 Collin Mitchell: all because, you know, then you don't have to waste your time and you can spend more time and energy

00:16:15 Collin Mitchell: on the people that could be potential yeses and could be that next huge buyer that you're looking

00:16:20 Collin Mitchell: for. And the great thing is here is you don't need them all to say yes. You know, you just need a few of them

00:16:25 Collin Mitchell: to say yes. And that's a good place to start. And then, you know, once you have a few that have said yes,

00:16:30 Collin Mitchell: you can always leverage that to try to go get more later. Yeah, you can even go back to some of those

00:16:35 Kevin Mako: knows potentially, right? Say, hey, look, this and this has happened. We're in a different place now.

00:16:39 Collin Mitchell: potentially might this change your no to a maybe? Yeah, absolutely. In this space, you know,

00:16:44 Collin Mitchell: name dropping and references, I think is huge. So if, you know, somebody's now carrying your

00:16:49 Collin Mitchell: product, you can use that as leverage to get more people to carry your product. Absolutely. That's

00:16:53 Kevin Mako: a bit of the snowball effect, especially with hardware. That's how you see so many hardware companies when

00:16:56 Kevin Mako: they start to scale, it might be a hard grind in the beginning. But as you start to get some traction,

00:17:01 Kevin Mako: you get more traction, and that's how that hockey stick curve appears in the sales cycle, because

00:17:06 Kevin Mako: that interacting snowball effect of the sales cycle is starting to occur. The more effort you put

00:17:12 Kevin Mako: into it in the early phases, the more that will start to amplify and exponentially grow as the

00:17:17 Kevin Mako: results of that effort start to unravel. Before I let you go here, Collin, just talk a bit about

00:17:21 Collin Mitchell: what you're doing at Leadium. Yeah, so we help companies, any from early stage to larger organizations

00:17:28 Collin Mitchell: with their top of funnel. So outbound prospecting, inbound lead management, anything to do with

00:17:34 Collin Mitchell: helping them fill that top of their funnel. We help them with that and we do that with

00:17:39 Collin Mitchell: fully U.S.-based sales development talent. That's amazing. What website can they go to to learn

00:17:44 Collin Mitchell: more about it? Yeah, pretty simple. They can go to leadium.com or they love the podcast. They can check

00:17:50 Collin Mitchell: out sales transformation where we drop almost daily content. From there, you can pretty much find out

00:17:55 Kevin Mako: everything that we're doing at Leadium as well. Much appreciate. And as always, I will put those

00:17:58 Kevin Mako: links in the show notes below. So anyone who's listening on can just click the links below and check it out.

00:18:03 Kevin Mako: Collin, thanks again for all your words of wisdom on selling products to wholesale buyers.

00:18:08 Kevin Mako: Appreciate your time. Thanks for having me. Thanks. Take care.

00:18:11 Kevin Mako: Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Product Startup Podcast. If you found some value in the show,

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00:18:22 Kevin Mako: guest suggestions, or anything else, feel free to reach out to us anytime at our email,

00:18:27 Kevin Mako: podcast at MakoDesign.com. This show is hosted by Kevin Mako, North America's leading

00:18:33 Kevin Mako: expert on product development for hardware startups. And the podcast is produced by Mako Design,

00:18:39 Kevin Mako: the original firm providing end-to-end consumer product development services tailored

00:18:43 Kevin Mako: specifically to hardware startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. Take your product from

00:18:48 Kevin Mako: idea to store shelves at MakoDesign.com. That's M-A-K-O-Design.com. Thanks for joining and see you again soon.