Chris Miller (2:46)

Come on in, Find your buyers. Have a seat and happy selling.

Stephen Bisaha (2:50)

If you were looking to pick a romantic spot for a first date, you'd probably skip the ballrooms in Huntsville, Alabama's Von Braun Center. Between the fluorescent lights, those gray conference room dividers and the more than 180 salespeople in loud pitching mode, it's not exactly a candlelit dinner.

Waylon Wong (3:08)

But one thing it does have in common with actual dating are the jitters.

Stephen Bisaha (3:12)

Jack Grace is with Landrum Workforce Solutions and is the director of sales for its workforce management team. The company provides staffing and consulting. So how's the speed dating been going?

Jack Grace (3:22)

Nerve wracking, you know, because you get five minutes to either get it right or not get it right.

Waylon Wong (3:27)

And he's right. Sellers like Jack get just five minutes to pitch many of the biggest car companies like Honda, Mercedes and Hyundai, until the beat means it's on to the next date.

Stephen Bisaha (3:40)

The Southern Automotive Conference has been doing this matchmaking event for 13 years. The big idea here is just making networking easier.

Waylon Wong (3:48)

And yes, it is only five minutes, but Jack says that's way better than the typical conference experience where you're running around the trade floor trying to find a buyer and then only end up pitching to another salesperson.

Jack Grace (4:00)

You know, you're both wasting each other's time. You know, they're selling your product to somebody who can't buy it. Having this environment where it's very distilled, albeit a little chaotic, is really interesting.

Waylon Wong (4:12)

And one thing that's got just about everyone's interest this year is tariffs.

Stephen Bisaha (4:16)

Yeah. On the buyer side, there are a lot of foreign car companies feeling that tariff sting. And American companies have not been spared either. Like Baxter Enterprises out of Tennessee, it provides tools and finished parts for automakers like Mercedes and BMW.

Waylon Wong (4:32)

Doug Drake is here representing Baxter. He says the cost of materials he gets from overseas are just so starting to go up.

Doug Drake (4:39)

A lot of. I'm seeing anywhere from 15 to 50%, depending on what it is.

Stephen Bisaha (4:43)

15 to 50%. 50% is pretty high.

CIDQ Announcer (4:45)

Yeah.

Doug Drake (4:46)

Yeah, that's some. On some of the metal clips and components. Yeah, it's 50%.

Stephen Bisaha (4:50)

Now, we don't know if that's all tariffs, but there is currently a 50% tariff on steel from most countries. For auto parts, it's 25%. And don't expect any Supreme Court tariff relief here. These tariffs are not the reciprocal tariffs the court could get rid of.

Waylon Wong (5:07)

Now, Doug's not here just looking for the supplier with the lowest price. He wants to meet someone he actually wants to work with.

Doug Drake (5:14)

I like to be able to shake hands with them, meet them face to face, and you can get a feel for kind of what they're. You know, I can get a feel generally for their personality and see if they're going to be an option.

Stephen Bisaha (5:25)

Does personality matter in the manufacturing world?

Doug Drake (5:28)

It does me.

Waylon Wong (5:32)

Does Doug like pina coladas and getting lost in the rain?

Stephen Bisaha (5:35)

He kind of gave me more Guinness kind of vibe. I don't think that, but it's still, yeah, hopeless romantic at the heart there of Doug. And he is not the only one there being picky. Marlena Mellentin represented the joint Mazda Toyota factory in Alabama.

Marlena Mellentin (5:51)

We're looking for ways that we can maybe save money with tariffs being what they are now. So we're just open to whatever's out there.

Stephen Bisaha (5:59)

Yeah, that's what I heard, was that maybe companies are more open to some of these pitches because of tariffs right now. And that's your case.

Marlena Mellentin (6:04)

That's exactly true. Absolutely more open.

Waylon Wong (6:08)

But Marlena's not rushing into anything.

Marlena Mellentin (6:10)

We have sourced for most of the things that we procure, but we're always open to better services, better pricing.

Waylon Wong (6:19)

So a bit of a mixed message here. Tariffs are leading these carmakers to look at American suppliers, but some are saying they don't really, really need them. Amy Broglan Peterson says this is like actual dating.

Amy Broglan Peterson (6:30)

You never want to look like you're desperate. Like it's, it's like a strategy.

