A-Ming switched into selling food packaging bags last month. His manager handed him a customer spreadsheet left behind by a veteran salesperson; the company system also had a shared pool anyone could claim from; and he himself spent a few nights searching "food factory" online. After a week of calling, some numbers were disconnected, some factories had long since shut down, some people who picked up said "your company already called recently," and a good number of the results from his online search turned out to be snack shops and wholesalers. He later realized that all three lists had been put together by someone else, for someone else's reasons — none of them started from the packaging bags in his own hands.
The Three Most Common Starting Points for Newcomers, and Where Each One Gets Stuck
A newcomer's first list usually comes from one of three places. All three can work, provided you understand each one's flaws.
Starting Point One: The Old List from a Veteran Salesperson
The old list's biggest advantage is that it's ready-made; its biggest problem is that it's already been screened once. Factories that were closeable have long since become the veteran's own customers; what's left for the newcomer is mostly the portion that got called and didn't convert. The list usually doesn't say why it didn't convert — no need, price never agreed on, or couldn't find the person who makes the call.
Another problem is that it goes stale. Procurement staff change, factories relocate, production stops — an old list doesn't update itself.
How to use it: when you get an old list, first ask the veteran three questions — how many times were these factories called? Why didn't it work out? Which ones said "maybe later"? The ones that said "later" are the most worth calling first; use the rest for practice, and don't bet your first month on this list.
Starting Point Two: The Shared Pool in the Company System
Every factory in the shared pool was claimed by some colleague and then put back. There's always a reason it was put back — most commonly, the prospect had no need, or the colleague couldn't find the decision-maker. Worse, the same factory may have been called by several colleagues in turn, so the prospect wants to hang up the moment they hear your company's name.
How to use it: check the last follow-up note and the reason it was returned for each one, and prioritize those returned because "couldn't find the right person." These factories may well still have a need — the previous rep simply never reached the decision-maker, and a different way in still has a chance. Leave alone anything a colleague has followed up on within the last month.
Starting Point Three: Searching Online Yourself
The companies that rank at the top of search results are the ones good at promotion — many of them are trading companies, online stores, and wholesalers that don't manufacture themselves and don't use much packaging. Search "food factory" and you'll also pull up food shops, restaurants, and supermarkets. The phone number listed on a webpage usually reaches a salesperson or customer service — whoever handles procurement isn't on that line.
How to use it: online search is better suited to verification. Once you have a factory's name, go check its official website or online store to see what products it sells and what packaging it currently uses — that step is far more useful than using search to build the list in the first place.
All three starting points share the same underlying flaw: the list comes first, and the judgment gets added afterward. A newcomer's first list should instead be worked backward from what they themselves are selling.
Five Steps to Your First List: Walking Through It with Food Packaging
The five steps, in order: product → where it's used → which type of factory → what size → which city. Each step narrows the range, and what's left at the end is the few dozen factories you can actually finish calling in your first week. For how to spell out an ideal customer profile in more detail, see Lesson 1 of the methodology series: Work Out Exactly Which Factories You Should Be Selling To, First.
Step One: Product
Write one sentence spelling out what you sell, your minimum order quantity, and your lead time. A-Ming sells printed composite-film packaging bags, usable for snacks, pastries, condiments, and tea. Your minimum order quantity and lead time determine how large or how small a factory you can actually serve — you'll use this again when you narrow by size in Step Four.
Step Two: Where It's Used
Packaging bags are used at the last stage of the production line: filling, sealing, bagging, boxing. Any food or beverage factory whose product ships out in a bag can use them.
Step Three: Which Type of Factory
Mapped onto the National Bureau of Statistics industry classification, that's two major categories: food manufacturing (baked goods, candy and preserved fruit, instant food, dairy, canned food, condiments, and so on) and manufacture of alcohol, beverages, and refined tea. Agricultural and sideline food processors — meat, grain and oil, and the like — also use packaging, but leave them off your first list; better to start narrower.
Step Four: What Size
Narrow by insured headcount, to the 20-to-299 range. Workshops with under 20 employees use small volumes and often just buy off-the-shelf stock in the market; factories with 300+ have a procurement department and a supplier-vetting process that a newcomer will struggle to get through in their first month. In the 20-to-299 range, the owner or plant manager usually still picks suppliers personally, and the volume is worth a dedicated trip. For who to call at factories of different sizes, see How to Find a Factory Owner's Phone Number.
Step Five: Which City
Choose cities where you can deliver samples and visit in person. Below, we compare three cities: Suzhou, Hangzhou, and Foshan.
From 2,883 to 271: Comparing Three Cities
I pulled a list of food and alcohol/beverage/tea factories in these three cities on Tianxia Gongchang (the two industries counted together, with each factory counted only once):
| City | Food & alcohol/beverage/tea factories | Of which, 20–299 insured employees | Of which, with decision-maker contact details |
|---|---|---|---|
| Suzhou | 758 | 203 | 78 |
| Hangzhou | 1,306 | 187 | 85 |
| Foshan | 819 | 192 | 108 |
| Total | 2,883 | 582 | 271 |
The three cities together have 2,883 factories; narrowing by size leaves 582, or 20.2%; keeping only those where you can directly reach the owner or decision-maker leaves 271, under a tenth of the original total. Broken down by city, that's a narrowing from the seven-hundreds or thirteen-hundreds down to the seventy-to-hundred-odd range.
