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Where to find the first names
Start with industry trade shows. At ACHEMA 2024, 2,842 companies from 56 countries exhibited. Filter the exhibitor list by the country you are interested in and look for distributors and manufacturers with their own network, especially those showing equipment that complements yours, such as analytics, chromatography or cleanrooms.
The second source is manufacturers selling complementary products that do not compete with you. Many publish their distributors by country on their website, and those distributors already call on the labs and plants you want to reach. LinkedIn helps you see who works there, what background their technical staff have and which customers they serve.
Export agencies such as ICEX and ACCIÓ can open doors
Public export agencies do this work every day. ICEX, Spain's trade and investment agency, says its speciality is putting companies in touch with importers, distributors, investors and technology partners. ACCIÓ, the Catalan government's business agency, has 40 offices abroad that help Catalan companies do business in more than 100 countries.
Ask the office in your target country whether they can draw up a list of potential distributors or a meeting schedule. Go in prepared, with an English datasheet for the equipment, the customer profile you are after and the criteria you will use to choose. The more specific you are, the better the names they will suggest.
One exclusive distributor or several?
For bioprocess equipment, which needs installation and service, one distributor per territory who invests in training and demos usually works better. In return, set clear targets and a trial period. Before signing, check with a lawyer how the exclusivity fits Regulation (EU) 2022/720.
Check that their portfolio fits your equipment
A good distributor sells products that complement yours and visits the customers you want. If they already carry a direct competitor, your equipment may end up as their second choice. If they only sell consumables to hospitals, they may never reach process development labs or GMP plants. Ask these questions at the first meeting.
- Which manufacturers they represent and whether any compete with you
- Which customers they visit, in research, CDMOs or pharma
- Which modalities and scales their team knows
- How many people they have in sales and in field service
- How they market in their country, from website to trade shows
How do I know if a distributor already sells a competitor?
Look at their website and catalogues, the brands they show at trade shows and their LinkedIn posts. And ask them directly at the first meeting. A serious distributor will tell you and explain how they keep the two lines apart. If they will not say, you already have your answer.
Want to walk into meetings with export agencies or distributors with a datasheet and presentation ready? Leave your details and we will take a look.
Prepare my meetingsAbility to install and support qualification
With bioprocess equipment, selling is not enough. Someone has to install the system, run the SAT, support IQ and OQ and handle breakdowns. Ask how many field engineers the distributor has, whether they have worked in GMP environments, whether they stock spare parts and whether they can run demos in their own lab or at the customer's site.
Ask for two or three customer references and call them. A joint visit to a customer before you sign tells you a lot about how the distributor works. David Monje, founder of crida studio, led marketing at TECNIC Bioprocess Solutions for four and a half years, where he bridged engineering, product and sales to open markets such as Germany, Scandinavia and Asia.
What does a new distributor need to start selling?
Datasheets and presentations in their language, renders and videos of the equipment, use cases, a demo guide and answers to the most common objections. Also technical training and a clear channel for asking for help. Without that material, each distributor improvises their own pitch and the brand gets diluted.
The distribution contract shapes your marketing too
In the EU, many distribution agreements can rely on Regulation (EU) 2022/720, which runs until 31 May 2034. Under Article 3, they only qualify if the supplier's share of the market where it sells does not exceed 30 percent, and the distributor's share of the market where it buys does not exceed 30 percent either.
Within that framework, Article 4(b) allows you to restrict an exclusive distributor's active sales into territories you have kept for yourself or given exclusively to another distributor. Passive sales, the ones that answer unsolicited requests from customers, generally cannot be restricted. That is why it pays to agree in writing who runs campaigns in each country.
Article 1 counts as active sales, among other things, search engine advertising aimed at customers in particular territories, a website with a country domain, or languages that are not the ones commonly used where the distributor is based. And under Article 4(e), preventing the effective use of the internet to sell removes the exemption. This is a general reading of the text, so have a lawyer review the contract.
Can I run Google Ads in my distributor's country?
You can, but agree it in writing. If you have granted exclusivity, running campaigns there can compete with them and cause friction. A common approach is for you to handle the brand and website, route enquiries from their territory straight to them, and let them run local campaigns that follow your brand rules.
How to get started with a new distributor
The first months set the tone. Run technical and sales training, give them translated material, agree a plan with the accounts you will target first and decide how you will pass leads to each other. A shared CRM or partner portal stops enquiries that come through your website from getting lost.
Track a few things and review them every quarter, such as open opportunities, demos run and quotes sent. If nothing moves after a reasonable time, talk about it openly. Often the problem is material or training, and it can be fixed before you change distributor.
