BRAND SECRETS AND STRATEGIES

PODCAST #76

Hello and thank you for joining us today. This is the Brand Secrets and Strategies Podcast #76

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!

Welcome. Today I have something really exciting news to share with you. In addition to providing a free downloadable guide at the end of almost every podcast episode and my free Turnkey Sales Story Strategies course, I'm in the process of launching a series of on-line mini courses for you over the next few weeks. These courses are designed specifically around your most pressing questions and challenges you’ve shared with me (many of which can be found on my “Start Here” page). They are game changers. This is what you need to succeed. These mini courses are bite-sized, easy to digest on-line courses that help solve a specific problem that you have. I have a couple of the courses built already and will be uploading them in the next few weeks so stay tuned! My goal is to have 6-12 courses uploaded for you by the first week in October.

This is important, and I can’t stress this enough. I HIGHLY recommend that before you dive in, go through my free Turnkey Sales Story Strategies course in it’s entirety first. Consider it a prerequisite to the other courses. This will provide you with insider secrets into how to get your brand on the shelf and what retailers REALLY want. This is a free course. It will give you a strong foundation on which to build your brand.

You will be able to access all courses under my Courses tab at: www.brandsecretsandstrategies.com/courses.

Today's episode is based around the foundations of my first mini course. This course is critically important because remember the expression "a picture's worth a thousand words”? If you can help the retailer understand how and where and why to merchandise your product on their shelves, it makes selling a lot easier. Remember, a picture's worth a thousand words. If you can help the retailer say yes to any proposal you put in front of them by showing them where your product goes on the shelf, how it's to be merchandised, and the best way for them to grow sales by leveraging your brand, this is how you win at retail.

This is how you differentiate yourself on the shelf, and more importantly, this is how you make it easy for your customers to come into the store and find your products.

Now here's today's episode, proven merchandising strategies used by category leaders that win over retailers. Now I know that this is a pretty big statement, so let me unpack it a little bit. Consumers can't buy your product if they can't find it. Makes sense, right? Well, the problem is that a lot of brands follow the so-called tried and true method that other big brands use, rinse and repeat. By the way, that's not a strategy.

What I want to propose to you today is a strategy that's going to help you get your product on more retailer shelves and into the hands of more shoppers. How do I know this? These strategies are the ones that I've used with my clients and personally over many, many years. These are the strategies that I've used to push around some of the largest brands on the planet, including Procter & Gamble, Frito-Lay, and many other iconic brands across all different channels. The point is this, the canned topline reports that you're getting from the solution providers, brokers, distributors and others, while helpful, are just a starting point.

These reports are not enough when you're competing against one of the most sophisticated brands in any category. Let me repeat that. They simply are not enough to differentiate you and help you stand out on a crowded shelf. You need more, much more and that's exactly what this podcast is about.

People often ask me why I do what I do. I am passionate about our industry. My motivation stems from the belief that all natural brands deserve an equal seat at the table. Leveling the playing field and providing access to insider secrets and the tools and resources the big brands have gives our smaller natural brands a significant competitive advantage. I believe that brands deserve actionable insights and strategic solutions.

I believe that being a CEO doesn't mean that you need to be a perpetual fundraiser, constantly looking for the next star, to pay for an additional facing on a retailer shelf, to pay for a promotion. You've worked hard to develop your brand. I believe instead that you should be using the money that you've worked hard to get to drive your business. These strategies are designed to help you get more runway out of what you currently have to maximize your current resources.

My area of expertise is in showing you how get more out of your available resources, to help you be more effective at retail, and to help you get your product on more retailer shelves and into the hands of more shoppers.

Early in my career, I too was under the false impression that I could take a report that someone else generated, modify it, improve it, and then lay it in front of a retailer and that they'd be impressed. Here’s the thing. Savvy retailers already know how well your brand is doing. Savvy retailers already know what's going on in the shelf and who's driving sales, et cetera.

Don’t get me wrong, using topline reports are a great starting place. It's something that I recommend all the time, and I still build reports like this for some of my current clients. Odds are, you may even be using one of the reports right now that I created. Have you ever seen the “Distribution Tracker”, a report that Spin puts out? That was my baby. I'm the one who got them to start selling retailer and store level data. The purpose behind that tool originally was to help brands get line of sight to what's actually going on in the shelf. Prior to that report, you could only get regional data.