Two things in the table are worth a closer look. First, the city with the highest total doesn't necessarily have the most factories that fit you. Hangzhou has 1,306 food and alcohol/beverage/tea factories, well ahead of Suzhou and Foshan, yet only 187 — 14.3% — have 20 to 299 insured employees, the lowest share of the three cities; Suzhou is 26.8% and Foshan is 23.4%. The remaining 1,119 factories in Hangzhou either have fewer than 20 insured employees or no insured-headcount record, or have 300+. Ranking cities by total alone means your time goes into factories that aren't the right fit.
Second, the share where you can reach someone directly varies a fair amount between cities. Of Foshan's 192 factories, 108 come with decision-maker contact details — over half; Hangzhou is 45.5% and Suzhou is 38.4%. Starting your first week with Foshan's 108 gives you the best odds of reaching the person who makes the call.
Zooming out to the whole country, there are 13,046 food and alcohol/beverage/tea factories with 20 to 299 insured employees, and these three cities' 582 make up just 4.5% of that. Once your first list is working, just run the same five steps again for a different city.
You can do these five steps without Tianxia Gongchang too: check industry from the business scope and the products on the official website; check size from the insured headcount in the annual company report (searchable on the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System, though some companies leave it blank); check city from the factory address. The cost is checking one factory at a time — a few hundred factories in one city takes several days to get through. On Tianxia Gongchang, industry, city, and decision-maker contact details are all filter conditions — for example, food and alcohol/beverage/tea factories across Suzhou, Hangzhou, and Foshan; for size narrowed precisely to 20–299, you can also just ask the AI something like "Foshan food and alcohol/beverage/tea factories with 20 to 299 insured employees and decision-maker contact details" and it will break the request into filter conditions and list the results. Because Tianxia Gongchang only takes in manufacturing factories, a search for "food" won't pull in food shops and wholesalers.
Even a few dozen factories need to be ranked: put the ones whose product matches you best at the top — snack, pastry, and condiment makers who need printed bags, for instance; put the ones closest to you, where you can deliver a sample the same day, at the top; put the ones where you can already see on their website or online store what packaging they currently use at the top, since that gives you something to talk about on the call. For how to score a list into tiers, see Lesson 2 of the methodology series: Sorting Factory Customers into S/A/B/C Tiers; for how to order your daily call list, see Lesson 3: How to Build a "Call These Today" Factory List.
Your First 50 Calls: Log Six Things on Every One
The most common way newcomers log a call is writing just "interested" or "not interested" afterward. More than half the value of your first 50 calls is in the record itself — it will tell you whether your first list was built right.
Log these six things on every call:
- Who picked up: the owner, plant manager, procurement staff, receptionist, bookkeeper, or was it a dead/disconnected number.
- What packaging they currently use and who supplies it: printed bags or generic bags, local supplier or one from out of town.
- Volume and order frequency: roughly how much they use per month, and how often they place an order.
- Who decides on switching suppliers: the owner, the plant manager, or procurement after comparing prices and reporting up.
- The exact wording of any rejection: "we have a regular supplier," "volume's too small," "no time," "just send materials" — write it down verbatim, don't paraphrase it yourself.
- When and why you'll follow up next: sending a sample, sending a quote, calling again before their peak season — put a date on it.
Once you've made all 50 calls, go back and work out three numbers:
- What share were dead or disconnected numbers: a high share means the number source is bad — it's time to switch where you're pulling numbers from the old list and shared pool.
- What share reached the decision-maker: if most calls reach a receptionist, you picked too large a size — lower your upper bound; if most reach a bookkeeper or someone unrelated, the number itself is wrong.
- Which rejection reason comes up most: if "we have a regular supplier" is the most common, change your pitch to positioning yourself as a backup option and offering a sample for comparison first; if "volume's too small" is the most common, raise your lower size bound.
Once you've worked out all three numbers, go back and adjust the conditions in your five steps — your second week's list will be more accurate than the first week's. For exactly what to say in the first 15 seconds, see Lesson 5 of the methodology series: The First 15 Seconds of the Call — Open with a Signal, Not a Cold Pitch.
Your First-Week Schedule
- Monday: Lock down the list. In the morning, write one sentence spelling out your product, minimum order quantity, and lead time, then run the five steps to narrow down industry, size, and city and pull the list; in the afternoon, go through the old list and the shared pool and fold in only the factories that meet these conditions.
- Tuesday: Research factories, prepare your script, make 10 trial calls. In the morning, pick out the few dozen factories in your first city and go through each one's website, online store, and product photos, noting down what packaging they currently use; prepare your opening line and a logging sheet. In the afternoon, make your first 10 calls, focusing on practicing how to confirm who you're talking to and whether they handle packaging.
- Wednesday: Make 20 calls. Log the six things for every call. If someone asks for a sample or a quote that day, send the sample and the quote that same day.
- Thursday: Make 20 more calls, for 50 total. Follow up with customers you scheduled on Tuesday and Wednesday; put the factories that agreed to receive a sample or asked for a quote into a separate list.
- Friday: Review. Calculate your dead-number rate, the share of calls that reached the decision-maker, and the ranking of rejection reasons; adjust the conditions in your five steps based on the results and prepare next week's list; call to confirm with any factories you scheduled a callback with this week.
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Published by the Tianxia Gongchang Research Institute. Data notes: factory counts are from Tianxia Gongchang, covering active manufacturing factories as of September 2026; the industry scope covers the two major categories of food manufacturing and manufacture of alcohol, beverages, and refined tea, with each factory counted once; insured headcount in annual company reports is explained in a notice from the Jiangmen Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau (April 2024).