Sales representatives in the paints and coatings industry present hundreds, sometimes even thousands of raw materials to R&D experts daily.

In addition to this, every year an increasing number of new raw materials are introduced to the global market. The same goes for the ever-increasing requirements of new formulations.

So, we have a situation where, on the one hand, raw materials manufacturers are creating new tools and, on the other, R&D experts (formulators) would like to integrate these tools into their projects, asap.

This knowledge is usually shared and distributed by sales representatives and technical support experts.

Somehow everyone got used to waiting to receive the key information about raw materials. Waiting for days, weeks and sometimes even months. Well, times have changed, but not everyone in the industry has caught up.

One of the major challenges for suppliers and especially distributors is how to train sales reps to effectively sell many varied materials to a customer with very specific requirements. In most cases, sales reps cannot make a deal on the spot. To find the best solution for a customer, they first have to find the right person in the technical support department and, in the end, all their efforts may, or may not, result in a deal.

This guide will help you make your sales process more efficient, help your sales reps to make deals faster and thus generate new revenue sources.

Digitizing product knowledge

We understand that knowledge distribution time is one of the biggest obstacles in the paints and coatings industry.

That’s why keeping the product portfolio of your raw materials in a digital form, and in one place, is such a great option.

You’ll become much more efficient with both the knowledge distribution and the sales processes. That goes both ways, internally (how you work within your organization) and externally (how you handle your clients).

You’ll be finally able to provide your customers with the service you always wanted and you can then focus your valuable time wisely. We want you to spend time on building strong business relationships, instead of on shifting paperwork.

We believe in making life easier for everyone working in the paints and coatings industry. That’s why we developed this one-of-a-kind, cloud-based platform that connects raw material suppliers with formulators (R&D experts) globally, 24/7.

In this guide, created for the suppliers/manufacturers of raw materials (management, sales teams, tech support specialists, marketing people, etc.) you’ll learn:

-what Allchemist is,

-how easy it is to instantly digitize your product portfolio and

-how your customers, sales teams and distributors will benefit from your digital transformation with Allchemist. (Remember, your transformation with Allchemist applies to internal and external work processes, so it is doubly effective).

What is Allchemist?

Allchemist is a secure, web-based and easy-to-use digital platform that enables

• Simple search and comparison of raw materials
• Development and optimization of formulations
• Prompt composition and delivery of (material) safety data sheets, print-ready labels and safety instructions
• Innovative, in-app branded visibility of your products with the full personalized contact info bar

• Effective sales tools and technical support on the spot

Why should I start using Allchemist? My organization is already using a similar search engine platform/marketplace?

Allchemist is a one-of-a-kind digital platform developed for the paints and coatings industry, and as such, we can’t compare it to anything else on the market.

Our answer is: Current materials search engines and marketplaces cover only about 20% of the work you can do with Allchemist.

Traditional raw materials search engines and marketplaces store product information in the form of technical and safety data sheets. When you need to find the optimal material for your project, you usually end up with a bunch of datasheets and you have to open each one of them, just to get the basic information about the product.

The main difference for the raw materials supplier companies is that, with conventional search engines and marketplaces, your sales team and distributors still end up with papers, and multiple points of friction in the course of knowledge distribution. You know it better than anyone that this only prolongs the customer’s buying journey. And that is not good news for your numbers.

Sales teams usually juggle with documents, catalogs and datasheets. They go back and forth with papers, requiring many phone calls and emails with technical support before they can accommodate clients with all the required data about a specific raw material.

This is circuitous, and a circuitous route means lost time, efficacy and revenue!

Working with Allchemist means working with data that is constantly updated in real time. We take care of it all, so you don’t have to. It even updates live, before your eyes, while you are on the phone, on video conference or in person with your client.

The table below compares the features of Allchemist with existing search engines:

Why should I publish my product portfolio in Allchemist?

Working with Allchemist means opening the door to a new and exciting business tool for experts working in the paints and coatings industry. It is for those who are looking to boost their profit with very little investment and an easy-to-use, intuitive platform.

Your work will be instantly digitized and your internal and external work processes will become frictionless.

