BRAND SECRETS AND STRATEGIES

PODCAST #149

Hello and thank you for joining us today. This is the Brand Secrets and Strategies Podcast #149

Welcome to the Brand Secrets and Strategies podcast where the focus is on empowering brands and raising the bar.

I’m your host Dan Lohman. This weekly show is dedicated to getting your brand on the shelf and keeping it there.

Get ready to learn actionable insights and strategic solutions to grow your brand and save you valuable time and money.

LETS ROLL UP OUR SLEEVES AND GET STARTED!

Dan: Welcome and thank you for tuning in today. We talk a lot about branding and marketing on this podcast for a lot of good reasons. The most important is that being able to understand who your core customer is and being able to cater to them, help them get what they need, help them understand the benefit of your product is, this is the first step in aligning your product with the customer that wants to buy your products.

Now the reason this all matters is because when you talk about branding and marketing and sales, those are three different functions that have to be closely intertwined. Let me explain. When you think about branding, branding is your persona or your brand's avatar. What do you stand for? What's important to you? How does your brand align with the message that you're trying to convey to the customer? Marketing, how do you communicate that brand message to your customers, to retailers, et cetera? And then sales, that's the execution piece. How do you execute that message? How do you communicate that message to the end customer?

One of the things that I find is that younger brands, smaller brands, and actually, even the bigger brands, struggle with truly understanding how consumers use their products. Now, you may think intuitively you know exactly what consumers want, but I'll give you an example of what I mean. There is an energy bar that we like that we frequently grind up and eat it as though it's granola. By adding milk, we have it with breakfast, we mix it with yogurt so it makes a nice snack, and sometimes my wife even uses it as a pie crust. My point is this, that is not ideally what the founder of the company thinks about when they think about how people use their products. As a side note, the founder is a friend so I'm going to tell him next time I see him.

But my point is this, I talk to a lot of brands who think they know who their ideal customer is and how their ideal customer uses their product, but that's not always true. The more you can understand and know about the customer that buys your product, the easier it's going to be to align with what they're looking for to make sure that your product connects with them, connects with what's important to them. That's the focus of this podcast episode is teaching you the skills to help you align your product with that customer that wants to buy it. More importantly, how do you communicate the value of your product to any customer that might be looking for the solution that you provide?

Before I go any further, I want to remind you that there's a free downloadable guide for you at the end of every episode. I always include one easy-to-download, quick to digest strategy that you can instantly adopt and make your own, one that you can use to grow sustainable sales and compete more effectively.

Remember, the goal here is to get your product on more store shelves and into the hands of more shoppers. If you like the podcast, please subscribe, share it with a friend and leave a review.

This podcast episode is brought to you by my new course, Effective Broker Management. This is something that we talk about in the podcast and this is something I've been getting an of requests about from brands of all sizes, including mainstream and in natural. The point is this, brands tend to have a love-hate relationship with their broker, and this begins with the way you communicate with your broker, the way you work with your broker. If you can leverage your broker more effectively to drive sales for you, in my opinion, that's the best way forward. The challenge is that a lot of brands effectively hand the keys to their broker and expect him to work miracles on their behalf, who are then disappointed because they didn't achieve the objectives that they hoped to get even though those objectives weren't clearly communicated.

My point is this, by leveraging the skills taught in this course, by helping to manage your broker more effectively, this is how you can get a sustainable and substantial competitive advantage. And I believe that this all begins with you keeping the hand from the other route of your ship and leveraging your relationship with your brokers and your distributors to execute on your behalf. Anyhow, more information about that at the end of the podcast.

Here's today's guest, Katie with Real Food Brands.

Dan: Katie, thank you for coming on today and for making time for us. Can you start by telling us a little bit about yourself and your journey to where you're at today?

Katie: Sure, yes. I'd be happy to. First of all, thank you for having me. I love your podcast and it's

Dan: Thanks.

Katie: Great to be here. My number one goal now is to make a difference in our food system and I know that you and I share similar philosophies in that perspective, and so I'll share a little bit about how I got here. My number goal is really from a sustainability standpoint, but then also helping people get access to more healthy food standpoint. That's really where my heart is and my motivation. Some people start food companies in order to do that and I've taken this path based on my professional experience. Where I started my career was at Kraft Foods in brand management and then over the years in various brand and product management roles.

I love the work, but sometimes we make it really complex, and so what I like to do now is to take those complex topics and concepts and really streamline them to work with natural food and beverage companies to help get more of those healthy brands front and center and I like to say shake up shopping carts. That's in a nutshell. I came from big food and then was in health insurance, and so as a Product Director in health insurance, I could really see the negative impact of some of those food choices and the things that people were doing. Obviously, not everything is rooted in food, but I do believe that food is medicine and it can be the cause and the cure for a lot of things. That is where I've been and my motivation to keep doing what I'm doing.

Dan: I appreciate your sharing that, and thank you again for having me on your podcast. I'm really thrilled with the fact that you've got one and you're going down this path. Let's pivot a little bit and talk about your podcast, and then we'll come back

Katie: Sure.

Dan: To you and your brand and what you do and how you help brands.

Katie: Good. The podcast is The Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast, and the objective is to really focus on different areas of your business from a brand management standpoint, so thinking about all of those things on both the front end and the back end of your business and aligning those things to all the laddering up to your brand strategy, which is sort of your North Star. I know we can probably break that apart and get into that a little bit more as we talk, but once you have that North Star set, it's not just about marketing. It's really aligning everything that you do across your business to deliver on those promises to your consumers.

What we do on the podcast is, similar to you, sometimes I do solo episodes to really break down and dig into topics. Sometimes I have industry experts on and sometimes I have CPG natural food leaders on that can really tell their story and where they've been dig into certain topics a little bit more. We cover things... Even though it's called The Marketing Podcast, I take a really broad view of marketing knowing that it all needs to come together to really support your business strategy.

Dan: When you're talking about marketing, broad view, et cetera, how does that relate back to you working for a mainstream CPG and then working in this industry? In other words, what I'm asking, Katie, is, why did you decide to hang your own shingle? Why not work for someone else? Why not try to change Kraft from within or some other organization? What was your impetus? What was your North Star in terms of going here?

