Case study · B2B & Industrial
The RFQ engine: how a precision components manufacturer became the found supplier
Twenty years of referral-only pipeline, capability locked in PDFs. Fourteen qualified RFQs a month by month six — from buyers the sales team had never met.
14/mo
qualified RFQs by month six
$1.8M
quoted pipeline in the first year
0
cold calls made
Where they started
A precision components manufacturer with excellent tolerances, three anchor accounts, and a website that said "quality is our passion" while the actual capability — machines, materials, certifications, batch sizes, lead times — lived in PDFs no research tool could read. When buyers or their AI assistants drafted supplier shortlists, the firm simply didn’t exist.
What we built
The Inbound RFQ Engine, built to procurement’s standards:
- Eleven capability pages engineered around real buyer specs — one per process/material family, with tolerances, certifications, and lead times stated plainly
- A credibility layer: certifications, equipment list, and quality documentation on public, linkable pages
- RFQ capture that asks the questions a quoting engineer needs, routing scoped enquiries straight to sales
- Supplier-visibility tracking across the search and AI surfaces buyers actually use
What changed
First unsolicited RFQ in week 7. By month six the engine was producing fourteen qualified RFQs a month, and the first year closed with $1.8M in quoted pipeline attributable to enquiries from buyers the firm had never contacted. The managing director’s summary: the sales team stopped asking who gave prospects our name.
Why it worked
B2B buyers didn’t stop researching — they stopped waiting for salespeople to find them. A firm whose capability is public, specific, and machine-readable gets shortlisted. One that hides it in PDFs gets skipped. No cold outreach was involved at any point; that isn’t something we offer.