With Allchemist, you won’t be losing neither yours nor your customer’s time.

How can this guide help me?

This Allchemist guide will help you to understand how easy it is to start your digital transformation.

We know how hard it is to begin something that seems very complex and we understand that you are already flooded with daily tasks.

That’s why this guide breaks the whole process down into easy-to-follow sections, so you can be efficient and get the most out of it, from the very beginning.

Follow the steps to make a digital database of your product portfolio and take a first step towards super efficiency in your sales activities. Allchemist is here to help.

Remember that there is a 30-day free trial, so there’s plenty of time for you to play around and get familiar with every Allchemist feature before you commit.

Sell More and Be More Efficient with Allchemist in 7 Easy Steps

Here I’ll take you through the steps that you’ll need to begin the digital transformation of your work processes.

I’ll show you our top tips for each step of the way. In no time at all, you’ll have this amazing product knowledge base, always updated and stored in one place. A tiny amount of effort to get started, a huge reward from there on out.

You won’t have to call, send emails and documents back and forth, you won’t waste time and therefore money. Instead, you’ll be of the best assistant to your current and future clients.

You’ll be able to nurture strong business relationships, distribute knowledge on the spot and be efficient in your work.

1. Create an Allchemist Account

This is your first step towards setting up your company’s online product knowledge database.

All you have to do is click here and register.

You do so by entering your first and last name, email, a password of your choice and the name of the company for which you are currently working (if you are a freelancer, type in your name or the name of your organization).

After you agree with our terms and conditions, we’ll send an email to your given address.

Confirm the account by clicking on the link in your email. And you’re all set.

Note: We offer a 30-day free trial. For the free trial period, we do NOT require credit card information.

2. Set up Your Profile

In the upper-right corner, click on your name and choose Settings. You are now in your profile settings. There, you can:

• Complete your profile (fill in the missing data).
• Change your profile picture and company logo. That way your team members and business partners will know with whom they are collaborating.
• Save your profile settings.

Note: To improve your experience in Allchemist and save yourself from irrelevant emails, we suggest that you subscribe to our Newsletter and fill in the missing profile data.

3. Set up Your Company Profile

Creating your Company’s profile is easy and takes only a few minutes. This part is important for the users’ impression of your business and the relevant information about your organization.

You should be as thorough as possible with the information. That way your current and future clients will find all the necessary info with ease.

For editing the Company profile go to:

-Your name in the upper-right  corner and

-click on Company Admin from the dropdown menu.  

Click on the Edit button of the Company Admin you want to edit.

In the Company profile, you can change or add information, including the name, address, postal code, telephone number, etc.

You can also link the company logo to your page by entering the URL in the right field.

With UTM, you or the agency you work with can easily track the traffic activities from Allchemist to your web page.

4. Set up Your Company Address Book

Once you edit the Company profile, you’ll need to set up your Company Address Book.

This is a vital step, as your customers (R&D experts) won’t be able to contact the right person for the material they’re interested in and order it, if there’s a lack of information.

Setting up the Address Book at this point will save you a lot of time in the next step, when you enter raw material data.

Please know that Allchemist doesn’t charge for leads nor does it monitor your conversations with current and future clients. So be mindful when setting up your address book. Set it up in such a way that it will be easy for your customers to quickly find the right person for the material they are interested in and contact them right away.

You can find the Company Address Book on the right tab next to the Company Profile.

Here you can add all the essential contact information for your colleagues and pick their functions from the drop-down menu. You can select among 3 different types: Sales, Technical or HSE.

This way your customers will know right away who to ask what regarding a certain material, like its price, how to order a sample and how to make a final deal.

You can create as many address books as you like and each address book can contain as many contacts as you like. Moreover, you can link an address book to a specific material.

For example, if you sell rheology additives and you have a special team in charge of this, you will create a “rheology additives” address book containing sales, tech support and health, safety and environment contacts, and link it to all the rheology additives in your portfolio.

As a result, the respective contacts listed in the “rheology additives” address book will receive messages from customers on their email.    

5. Add Raw Materials in Allchemist

In this section of our Allchemist guide, we’ll go through the steps needed for tp digitize your product portfolio data.

