Now, we’re at the beginning and reason you are here. This is going to help save you a lot of time when dealing with any Supplier you come into contact with. Even, Brokers that claim they have a Supplier, you will be able to determine whether they are genuine or not.

The benefit will enable you to connect with a genuine Producer/Supplier or Manufacturer for you to do long-term business with.

We will go over some key points when sourcing Suppliers now.

Module 1 - Sourcing Suppliers

When it comes to sourcing Suppliers, there are some methods that I, and many have used over the years. The best way for you to practice, is to find Suppliers that are local to you.

Seems obvious I know, but when you can verify them very easily, and get used to meeting with them in person, you’ll start developing questions naturally for suppliers outside of your country and will expect similar answers.

We are going to run through the best methods now, together, to prepare you for Module 3 - Due Diligence. Start by loading up Google Maps.

Now, I’m going to show you an example.

I will show you the exact method I used to source a Supplier that I found 2-years ago, and the reason I found them, was for an American Broker trying to sell to Chinese Buyers. The Supplier only accepts 100% TT in advance and was supposed to have been agreed.

But probably not to your surprise, the end Buyer only wanted a Letter of Credit. So, the deal died there and then. However, I do have a genuine supplier for British Lobster and Brown Crab, so not too bad.

I’ll be honest, the TT advanced payment is an issue for most Buyers, because they want to deal directly with the Supplier, and you will come across this more times than you will like, believe me.

So, it’s important to either take the payment, and you take the responsibility and pay the Supplier, or you connect them, and get the Supplier to pay you a commission.

Regarding commissions: Please bear in mind, Suppliers won’t like paying you more than they make. For example, where there’s a product worth $500MT, and the volume is 270MT (10 containers roughly), it is common practise to add $30 - $50 per metric ton. Which will give you a commission $8,100 - $13,500 per month. Your aim is to get the Buyer locked into a 12-month contract.

This is a very nice monthly commission for your business. Then you can close another 1 or 2 to double or triple that commission.

For Grains, the volumes can be up to 50,000MT per month, now, adding $50 per metric ton and expecting the Supplier to pay out, just isn’t going to happen. I don’t know any Supplier willing to pay $2.5M in commissions when they often get a lot less. Adding $5 or $10 is acceptable in most cases.

Broker Chains

But now you need to be aware of Broker chains. Let’s say you have a Supplier, and you meet someone who has a Buyer, but turns out they know a person who is the mandate for the Buyer. There’s now 3 of you in the middle trying to get paid. I’m sure you have been in this exact situation where there are 3 or more people in the middle, how did it turn out?

I can say with 95% certainty, you didn’t close the deal because the price was too high. Then all communication stopped, and you never heard about it again.

Well, it is true that greed is killing deals. But what also may have happened, is you were cut out of the deal after playing your part connecting people, and you find out these friendly people were actually not your friends. Or the Buyer cut you all out once they got the Suppliers details. It’s a sad truth unfortunately and it happens every day!

So, the burning question I can hear you all asking is this, how do we stop it from happening?

"The Answer, Is Relationship Control"

It is your job to ensure you get paid for your work, and this job isn’t a hobby. Even charities get paid. Find a Supplier for each of the products you want to promote and sell and stick with it.

Don’t deviate from your mission, because you will get side tracked and lose focus. Try sticking to no more than 3 products and give them 100% of your attention.

When you find a Supplier, drop them an email or contact them through their website. If they don’t have a website, move on. If they do have a website, find their phone number and give them a call, discuss some potential orders you may have and then arrange a meeting at their office.

You have to establish a relationship. With my Serbian beef and fruit Suppliers, I can connect the Buyer directly to the Seller because I made the effort to go there and meet with them, and I have stayed in constant contact over the years, messaging a few times a week.

I know they will pay me, because they have, and will continue to do so. I was in Belgrade in May this year just to catch up for 2 days. You have to build a relationship, and you have to close deals with them.

Start small, sell their minimum requirements and push on from there.

Back to sourcing;

On Google, search the product you want followed by supplier or manufacturer, farm or scrap yard. You can scroll down the list, and you will notice some don’t have websites, for them, you can try to find them on social media, but if they don’t have a website in 2022, move on.

Look at the reviews for each company that has a website. 5 stars with 1 review is usually the owner's review. There should be a phone number for you to call. Click on the website, read everything about them and initiate contact.

I will search Lobster Supplier. Here’s the Lobster Pot. Originally, I sent them a generic email that I sent to 6 others If I remember rightly. Only 2 got back to me. This is one of them. I have spoken to the owner a couple times this year for updates on the current market, I never asked for prices, that’s important because what do friends do, they chat.