Katie: I love that, it's a great question. Part of it is that I have an entrepreneurial spirit. My Dad was an entrepreneur, so I come from that make something for yourself kind of background. I loved my time at Kraft. I know sometimes people will knock a big CPG. There's a lot that I think that they could improve on. There's a lot that they're doing right, and even my other corporate experience after that, you're right, it could be easy in a way to stay in the corporate roles and work from within, but I'm really... I've got that fire in my belly to work with the smaller companies.

I like the nimbleness. There's a lot of layers, as you know, in big companies, and not that I... I like cross-functional teams. I like working through the systems that are there, but it really is fun to be working with companies that are more nimble that you get some information or you get some data or you make a decision and you just go run with it. It's that testing and learning and that nimbleness that helps me feel like I'm making a bigger impact faster.

I do believe, though, that the big companies need people who are willing to make change from within, it's just that where I am in my life and career, I choose to work with the smaller companies because I think that they in a lot of ways are actually setting examples for the bigger companies now about how to innovate and how to be fast and how to listen to consumers. I find that the little... Lots of good things about big CPG, but I find that to be a really exciting place to be.

Dan: Well, and let's back up a little bit. One of the things that big CPG offers that small brands don't is the training. I just had a long conversation with someone else about this. The training that we received is second to none and it is lacking in this industry, and that's what you and I are trying to fill, that void we're trying to fill with a podcast, with the courses, with what we do. The point being is this. If you want to play at that level you need to be at that level. That doesn't mean that you need to be a big CPG-minded company, it simply means that there are strategies out there that are going to help you succeed and grow. The Achilles Heel from my perspective of big CPG is that they are very siloed. They don't work together as a cohesive unit the same way a small, intimate brand would, but the strategies that they use are second to none.

What I mean by that, for example, category management, the area I play in, big brands rely on category management as their strategic advantage. Now, category management came about, a lot of people don't realize this, to weed out the cost and the inefficiencies and getting your product on a retailer shelf and selling it to a consumer, et cetera. Those are the advanced strategies that the big... That's why those big brands rely so heavily on that. The point being is this. Those strategies are tailor-made for small, nimble brands and looking for a competitive advantage. When you're talking about marketing, it's not a big, fancy textbook, "Here's a definition, you need to do this exactly this way", but if you follow these creative strategies and leverage them to your advantage, this is going to give you a significant and sustainable competitive advantage. Your thoughts?

Katie: Yes, I totally agree, but I'm big on frameworks, and so I like to have... Every company is different, but I like to go and have things that we rely on, so I've taken frameworks similar to you. You take them from the big CPG. You figure out what works. You figure out what other expertise you can overlay and then you streamline them and they can be applied to a lot of different types of companies, not just the large, large companies.

I agree a hundred percent, and the frameworks are just one way that I like to go back. They're consistent, but the way that you use them and the outcome is different every time for every company. The proven way to work through issues and opportunities is set and I love that and that's one thing that I really value that the bigger companies do well.

Dan: Yeah, and it's so beneficial to take and learn from them. I forget who said it or how... I'm going to butcher the quote, but the highest sense of... the highest... I forget how the put it, is to copy what someone else is doing, to replicate their theory. You know where I'm going with this.

Katie: Yeah.

Dan: The point is, without reinventing the wheel. If we all reinvented the wheel, we probably wouldn't be as far and where we're at today. It's taking advantage of those strategies that make sense that work for me. One of the things that I'm kind of shocked by with this industry is that we've got brands that are so creative and so disruptive in terms of the way that they create the packaging and get ready to go to market and they're so excited, so enthusiastic, and then they try to leverage the strategies that are very cookie-cutter in their approach. This is why you and I exist. What I'm getting at, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, is that even though they get to the point where they're ready to launch, et cetera, we do a great job as an industry teaching brands how to raise money, but then what? Right?

Katie: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Dan: Leveraging these creative strategies that you and I are helping to support through the podcasts, the courses, et cetera, this is the missing piece and this is why I wanted to talk to you and why I was so thrilled that you had me on your podcast. Let me frame it this way. I work with hundreds of emerging brands, even pre-revenue, and when they get ready to pitch their product, it's, "This is what makes us different. This is what makes us unique." I've yet to hear a single brand say, "You know what? We want to be a different version of what's already on the shelf." My point is this. The strategies that they're leveraging are not the strategies that are going to differentiate you.

Let me go one step further. You're a branding expert. As a branding expert, if you were to go to any of the brands that you work with and say, "You're doing it wrong, you need to use the same three-color formula, the same font, the same size packaging, everything else", they would be insulted, as they should be, but yet then they leverage the same strategies that every other brand leverages to try to differentiate themselves. What's the definition of insanity? My point is, this is where we're trying hard to make a difference. Your thoughts?

Katie: Yeah, I think that's really good and I think it always comes back to your ideal consumer. You're not serving the same person, or actually, let me take it one step back further than that. I have three C's that I like to talk about in terms of defining your brand strategy. These are not C's that I've made up, I just really focus on these three because I will explain why. They are consumer, competitor, and your company, and I like these three because if you think of it like a Venn diagram where they overlap, that's how you'll meet your consumers' needs in a way that your competitors either can't or won't. I'll say that again. Where it overlaps is where you meet your consumers' needs in a way that your competitors either can't or won't.

The reason why I bring this up is that when you've got the Three C's defined, your competitive landscape, your consumers, and your company and what you do well, it's really hard to take the same path as everybody else. If you're void of strategy, you can kind of follow along, but if you take the time, I don't care if it's even an hour, to jot down a few things, if you take the time to start to outline your strategy, it's really hard to say, "Well, yes, I should do it the same as everyone else", because you figured out where your white space is in the competitive landscape. You have figured out exactly which consumers or consumer group you're going after and how you fill their needs and solve their pain points.

Then, you also have thought about your company and what makes you unique. I like to talk about, what's your unfair advantage? It's the thing that you have, whether it's your products, your people, or your process. What are the things that you almost feel bad... You've got it down so much that you almost for everyone else. You don't feel bad for them, but you almost do because you are just so good at these things. Once you've outlined those things, it's a lot harder today, "I'm just going to follow the same path as everybody else", because you've got your North Star and you can recognize that your path should not be the same as everybody else's.