This is of great importance, as it will be a crucial step in how well the users–your customers–will be able to find your materials and use them in their formulations. It’s a user’s first impression of your business and your product portfolio. And the first impression counts.

If the users don’t get all the needed information, or if they detect an error in their formulation made by the lack of information on the material, they may lose faith and that’s not good for anyone.

It only takes 7 easy steps to add raw material data and have it digitally stored in Allchemist.

What can you do with the raw material once it is in Allchemist?

• You can save it in your own, secure private lab (for special accounts and customers) or display them publicly (that way the global community of R&D experts will be able to easily find it and contact your organization for additional info).  
• You can share them with your customers just as you would share your contacts on your smartphone.
• You can say goodbye to documents, PDFs, datasheets and catalogs. With Allchemist, you’ll have all the detailed information on each raw material from your portfolio always at your fingertips – anytime, anywhere.
• You can keep your product portfolio updated with ease. No more confusion about which version of the document your customers have. You’ll all have the latest data, anytime you need it (that is the true beauty of digitization!)

To create/add a new raw material, click Create and choose Material.

Now proceed to fill all 7 sections You can watch detailed video tutorials HERE.

You’ll be surprised at just how easy it is.

If you don’t want to spend time manually entering materials, contact us and we’ll do it for you. Everything you need to do is to send us (M)SDSs and TDSs. When ready, we’ll hand you over the database so you can start using it immediately and easily maintain it.

Customizable: Do you have specific requirements regarding entering or managing your material database? Do you want your product portfolio to be synced with Allchemist or your CRM? Our team of developers will gladly help you with custom digital solutions. Please contact me at maja@allchemist.net for further instructions.

6. Manage and Update

Allchemist allows you to keep the info and the data updated all the time, and this is an important advantage. Allchemist makes it easy for you to update your data, and customers expect the data to be refreshed as needed. So be sure to include any and all updates, as soon as they are known, in your Allchemist database.

7. Start Generating New Revenue

Now it’s time to start generating revenue and closing deals in a much shorter timeframe and in a more efficient way than ever.

A publicly-displayed branded product portfolio is an excellent approach, if you want to generate relevant new leads.

Please know that Allchemist does not charge for leads. That is why the well-organized company’s address book and thoroughly entered materials are of such importance.

Be creative and make the life of your colleagues and clients simpler. Make the customer’s journey with your company a helpful, quick and frictionless experience. Allchemist is here to help.

Here are some of pro tips for getting the most out of Allchemist:

Your clients will easily find you and contact the right person from your organization:

Tell your audience that your product portfolio is now stored in a new and easy-to-use digital platform. Tell them that they can use a virtual formulation tool to see how your materials fits their formulations and they can directly monitor all the hazards, parameters and prices. We’re sure that they’ll love to collaborate with you, when you tell them how easy it is to gain relevant info about your materials and test them virtually, before they actually step into the lab.

Directly show them how your material fits into their project:

Let your customers know that, in working with you, they won’t have to wait for the right information on the material they are interested in. Tell them that they won’t have to juggle documents back and forward and call you for additional assistance. They can find every detail about the material, try it out directly in their formulation or talk to your salesperson, who will be able to collaborate with them online, in the Allchemist virtual lab, which is outfitted with all the up-to-date information.

Just imagine how productive sales representatives can become with the help of Allchemist. Now they’ll finally be able to dedicate time to the accounts they haven’t been able to assist the way they wanted.  

Make life easier for your clients:

Sharing material data in Allchemist is just as easy as sharing contacts on your smartphone.

You’re probably thinking that you already share all the information with your clients. And you are right. But with Allchemist, you can really level up the efficiency of your team and your clients. With Allchemist, you don’t share papers or those fiddly PDFs, but you just share up-to-date data. That means that everyone, including your clients, has access to the latest valid material information, and that this information is in digital form, meaning that R&D departments can instantly use it in their formulations.

If you need any additional information or would like to set up a conference call, don’t hesitate to contact me: maja@allchemist.net. I use Skype, all socials and WhatsApp, so I’ll be happy to be in touch with you in any manner you like. 🙂