I haven’t up until now used his services. But he is genuine, and you are welcome to buy from him if you have a genuine Buyer that accepts TT 100% paid in advance.

Another thing I’d like to touch on, is asking Suppliers for prices every day. Nobody wants to work like this as there are factors that go into providing a quotation.

Suppliers need full order details including the quantity, shipping destination and specifications from the Buyer to name 3. Try to ensure after you get the price info, you ask them how often the price changes, how valid is the current price and what affects the change if any.

If you want to source products from China, avoid Alibaba, it’s a cesspit of scammers that aren’t verified. There is a better choice called Made in China. I have found it very useful when sourcing products. When I lived in China, I met with multiple suppliers and have some really amazing contacts from my time there.

So, I must stress the importance of meeting Suppliers face-to-face to give you the ability to sell with absolute certainty and confidence, when you know and understand the product as well as the Supplier, you will be in the driving seat.

Another way to source Suppliers is finding a directory online for your chosen products, and in the country, you are sourcing from. Search poultry directory Poland. You’ll be presented with a list of Suppliers you can contact, or copper directory Germany or even milk directory Serbia.

You will find lists online for what you need.

Lastly, another method you can use is finding the countries approved list. This is another sure-fire way to find suppliers. I’ll use China as an example again.

If you haven’t heard of ASQIQ, it’s the China certificate for approved producers and exporters. In order to import into China, they must have both certificates.

You can search the ASQIQ register if you can find it. This should take just a few minutes to find. For this, I will not be helping you. There are 6 categories you can search for company names. It doesn’t give the full details, so you will still have to do some digging.

You can find lists for every country that require producers to become certified.

We’ll go into more detail in Module 2, the Buyers section of this Bundle.

Review

1. Utilise Google to search Suppliers and Directories

2. Find 2 Suppliers in your country

3. Find the ASQIQ register and one other, can be from any country including your own.

If you find yourself in the position where you have an end Buyer, you are going to want to ensure they are genuinely able to buy firstly.

You’re going to have to perform some key searches and depending on how you construct the deal, there are some things you can do to determine the legitimacy of the Buyer.

Module 2.1 - Verifying Buyers

If you are going to take payments, you can ask for an MT-799 proof of funds for the amount of the contract. This is a SWIFT message bank to bank, and is one of the best way’s to ensure they’re genuine.

If you receive a copy via email, I can almost guarantee with certainty it is fake, and your bank manager will confirm this, because there are clever scammers that can fake these, so stay safe, be vigilant and treat everyone as suspicious.

Because you will have to play detective. So, think of this Broker Bundle as an investigative course, you’ll have to become a Sherlock Holmes with a nose for BS.

So, what else can you do?

If the Buyer is in the west, you can get a Dun & Bradstreet or Graydon report, you can get a 14-day trial, or pay monthly with their 2 paid services. They can provide credit reports for the company you are verifying. Can also be written off as an expense which is always a good thing.

Like with Suppliers, you should use Google maps to search the address, if they are looking to buy 50 containers of chicken, but the business address is a scrap yard in the desert, it’s not a good start, I’m sure you’d agree. Social media presence is also a simple method to use.

Are the people with significant control on LinkedIn, or Facebook? Do they have a profile picture that matches their posted pictures etc. Are the posted pictures or videos in the city the company is registered and so on.

Even the good ol’ fashioned way is the simplest. Get the Buyers details and issue a Sales Purchase Agreement and Commercial Invoice. Then they pay the deposit. But how often does that happen? Especially when everyone assumes Letters of Credits such as Standby Letter of Credit (SBLC) are safe. But that isn’t always the case.

Letters of Credit cost a fee to Issue, and it is indeed bank to bank, but there are scammers in Brazil for example that acquire genuine documents from well-known companies. BRF is one of the biggest well known poultry suppliers in the world, and scammers have obtained copies of shipping documents and contracts.

They accept an LC and they either monetise the LC gaining a percentage of it, or they can present the documents required to release the LC and the goods never arrive.

2.2 - Sourcing Buyers

There are many platforms you can use to source Buyers. But, you will rarely come a cross a genuine Buyer unless they contact you directly, you will more than likely come into contact with another Broker who has the Buyer.

To name a few, go4world, Tradewheel, GlobalSources, DHgate, IndiaMart and ECVV. Another site you can use, is TradeAtlas. You can search for importers for a large number of products. Membership is high, but you can use it for free with limited information, but all you need is a company name.

