Welcome to Day 15: Episode 287 — How To Become a Trusted and Respected Retail Partner Today (A True Category Leader)
Day 15 of 30 Days to Prosperity

Retailers are under more pressure than ever.
Competition from online.
Razor-thin margins.
Shoppers changing how and where they buy.
Most brands look at that and think, “How do I get more from my retailer?”
I want you to flip that.

Retailers want and need your help. You hold the key to giving them a huge competitive edge.
When you step up as a strategic partner – not just another line item on a shelf – savvy retailers will reward you with incremental opportunities you cannot buy:
Extra displays
Premium placement
Early access to resets
A real voice in how the category is built
That’s what becoming a category leader is all about.

Let me explain.
Category Captain vs Category Leader (And Why You Want the Second One)
There’s a lot of confusion in our industry about roles.
A category captain is usually a big brand that:
Pays heavily for tools and data
Provides dedicated resources to one retailer
Builds planograms and strategies for the entire category
That role is extremely expensive. Let the giants fight over it.
A category leader, the way I define it, is very different:
A category leader is any brand – of any size – willing and able to guide their retail partner to grow sustainable sales by leveraging the strength of the unique customer that your brand attracts.
No giant budget required.
No massive team required.
What you need is insight, clarity, and a willingness to lead.
And yes – you can absolutely do this as an emerging brand.

What Being a Category Leader Looks Like in Real Life
Let me take you behind the curtain for a moment.
I’ve had retailers call me out of the blue and say:
“Dan, I’ve got an endcap opening up next week. Can you take it?”
Free.
Prime location.
Minimal notice.
Why?
Because I had consistently shown up as a trusted, respected resource – someone who:
Understood their shopper
Understood the category
Understood how to drive incremental sales and profit
They knew that if they gave me the space, I’d help them hit their numbers.
Imagine what that kind of phone call does to your sales targets.
The trust I earned also gave me an equal set at the retailers table. That meant that I could help guide them on strategy, product assortments, merchandising recommendations and much more. I essentially earned the same right to manage their category as the big brands BUT without the heavy price tag. Most retailers call this position a category advisor. 
That’s what we’re aiming for with this entire series.

Step 1: Become the Expert in Their Shopper
Being a category leader starts with one core commitment:
Know your shopper better than anyone else in the room.
Not just your shopper – but the retailer’s shopper.
You need to understand:
Their need state (the problem they’re trying to solve)
How they shop the category
What else they buy with your product as well as competitive products
How your brand influences their behavior across the store

Let’s define that quickly.
A need state is the purpose behind the trip.
Cold & flu → They’re looking for remedies, tissues, teas, comfort foods
Busy weeknights → They’re looking for quick, healthy, convenient solutions
New baby → They’re looking for baby food, snacks, time saving products
Your goal is to help the retailer organize the category in a way that solves for that need state.

Consider this:
When McDonald’s asks, “Would you like fries with that?”
They’re not just being cute.
They know:
The burger alone doesn’t deliver the margin
The fries + drink are where the profit lives
The combo solves the need state: quick, complete meal
They built an entire business model around complementary purchases.
You can do the same – inside your category and across the store.

Step 2: Use Complementary Brands to Tell a Bigger Story
Here’s where you can really shine as a leader.
Think beyond obvious combinations like ketchup + mustard.
Get creative. Get specific. Get shopper-focused.
For example:
Parents with infants are willing to invest in premium baby food – a perfect shopper for a brand like Once Upon a Farm.
Those same households often have older kids feeling left out as attention shifts to the new baby.
A brand like FoodStirs (healthy baking mixes) can help create special “big kid” moments – baking together, learning about real food, making memories.

Now imagine:
An endcap or promotion featuring Once Upon a Farm + FoodStirs, anchored in the story of supporting the whole family during a big life transition.
You’re not just selling pouches and baking mixes.
You’re helping the retailer:
Connect emotionally with young families
Increase the household’s total spend
Build loyalty across multiple categories
That’s what category leadership looks like.

Step 3: Bring Actionable Insights – Not Canned Reports
Retailers are drowning in reports and starved for insights.
Big brands buy expensive “shopper insights” packages, but those often:
Over-generalize
Commoditize shoppers
Miss the nuances of your unique, better-for-you customer
Your advantage is that your customer is different:
They read labels
They seek transparency
They’re values-driven
They have higher basket sizes
They’re less price-sensitive when they trust you
Your job is to turn that into insights the retailer can’t get anywhere else:
“When our shopper buys our product, her basket is 27% higher than the category average.
She also buys organic dairy, premium snacks, and natural household items.
If you help her find all of that in your store, she has no reason to shop your competition.”
This is a radically different conversation than:
“We’d like another TPR and an endcap.”
One blends into the noise.
The other stands out as leadership.

Step 4: Learn From the Floor – Then Lead From the Front
You’ve heard me talk about my Price Club days (now Costco).
Let me connect that to this conversation.
As grocery manager, I was responsible for:
Frozen
Refrigerated
Perishables
Produce
Meat
Bakery
C-store
Liquor
Every day, my boss would walk the floor with me. I had to know:
How each item was selling
What our on-hand inventory was
Why I placed certain items on endcaps
How shoppers were moving through the store
We didn’t have sophisticated tools.
I used a legal pad to sketch out schematics.
One experiment:
I re-merchandised the freezer section around logical need states instead of vendor blocks.
The result? Sales jumped 252%.
Another experiment:
I moved the first cans of tuna on a pallet from the front corner to the back corner so it looked like shoppers were already “digging into the second layer.”
Sales exploded.
When I kept the pallet perfectly cubed and full, sales dropped.