Dan: On that note, I love the way you framed that, let's digress a little bit and we'll come back to this. Focus groups, focus groups are something that big brands use and leverage a lot. Can you share your definition of a focus group? What is it? What does it mean? Why does it matter? Then, I'm going to challenge you on some different ways of thinking about what a focus group, not you personally, but whoever is listening

Katie: Sure, sure.

Dan: But the point is, trying to think differently about who that consumer is. What is a focus group? Why does it matter to do a big brand? How do they leverage it? Then, what are you trying to gain? What insights are you trying to gain from that focus group?

Katie: Sure. Well, in the traditional sense, there's a lot of blurred lines in market research now, but in a traditional sense, focus groups are recruiting people, so you have a screener and a recruiter, often it's the company. The focus group facility will recruit these people for you. They bring them in. They handle... If you're going to give them a hundred dollars, if you're going to give them a dollar, whatever the case may be, they handle all those logistics things for you. You have a moderator, you have created a discussion guide with that moderator, and then there's a team usually sitting on a one-way glass so you can see the focus group facility discussion table. They can't see you.

The idea here is that this moderator, based on a pre-approved survey or discussion guide, takes the group and steers the group through a discussion based on what you're trying to learn. I've been part of focus groups, everything from kids' toys when I worked at American Girl, to... This is not what I'm super proud of, but kids' focus groups working on Easy Cheese, the spray cheese, that's the black spot in my brand management history, isn't it? Not such a healthy product, but it was fun. Then, otherwise, talking to moms about their struggles with dinner. Could have been dads, but in this case, it was moms that were our focus ideal consumers, so that's who we brought in.

To just summarize that, based on who your ideal audience is and what you want to learn, you work with the focus group facility to screen for people that fit those criteria, both demographic and graphic. You have somebody who takes them through a discussion guide and then you really try to get as many insights as you can. Now, this is probably 10 people at a time. If you were doing a big focus group study, it would be 10 people times three groups times maybe three or four cities and you fly around and try to get different geographic preferences and things like that. It's still what you call qualitative research. It's directional and you're looking for insights and reactions. You're not looking for quantitative confirmation of large data points and data sets. Does that explain well enough?

Dan: Yeah, it does

Katie: Do you want to meet

Dan: No, no, no. It does, and the reason, again, I want to frame this is because this is, in my opinion, the Achilles Heel of big brands. This tired, go-to-market strategy, which I am not a fan of and I'll tell you why in a minute, I don't think it is very effective in our industry. I want people to understand this is what they're competing against. When you're leveraging some of these old, tired strategies that probably didn't work for your grandfather, here's where they came from. Here's where they're born out of. As a focus group, as you're putting this together, what do you then do with that information?

Katie: Well, first of all, I agree. I do love getting in front of consumers and I love getting their feedback. I don't generally think that focus groups are the best way to do that anymore, but therein lies the rub. You have this generated through corporate, so then it's usually the facilitator sees it through the same lens that you do, or, well, you want their independent opinion, but they sometimes don't know the nuances of the business, so you've got to take both. You take their report, you overlay the team, you overlay any executives who have been in the room. Where I think you're going is also if there are these reports, there's lots of data, people heard a lot of things, there are lots of notes, but it is hard to pull that all together and figure out, "Okay, now, exactly what did we learn? Where do we go?"

It's again directional and it's so valuable to talk to consumers, but it is for most purposes a little bit of an outdated practice. I would agree, and it's a great example of that takes weeks and travel from lots of team members. Now, again, things are done online quite a bit now. You can do online focus groups, which is a little bit more efficient, and then other people on the team can go back and watch the recordings, too, so there's a lot of things that you can do, but there are a lot more nimble ways that brands can use market research that isn't focus groups.

Dan: Thank you for sharing it. Where I'm going with this and the reason why I'm not a fan, and by the way, the reason they fit into my world is because then we take those insights and we bake them into what I do, the strategic insights that you get from the data, et cetera, to create a story that the brand can leverage at retail. There's value in all that information, but here's the challenge. The consumers you're talking to frequently tell you what they think you want to hear. They're not necessarily part of your core demographic, et cetera.

As I say repeatedly on the podcast, when I started this it was a female head of household, 2.3 kids, et cetera. That's now how we need to look at the business. In a perfect world, if you could go talk to anyone who chooses your product as they're buying it on a store shelf and then follow them through how they use your product, how they evangelize about your product even after they take it home and share it with their friends and family, these are the insights that we're trying to get to. This is exactly why I built my free Turnkey Sales Stories Strategies course.

The point is this. You need to know more about your core consumer than your competition. You need to be an expert on that consumer. You need to have a relationship with that consumer the same way that you would a good friend, and then by having that relationship with them, understand why they choose your brand over the competition or vice versa. What is your competitor's consumer look like versus yours? Then, once you become an expert in those two things, now you can help guide the retailer to grow sustainable sales by leveraging the strength of the consumer that buys your product. In my mind, this is that space that you and I are trying to play in terms of differentiating or challenging the industry to focus more on the core consumer that understands what LOHAS means or what organic, et cetera. Your thoughts?

Katie: I think that's right on. The idea, and for anyone that doesn't know what LOHAS is, the Lifestyle Health and Sustainability, you can find profiles that are publicly available. Even any health-focused brands that are listening, there's some research out there. Now, it's a little bit aged, but I found it recently for a client and it's wonderful that these third-party studies are available. Again, maybe you don't get the latest version, but you can still see these segments, everyone from, "I don't care at all", too, "I care because it makes me look cool", too, "I care because it's good for me", too, "I care because it's good for the planet."

There was this whole continuum that I read recently and I love that, so that data being available is really useful, but thinking about it like that, absolute, about your consumer being at the core of what you do and how you create your products, how you're messaging. It really helps you back to that aligning everything on the front end and the back end of your business to know who you're doing this for. I think it's Jeff Bezos that I've heard with Amazon that they will... I don't know if they still do this, but I originally heard that they would leave an empty seat at the table and so that the consumer always had a voice or a seat at the table. I love that because I don't know if a team of five would literally do that, but heck, I think they should because, why not always remember who you're doing this for?

