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com
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Supplier Approval Conversation Guide - Outside the US 

If you are drop shipping outside of the US there is a pretty good chance 
that you are going to contact suppliers. Suppliers who have never drop 
shipped before and who may never have even heard of drop shipping. 

Don’t stress! It’s definitely possible to sign these suppliers up. Build your 
conversation off the guide below. This will give you a good shot at gaining 
approval from these suppliers. 

Remember, no matter how good you are at this stuff there are always 
going to be suppliers who say no. Even those that do drop ship sometimes 
say no! It’s not personal, review the conversation. If there are areas that 
you can improve then learn the lesson and move to the next supplier. 

Here are some quick tips to get you started; 

● Turn this guide into your own words. You need to sound confident 
and natural (even though you will be nervous!). These are my words 
and may not suit your personal style. 
● Try writing what you are going to say by hand first. This is an old trick 
of public speakers, writing by hand forms connections in your brain 
that will help you recall something later much easier. This will help 
you move through the conversation more naturally. No keyboards! 
● Have a think about what questions you might be asked and how you 
will respond, prepare your answers ahead of time. 
● Remember that you are starting a relationship here, don’t feel 
pressured to get to yes on the first conversation. Some people like to 
 think about it before saying yes, give them that space. Think of it like 
dating, you don’t www.getwsodo.com
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say yes to a marriage proposal on the first date! 
● Suppliers want you to call them. They want to sell more and they 
want to do more business. You aren’t asking them for a favour, you 
are proposing a mutually beneficial opportunity to them that they 
would be nuts to pass up. Act like it. 
● Get to the point quickly and ask for what you want upfront. Many 
people are busy, if you waffle you will lose their interest and respect. 
● Don’t pretend to be something that you aren’t, you will get found out. 
In smaller countries many suppliers know each other and talk 
regularly. If you caught out lying by one they will often tell the others. 
If that happens you’re finished in the niche. 
● Make sure that they understand that you aren’t seeking credit terms, 
this will make it much easier for them to say yes as there is much 
less risk for them. 
● If someone says no, ask them why. Don’t take no for an answer. Be 
respectful and they will usually tell you. Often the reason that they 
are saying no is due to a misunderstanding that you can clear up and 
move on to approval but you won’t know unless you ask. 

Supplier Script When Calling Suppliers Who Don’t Yet Drop Ship 

Here is what I say when calling suppliers who don’t yet drop ship, I do this 
in Australia but it will work anywhere. This assumes that I am already 
talking to the right person at the business and not the receptionist. 

Hi, 

It’s Jon Warren calling from Power Pro, how are you? 

Great! We are an online retailer of power generation products. We’ve seen 

and love your products and we’d like to have a chat about becoming a 
retailer for them. 
Stop here and let them respond. Pausing is a great tactic as it makes them 
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be involved in the conversion which will go better if the are involved. At 
this point they may raise an objection, deal with it. If they are interested 
(most will be) move on. 

Ok, so you can view our website at www.powerpro.com.au. If you are in 
front of your computer feel free to have a quick look while we are chatting. 

As I said earlier we are an online only retailer and we operate on a direct to 
customer basis. This means that we build and maintain our website. We 
market your products and handle all customer service. When we make a 
sale we will then place an order with you for those products, we will pay for 
everything upfront and then the products will ship from your warehouse 
directly to our customer. 

Pause once again here. If they have heard of the model they will say so 
and you can discuss further if they want to. They may have questions or 
concerns. Address them as best you can. If they want you to do the 
shipping agree to it. Notice that I don’t say drop shipping, many suppliers 
aren’t familiar with the term outside of the US or some think it’s a negative 
term. It’s also clear that we are paying upfront. If they are still interested 
move on. 

We will be making our grand opening on the (insert date). We’d love to 
have your products there to take advantage of our first sales. It’s really easy 
for us to get started. All we need from you is your wholesale price list, 
product images, and any other product information you can provide 
(measurements, etc). How soon do you think you could get that to me? 

You’re in the home stretch here. They will either approve you at this point 
or you will get the feeling that they want to talk about it some more. If they 
aren’t saying yes or no finish up like this. 

Look, why don’t you have a think about it for a few days. I’m going to call 
you back on (insert day) once you’ve had a chance to think about it. In the 
meantime, I will send you an email to confirm what we’ve spoken about. I’ll 
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also give you my contact details in that email. Feel free to reach out if you 
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have any questions before we speak again. 

Done. 

Questions and Objections 

You may get a range of questions or objections throughout the 

conversation. This will give you feedback on what they are after. Here’s a 
rundown of some of the common ones and what you can say in response. 

Q. I can see that you’ve got products on your site already what’s the 
story there? 

1. Yes, we’ve loaded some test products onto our site so that you can 
see how your products will be displayed and your brand represented 
on our site. We want you to have confidence that we are going to do 
a great job selling your products. 

Q. How are you going to market the products? 

1. Over the coming months, we will drive and increasing amount of 
both paid and organic traffic and sales to our site. We will do this 
using Google Shopping, Google Text Ads, Bing Shopping, and 
advertising on (insert select social media channels). We will retarget 
this traffic to maximise conversions using Google Dynamic 
Remarketing Ads and Facebook Retargeting Ads. While our visitors 
are onsite we will be capturing their email addresses to build a list 
that we will progressively use for direct marketing. We also have a 
solid SEO plan to increase organic traffic over the next 6 months.  
Q. We need an upfront order of $X amount, how does that work for 
you?   www.getwsodo.com
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1. I can understand that you have a requirement for retailers who hold 
stock and might be on credit terms. This is a new business model 
that we are working on and making large upfront orders just doesn’t 
fit this new model. What we will be doing though, unlike other 
retailers, is make daily orders and payments. This will be great for 
your cash flow and you will find that we actually order more than that 
minimum over our first month. 

Q. This sounds like it will add extra time and cost for our admin 
people or warehouse people, I don’t like that. 

1. True, how about we do one of two things or both. To make up for 

that additional cost to you we would be happy to either arrange the 
shipping ourselves or pay a small charge on top of each order to 
cover the extra cost to you. Say 1%? 

Q. What’s in it for me? 

1.This is a great opportunity for both of us. We will be able to; 

● Take your products to new customers 
● Provide you with reliable, daily sales and cash flow 
● Increase the market share of your products 
● Give you an avenue to move excess or discontinued stock. Unlike 
your brick and mortar store customers we don’t need to get stock in 
to help you move it. All you need to do is give us a special price and 
we can make an instant sale to help move those products. This can 
be great if you are overstocked. 
● We will pay for everything up front. That means that you are never 
going to have to chase us for payment or worry that we will go belly 
 up before we’ve paid our account. We will be your most reliable 
customer.  www.getwsodo.com
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