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2025-07-21
When you first get into the import-export business, it's easy to misjudge people or overestimate potential clients. Whether it's a large buyer or a small one, as long as someone expresses interest in your product, it's natural to treat them as a potential customer. They may request quotations, ask for samples, or even schedule factory visits.
As salespeople—especially when we don't have many clients yet—we tend to assume that anyone with a purchasing inquiry is a real opportunity. But in reality, that’s not always the case.
Not every customer is the right customer for your company.
The products you offer, your pricing, your supplier's production capacity, and how cooperative they are—all determine what kind of customers your business can actually serve. This is where company background research comes into play. It helps you qualify leads and decide whether a prospect is worth further time and effort.
If a prospect proves to be promising, you can then invest more time gathering additional information to build a customer profile and tailor your value proposition more accurately.
What Should You Look for During Company Background Research?
1. Is the contact an individual or a company? What contact details are available?
Some prospects only leave a name. Start by Googling the name—see if LinkedIn or Facebook results show any connection to your industry. The simplest approach is to directly ask, “What’s your company name?”
If they provide an email address with a @gmail.com or @hotmail.com domain, search that email in Google, Facebook, or LinkedIn. If matching names and locations appear, you may have found their profile.
If it's a company email, the domain after "@" is usually the company's website. If you can't find anything at all, don't waste time—just ask them for the details.
2. What is this person's role? Are they the owner, purchaser, assistant buyer, or an engineer?
LinkedIn is great for this. Search by name or email and look for their job title and responsibilities.
3. When was the company founded? How many employees do they have? What’s their scale?
Search the company name on Google. Accurate results often appear on business listing sites (e.g., Crunchbase, ZoomInfo), which may provide different pieces of useful company data.
4. What type of company is it? Retailer? Distributor? End user?
Manufacturer – What materials do they process? What’s their final product? Which of your products might they need?
Distributor – What kinds of tools/products do they sell (adjust for your industry)? What standards? What materials?
Their selling points are often the same as yours—and you can use those insights when writing outreach emails.
Apart from the company website, Google Maps can be used to view the company's physical location and surroundings.
5. Have they imported products before? Who are their other suppliers?
Use trade data platforms to check. If no results show up, browse their LinkedIn connections and see if any of your competitors are connected to them.
6. Is the product they inquired about something they regularly sell or a new line they're exploring?
Check their website to see if the product is listed.
7. Do they have any custom requirements?
Review their website or Facebook page for packaging styles or customized product photos.
8. What quality level are they really looking for? Remember: price reflects quality.
Every customer claims they want “good quality,” but that term is vague. You need to determine what “good” really means for them.
Study the product details on their site or look at product images posted on social media. That will give you a better understanding of their quality expectations.
How to Search?
Most of the above can be done with effective use of search engines. If you're not confident with web searching, platforms offering global trade data can help streamline company background research.
Once you gather all the information, it's time to put it into practice. Best of luck with your client meetings—and may your negotiations go smoothly!
>> Use Tendata to Do Company Background Checks <<
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