Dan: The question is, are they listening to that voice? That's a whole nother conversation, but back to what you were saying, a LOHAS consumer, I joke a lot about that mainstream brands and solution providers tend to commoditize that shopper. They think of a LOHAS shopper as somebody who eats a couple of salads and goes for a walk, whereas in our world, that's someone that's trying to reduce their carbon footprint, someone who cares about where the product was grown, how authentic it is, the water that was used to grow it, all of that stuff. The point is that understanding those nuances. Yes, there are studies out there that talk about that, but I would urge any brand to go one step further, actually, well beyond that, to understand, what does a consumer look like?

Back to the 2.3 kids, the single mom, the married mom, whatever, but are they socially active? Or do they get into yoga? Are they involved in their community? What does that look like? How involved are they in their kids' lives? How do they share and use your products when they eat them, et cetera? Then, of course, one of the most important things is, as they're buying your brand, what are the other brands on the shelf? Now that we've talked a little bit about the consumer, the three C's, understanding consumer, corporate, and competitive, how does this relate to what you do and your brand? How does this relate to the mission you're trying to solve?

Katie: Yeah, sure. People come to me often at two different points. One is when they're starting up a new food company and they want to grow quickly and they understand the value of having that strategy in place because I like to say that strategy doesn't have to come at the expense of action. It takes a little bit of time to do strategy and you can say also the term "go slow to go fast." You take a little bit of time upfront and then you can go faster later. Everything is aligned, you know what that North Star is and you... I'm not saying it's an easy business either way, but you have the ability then for yourself and for your team to make decisions based on that North Star. It's also I think of like a litmus test. Does this stuff align with whatever decision I'm making? Does it align with the things that I've outlined in my brand strategy?

Then, also when you're communicating that, communicate it to your buyers or suppliers or investors or influencers, anyone that you're working with. That gives you the opportunity to differentiate yourself, to continue to stay true to who you are, but then to differentiate yourself from the market.

Dan: When you're talking about that, and I'm glad you touched on this as well, one of the challenges that I find with all brands, especially big brands, is that they don't communicate their message in one voice at shelf. What I mean by that is you're probably... I don't know if you were ever in the sales function for Kraft or for any of those companies, but we used to get a binder every week or every few weeks or whatever saying, "Here's the new what we want you to share with the retailer." Retailers don't have time to go through a big, thick binder, and typically everyone puts that information in their own voice. That doesn't resonate or necessarily... it's not in keeping what the brand is trying to communicate, their values or mission, et cetera. How do you help brands leverage that at retail? Why is that important?

Katie: Once you set the strategy, there's actually a three-step process here that I take people through. The first one is to define your brand strategy, and that's usually starting with that three C exercise. There's a little bit more to it, but just I'll in just high level starting with that three C exercise. Then, aligning, so it's defined, align, and activate are the three steps to it. Defining is the three C's. Aligning is really that piece where you're connecting the front end and the back end of your business so that you have a single voice as your saying, and I'll come back to your retail question in a second. Then, the activating point is also how you prioritize and bring it all to life through your marketing and sales plans.

Really deciding... We've got the foundation, we've got it set. We've got our North Star and we've got our litmus test when we're making decisions. One of the ways, when we're activating our strategy, is to really think about whether it's a marketing plan or a sales plan. Hopefully, they're working together. What's that integrated plan? I always talk about the integrated plan because you can throw stuff at the wall and try different tactics and somebody emails you about an opportunity and you're like, "Well, maybe I should do that or maybe I should do this." If you are planful and you have your plan to know... If you've done let's say a bottoms-up revenue forecast and you know that this is my goal for the coming year and I have whether it's a dollar or a million-dollar gap that you want to fill, here are the 10 things that I need to do in order to fill that. They need to be integrated and consistent because there's that idea of 1 + 1 = 3.

The answer in terms of what do you do with your sales plan is that it's got to be... I'm not getting super-specific here, but at a high level, it's got to be part of that integrated marketing and sales plan because they need to work together and they need to make sure that you're consistently talking in the same voice to the same consumer and that you're keeping it really simple so that... Not that salespeople can't handle complex things, but they just don't have time to handle complex things.

You need to light a fire in their belly why this is so interesting and why you need and look good. Give them something to talk about when they're talking to the retailer and then support that with consistent promotions and more tactical things behind it. It all comes back to that strategy and your brand story so that you can get people excited about it, that they're going to want to ask about it versus having to wait to be flipped to page 27 of the binder.

Dan: You're going to laugh when I say this, but when you first that... Well, you don't have to laugh now, but now, okay. Just kidding. When you called that story that I shared with you the telephone game-

Katie: Oh yeah.

Dan: I hadn't heard that before, so really old school. The point is this. What I talk about when you need to have a consistent message is that if I share a story with you and you share with someone else and so on, by the time it comes back around to me it's unrecognizable. The reason that matters is that you want to be able to communicate your brand message, your values, your value proposition, everything else you're talking about, the three C's, right?

Katie: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Dan: In the same voice with the same authenticity and the same passion and enthusiasm as the founder. That is something that big brands fail to do, especially big brands. Any brands, especially small brands that can do this and do this well, will gain a significant and substantial competitive advantage. Can you elaborate on that, please?

Katie: Yeah, sure. Part of it comes with making sure that your mission and your vision come across in everything that you do. I heard someone say the other day they're a company of five, and I heard someone in the company say, "We only have five people. Some companies like that don't have a culture." I just about fell over when I heard that because of it really... If you have one person, you have a culture. You are marching towards something, I hope, whether your impact is you want to make money or your impact is some greater good in the world or probably both. You're trying to get somewhere. The idea of as a founder or a CEO that that vision comes through to the rest of your team is so important and that's where it really starts.

The people need to be able to feel that, everything from the interview process when you're bringing new people on to any regular team meetings, and as you get larger and larger company size or more external consultants working on your business, it's sometimes harder to make sure that everyone understands that mission or your vision or your strategy. That's why the actual definition of it, so whether it's me or someone else or DIY, I care more an out the fact that the work gets done because it's so important to have those things documented because if it's all in your head as the founder, people might be able to feel your passion, but the further away it gets from you actually being in contact with people, the less they'll feel it. I think it as sort of, what's that, like half-life? If the chemicals are breaking down there's the half-life and it's just not as potent anymore. It's not powerful.

