Recently, I always receiving msg from worldwide buyers asking for a small help, here are the questions they always asked:

" how to ship their goods" :  they tell me the details of their goods, I try to find out the best way to ship it, and also asked the price from my forwarder.  when it ok, the buyer disappear.

"Could you help me to verify this company ****":  so I help them  to verify the company and company to them for the answer, there are certainly  some scammers during these verification, and then I help to find some other supplier and give them the website of the supplier. but when they got them,  just a tks to me and disappear.

others sent me a pic and asked me whether can find it.

I do have some stable buyers asked me to find products for them, and they paid  the fee to me.

But as for the above buyers, what can I do? always suppy free service to them?  or any other ways you can suggest?  

tks in advance.

 

 

If you want to offer a service and charge a fee for your services then you best outline that clearly upfront to any prospective customer.

If you offer to 'help' then it is not unreasonable that a customer may assume that you are 'helping' them out of the goodness of your own heart.

So state clearly what you charge, what you do, and what you are willing to offer for free. Then there can be no misunderstandings and no confusion, and following on from this, no disappointments.

Quoting from [Egernia]:

If you want to offer a service and charge a fee for your services then you best outline that clearly upfront to any prospective customer.

If you offer to 'help' then it is not unreasonable that a customer may assume that you are 'helping' them out of the goodness of your own heart.

So state clearly what you charge, what you do, and what you are willing to offer for free. Then there can be no misunderstandings and no confusion, and following on from this, no disappointments.

I think no one would like to supply free service. and I never state that I can supply free help.

but they always ask just like to ask a question, so it is ruther hard to ask for any fee.

I really don't know how to charge for this.

If you are using the words 'help' or 'friend' etc in your discussions with new customers then that may give them the impression that you are offering assistance out of the goodness of your heart.

If you want to run a business doing this sort of work then my advice is use formal business terms such as 'service' and 'customer' instead.

Also it might help to come up with a rough price list that you can attach to your initial email. That way people who contact you will be under no confusion as to what you are doing and they can then choose whether to seek your services or not!

Quoting from [Egernia]:

If you are using the words 'help' or 'friend' etc in your discussions with new customers then that may give them the impression that you are offering assistance out of the goodness of your heart.

If you want to run a business doing this sort of work then my advice is use formal business terms such as 'service' and 'customer' instead.

Also it might help to come up with a rough price list that you can attach to your initial email. That way people who contact you will be under no confusion as to what you are doing and they can then choose whether to seek your services or not!

Tks for your kind advise, it is great idea to have "service and customer" instead of "help and friends".

But what's your idea for such kind of inquiry as I stated above",   how to charge for them? it would be highly appreciated if you could give some suggestion.

maybe its just another  experience!

who knows what will happen?

just  pray !

Years ago, I happened to give the same "free advices".

I was used to think: "my business is different, but if they see that I'm real good also on other fields, then they'll trust me more and I'll get a good client."

But...

Whenever I gave the right information, they disappeared.

I even started thinking it happened because I lack something.

WRONG!!!


After the second time, I asked for an advice to a friend, a senior expert.

He taught me this golden rule.

"There's a lot of people who simply want to get free advices. That's all. So, avoid them."


He also told me that this could also heavily damage my business. He said:

"You have helped that person for free. He/she surely has other connections in business. In case someone will ask him/her for an advice, what do you think he/she'll tell them?

Go and ask to that person. He works for free! You'll lose a lot of new clients.

And in case that person is already your client?

He/she will think that was stupid to pay for your fee before! Also will start doubting about your capacities. Therefore you can even start to lose clients."

He was right and that scared me like hell!!!


Now, in case someone asks me for a small advice, I will require a symbolic fee.

€50-100. But sometimes more, it depends on the required "small advise".

Because:


They are a company.

They are not playing.

They have skilled staff.

They pay professionals (accountants, lawyer, consultants, agents and/or similar ones)

Their management gets paid (highly).

