Forty distributors, two countries, sixty days. That is the plan, and by the end of it the exporter in this article had one real purchase order, six sets of samples in the field and a clear idea of who to chase next. The numbers below are an illustration of how the plan runs, not a benchmark you should expect to match.
The short answer to how to find clients for an export business: find the importers and distributors who already sell products like yours, one named buyer at a time. Write to them in plain English, lead with a sample and a one-page price list, and follow up during their working hours, not yours. Trade fairs and marketplaces help, but a small exporter without a booth can do most of this from a laptop. This is not customs or legal advice; ask a freight forwarder about shipping rules and your bank about payment terms.
Redwater Kitchen Tools and a 60-day goal
Tom Ferreira owns Redwater Kitchen Tools, a six-person shop in Duluth, Minnesota. It makes stainless bench scrapers, dough knives and spice mills, sells to US cookware stores, and gets a trickle of overseas orders from people who found the website. Tom's goal is one distributor in the United Kingdom and one in the United Arab Emirates, each placing a first order of a few hundred to a thousand units.
He sets an 8-week budget of about 5 hours a week, plus up to $700 for samples and shipping. If it works, a first order covers that budget many times over. If it does not, he will know in 60 days which country to drop.
Week 1: 40 distributors, listed by name
Tom writes down the kind of company he wants: a distributor or importer that already carries professional or premium kitchenware, with a sales team of 3 to 40 people. Not a giant, who will ignore a six-person factory, and not a one-person trader, who cannot move volume.
He builds the list from five places. Trade directories such as Kompass and Europages list companies by product category. The exhibitor lists from last year's kitchenware and hospitality fairs name the importers who pay to show up. Distributor pages on competitors' sites show who stocks similar brands. The U.S. Commercial Service (trade.gov) runs programs that help US companies find distributors abroad. And a plain Google search in the local language, such as "kitchenware wholesale importer" with the city, fills the gaps.
For each company he records the name, website, the buyer's name and title (usually "purchasing manager," "category manager" or the owner at small firms) and one fact that shows they fit, like a brand they already carry. By Friday he has 20 UK distributors and 20 from the UAE. If you would rather not research by hand, Rocketship's lead search works from company and people data; preview the first 25 names before you spend a credit and judge the coverage for your countries yourself. For the list-building method itself, see how to build a lead list and how to find decision makers at a company.
Week 2: the first email and a one-page FOB price list
The price list is the second attachment that matters, after the sample offer. Tom puts it on one page: product code, a short description, units per carton, minimum order quantity, and a price per unit "FOB Duluth" or the nearest port. FOB (free on board) means his price covers getting the goods loaded at the port of departure and the buyer pays freight from there. It lets a distributor compute landed cost in five minutes, and it saves the "what's your price?" round trip.
Subject: Stainless bench scrapers for Hollis & Gray, sample on us
Hi Emma, I'm Tom at Redwater Kitchen Tools in Minnesota. We make stainless bench scrapers, dough knives and spice mills that sell in US cookware stores. I noticed you list two competing scraper brands, so I'd like to send you a free sample set. A one-page FOB price list is attached (minimum order 300 units, mixed cartons allowed). Would you like the samples, and who should they go to?
Tom Ferreira, Redwater Kitchen Tools, 210 Lake Avenue, Duluth, MN. If you'd rather not hear from me, reply "no" and I won't write again.
Keep it plain. Short sentences, no idioms, no abbreviations a translator will mangle. The email includes a physical address and a way to opt out, which US commercial email rules require. Send about 10 a day over four days from your own mailbox rather than 40 at once.
Week 3: send at their 10 a.m. and follow up on day 4
Time zones decide whether your message is the first or the fortieth one in an inbox. The UK is six hours ahead of Duluth almost all year, so a 5 a.m. send from Minnesota lands at 11 a.m. in London, and a 9 a.m. send reaches them at 3 p.m. The UAE is nine or ten hours ahead depending on daylight saving, and some UAE businesses still treat Friday as a short day, so check each company's listed hours. Tom uses Gmail's scheduled send to deliver each batch between 9 and 11 a.m. local time, Tuesday to Thursday, and keeps the exact times in his sheet.
Follow-ups go out on day 4 and day 10. The first is two lines: "Following up on the sample set for Hollis & Gray. If I have the wrong person, who buys kitchen tools for you?" The second adds one new fact: "We just finished a run of 2 mm scrapers. A photo is attached." That is it. Ten days for an overseas buyer is an ordinary reply time, so do not escalate.
By the end of week 3, 9 of the 40 have replied. Three say no thanks or "we have a supplier." Six ask for samples. Two of the replies come from a different person than the one he wrote to, which is useful: he now has the real buyer's name. For more on timing, see the best day and time to send a cold email.
Weeks 4 to 6: samples, quotes and one hard question
Tom ships 6 sample sets (3 UK, 3 UAE). Each set holds one of each of the eight products, costs him about $21 to make and costs more to ship: $62 by courier to the UK, $85 to the UAE. That is 6 x $21 = $126 in product and (3 x $62) + (3 x $85) = $441 in shipping, so $567 in total.
When a sample ships, he emails the tracking number, then waits for the delivery notice and writes once: "Your set arrived Tuesday. Which items interest you, and what quantities would you start with?" Four of the six distributors ask for a formal quote. He answers the same day with FOB prices, carton dimensions and weights, and a lead time of 5 weeks.
The hard question comes from a UK buyer: "How do you want to be paid?" Tom does not guess. He asks his bank which payment methods they support for overseas customers, and he offers a deposit up front with the balance before the goods ship. Agreements and payment terms are where a freight forwarder or trade lawyer is worth the fee.
The numbers after 60 days
Forty distributors listed and emailed. Nine replies. Six sample sets shipped for $567. Four quotes sent. One purchase order from a UK distributor for 1,200 units at an average of $7.10 FOB, which is $8,520. One UAE distributor is still testing and says it will decide after its next buying meeting. Tom spent roughly 43 hours, an hour or so a day in the heavy weeks.
Put plainly, $567 of samples produced an $8,520 order, about 15 to 1, and the order is likely to repeat. The UAE result is just as valuable: Tom learns that the UK list converted and the UAE list needs a second pass with a different product mix.
What to reuse and what to change for your product
Copy the structure: a named list of 40, one offer (a free sample set and a price list), staggered sends at the buyer's morning, and two follow-ups spaced 4 and 10 days. Change the countries, the product, the minimum order, and the sample set to fit what your buyers can try in a week. If you sell machinery or bulky goods, replace the sample with a spec sheet and a reference customer.
If you plan to meet buyers at fairs later, getting customers from trade shows without a booth pairs well with this list. Buyers you have already written to are easier to meet. If you are weighing where else leads can come from, the best way to find B2B leads for a small company compares five methods by cost per usable lead, and annotated cold email examples shows why short emails like Tom's first one work.
Writing to 40 strangers in two time zones is a lot of tabs and reminders. Rocketship finds the buyers, emails them from your own Gmail, follows up, and books the meeting on its own. Plans that get you customers start at $24.99 a month (Launch), and every monthly plan starts with a 7-day free trial, card required. See how the AI workers run the loop.