People aren't inspired at the same level or degree, so you've got to infuse that in the rings of your team going outward so that when it's a salesperson talking to a buyer that they are just as excited about it. Now, I know this is easier said than done. It also relies on your product truly having a differentiated strategy and a benefit and a clear consumer and all the things that you talked about earlier. Those things have to be in place and that powerful culture and mission have to be in place in order to allow people to be able to relate. It has to be there and you have to be able to communicate it clearly in order to have it make its way out into the world.

Dan: Well, and to that point, your brand is an extension of you. Your brand has your name on it, and even though as an employee of that brand, it still has your name on it. Everything I do, everything I communicate, everything that I do to help get that product on a shelf or work with a retailer, et cetera, that is a reflection of your brand. If you have an out-of-stock, that is a reflection of your brand, a negative one, and so that's why this is so critical. I talk a lot about scorecards and KPIs, and I use those as the guiding principle, I don't think guiding principle, the thing that kind of helped companies stay aligned.

For example, scorecard, great project management too. Who is going to do what, when they're going to do it, how they're going to be held accountable, et cetera. More importantly, the KPIs, key performance indicators, are the guardrails that brands should use to keep everyone on track so that everyone across the entire organization understands exactly what is expected, exactly what the mission is, exactly what you're trying to accomplish. From, who is that core consumer? What do they look like? Where do they shop, et cetera? To how does a product get merchandised on a store shelf? How does the product get shipped in? The pricing, where does it get placed within a store? What categories? All of that. Do you talk a lot about that? Or do you have strategies around that that you can share?

Katie: In terms of KPIs?

Dan: Well, in terms of how do you help a brand execute on what you were talking about? You've got the integrated plan, sorry, determine brand strategy aligned and activate. How do you help the brand activate the strategy?

Katie: One of the main ways that I personally do it is through integrated marketing planning. I don't do as much of this as I used to, but it's the idea of... I still will work through this with my clients because I think that it's so important, especially on the marketing side. What we were talking about a little bit with that integrated marketing plan where you rather than just saying, "I know we should be on Facebook and I know we should be on Instagram. We better send out some emails. I better get an influencer." Rather than just kind of the shotgun approach, the idea of, what's our business objective? Who is our ideal audience? What is their hurdle? What belief or behavior do we need to change in order to get them to take the action that we want them to take? Then, what are some strategies?

Some kind of high-level strategies, so if you, for example, need to convince someone that your product in the category tastes far better than most in that category, maybe there's like a little bit of a taste negativity, maybe you were a gluten-free product 10 years ago where there was a real taste battle there. Maybe one of your strategies would be, how do we get people to taste the product? Then, you would think of all the different tactics that you could do to actually get the product in the hands of people.

Some of them may end up crossing off the list because it's just not feasible, but you think about these big kinds of boulders, the strategies that you need to do, then brainstorm ideas underneath each of those. Those all go into a marketing calendar, then anything that you think is feasible and good, those go into a planful marketing calendar so that you are focused on everything that you ladders back up to get your consumer to behave or believe in the way that you need them to in order to reach your business objectives. Everything you do needs to ladder back up to your business objectives.

That's just an example of one of the ways of activation, but then I also work with people to find a package designer, for example. If they've done the brand strategy, they have a little bit of a pivot in the way that they're wanting to do things or maybe they have a complete rebrand in terms of visual rebrand and packaging, I'll help them find the right partner to do that. I like having a lot of partners in my network to help sort of matchmaking, and then I love staying involved to help make sure that that brand strategy comes to life through the packaging or the copywriting or maybe it's the new website design. Sometimes people will say, not necessarily to me, I will just hear the idea of, "Oh, I know I need to get to my brand strategy work, but I'm going to do that after my website is launched."

I always just think, I respect it and I get it, but also back to the idea of these more tactical executional pieces of things, they are so much easier. It's so much easier to write copy and to create a website and create the calls to action and things like that to get people to convert if you know who you're talking to and you know what their hot buttons are. You know how you solve their problems, and then you know those decisions to make in order to optimize the user experience on the website, for example.

It's really all of those different things, or maybe it's thinking about pricing, so activating the brand strategy could also be about pricing. Thinking through, is our price point a little bit too high if it's an existing brand? If it's a new brand, hopefully, we've figured that out as part of the brand strategy, but if it's a new or an existing product, maybe going back and saying, "Is that really where we need to be in pricing?" It's really looking at all of that front end and back end of the business to make sure that everything is aligned and then when we go to activate, it's hitting on that strategy.

Dan: There's so much that you shared that could impact. For example, just touching on pricing for example, if you're a natural organic product, I believe that you should not have to apologize for having quality ingredients in your product. What I mean by that is you should be at a premium price, but what does that look like? What does that mean? This all ties back into understanding who the core consumer is. You were going to say something?

Katie: No. No, just agreeing.

Dan: Then, so... Thank you. Understanding who that core consumer is, and that's the framework for everything you do. One of the things that I love about what I do is being able to know people like you or have a network of people like you so that we can partner and work together to help solve these complex problems rather than sending a brand to an organization that is very siloed in their approaches. That's one of the other cool things about what we're trying to do is coming up with creative strategies, and being that we're able to work with so many different brands, we're able to learn other things. We're not pigeonholed into one way of thinking. We're seeing what works across other categories, across other brands.

When you're leveraging that, so where I'm going with this, Katie, is on your podcast or within the customers that you're working with or you have worked with, what are the things or the recurring things that you find that they struggle with, generically speaking?

Katie: Sure, sure. One of the biggest things is just not even knowing where to start. If they... I was talking earlier and I can't remember if I finished this thought or not, but there are the startup brands who know that they needed to move quickly and then there's... I don't think I did finish this thought, so... Then, there's also the people who are really looking to get from the local level to the regional level, or the regional level to the national level. They've got that big growth trajectory that they're looking for. It's really hard to grow if you don't know what your strategy looks like in terms of having your competitors defined, having your consumers defined, and what makes you unique as a company.