Business to business trade sites can be beneficial. I have met some really professional Brokers that I have been working with for 2-3-years. That’s what this business is, networking. Connect and build relationships. If they’re in the same country, you can arrange a meeting.

Visit trade shows in Europe or online!

Trade shows are amazing ways to network with potential Buyers. The majority of every European company that works with grains, pulses or oilseeds as food ingredients participates in food-related events, if not as an exhibitor they will be present as a visitor for networking.

You will find companies in different parts of the chain, including importers, processors, food brands and distributors. You will find the exhibitor lists of the trade fairs are a good starting point.

Find an upcoming trade show you are able to visit, get some business cards made and give them out. Connect with everyone and grow your network. You may have a solution to a problem they have and bingo, you’ve generated some business.

You’ll also walk away with many business cards and suppliers that are ready to increase their sales.

Google search, 10Times or TradeFairDates.

Use Member Lists of Trade Associations

Branch associations in the grains, pulses and oilseed industry fulfil an important function in sector-wide issues such as trade barriers, food safety and policymaking at national and European level.

As an exporter, these organisations rarely work in your interests, but their market information and member lists can be very helpful to understand the market and find potential buyers for your product.

They are especially helpful for traditional commodities; for special or niche ingredients you will have to depend more on alternative sources such as company databases.

For grains and oilseeds, you can check out national organisations in high-demand countries such as Germany, the Netherlands (trade) or Italy. For Pulses, you can look for buyers with national organisations in the United Kingdom or Spain.

Attract Buyers to Your Website

Web searches are very popular among Buyers, so be sure that your company can be found by using the most common search engines.

Normally, this is the first place where buyers will see whether you have a well-established company. If you do not appear in their web searches, they may assume you are a small exporter that is unable to fulfil their demand.

Remember that your website is your main online communication channel, which should fully reflect your business and commercial identity.

Things you can do to optimise your website:

• Provide a complete picture: Make sure your website provides a complete picture of your company, its identity, product information (such as technical data sheets), impressions of your production and processing, certifications, activities in social and sustainable practices.

  
  

• Update your website regularly: A website with up-to-date information ensures a well-working website, but also gives you a higher listing in search engines. Regular news items about your activities or market updates in grains, pulses or oilseeds can add attractive content to your online presentation.

  
  

• Use proper language: Websites should be written in good English, and if possible in the language of your target market or market(s).

  
  

• Use Search Engine Optimisation (SEO): SEO will help to get more traffic to your website. To do this, you can register for Google Webmaster Tools

Attract Buyers To Your Website

You can use trade databases to find potential buyers, but their directories are also useful to present your own products. Some trade directories charge for membership to publish your information or contact other traders. After you have registered, you can either join as a supplier or directly look for buyers. Be selective in the directories you are using and make sure you leave a professional impression. Posting randomly on many sites may look cheap and even desperate.

You can use a free trial to start with and then see if it is worth paying the annual fee.

Here are some interesting online trade organisations:

Organic Bio: International directory of organic food companies.

Green trade: A marketplace for suppliers and buyers of organic products.

Food1: International Business2Business (B2B) portal for food suppliers, including the grains industry.

Kompass: Global B2B multisector database.

Global buyers online: Search for the latest trade leads from buyers and importers from all over the world.

Europages: Directory of European companies. This is a professional portal that encourages business-to-business exchanges.

Lieberanten.de: A database in German to find importers, distributors and wholesalers in Germany.

You can join your local Chamber of Commerce, to help promote the export of your products.

LinkedIn is an interesting market place, because it is plagued with offers, and finding genuine Buyers is very difficult, again, you will mostly find traders and scammers. But it can also be a tool used to identify people. We’ll go through this in more detail shortly when we cover Due Diligence.

Remember, it’s important to master the product you are selling. You do not want to get sucked into trying to sell everything ever produced. Put all of your time and efforts into selling one product, or 3 maximum should be where you are at.

I made a video on my YouTube channel about this topic last week which elaborates on this further. Leave a comment and let me know your opinion on it.

Please like and subscribe for me content.

Review

1. Establish contact with your business bank account manager

2. Get some business cards made

3. Visit a trade show and network in person if possible

4. Explore different platforms and decide what works best for you

5. Sign up to your Countries Chamber of Commerce

In this module, we are going to learn what it takes to determine if someone is genuine or not. We will look at some examples of some real-world situations where a so-called Seller is claiming to be a very well-established company in Brazil.

I’ll give you some tips and tricks including the exact same sheet I use to differentiate real from fake.