What this means is that there was absolutely no way to see how well your brand was doing in a specific retailer or a specific store. In fact, you had no way of knowing whether or not your product was even available at a specific retailer or a store. Before this report, you were blind to what was actually selling and where it was selling. It changed all that and made it possible for you to see how well your product was selling at each store. In addition to creating the Distribution Tracker for Spins, I also developed a whole suite of reports to help brands better understand what's going on in the category and how your brand is driving sales.

Some of the advance reports I created earlier while working for a decade at Kimberly-Clark actually get down to understanding the contribution back to a brand from a promotion. This determines how much your brand actually contributes to the category growth or to your brand's growth within a retailer. Really advanced stuff. I’ll help you understand this in more detail in later courses. So why are those canned topline reports not enough?

Throughout my career, I used these strategies that I share with you in my articles, podcasts and courses. I learned exactly how to find those little nuggets and thus was able to uniquely identify a gold mine of incremental opportunities to grow sales. I used these actionable insights to leverage my selling story, to improve my selling story, to help me help the retailer drive sales in the category. Those little nuggets simply don’t show up in those canned topline reports.

I became an expert at identifying these opportunities and built my career and my reputation around this, routinely and successfully outperforming other brands. This opened several doors in this industry, one of which was the Category Management Association (CMA). This organization was founded to standardize the principles around category management and is the organization that certifies professional category managers, provides training and insights and continually works hard to raise the standard in the industry. I was the first person within this organization to become a Certified Professional Strategic Advisor (CPSA).

The CMA reached out to me and asked me to produce a four-part webinar series to teach mainstream brands what makes natural natural. They have also asked me to produce other webinars for their members and to be a featured speaker at their national event this year.

The Food and Marketing Institute (FMI) asked me to be on their Champion Counsel, to be an advisor, and to be a mentor for their members. I serve as a mentor and advisor on several organizations.

I add insights to this podcast to help you understand this very complex data maze. How to get better insights, better actionable insights, that you can share with retailers to stand out on the shelf, and to be recognized as a valued and respected category leader. Now that I hopefully have your attention, let's talk about "How to land shelf space with true category management and win at shelf."

I talked a moment ago about how you need to stand out at retail, how you need to be better than the other brands that are within your category. A lot of brands tend to focus on the 80-20 rule, the Pareto Curve. Blindly following this rule that says that 20% of the products deliver 80% of the profit. Blindly following this strategy is a huge mistake. The challenge with focusing on this rule is that it overlooks what makes natural natural.

A lot of the items in the natural channel don't move very fast. They don't have a lot of high velocity. What’s really important to know here is that these items often have a much higher market basket. What this means is that at the checkout lane, these products typically have a much higher ring or higher basket than any of the other products in the store. This is because the consumer that comes in and buys a natural organic item is most likely also going to spend a lot more money in a lot of other categories. That same consumer, for example, most likely buys organic milk, organic bread, etc. It's this core consumer that retailers are trying to pay attention to, this core consumer that retailers are trying to court.

It's your job to help the retailer understand why your brand is unique and how your brand is going to help that retailer achieve their objectives, more sales in the store, more traffic in the store, and a little bit of a profit for the category. This is a huge win for the retailer.

I will give you another example about why this matters. Several years ago when I was working for Kimberly-Clark, we identified that the Kleenex pocket pack was something that needed to be left in the category. We actually ended up putting it at the checkout stand. When you look at the item, pocket pack, it doesn't fall within the 80-20 rule, the Pareto Curve.

In fact, it’s actually an item that doesn't deserve to be on a shelf if you follow that methodology. However, what we learned is that by having that unique item, that pocket pack, at the retailer's checkout stand, that then provided a gateway into the category. That category sales are greater because we left that product on the shelf. The same holds true for gluten-free, plant-based, organic, et cetera. This is why I'm recommending a more holistic approach to doing space management. Space management identifies how your products are being arranged on a retailer's shelf.

Space management is much more than just a pretty picture in terms of where your products go on the shelf. There’s a lot of science behind it, how consumers shop the category, why they make the decisions that they do, et cetera. This is something I'll dig deeper into in future mini courses and in other content. As I mentioned, I'm classically taught in category management and space management. Apollo and ProSpace are the two leading softwares that most big brands use. At one time, I was considered proficient in both of these programs and used to teach other category managers, including at retailers, how to get the most of out this software.

