Would you like to find an FBA Prep & Fulfillment Center that offers you cheaper rates than your current one to reduce your costs? Or is your business growing so well that you want to hire a PPC manager who will manage your ad campaigns so you can focus on more important areas of your business? There are hundreds of reasons why you might want to contract a professional service provider to whom you can delegate some of your tasks.
However, these business relationships require a lot of trust, as you give the service provider a lot of responsibility. After all, a part of your success now depends on another company. Therefore, it is crucial that you choose the right business partner for your business and your situation. To help you with your decision, we will give you 5 tips on how to find the perfect service provider.
Set your Goals
Before you jump right into the search for any companies or freelancers, you must first define your goals. Think about what situation your business is in, how you would like your business to develop and what you need to do to achieve that.
Possible goals could be increasing sales, entering new markets or reducing costs. Write everything you would like to change about your business – short or long term – on a piece of paper. Once you are done, it is important that you prioritize your goals according to urgency, importance, and reachability.
When prioritizing, you should consider factors that could possibly complicate the achievement of your goal. The most common obstacle is the budget, but private factors that take up a lot of time, like family duties or health issues, can also hinder the accomplishment of your objectives.
If you’re not quite sure where and how to start, you can hire an Amazon FBA consultant who will help you assess and analyze your current business situation and advice you on how you can improve it.
Define What and Who can help you
Once you have written down and prioritized your goals, think carefully about who can help you achieve your goals and what you expect from that company or person.
Write down which requirements you have for your ideal service provider. Should it be a large company or a single person? Is it important to you in which country the service provider works? With fulfillment centers and warehouses, it’s obvious that their location is important – but would you also hire an Amazon product photographer who lives in another country and does not speak your native language?
You have to ask yourself these and more questions before you can actively search for a service provider. Create a profile of your ideal business partner. Then it’s easy for you to filter for service providers who can meet those requirements later on, which will save you a lot of time.
Research Research Research
Now comes the fun part: hunting for a service provider that can meet your needs. The first instinct is probably to search Google, but that will take forever and the results might not reflect the quality of the service provider. Many companies and freelancers do not have a proper web presence. Since the websites are not optimized for being found on search engines, it could be difficult (or impossible) to find a proper firm for your job.
Another way would be to ask in Facebook groups for recommendations. However, many users are the companies’ employees or involved in affiliate partnerships. Thus, they will probably recommend service providers who pay them a commission or their salary, and not those who they have great experiences with.
The best and most transparent way is to search on a global directory platform for Amazon FBA service providers like Sermondo. There you can filter by industry, geographic location, and user rating. This will give you a comprehensive overview of who works in which country, how and how well they work, and what services each service provider offers.
Determine Tasks and Milestones
As soon as you have found a service provider, you should immediately define specific tasks and milestones. That way, the service provider knows exactly what is expected of him and by when he has to fulfill which tasks. Plus, tracking the work progress is much easier this way.
When you define your goals together, you can use the S.M.A.R.T. technique. The letters stand for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. So instead of saying to your PPC manager, “I want you to improve my PPC campaigns”, define the goal according to these criteria. A version for this example could be “I want you to lower my ACoS by 25% within the next 12 weeks so that we can invest the saved costs in the promotion of another product”.
Be honest and transparent
One important thing you need to keep in mind is that you need to be absolutely honest. Only if you and the service provider communicate openly and honestly, you can work productively together towards your goal. Both parties have to communicate exactly what they expect from the business relationship. Miscommunication is THE main reason for failed or delayed projects.
Plus, free culture of communication can help your business a lot. Give the service provider the feeling that they can express criticism and suggestions for changes to the strategy without affecting the harmony of your business relationship. After all, he is the expert and likely has worked with other Amazon FBA sellers before. The service provider can, therefore, assess the overall situation of and chances for your business based on his experiences and provide you with valuable insights.
