marketing, sales, b2b, negotiationI’m starting an online marketplace and I’m trying to gather local vendors to sell their services with me. However, this particular market/idea was “hurt” few years ago when two previous companies failed miserably with their promises. Now, the vendors are quite distrustful in working with “another new” marketplace. How can I change their mind?
That’s confounding. It sounds like there is no downside for the vendors.
I worked for a very successful “startup” where we often were going in to sell a software product after the biggest companies in the industry had sold them a non-functional product, often as part of a package. In that case, the utility was one all companies had to have, so they’d eventually come around, either with us or our direct competitor. In this case, it’s not a service that is critical to their businesses, but they have no up-front cost.
My best advice, based on the information given, is you’re going to have to fight for those first few vendors. Start a pilot program and get them on-board by any means necessary, even if it means some kind of “loss-leader”.*
Get the data to show your service works, get some testimonials, and you should be able to counter the core objection of past failures by other companies.
*In this sense, loss-leader might be actually having to offer the pilot vendor something if you fail. Many small businesses run on very narrow margins, so even a token sum might do the trick. Obviously, this would be a strategy of last resort.
From what you described, the first example that comes to mind is a food delivery app that aggregates vendors such as restaurants and fast food places.
While it seems they don’t have any downside to joining you, I can actually imagine a few. So if you haven’t considered these or can apply these to your market/idea as well, I would suggest that you do.
Have you expressed how many customers you might bring hourly/daily/weekly? As you are just starting out, you probably don’t have a user base established.
The restaurant/cafe/etc. has to account for kitchen staff, they might bring in extra people, but if nobody actually ordered through your app - it’s an expense to them.
Again, you brought in a lot of sales, they might not be able to serve everyone in time/quality, and that can hurt their brand image, result in bad reviews and similar.
If they have a stable customer base, they might be in comfort zone to join you. So start out with places that are struggling a bit, but you feel have potential. (remote location, small eating hall) Offer them to you cover advertisement costs. Do online ads, bring in flyers. Then when you have a successful case study built, go to the popular and busy vendors. (depends on your location it can be quick or take some time)
Now your best selling point is to offer them more revenue without needing to kick out customers of their chairs faster. That’s usually difficult for restaurants to do without expanding in space.
Don’t forget to mention the costs of them hiring a delivery person by themselves + the advertising costs, someone managing orders, etc.
I hope this advice helps, as I don’t know exact product/service you offer. But feel free to ask any additional help.
Well who has to put in the effort to put the item on your market place? (this is a question not a snark remark). I have never run a successful business but what I can tell you, if you want any participation most times you have to do it all your self. Other vendors, will only jump at your market place if they see it turning a profit for their compeiltitors.
Even then, most will try to show you the door early on. Happens to all of us.
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