How To Work With A Sourcing Agent

There are two true stories I shared 

Part A

One customer wants to get into a new industry, but it is hard and complicated, he has worked with a couple of agent which looks like they can do that, then he spent thousands and thousands of dollars and dozens of meeting with the agent, eventually he was told that it was impossible, but his competitor was doing that, then he found Tom, Tom spent 3 years and built his product from scratch, finally he help this customer get into that industry with a proud product. during the 3 years, Tom and his engineer work many nights, overcome any difficulties, the most impressed one is one of their supplier screw Tom up, the boss of the supplier took the deposit and run away...then Tom was in trouble since he has no money to pay his customer, however, the customer told Tom, the money has gone and never come back, but we can make money from our product, so he fund Tom again, Tom source another supplier to replace the one who ran away, then the first batch products came out from production line....

Part B

One customer tried to source a factory which can produce a product, so he published the news and recruit freelancers, let let them to compete, and award the first one who find the right factory, guess what happen, these freelancers quickly found they are not the only one who source for these customers, and factories get tired that so many people ask the same products, then these free lancer stopped sourcing because they are hopeless. eventually the customer did not get his product they want.