Here’s why that matters.
By paying close attention to:
How shoppers moved
What they grabbed
How presentation influenced behavior
…I was able to almost quadruple my department sales to well over $500,000 a week in the early 90s – a staggering number at the time.
I didn’t do that with gimmicks.
I did it by understanding the shopper and making it easier for them to win.
That’s the mindset I want you to adopt with your brand.

Step 5: Think Like a Retailer (And Help Them Win First)
Remember, most brands use a rinse-and-repeat model:
Same promotions
Same reports
Same messaging
Same results
And we both know the definition of insanity.

Instead, I want you to ask:
How does my shopper move through this store?
What do they need on a single trip to feel successful?
How can my brand make that easier?
How can I use my shopper’s behavior to help the retailer grow category sales and profit?
When you think like that – and back it up with real observations and data – you become invaluable.

This is exactly how I went from being “just another chip guy” when I was a DSD sales rep for a small regional potato chip company…
…to being given a 4,900-bag display in the front lobby of a new superstore, plus several unpaid endcaps…
…while the #1 national brand couldn’t get a single display.
Not because I had the lowest price.
Not because I had the biggest brand.
But because I had earned the retailer’s trust as someone who:
Understood their goals
Understood their shopper
Brought them ideas, not just requests
That’s what I want for you.

Day 15 Action Item: Start Your Category Leader Playbook
Today, take a few minutes and write down:
Your ideal shopper’s top 5 need states your brand supports.
3–5 complementary products/brands that fit naturally with your product.
One promotion or merchandising idea that would:
Make life easier for your shopper And Increase total basket size
Help your retailer differentiate in their market
This becomes the beginning of your Category Leader Playbook – a tool you can bring to retailers as you build partnerships.

In Closing: Your Commitment to Leadership Changes Everything
Here’s the big idea I want you to take away:
You can control far more of your destiny at retail than you’ve been told – if you’re willing to lead.
Retailers are hungry for:
Real partners
Real insights
Real solutions
When you:
Focus first on helping them achieve their three big goals; more shopper traffic, a competitive advantage in their market, and
Bring unique, shopper-led insights
Make it easier for their customers to win
They will reward you with opportunities usually reserved for the biggest brands.
This is how you:
Level the playing field
Extend your runway
Get on more store shelves
Get into more shoppers’ baskets

This is how you Build a Simple, Strategic Retail Expansion Plan so you can grow on your terms, in the right places, at the right pace

Tomorrow, in Episode 288, we’re going to build on this and talk about How to Design a Simple Retail Influence Plan – step-by-step actions you can take over the next 90 days to deepen retailer relationships and unlock more doors.

Make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss it.
Share this episode with a founder who needs to stop thinking like “just another brand” and start thinking like a category leader.
Downloads the free series guide to go deeper into these strategies
And remember:
When you become an indispensable, trusted resource to your retail partners,
you don’t just win more space –
you earn an equal seat at the table.

For additional inspiration listen to the following podcast episodes:
Episode 41 Understanding What Drives The Beating Heart Of Natural Trends, Robbie Vitrano with Good Spread and NatchCom
Robbie's background is working with agencies so he understands branding and the importance of aligning your brand where is your court consumer. Robbie is a wealth of information. Rob is one of the nicest people I've ever met and he's also one of the most committed influencers in our industry. His passion and his commitment to raising the barn or industry is what makes the story so impactful.
Uncover the essence of natural products Learn what drives the beating heart of natural and its importance in today's market.

Episode 43 Retail Done Right Building Brand Partnerships, Ben Friedland with Lucky’s Market
At the time I recorded this podcast episode luckys was a thriving retailer. They were doing everything right in my opinion. They were partnering with brands to help make it easier for customers to come in fine and buy all the products I wanted. You can learn a lot from this podcast episode. Since recording that episode luckys unfortunately went bankrupt but I had little to do with her strategy it had more to do in my opinion with them trying to aggressively open new stores in markets thousands of miles away from where they were having success. The stores were clean well merchandise extremely well organized and their staff are some of the friendliest people you'd ever want to meet. They went out of their way to offer incredible customer service. The original store still holds true those values.

Episode 77 Perfect Recipe For Growth Innovate and Lead, Leigh & Bill Keith with Perfect Bar
Unlock the perfect recipe for growth by innovating and adapting to customer needs Discover your unique niche today. Lee and Bill are brother and sister and together with her family they built a brand empire Focus on delivering incredible products that their customers love. They call their loyal enthusiastic customers their hive. They're authentic love for their hive, their community, translates into a huge opportunities to innovate and dominator category. They also talked about the importance of knowing your numbers and how to leverage your numbers at retail and your selling story - exactly what we've been talking about through this entire series.

Tip of the day: Retailers want and need your help! You hold the key to giving them a huge competitive edge. Become an indispensable trusted resource and partner and savvy retailers will reward you with incremental opportunities

Thank you for listening. This episode has an accompanying video with illustrations and additional information I can’t share on an audio podcast. You can watch it at retailsolved.com/30daychallenge.

You can get the show notes for this episode by going to RetailSolved.com/Session287. Tomorrows episode is How To Use Data Analytics for a Competitive Edge - The Roadmap To Future Sales And Profits.

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