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Knowledge is power - especially in this industry. If you want to compete at a higher level you need to adopt the advanced strategies big brands rely on. This is how you level the playing field and even gain the edge you deserve! Make this a commitment!

Welcome to Day 16: How To Use Data Analytics - The Roadmap To Future Sales And Profits

The Retail solved Blueprint to teach you everything you need to know to confidently grow and scale your brand, build a connected community of loyal evangelists, and multiply your brands impact, sales, and profits.

If we are meeting for the first time, my name is Dan Lohman. I’ve had the privilege of mentoring and working with hundreds of brands from pre-revenue to multi billion dollars in sales. This a culmination of the best strategies that are working today. I’ve spent years testing and perfecting them to save you valuable time and money while giving you the edge you deserve.

If you haven’t done so yet, download the free 30 Days To Prosperity Workbook at RetailSolved.com/30DayWorkbook to help you get the most out of this brand-building series. Go back and listen to all of the episodes in this masterclass to that you don’t miss a thing. The strategies build upon each other in the order of the series. Please share these and help me raise the bar in natural.

I want to take a moment to recap the last episode - How To Become A Trusted And Respected Retailer Partner - A Category Leader. In that episode I talked about the importance I developing a strategic relationship or alliance with key retailers where are you have the greatest opportunity to grow and scale your brand. This is contrary to the traditional strategy were you just try to get distribution anywhere you possibly can whether it makes sense or not. As I illustrated in the last episode this is one biggest reasons why over 80% of brands fail within the first year - I'm committed to change that.

This is largely because most brands in the natural channel or not taught the advance strategies that we are talking about here. This is why this is so critically important to your long-term success and how using these strategies will give you the edge that you deserve.

You've worked hard that to create a product that will revolutionize the category and disrupt the way people think about healthy eating. Now we need to give you every opportunity to succeed, grow and thrive. That begins was giving you the business strategies you won't learn anywhere else.

Remember in a previous episode I shared that things in natural today are similar to the way things were in mainstream about 30 years ago. We had the same logistics and merchandising challenges small retailers have today.

Big brands used exact same strategies in the same tactics in the 80s the natural brand you use today. Category management was born out of a need to give brands the advanced strategies to help them avoid wasted spending, reduce logistical constraints, better manage inventories with just-in-time inventory, more effectively align products with the customers that buy them, and to help the retail partners succeed. Sound familiar? This is exact same thing we're discussing throughout the series.

The larger brands are not smarter, they have just learned from the mistakes that they've made. The Achilles' heel for big brands is it they've gotten lazy and they rely more on commoditized solutions and what I call pushbutton category management.

My success throughout my career is attributed to my ability to read creatively use the strategies that we're talking about here. These are the strategies that will differentiate you from your competitors including the most sophisticated brands in your category.

Today's topic is How To Use Data Analytics - The Roadmap To Future Sales And Profits. This is one of the most overlooked subjects across all the CPG.

Sadly, most people are not trained to use data to tell an effective story. I've seen this throughout my career especially with the big brands. Being an effective storyteller is a skill that is not taught anywhere. This is exactly why I created a free turkey sale story strategies course.

Don't get me wrong there are a lot of people that talk about how to tell a story and that can be very beneficial. But fact-based selling, which is the essence of category management is a form of advanced storytelling. The key skill most struggle with.

Let me explain. When I started my career, selling was based on relationships. Relationship selling is exactly what natural channel relies on today. Relationship selling is a lot easier especially when the retailer likes you. Think of how many times you competed against another brand and they got the business because the retailer like them or liked their brand more.

Relationship selling includes giving the retailers what they want in terms of promotional support, slotting, etc. This is why retail is pay to play. It doesn't take a lot of creativity to gain incremental distribution or build sales with deep promotions when they are tied to your checkbook. The problem is that those strategies are not sustainable for small brands. Those strategies also tend to dilute the retailers ability to compete in their market.

A big feature of relationship based selling in the 80s and 90s was giving incentives or rewards to retailers for selling your products. I was encouraged to take retailers out to lunch, take them to sporting events, Play golf with them, in addition to offering other incentives to sell our products. I frequently felt like we were bribing retailers to sell our products.

I remember working a lot of tradeshows where retailers could buy three or four shippers from me to get prizes like branded golf balls, expensive golf clubs, tickets to sporting events, and much more.

Thankfully most retailers shut that process down demanding that brands use those promotional dollars to drive additional sales for the retailer. This is also when trade promotion spending became a profit center for retailers and distributors. We will go more into depth about this and future episodes in this series.

This is where fact best selling replaced relationship selling with larger retailers and brands. This is when category management was born.

This is were data analytics comes in. As I mentioned every brand struggles with telling affective stories using data analytics. This is true across every channel. There is an art and a science to telling and affective story with facts and insights. This is the focus of all my content. In fairness this is something I struggled with as well early in my career.

Sometimes while looking for that elusive golden nugget to support my hunch I would go down rabbit holes where I would get lost for hours looking for something that wasn't there. Sound familiar? These wild goose chases is called analysis paralysis. It's something that every effective category manager has to work through. This is where you learn how to look at data and how to leverage it in an effective story.

Now I can look at data and quickly ascertain the story to support whatever initiative I'm working on. Again, it took a long time to become proficient in that skill. Like every skill, you improve the more you practice. Know that everyone struggles with it and you are not alone! Realize that all the top most talented athletes all began as novices.