They have all the necessary experience to do their business well.

They have a sales/buying dept.


In they don't have even one of the above, it's better to leave the be.

So why not paying???


Do they give away products for free?

Do they get products for free?

NO!!!


So: "I'm giving you a service. You have to pay."

Else, get lost and bother me. Ever.



Sadly, nowadays more and more companies/professionals are trying to get new clients in any way. This is one of the most and worst common errors.


Because of that, too many persons are asking for free advices because they already have got them in the past or because someone have told them to do like that.

This is posing a serious threat for everybody's daily work.

I really hope that as many people as possible would be able to read this...

Recently, I always receiving msg from worldwide buyers asking for a small help, here are the questions they always asked:

" how to ship their goods" :  they tell me the details of their goods, I try to find out the best way to ship it, and also asked the price from my forwarder.  when it ok, the buyer disappear.

"Could you help me to verify this company ****":  so I help them  to verify the company and company to them for the answer, there are certainly  some scammers during these verification, and then I help to find some other supplier and give them the website of the supplier. but when they got them,  just a tks to me and disappear.

others sent me a pic and asked me whether can find it.

They get benifits from you , maybe someday they will place some orders to you, then you can get benifit from them.

They ask you how to ship their goods, just told them, and let them know that you are really expertise in this field.

If they ask you to verify some company, you don't need to really check, but you have to reply them: "Well, I regret to tell you that the company you wantted me to verify is not that good, their equipment is poor, and their production capacity is very limited, why not place orders to us, we are good supplier, and you surely will get benifit from our 25 years experience in this field!"

Try to imagine when the wonderful day when he place order. Miracle are created by ourselves.

I am always ready to answer any question that my customer ask, but they seldom ask me question on other field than our orders.

If you don't answer them, they can turn to others, and that may means you send a potential customer to others

Quoting from [enturbo5]:

Recently, I always receiving msg from worldwide buyers asking for a small help, here are the questions they always asked:

" how to ship their goods" :  they tell me the details of their goods, I try to find out the best way to ship it, and also asked the price from my forwarder.  when it ok, the buyer disappear.

"Could you help me to verify this company ****":  so I help them  to verify the company and company to them for the answer, there are certainly  some scammers during these verification, and then I help to find some other supplier and give them the website of the supplier. but when they got them,  just a tks to me and disappear.

others sent me a pic and asked me whether can find it.

They get benifits from you , maybe someday they will place some orders to you, then you can get benifit from them.

They ask you how to ship their goods, just told them, and let them know that you are really expertise in this field.

If they ask you to verify some company, you don't need to really check, but you have to reply them: "Well, I regret to tell you that the company you wantted me to verify is not that good, their equipment is poor, and their production capacity is very limited, why not place orders to us, we are good supplier, and you surely will get benifit from our 25 years experience in this field!"

Try to imagine when the wonderful day when he place order. Miracle are created by ourselves.

I am always ready to answer any question that my customer ask, but they seldom ask me question on other field than our orders.

 

but you have to reply them: "Well, I regret to tell you that the company you wantted me to verify is not that good, their equipment is poor, and their production capacity is very limited, why not place orders to us, we are good supplier, and you surely will get benifit from our 25 years experience in this field!"

It is not a bad idea, tks.

Quoting from [lucab]:

 

Yes, you are right, these people are so bad, as there are exact have companies that can help them, but they still want to trouble you,  such like asking shipping cost, they can ask the forwarder exactly.  Or some crazy ones that ask me for a target price of a products, when I found some similar price to him,  then he ask me “ how should I trust you?"    how would you feeling when he asking you this question after a long discussion and my work result finished.   If you don't trust me, why you still come to me.

There do have some people could make you crazy,  so, even there is some kind people like me could not bear it.

Yes, I do have my sales work, so people should also consider about this.  if you need any adivse from people, just post a topic on the forum, and you can get a lot of advise when they sometimes are free.