What to Say on Your First Call With a Buyer

The first call with a buyer decides a lot more than most exporters realise. It's not where you close the deal — it's where the buyer decides whether you're worth the paperwork. A buyer who imports regularly gets approached by dozens of new suppliers a month. They're not listening for enthusiasm. They're listening for signs that you already understand how their side of the business works.

This guide walks through what to actually say, in what order, with a real example of a good call versus a call that goes nowhere.

Before you pick up the phone

Do not call a buyer cold with nothing but a product name and a price. Before the call, know three things about your own operation:

• Volume you can actually supply — not your aspirational capacity, your real monthly output right now.
• What documentation you already have — export licence status, any certifications, and whether your traceability records are things you can show on request or things you'd need to reconstruct after the fact. Buyers increasingly ask about this upfront, especially for cocoa and timber. If you're not sure what a buyer will expect here, read Audit Trail vs Emailed Certificates: What a Buyer Needs before the call, not after.
• One thing about the buyer's business — their website usually says what markets they sell into and what standards they mention. Ten minutes of reading before the call is the cheapest credibility you'll ever buy.

If you export cocoa and don't yet have your licence sorted, sort that first — see How to get a COCOBOD cocoa export licence in Ghana. Calling a buyer before you're legally able to export the goods wastes everyone's time and makes you look unprepared if it comes up.

The first two minutes

Open with who you are, what you produce, and why you're calling this specific buyer — not a general pitch. Something like:

"I'm calling because I saw you import shea butter from West Africa for cosmetics manufacturing. We're a cooperative in the Upper West region producing about 40 tonnes a month, and I wanted to find out what your current sourcing setup looks like before I take up more of your time."

That opening does three things: names the product, gives a real number, and hands control of the conversation to the buyer. Buyers relax when they're not being sold to immediately.

Avoid opening with price. If the first thing out of your mouth is a per-kilo rate, the buyer assumes you haven't thought about quality, certification, or logistics — the things that actually determine whether the deal is workable.

Questions that make you sound credible

Ask questions that show you understand their constraints, not just yours:

• "What documentation do you need from us before a shipment can clear on your end?"
• "Do you have a preferred inspection or sampling process before you commit to a first order?"
• "Is there a minimum order size that makes sense for your logistics?"
• "Who else are you sourcing from right now, and what's not working with that setup?"

That last question is the one most exporters are afraid to ask, and it's the most useful. A buyer who tells you their current supplier is slow to respond or inconsistent on quality has just told you exactly what to fix in your own pitch.

If the buyer mentions rules specific to their market — EU deforestation rules, timber legality checks, or similar — don't guess at the details on the call. Say you'll confirm and follow up in writing. If it relates to timber sourcing, point them to Confirming a Supplier's FLEGT Status Before Importing Timber once you're off the call, rather than trying to recall a percentage or deadline from memory mid-conversation.

Worked example: Kwame's first call

Kwame runs a small cocoa cooperative near Sunyani. He gets a lead from a Belgian chocolate maker's sourcing manager, Anke, who left a contact form message asking about direct trade volumes.

What Kwame does before calling: he checks his cooperative's current export licence is active, pulls together his last three months of delivery records, and reads Anke's company website — which mentions they publish a supplier list and require traceability back to farm level.

What Kwame says on the call: "Hi Anke, thanks for reaching out. We're a cooperative of around 200 farmers near Sunyani, currently moving about 60 tonnes a season through our own licensed export route. I saw on your site that you publish supplier traceability — can you tell me what format you need that in, and whether you'd want a sample shipment first or go straight to a trial contract?"

Anke responds that she needs farm-level GPS data and a named export licence holder before she can even bring it to her compliance team. Kwame doesn't know off the top of his head whether his cooperative's current record-keeping meets that bar — so instead of guessing, he says: "Let me check exactly what we have on file and send you a sample export record by email this week, so you can see the format before we talk numbers."

That's the right move. He followed up two days later with an actual redacted example of his traceability records, referencing the specific practice covered in Audit Trail vs Emailed Certificates: What a Buyer Needs, and a note confirming his licence was current. Anke moved him to a sample order the following month.

Good call vs bad call

Next step

Before your next buyer call, get your documentation story straight — it's usually the deciding factor after the first conversation. Start with Audit Trail vs Emailed Certificates: What a Buyer Needs so you know exactly what to have ready to send.