We hear from many current users that prior to Matium they were using excel sheets to manage their opportunities. Some got fancy with it and tried HubSpot or another CRM provider. Here is the problem with these solutions... Opportunities in the materials industry come down to the material itself so no out of the box product is going to be able to actually track and optimize opportunities from a material specification standpoint.
So when Matium looks at a deal it isn't company to company - it's material to material.
Now obviously the companies control the variables based off of what material produce/distribute, where they are located, or what pricing they expect. But at the Core of it (pun intended), Matium looks at what Material you have/need and then compares that material up against all of the potential matches to make a deal and ranks them for you.
Company Materials / Buy Profiles
Company Materials / Buy Profiles
In the How to use Matium as a CRM (Companies) segment we discussed building out the line cards of the companies that you work with as well as their buy profiles.
To recap:
Materials - materials that the company sells or distributes
Buy Profiles - materials the the company typically buys
Click along and learn to build out a Material here...
The importance of building out a Company's Materials is that whenever they contact you with an opportunity - you can immediately add a "Have" or "Inventory Item" to the prebuilt material.
You will also be able to go to the page for that given Material to track all previous opportunity and order history. This is where we are very different from any CRM.
Buy profiles are going to be what guide you to getting more orders. How?
Whenever you don't have direct demand for a certain material that you have in inventory, you will be able to find what company "Matches" based off of their buy profile.
So maybe you have 100,000 of Clear Post Industrial PP Pellets in your inventory at your Richmond, VA facility with a processed cost of $.28/lb but when you scan your "Matches" you have no customers actively looking for that exact material.
But wait, you have XYZ Poly who has a "Buy Profile" that includes Clear Post Industrial PP Pellets so you simply share that inventory item with your contact Jim at the company.
Translation: Matium will tell you what companies usually are buyers of the material you have an opportunity on so that you can go get a sale!
Sharing Opportunities
Sharing Opportunities
Now while we look at opportunities on a material by material basis, we know that it is the people/companies that move the materials.
So if you want to communicate the opportunities you have to the people that you work with, you can simply share it with them! What this does (at this time) is prepare an email with all of the details of the opportunity to easily send out.
Click along to sharing here...
If you have your own Inventory - skip ahead to "Inventory Items"
A Have is again, simply that... a "Material" that you "Have" access to sell. If you are a trader, you would put the "Have" as an opportunity connected to the "Company" that is offering it.
So here's an example... you are trader at 123 Poly and a 789 Recycling calls and says they Have 50,000lbs of mixed PP pellets with a melt of 1 and density of .5 for $.31/lb.
If this a material you are usually moving form them, then it is probably already a created material. If it is a one off, you will probably create a Spot Material.
Either way you would then create a new "Have" and add the amount and price to the Material they are calling about.
Now when you see that Have, it will be associated to 789 Poly as an opportunity.
If you are working with Materials that your own company has physical possession of and owns, then that goes into Inventory. An Inventory Item becomes a "Have" for your own Company and vice versa.
Inventory can be received via other transactions and that immediately goes into your Inventory which then rolls right into your own businesses' Haves.
Ok so again in English - if you own Inventory, that will also work like a Have when going through opportunity match making.
Now "Needs" will be better than resorting to the "Buy Profile" because this is when a company you work with has reached out with an exact material demand or as we call them... "Needs".
In this case Jim from XYZ Poly says he needs 50,000lbs of Clear Post Industrial PP Pellets with a less than 20 melt to his Charlotte, NC facility for $.33/lb. You enter Jim's request as a "Need" associated with his Company in your Matium.
Sit back, relax, and watch the "Matches" go to work...
You are now able to see what Materials you have in Inventory that match Jim's request and help make a decision on how to proceed with the opportunity.
Analytics and Tracking
Analytics and Tracking
Matium offers a full analytics and business intelligence suite that allows to track and analyze how you are handling material opportunities.
The platform also tracks companies that you are working with and assigns statuses from "Dormant" to "Hot" so you can sort who you are working with from an activity standpoint.