Stephen Bisaha (6:35)

Amy knows that strategy well. She used to be a buyer for Ford and now does her own consulting along with teaching at Michigan State University.

Waylon Wong (6:42)

Of course, Amy says not all carmakers are playing hard to get just as a strategy.

Amy Broglan Peterson (6:47)

Truly, though, there are some other reasons why they would kind of come off that way. And number one, a lot of it could be tied up in long term.

Waylon Wong (6:55)

Agreements, agreements with other suppliers that they would have to drop to switch to an American company.

Stephen Bisaha (7:01)

Ooh, Waylon, we got some drama stealing someone else's carmaker.

Waylon Wong (7:05)

Save it for the Netflix pitch, Steven. Amy doesn't believe these car companies would agree to contracts with big penalties for changing suppliers. So that's not the issue with switching.

Amy Broglan Peterson (7:15)

But still, you've sunk capital into tooling, typically with suppliers, and then more importantly, perhaps in many cases, you have to validate suppliers.

Stephen Bisaha (7:27)

Validating suppliers. Think of this as the phase past that first date, past the flirting. It's the serious relationship talk. Can the supplier meet the company's specs? Will their parts mesh well with parts from other suppliers?

Amy Broglan Peterson (7:41)

So that can be a very lengthy process, and it's certainly one you don't want to skip over or take lightly because it can mean quality issues and thus higher cost, warranty cost, repair cost, degraded consumer perception and things like that. So there's a lot of reasons that they aren't just eagerly saying, yeah, let's strike a deal and we want to move.

Waylon Wong (8:13)

Right.

Stephen Bisaha (8:13)

I spoke with the auto speed dating events organizer and she said she does always hear from buyers that they have still found new suppliers at the event, though she doesn't have hard numbers on that.

Waylon Wong (8:23)

She also said the industry could use more breathing room on tariffs. It can take more than a year to get a supplier's parts onto a car. In the meantime, car companies are still paying those tariffs.

Stephen Bisaha (8:34)

At the same time, if tariffs went away tomorrow, that could pull the rug out from some of these deals in the works.

Chris Miller (8:41)

Chris Miller, nice to meet you. Pleasure to meet you.

Waylon Wong (8:44)

Chris Miller understands how hard it is to make a deal with these carmakers. He's here representing Olympic Steel out of Georgia. He wants to see if any of the buyers want the steel or some of the other materials he has to sell.

Stephen Bisaha (8:56)

And if not, well, sometimes a five minute meeting is more like a one minute meeting.

Chris Miller (9:01)

We're under a one minute meeting. So it's kind of, you kind of can get that feel pretty quick because you heard what she said. They do the same thing that we do.

Waylon Wong (9:13)

That's the other challenge. So someone like Chris might not be competing against a foreign still supplier, but the company itself. And he might not know that until he sits down and asks.

US Bank Announcer (9:24)

Perfect.

Chris Miller (9:25)

Thank you so much for your time.

Waylon Wong (9:26)

Pleasure.

Stephen Bisaha (9:30)

Hey, so last meeting, how did it go? Went good.

Chris Miller (9:33)

Yeah. Got a card and that could be a potential good one.

Waylon Wong (9:37)

Chris says the matchmaking is not about getting to a deal in five minutes. Instead, it's about getting that card, making that connection. It's about the chance at a longer second date because when it comes to changing up supply chains, even the car world takes things slow.

Stephen Bisaha (9:55)

This episode was produced by Angel Carreras and engineered by Robert Rodriguez. It was fact checked by Tyler Jones. Kid Concannon is our editor and the indicator is a production of npr.

CIDQ Announcer (10:07)

This message comes from the Council for Interior Design Qualification. Interior designer and CIDQ president Siyavash Madani explains the value of having an NCIDQ certification.

Siyavash Madani (10:19)

An NCIDQ certified interior designer must complete a minimum of six years of specialized education and work experience and pass the three part NCIDQ exam. All three exams emphasize and focus on health, safety and welfare of the occupants. It's really about the implementation of design. Good design is never just about aesthetics. It's about intention, safety and impact. We take the responsibility of protecting the public seriously. The space needs to be functional, safe and accessible.

CIDQ Announcer (10:54)

To learn more about NCIDQ certification or to hire a Certified Designer, visit CIDQ.org NPR this message comes from Capital One. Banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums. On checking accounts, what's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capitalone.combank for details. Capital One NA Member, FDIC.