Again, a lot of people experience success without having really defined those things, but there's something magical that happens when you get it down on paper. They kind of feel like they're struggling because there are so many things flying at them every day. Even if they have a team behind them, maybe they've got a handful or a dozen people working on their team and they still feel like there's so much, that they wear so many hats as a small business owner that it's really hard to know where to focus first. Or, when they talk to a buyer they feel like they're recreating the wheel versus when they talk to an investor, or when they talk to their own employees.

Once you have that strategy set, you've got the language, you've got your pillars down. What are the three things that... If it was a stool, what are the three legs to your stool that everything that your brand does needs to support? The idea here is that a lot of people haven't done that work. They don't know where to start, and so that's why I have the podcast really because I know I can't work with everybody in the world, as much as I'd love to. It just isn't possible, so that's my way of getting that message out there so that people who really will never work with me can still get some of these concepts, whether it's from me or experts like you that are on or other food company leaders. That is one of the biggest ones. It's just that they don't even know where to start. They know they should do this, but they feel frustrated that things seem to distract them. They just don't even know where to start.

Another one is that when they think of their customer or consumer that they think still in terms of demographics, or demographics only when that attitudes and behaviors that we talked about is so important to think about. Okay, what pain points are we solving for? We don't want to overcomplicate this? The story can be pretty simple most of the time if you really think about it from the standpoint of let's just even make assumptions based on what you know. What are the pain points that your person deals with every single day?

Or, what do they deal with occasionally? When you lay all of this out, you can really start to see, "Well, here's how our product can solve that problem." Then, it's a matter of communicating it. We've got to identify your strategy, identify the pain points, and then also know how to talk about it, and that's where some people get hung up, too, because they know all of these good things are happening, they just don't know how to clearly talk about it.

I'll put a plugin, I don't know if you're familiar, but I just love The StoryBrand Framework, and Donald Miller has a podcast, too. I have no affiliation with that other than just being a fan of the way that they talk about things. They use a story structure framework and they talk about the fact that your brand is not the hero, your customer is the hero. You're not coming in to swoop in and save the day. You want to be the guide. If you think about movies and books and that kind of classic story structure, that your brand is the guide and your consumer is the hero. They have the struggle, they have the win at the end. You're the one that's helping get them there and I just love that idea to support when brands don't know where to go since that's a thing I hear a lot. They just don't know how to talk about what they do. That StoryBrand Structure can really help.

Dan: Well, and I think that's going back to what we've been talking about. I think that's why we do what we do, why this matters to us. Reality is, when big companies talk to us, they talk at us. "Look at us. Aren't we great? We're a big company. You need to pay attention because, well, we're a big company and because we're great." The difference that... The things that differentiate smaller brands is that we're talking about the needs, the solutions that our product provides in the voice, in the terms that our consumers are looking for. To your point, that's why I did The Turnkey Sales Stories Strategies course. That's why I do what I do. That's why I've got my podcast. I'm sure that's why you've got your podcast.

The point is this. There are so many great resources out there. As a brand, sometimes like you said, it's hard to stay... It's hard to not lose sight of what's important because we get blinders on. We sometimes get distracted or whatever. Having these resources available, this is why I wanted to celebrate what you're doing, is so critically important. Someone once said to me, "Well, yeah, your podcasts are a bit long." It's like, "Yeah, but if you had an opportunity to sit down with Gary Hirshberg, John Foraker, or Seth Goldman for an hour, would you?" "Oh, yeah, of course

Katie: You bet.

Dan: "I'd love to." Well, then shut up. No, I'm just kidding, but my point is to get their insights and their feedback and to hear from them one on one direction in terms of, what are they sharing? Or, what are their opinions? What do they think is working? What's not working? How did they move their brand from being something in a garage or in a kitchen up to where they're at today? Those thought leaders, not only inspirational but is so very important.

You were talking about the customer is the hero. One of my favorite podcast episodes was Jon Sebastiani, another long one. I think it was over an hour, just kidding, but the point was he talked about the romance of storytelling, which I love that terminology because if you think about it, we go to a retailer not because we want to go buy something, et cetera. I can buy stuff online, I can buy stuff anyplace I want, but we go there because of the theater, because of the experience

Katie: Correct.

Dan: Because of the community. We buy the brands we do largely because of the romance of the brand. The romance of understanding, what is it that we're looking for? That quality? That know, like, and trust? Again, that ties back to what we were talking about earlier, your brand message, your brand positioning. Do you have any other thoughts around that or anything else you want to share?

Katie: I think that we've really covered that pretty well. I guess there's not anything on that specific topic that I would add.

Dan: Well, I appreciate that. Tell me a little bit more about what you do as an agency, as a firm. What would you call yourself? Just a business?

Katie: I just say that I'm an independent consultant.

Dan: As an independent consultant, then, how can people find you? What can they do? How can they connect with you? What would you like to share? Why should someone reach out to you?

Katie: Well, I am a mentor in several programs, so first of all, if someone wants to reach out, I love connecting with people and as you talked about, even though it's sort of an overused term, building the ecosystem and connecting people, that's one of the things that I love to do. If I can ever help someone plug in a resource, I'm more than happy to do that. I have a Facebook Group where people share, "Hey, does anybody have an idea about this?" Or, "Has anyone see someone that can help me with this?" It's largely marketing focused, but it doesn't always have to be. There's that free connection point I have that's The Real Food Brands Marketing Roundtable, so anyone who is a food and beverage leader is welcome in the group.

Also, I would say just in general beyond that sort of free mentoring and helping piece of it, if there are people who feel like they really are looking to get to that next level and feel like it's a little bit disjointed, they've got it all in their head. People that I work with are brilliant. I sometimes sort of laugh. It's hard, or it's not always hard to pull it out, it's a matter of pulling it out really and putting it through these processes that I have created based on years of experience and like this magic happens along the way. It consistently happens every time and so it's really cool when the answers are all there.

Most of the time, they know what they need to do but it's just a matter of me helping pull it together and sprinkle some insights in and really connecting those dots for people. That's what I get a huge joy out of because then going forward after we've defined that, then they or we can help bring it to live within their brand. That's what really gets me excited is once we've got those aha moments and it kind of goes from, "Here's what we do as a product", too, "Here's who we are as a brand." That gets me really jazzed up.