Working with these softwares, I developed a lot of advanced methodologies and strategies, including demographic profiles and much, much more. My schematics achieved extremely accurate results. They were validated. They had great success, great sales growth, and share growth.

The new strategy that I want to recommend to you is that you take a more holistic approach to doing space management. By the way, I believe that space management should be included in every single selling opportunity. Remember the term a picture's worth a thousand words? This is where you help the retailer understand and identify where your product goes on their shelf to maximize sales.

If you can do this effectively, then that's going to help it make it easier for the retailer to say yes to anything you propose. More importantly, by providing this guidance and these insights, it ensures that your product is properly merchandised across every store and every retailer. This is how you succeed at retail. Now remember, every time that you recommend a new item for the retailer to take on, you need to recommend an item to discontinue. Back to the Pareto Curve. Pay attention to what's driving sales. Pay attention to the way consumers shop the category. Pay attention to what other products are being sold along with that product.

My recommendation here is that you start at the customer's shopping basket and work backwards. By doing that, you don't overlook items that would be automatically excluded if you use only the Pareto Curve. This is the difference between using those basic canned topline reports and really understanding what's driving sales on a retailer's shelf. Why does this matter? Because having your product merchandised properly on the shelf can significantly increase distribution and preferential merchandising. It can increase trade spending, maximize promotion and more importantly, elevate you to the status of category leader above your competition.

It can deliver higher sales and profits, and more importantly, this is how you get happy little shoppers. Shoppers want what they want and they want convenience. They want to be able to easily find your products. They don’t want to have go on a scavenger hunt. If you can make your products easy to find, that’s going to motivate them to choose your products over your competition.

You've probably heard me say on multiple occasions, that savvy retailers already know how well your brand is performing on the shelf. Retailers want actionable insights, fact based insights.

What I recommend is that every brand help guide the retailer to understand who that unique consumer is that you bring into the store. This is exactly why I developed my free Turnkey Sale Story Strategies course. It's designed to provide a solid foundation for you to grow your brand on. It's the foundation of every mini course, every article and every podcast that I do.

If you can execute effectively here by knowing who your customer is, really knowing who your customer is, become an expert in that customer, your competitor and the retailer, you will significantly gain a competitive advantage. Let me back up a little bit. What do I mean by know your customer?

I mean everyone kind of knows their customers, right? Well, we were taught in mainstream CPG that knowing your customer meant that for example, female, head of household, 39 to 42 years old, 2.5 kids, college educated, etc right? No. I'm talking about going way beyond that. Where do they hang out in social media circles? What blogs do they read? Are they involved in yoga or outdoor activities? Do they hike or bike? What does their family dynamic look like? How engaged are they with their friends, their community, their family? Are they interested in the environment? Do they give back? How do they give back?

When you understand your customer, where they live, how they live, everything about them, that gives you a competitive advantage. That allows you to differentiate your selling story at retail. This is what helps you stand out on a crowded shelf. Now when you apply this to the schematic recommendations that we're talking about in this episode, this is what adds rocket fuel to your brand. This is what helps you stand out as a category leader.

Next, you need to know your retail partners. A lot of brands make the mistake of telling the retailer what they need from them. This is a golden opportunity for you to differentiate yourself, to provide real value to the retailer.

Think back on how good it feels when someone remembers your birthday or something that's relevant in your life, something that's important to you. You need to leverage that strategy. Getting to know your retail community well will pay off. I’m not talking about just the person that you sit down with, but the person who answers the phone, the person who schedules the appointment, the person in the distribution center that decides if your product's going to come in, how it's going to be merchandised, the person who decides where your product goes on the shelf, and the store managers you work with. You need to get to know them and develop a relationship with them.

Get to know them as your friend. If you can do this, again you're setting yourself apart from your competition. Few, if any brands really do this well. Now I've talked a little bit throughout this podcast, this episode, et cetera, on how there are trends that you're going to see emerge throughout the store, throughout the retail store. You need to become an expert in those trends. Help guide and help educate the retailer on which trends they need to be paying attention to. For example, organic is something that's growing across all different categories. Retailers are constantly being bombarded with different claims.

