3 Ways to Grow Your Supplier Relationship With Strouse

“If you wanna be my supplier, you gotta get with my precision converting process.” — Not The Spice Girls.

As a supplier, you’re constantly seeking opportunities for beneficial company partnerships. Yet, you might wonder what’s the best way to get your foot in the door.

Having bought flexible materials for over three decades, Strouse has worked alongside our fair share of suppliers. If you’re hoping to establish or grow your relationship with Strouse, we’re ready to help. This article will help you understand what we value in a supplier. It will also provide tips on what to bring to first meetings and how you can add value to converter partnerships. 

How To Grow Your Supplier Relationship

As a supplier, you’ve likely run the gauntlet of promoting your materials to other converting companies. However, these factors will make an outstanding supplier stand out amidst a sea of marketing emails. 

1. SEND PRODUCT SAMPLES

Imagine going to buy a car, but when you ask to drive it, the salesperson shakes their head. Material and adhesive speccing is often a trial-and-error-filled process, so converters want to understand how your products physically operate before selecting them. 

Hear me out: converting companies are full of engineers who would love to try and consider your product for future applications. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen our PDE team swap out the materials they have on hand to see if one of them functions in a particular product. 

Having a roll of your material on hand can make all the difference when prototyping parts for customer designs. 

Note: A typical material sample roll is around 6in x 50ft. If that’s not available, A4 sheets (~8 ¼ x 11 ½ in sheets) will suffice. However, a sample roll would be best for a project run on press. 

2. PROVIDE INFORMATION ABOUT THE MATERIAL

Material specifications allow us to quickly deduce whether your material might function in a particular application or serve as an adequate substitute.

Resources such as a database or catalog of datasheets can accelerate and improve the decision-making process and the rate at which a converter purchases materials. We might not know everything you have to offer, but if you tell us, we can add it to our database for reference. 

• Product offering information
  • • Core Products (where you are most competitive/successful)
      • • Any guides or curriculum about your materials 
        • Any information on “why” these are most competitive/successful
        • Telling us how the properties and pricing of your products compare to other similar materials
    • Full product line
      • • Digital literature, preferably catalog-style, is an excellent addition to our database
          
          

2.5 OFFER MATERIAL COMPARISONS

Customers often approach us because they’re already speccing in a material that isn’t working. Alternatively, they’ll tell us what they want, but we’ll also check if there are less expensive or more effective alternatives. 

Listing material comparisons will assist customers during their selection process and help your material appeal based on its similarity to familiar materials. 

3. FACILITATE GOOD COMMUNICATION

Have you ever had to send an awkward third follow-up email to someone’s boss? And then, possibly an even more awkward follow-up to THEIR boss?

Although it might seem obvious, good communication goes a long way when it comes to mutual trust, especially:

• Getting us in touch with the right people
• Timely communication  

The converting business is not just about manufacturing. It also involves designing, prototyping, and validation stages, meaning we’ll likely have questions about your materials’ technical properties and pricing along the way. By connecting us with your experts, you’ll reduce the amount of go-between and speed up the process. In addition, a clear point of contact where we can request sample rolls makes a massive difference. 

While good communication might go without saying, consider that many of our material requests pertain to our customer samples, which we’re trying to get out ASAP. Quick responses are a massive benefit if you can respond to specific cases or problems we encounter. 

Potential Supplier Issues To Avoid

The most prominent issues with new suppliers involve the same factors: product knowledge, communication, and information about your company. 

Without technical information, direct communication, or a comprehensive understanding of how your company operates, it’ll be challenging for us to form a partnership. And if we can’t form a good relationship with a potential supplier, it is very challenging for us to recommend their products. 

It takes an excellent converter AND supplier to create an outstanding partnership, so Strouse is constantly looking for new ways to elevate our suppliers and make the most out of our existing business relationships. 

If you’re hoping to meet with the Strouse team or share some insights with us based on this, feel free to reach out. 

You might be wondering, how do suppliers fit into the adhesive converting process? Feel free to check out that informative article and a full list of our capabilities.

Originally published: February 28, 2024