Due Diligence

This is the fundamental tool a broker should have. It’s the responsibility of a Broker to verify the Buyer and Seller as soon as they receive the details from either Party. We will run through each step-in depth so that you aren’t caught out. Mistakes at this stage can cost your client millions, and your reputation goes down the toilet with it.

The form I am going to share with you, was given to me by someone who worked in banking industry for many years, and when he shared it with me, it changed my outlook completely. So, naturally I made it my own by adding and removing certain parts.

Straight away, I started cutting conversations with fake Buyers and Sellers very quickly and saved myself a lot of time and sparred myself from false hope.

At that time, I was dealing with South American chicken that was supposed to be China approved. Brazil and Argentina are hotspots for scammers. They get real documents from real employees and have no problem sharing them.

The domains match the real companies almost exactly, and the emails they use look legit. But as you should have guessed, they are not! In most countries, domains and emails end .com followed by the country abbreviation.

So, Brazil is: .com.br. Scammers use variations of this. For example: www.brf.br.com is a scam website. They will send you a PDF price list with links to fake websites that look correct.

They take millions of dollars monthly from Buyers, and Brokers that don’t do their homework are partly responsible. You will see offers for China approved chicken in time, if you haven’t already, I can tell you right now.

It is impossible to purchase chicken from Brazil for China.

When you contact someone like BRF or JBS, they tell you to contact their China office. They have their own long-term clients and import by themselves and charge a premium inside China.

So please, don’t fall for that one. Scam example is at the bottom of this Module.

Example

Now, the Due Diligence sheet, it's very simple to use, formatted perfectly.

Run through the whole sheet, so that every step becomes second nature.

Not only will you not risk your client’s money, but you will save yourself a lot of time by cutting out fake Sellers and Fake Buyers.

You don’t want to get sucked into their crap, because it can consume you, and you can easily believe people that have been telling lies for years.

Buyers can also be fake, meaning they can be another broker or scammer just phishing for documents.

We had it recently with an African “Broker” claimed to be the mandate and was direct to the Buyer.

He claimed they needed us to apply for a certain certificate in Benin to successfully import our sunflower oil.

They sent a screenshot of the contact details for the government website.

As you can see in the photo on the right, it’s .com.

Actually, they wanted us to pay them and give all official documents. They just wanted to scam others using our company to do so.

He had the audacity to call my partner an idiot because he caught him in the act. If only he applied himself correctly, and found a genuine Buyer, he could have made a lot of money every month.

There’s a reason I stress due diligence. Back in 2020, we moved into PPE like everyone at the time. On the 1st of January, China closed and so did my China visa agency. I sourced a manufacturer of face masks in Ukraine, to sell to China because during Chinese New Year, they didn’t have the PPE availability there during that time.

Then, we sourced a manufacturer in China for ventilators, KN95 face masks and Nitrile gloves. We were selling the masks to a Sheriff’s department in Indiana, USA. The first order closed for $84,000 and we were over the moon with delight. We had done it, we actually did some good business in a saturated market.

A few weeks later, my partner at the time was involved with some 3M 1860 mask deals. We didn’t know as much as I do now regarding Due Diligence, because if we did, we wouldn’t have been cut out of a deal.

This deal was huge. It was worth $10M each. The 2 US Brokers got paid, but we didn’t. We did all the work and naively connected everyone. It was an American charity which made it worse.

But look, I’ve moved on and now I have the control to ensure it never happens again. It wasn’t until well after this that we did some digging and found that the people involved had done the same thing before they did it to us.

So, lesson learned.

You have the Due Diligence template provided at the bottom of this final Module for you.

Quick Note:

Please ensure you use your face for profile pictures, and update them on the 1st of each month. Personally, I don’t like to work with anyone I cannot see. You won’t build trust working without a face.

In this day and age, its vital to know who you are working with. It gives the impression that you have something to hide if nobody can see your face.

Even more so when they don’t show up on Zoom Calls.

So, take 10 minutes to put a shirt on, with a grey or black background, get your picture taken and add to your profiles.

When you go through LinkedIn and WhatsApp, you’ll be contacted by other Brokers that want to offer you things. 9 times out of 10 they won’t have a profile picture.

They will waste your time almost every day. They won’t do video calls either. You’ll notice this more and more as your network grows bigger.

When searching for blacklists, you’ll usually search the company name followed by the words scam or fraud.

Review

1. Check domains and emails to ensure they match the real company

2. Use the Due Diligence template to check 2 Suppliers, or 1 Supplier you find on Google, and research one LOI you may have in your possession.

I want you to find a random supplier online, and I want you to research them with as much detail as possible.

Spending just 30 minutes will be enough.

I have also included 2 fake HSBC documents below.

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