Shahzad Chagani works for PE Energy, a Houston, Texas-based industrial equipment and materials supplier that collects online leads from B2B buyers around the world and has its Colombia-based sales team convert those leads into customers.
“Colombia is pretty Westernized,” Chagani told me, “and there’s a lot of smart, university-educated people.”
In a recent conversation, Chagani spoke about a 100,000 SKU backend setup, the benefits of an international sales force, and more. The full audio of the conversation is embedded below. The transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Eric Bandholz: Please tell me who you are.
Shazad Chagani: I am the Director of Operations at PE Energy in Houston, Texas. We sell industrial equipment and supplies. I have been running the company for 10 years. About 80% of our revenue is B2B and 15% is E-commerce.
We sell parts and equipment for manufacturing, construction and other industrial applications. Our products range in weight from just one ounce to thousands of pounds. We specialize in American-made products. We have customers all over the world and our own in-house sales team serves them.
We handle approximately 100,000 SKUs. We do not offer white label or in-house manufacturing. Drop Shipping We work with our suppliers. We mainly specialize in consumables that are ordered repeatedly, such as filters and lubricants, where we get the highest profit margins.
The feed from suppliers is synced with stores, specifications and stock details. Our website receives a lot of enquiries. Buyers visit the site to request quotes.
This site uses WordPress and Shopify. It is more about lead generation than direct purchase. Every product page has a “Request a Quote” section. I take these leads and set custom prices depending on who buys.
We use DataFeedWatch for inventory management. There are several similar data feed providers. We maintain a single master inventory file that connects to our ERP, QuickBooks Enterprise. When a product sells or a lead time changes, DataFeedWatch updates our systems (even Amazon, eBay, Shopify) and notifies customers.
Bandholz: Can you tell us more about the sales training you provide for your many products?
Chagani: It all comes down to Education and Product Knowledge It takes about 90 days to learn the system to give you a meaningful response for a quote. All leads come through Zendesk. We have a customized customer management platform. It contains all the information like price list, weight, etc. It also provides acceptable discounts depending on the quantity and customer type.
We have seven inside sales people, most of whom work full time and are based in Colombia. I use LinkedIn Jobs to find them. It’s good to come back every year and bring everyone together for training. It really improves customer service.
Everyone works remotely from different cities in Colombia. The team communicates by phone, email and even WhatsAppOur business is global and we communicate using any means necessary.
Colombia is pretty westernized. There are a lot of highly qualified people with university educations. Their English is excellent. I’m sure that has a big impact on our customers and vendors.
Our hiring process is as follows: You write an article on LinkedIn Jobs for Colombia. You link to our site from the article and fill out an application. If you think the candidate is qualified, we discuss it with them via video call.
The people of Colombia and similar countries are just looking for opportunities.
Bandholz: How will I be paid?
Chagani: They are all greedy and money-driven. We have a commission system where we take the monthly numbers from last year and divide them by the number of reps to ensure we hit our overall goal.
Each person’s commission is tier-based. The higher the tier, the higher the commission. The base pay is $7-8 per hour. We have reps making $2,000-$6,000 a month on top of their base pay. They’re very good. Earning $72,000 a year in Colombia is phenomenal.
Bandholz: When is the right time to hire new salespeople?
Chagani: I focus on leads. If my customers aren’t being taken care of, I look for better talent. I keep my LinkedIn Jobs ads running 24/7 for $4 a day.
Bandholz: Where can people follow you or contact you?
Chagani: This site is PE-EnergyI’m on board LinkedIn and Email.