Dan: Yeah, and I got to admit, that's why I love this industry because you're working so closely with a process to what's really helping to drive the sales, to get your product into the hands of more consumers. Thank you for sharing that. I mentioned when we talked earlier that I would give you an opportunity to ask me about a specific bottleneck that I could help your community solve. Do you have one that you want to share?

Katie: Yeah, it's interesting. This is one that just came up. I have a Mastermind group that I'm hosting for food and beverage leaders also, and when I say leaders, I consider you a leader whether you are a solopreneur or you are a company of 5 million-plus, and I know that still is relatively small in the food world, but that's usually the size company that I'm working with is more towards the emerging brands end of things. Anyway, this question came up the other, or yesterday in the Mastermind that I'd love to get your thoughts on. One of the questions was... It's a product for a company that's very successful online and they're moving into retail and the question he asked me was or the question he posed to the group was, "How long do I need to sort of test in retail before I know that this model is scalable? That the results are what the results are? That I'm in for a week and everybody is excited so they rush out and get it, but then that's not sustainable over... Those velocities don't stay over the next nine months, that's not an investible model." He's really asking to get investor-grade results in his retail, how does he know how long he... What length of time does he need to be in retail? Is that something that, I mean

Dan: Oh yeah

Katie: I'm guessing maybe... Okay, go ahead.

Dan: No, no. I love this question. First of all, it's a more complex question that a day, week, whatever. Let me

Katie: Sure, yeah.

Dan: Back up. First of all, everything that we've been talking about here, you need to know who your core customer is, you need to understand what the customer looks like, what their needs are, what they're looking for, et cetera, one. Two, I would recommend that they develop a community online around their product. In other words, not rely solely on traditional retail to be able to sell their product or traditional online retailer or whatever. The point being is that if you can develop a community of like-minded evangelists around your product, now you can start testing and innovating based upon the feedback that they give you.

For example, if you're aligned with me, when we're talking about the packaging which, by the way, another whole conversation, really excited about that because that's something I really get into, especially you can post a board, digestible printer and then all that other stuff. Let's say that the brand says, "You know what? We're going to make a blueberry offering." Someone else says, "I don't know about blueberry. How about squash." It doesn't matter, but the point is if I can ask my community what they think, what they would buy, they already know my product, they already know my brand. They're already a part of my ecosystem, my community, and if I can innovate around them, around the products that they're actually going to buy, that's going to help me make the decision.

Conversely, if I'm a brand and I've got a blueberry product and now I want to come out with a squash... I don't know why I said squash. Pumpkin or whatever, right? Pumpkin-flavored

Katie: It's the season.

Dan: It is, exactly, so I came out with a pumpkin-flavored product. Well, then, I'm going to know whether or not it works if it sells, right?

Katie: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Dan: That's expensive. It takes me maybe six months to get it on the shelf with the packaging concerns. I got to pay slotting, I got to pay for all the other fees. Some of them are ridiculous, et cetera. I got to promote the product, et cetera. That's very expensive. What I'm getting at, Katie is that if you can own that conversation, that relationship with your customer and then ask them what they want, that's going to help you pivot more quickly. Then, in terms of getting your product on a shelf, when you put a product out there that you know people are actually going to want to buy, that's going to give you some track record, some story behind it back to what you were saying.

Instead of going to the retailer and saying, "Hey, I'm a nice guy, I got a cool product, please, please, please, put it on the shelf", and hoping that they're going to do it and then they say, "Okay, get out your checkbook", instead of that, now the strategy is I have developed a new product. I've tested it within my own community. My community loves it. Here are the things that they are saying about it. My community is huge, whatever, and some of the dynamics around that community and how that community aligns with the retailer's core network market, et cetera. Now, when you take that product and put it on a store shelf, the retailer has a more compelling reason, a better reason to get behind it.

In other words, is that community the same community the retailer is trying to attract? If I came to you, you're a retailer, and I said, "I've got something that's perfect for your community that's going to help differentiate you from other retailers within the market, here's what it is, here's how I've tested it, here's how I've validated it", that is more powerful than any slotting or any of the fees a retailer is going to charge, savvy retailers, okay? My answer to your question is know who the consumer is, how they buy the product, how they use the product, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and then leverage that relationship that you have with that consumer, with your community to help build your brand on a retailer's shelf and beyond. Does that help?

Katie: Yeah, it does. I think... Thank you for all of that. I love the idea of the community especially because it's an affinity group towards a certain eating style, and so I think that that would absolutely work perfectly for them. The question that he had also, though, was is there as a standard of how a product needs to be on the shelf before you would say that is a win? The first week of velocity might not tell you because it could either be super fast or super slow, but is it three months? Is it six months? Is it nine months that you need to be on the shelf in order for a retailer to say, "Oh, that's a win"?

Dan: Okay, so let me answer it this way. That's a great followup. The rest of your question is this. We're taught, we as an industry, we tell brands that you need to pay attention to velocity. The reality is if you're a small natural organic brand, you're not going to have the velocity to compete with the big brands, one.

Katie: True.

Dan: Two, brands with deep pockets can buy velocity, so that's a misnomer, it's misleading. Three, the consumer that buys your product, how do they buy the product? What other products do they buy? This is why I've got several of the mini-courses. I'm not trying to plug them, but okay, let's talk about them, but the reason for those is to help brands answer these specific questions. The Contribution: Your Brand Health, specifically that course, is all about, how much contribution you bring to the category? In other words, the generic, the private label, the bigger brands that spend a lot of money to get their product on the shelf, they're not contributing to the growth of the category. If you're a small brand and then you can understand what your contribution is to that brand, the category, that's what that course is about, then now you become more relevant. Now, you're no longer a commodity to the retailer.

Generically speaking, six months is how long you've got to prove yourself, but as a small brand, you want to think beyond that. The reality is you're never, or you should never I would hopefully get to the point where some of the big brands are because that means you're overpromoting, you're... Unless all of a sudden you've got the next Pet Rock in the industry, choose your poison, whatever-

Katie: Sure.