Let me give an example. You're thought that all you need is a canned top line ranking report and that velocity and margin are the key measures that every retailer is focused on. There's affectively no real story there other than how your brand ranks. Those metrics are dictated largely by how much money a brand spends to support their sales.

You've heard me say time and time again that brands with deep pockets can buy volume and therefore look attractive on a ranking report. A traditional ranking report does not evaluate the health of your brand or the health of the category. On the contrary heavily promoted brands commoditize their categories and pull profitable dollars from the retailer.

This is why understanding data analytics is so critically important.

Now in full transparency, my reputation was built on creating canned topline reports for brands and retailers including some of the templated reports retailers require at category reviews. I also created canned reports for Spins including their distribution tracker. Those reports are a starting place when trying to assess the category or your brand. They make it easy for retailers to compare brands and categories BUT they frequently over look key category growth drivers. This is where you can differentiate yourself from other brands and gain a huge edge.

The magic of category management or fact best selling is when you go deeper into the data to find a story that others overlook.

My boss once told me to look for why what happened happened. Focusing on this helps me appreciate and understand how do use the data more effectively. I recommend that you use that as well.

Your ability to effectively use data analytics can help you chart the roadmap to successfully growing and scaling your brand. It can give you a significant and sustainable competitive advantage and much much more. Make a commitment to learning these skills. They are transferable across all categories and channels (a channel is a grouping of retailers for example main stream versus natural versus drug etc). This is how you build a healthy foundation for your brand to grow and thrive.

To help you become a more effective brand builder and storyteller, and to help you maximize your data analytics, I've created a robust library of resources, many of which are free. They include interviews by leading industry experts, webinar replays, guides, courses, articles, tools, videos, and the podcast.

The mini-courses are designed to teach you one simple skill that you can instantly adopt and make your own. A skill you can leverage with every SKU and every retailer. For example, How To Asses The Health of Your Brand gives you a deep dive into what we are talking about here. Creative strategies to give you the edge you brand deserves. Something that every brand should know that is not taught anywhere else.

The mini courses and short teaching you one quick easy to digest strategy to give you a quick win with a single item at a single retailer. Then multiply that times every item you sell and times every retailer. These are the foundational skills that I've use the push around some the largest most iconic brands on the planet. While I've shared a little bit about them on the podcast and on the 30 days to prosperity series, I show you step-by-step specifically what you need to know to effectively execute and leverage your new skills at retail in the courses.

Let me be your Sherpa. Let me help guide you to give you an equal seat at the retailers table with big brands and to give you the edge you deserve. Get a quick over of the brand-building courses, many of which are free, by downloading the course overview at RetailSolved.com/BrandSchool. You can get to the courses by going to my website or by going to RetailSolved.com/courses.

For additional inspiration listen to podcast episodes:
SECRETS 54 Mathis Martines Formerly with Kroger , What Retailers Really Want — Insider Secrets To Getting On Shelf. This is one of my most popular podcast episodes. Mathis is a wealth of information and in this podcast episode we talk about exactly what Kroger expect from the brands they work with and what you need to do to differentiate your brand and help your brand stand out on a crowded shelf. This is exactly what we've been talking about throughout this entire series. In this podcast episode Mathis validates the strategies and tells you exactly how to use them as you work with any retailer. SECRETS 54 Mathis Martines Formerly with Kroger , What Retailers Really Want — Insider Secrets To Getting On Shelf.

Next I recommend you listen to SECRETS 92 David Benzaquen With Plant Based Solutions & Ocean Hugger Foods, What's Behind The Hottest Trend In Retail. David is the leading thought later in the plant-based community. His insights are in demand. Plant-based products are the hottest trend in retail however retailers don't know how to merchandise them affectively to make them easy for your customers to find and buy. This is where your data analytics or so critically important but none of the database is accurately code the data the way your customer shops. This is something we talk about on this podcast episode along with strategies to help you get around this. These strategies work across all product niches as well. SECRETS 92 David Benzaquen What's Behind The Hottest Trend In Retail

Next I recommend you listen to SECRETS 35 Chuck Muth With Beyond Meat, Sales Extend Beyond Retailer's Shelves. In this episode we talk about how Beyond meat uses the best strategy is that mainstream brands rely on to dominate there category. This podcast episode validates exactly what we've been talking about the power of data analytics in fact based selling and the importance of knowing your core customer. SECRETS 35 Chuck Muth With Beyond Meat, Sales Extend Beyond Retailer's Shelves.

Next I recommend you listen to SECRETS 199 How To Keep Your Brand Alive Today And Tomorrow And What Comes Next, Andrew Therrien With Big Orange Productions. This is actually the audio recording from one of the free webinars. Andrew is one of the most brilliant sales managers in the industry. His insights Will teach exactly what you need to know to help your retail partner remain relevant and keep customers coming back again and again. Andrew shares his unique perspective from working with hundreds of brands across all categories and all retailers. Andrews insights are priceless and will help give you the ad you deserve. SECRETS 199 How To Keep Your Brand Alive Today And Tomorrow And What Comes Next, Andrew Therrien.

Tip of the day: Knowledge is power - especially in this industry. If you want to compete at a higher level you need to adopt the advanced strategies big brands rely on. This is how you level the playing field and even gain the edge you deserve!

I’ve recorded the video which has illustrations and additional information I can’t share on an audio podcast. You can watch the accompanying video on on the podcast webpage and you can get there by going to RetailSolved.com/Session242. In tomorrows show we’ll talk about How To Use Fact-Based Selling To Give Your Brand A Sustainable Edge.

This episode will build on today’s conversation. Thanks for listening and I look forward to seeing you in the next show.