Dan: But something like that. If you can focus around your contribution, what you provide, what you give to the retailer, how you help the retailer differentiate in their market, and then let's go one step further. As the customer that buys your product, what are the things that they buy? As an industry, we teach you to talk about our focus around one single item. What kind of margin can I extract from that item? That's the way basically everyone looks at things, the velocity, et cetera, right? No, that's a fallacy. You don't want to look at it that way. You want to look at in terms of, what is the total market basket?

This is where when you get to know your community, you develop your community, what are the other things they buy? If I buy organic bread, I'm going to buy the organic spread, organic milk, organic produce, et cetera. Therefore, as a consumer, I'm far more valuable to the retailer than the consumer that buys the cheap generic stuff. My point is this. As you begin to understand the contribution, as you begin to understand your brand health, as you begin how to develop and leverage your stories or these strategies when you're helping a brand understand what their assortment is, this is where you start differentiating your brand at shelf. This is why you need to leverage these strategies to help the retailer understand why this makes sense.

Going back to my days even at Unilever, we would talk about our relationship with our soap, Lever Brothers, with other products, with Dove or Crest or some of those other products and how the consumer that bought those products would be more apt to buy other products. Kleenex, when someone buys a box of Kleenex, they're buying the premium soups, they're buying the premium... the nasal sprays, et cetera. They're buying a lot of the heartier meals that consumers want to buy. It's not just a box of Kleenex. Then, you want to go one step further. For example, a Kleenex Pocket Pack. If you'd look at your traditional 80-20 rule and you look at just velocity alone, that product has absolutely no reason for being, but when you understand how the consumer buys that product and how that is the entry point or the introduction to the category and how because that product is there, that converts consumers into other products.

Katie: Yeah, that's true

Dan: Now, this... Yeah, exactly, so my point is this is not a six-month or whatever question. The answer to your question is you need to be creative, and once you understand who your core customer is and you understand how you fit into the framework as you would say of that retailer, of the mission the retailer has, the consumer base they're trying to address, now you can start getting to the nuts and bolts. That's what all my mini-courses are about. That's what the podcast is about. That's why we do what we do, to help brands differentiate themselves because the reality is they're never going to be a commoditized product like some of the bigger brands out there. Does that make sense?

Katie: Yeah, that's great. Thank you. That's very helpful. I had several takeaways there, from the community to the not focusing just on velocity, thinking about the market basket. I do love how you talk about market-basket, so I think all of those are really great points. Very helpful.

Dan: Thanks. Well, trying to help and a great question. By the way, the questions that I try to answer on the podcast are the same questions other people have, and what's unique about that is that as we start building this awareness, we can help a lot of these smaller brands succeed. Again, I want to celebrate you do in terms of what your podcast offers and

Katie: Thank you.

Dan: And thank you again for having me on and for what you do to help the industry out. Any parting thoughts?

Katie: I would just say for anyone who feels like their brand strategy... Again, I'm not plugging myself necessarily, but-

Dan: Go for it.

Katie: Whether it's me, someone else, DIY, whatever it is, it's just really so empowering and takes a weight off of your shoulders once you have some of this actually documented in writing. If nothing else, starting with writing down those three C's, with the competitors outlining maybe five to 10 competitors and what their current messaging is so you can start to see where the gaps and opportunities are. Thinking about your consumers and writing down those attitudes and behaviors, not just the demographics.

Then, thinking about with your company what really sets you apart, so back to the unfair advantage. I will say it's not always easy for people to recognize their gifts and talents. Sometimes you think everybody else has the same knowledge or gifts and talents because it comes so easy to you, but that's why sometimes you need somebody else to give you that perspective. As you talk through things they said, "Wait a minute, wait minute. That's really special." You say, "Okay, well, I guess that is really special." That helps you define all of these things.

Really, what I'm saying is just set aside an hour, start to get some of these things down. Use the resources that you have, that I have, that other people are putting out there, and start to get that documented because I really promise that it will help you start to make better decisions, again, on the front end of your business. If I can just offer one resource, on my website, realfoodbrands.com, there is a brand checkup scorecard, so

Dan: Cool.

Katie: Brands of all sizes. This is geared a little bit towards larger-sized brands who have a strategy in place and are really wanting to do a checkup of how they are executing that across their business or bringing it to life, but really anybody finds value. About halfway down the homepage, you can find that offer of the brand checkup scorecard. It's 25 questions that you rate yourself one, two, or three to see how you're doing and where you need to work. I don't have to ever see that information. You can't send it to me, you don't have to, but it's just really a tool for brand leaders to look and start to think differently about things.

Dan: Thank you for sharing that. When I started writing my articles, again, about 400 published now globally, I'm not trying to brag, but the reason I started... The name of my blog was What You Need To Know. My point is this. There are so many things that you can't know when you decide to start a food business. You can't be an expert in all things. It's people like yourself and like me and some of the people that we interview and talk to on the podcast that is helping the brands differentiate themselves. There are value and knowledge and there's so much value in everything that you can learn and pick up from these, so thank you so much for sharing. Thank you for your time

Katie: Thanks.

Dan: I appreciate your coming on today.

Katie: Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.

Dan: Thanks.

Dan: I want to thank Katie for coming on today and for sharing her insights. I highly recommend that you check out her podcast. I'll be certain to put a link to the podcast and to her company, Real Food Brands, on the podcast show notes and on the podcast webpage.

Today's free downloadable guide is simple solutions to maximize broker distributor effectiveness. This is something we talked about during the podcast episode. This is one of the most important things you can do to help grow your brand if you don't have your own internal sales force, which very few brands do. The point is this, the more that you're able to execute and have everyone work in unison on your behalf with the same enthusiasm, same passion, and the same message on lockstep, the more you're going to be able to succeed and the more that's going to give you sustainable and distinct competitive advantage.

You can get this download by going to brandsecretstrategies.com/session149. Thank you for listening and I look forward to seeing you in the next episode.

Real Food Brands https://www.realfoodbrands.com

Thanks again for joining us today. Make sure to stop over at brandsecretsandstrategies.com for the show notes along with more great brand building articles and resources. Check out my free course Turnkey Sales Story Strategies, your roadmap to success. You can find that on my website or at TurnkeySalesStoryStrategies.com/growsales. Please subscribe to the podcast, leave a review, and recommend it to your friends and colleagues.

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