Help the retailer understand which claims make sense and which are valid. Going back to organic, what are the departments that have organic products? Leverage that knowledge to help the retailer understand how your shopper shops their store and how your shopper buys organic, plant-based, whatever your product is, and other categories as well. Are you aware that a lot of consumers today are looking for food as medicine? They're looking for food to improve their health, to give them more energy to get through the day. In fact, this is something I talk a lot about in the podcast.

While talking Gary Hirshberg in episode 42, he said that we needed to vote with our dollars. More importantly, he used this to drive home the example that if you use food in place of medical care, this can save you a lot in terms of healthcare cost. To paraphrase, food's a lot cheaper to buy than to pay a doctor to fix a problem that you created because you weren't eating healthy. You'll also hear this message throughout other podcasts as you go back and listen to other episodes. A theme throughout, shoppers want what they want.

The core shopper is not going to accept lower standards. They're not going to accept products that don't meet their needs. Consumers want clean labeled products, products that are free of with ingredients they can pronounce. This is one of the key things that you need to consider when you're developing your merchandising strategy. Schematics that you're producing or that you're recommending to the retailer need to find a way to highlight these trends, to make them easy to see, make them easy to understand, put them at eye level.

Another key recommendation that I always make is putting the mainstream brand, the top mainstream brand, next to the natural organic item. This gives the consumer an opportunity to trade up, to choose which item best meets their needs. Let me dig into this a little bit more. If you are what you eat, then what you eat matters. Meaning that if you eat a product that is more nutritious, that sustains you longer, even if that product's a little bit more expensive, then that's a better value in the long run.

I talk about bread as an example alot. If you buy the cheap generic bread, you're hungry within an hour or so. If you buy the best mainstream brand, you're satiated for a couple hours. If you buy a natural organic bread that satiates you longer, then even though it's a few more pennies at the shelf, it's cheaper in the long run. Retailers that allow consumers to make the best decision for themselves by putting a natural organic product next to the mainstream product are giving consumers an opportunity to make the choices that are best for them. More importantly, this is how you drive category growth. Leverage this strategy anytime you're working with a retailer.

Now when it actually comes to drawing or designing the schematic, I'm certainly not suggesting that you go out and spend a lot of money on some of the software that's out there. The software that I talked about earlier will set you back about $10,000 or more. I am suggesting that you find affordable strategies, tools, and resources that you can use to help get you the same results at a much lower cost. I'll be posting some of these resources for you on my Resources page on my website so check there or drop me an email and I’ll help you find what you need.

In the meantime, I’ll share one of the cheaper ways to do this for now. There are a couple different strategies. One, go take a picture of the actual schematic, the actual set, at your retailer. Physically put your product, superimpose your product, on that picture where you believe it goes, or put a box around it with an arrow and text, "Put my stuff here." Another recommendation is to build the schematic in PowerPoint or Keynote. Physically draw the lines or table on a slide so that it looks like the schematic. If you can take a picture of every single item and put that on each shelf, even better yet. If not, you can use boxes to represent the other products.

Then where your product goes, put the image if at all possible. Put a box around it and highlight this is where you believe your product should be merchandised. Remember, every item that goes onto the shelf requires that an item come off of the shelf. Use fact-based analysis to be able to help the retailer, to guide the retailer, into making the best choice for them. This is where you need to know your numbers. If you want, I can help you find the actionable insights for the retailers from your data.

To recap, my recommendations are product placement is key for every item and for every brand. Use every selling opportunity every time you're with a retailer as an opportunity to educate them.

Help them understand how your customer interacts with their store and all the items that they sell. Become an expert on your shopper, your competition, and your retail partner. Again this is why I created the free Turnkey Sale Story Strategies course for you. It is designed to help guide you to become an expert so you can be a valuable resource to retailers. Integrate natural and mainstream products together. Focus on how the consumer shops the category. Commit to developing a collaborative relationship between retailers and brands. Become an expert in the category, the shopper trends, and your competition.

Focus on shopper need states and the shopper journey. A shopper need state is what they are thinking about when they walk into the store. If they have a flu, then obviously their need state is cold and flu. If they're hungry, they're looking for a snack or dinner solution, then their need state is to try to find things that will feed them or their family. The shopper journey is the journey that they go on as they enter the store. Do they shop the perimeter first or do they go straight to the middle? How do they interact with each category? Understanding the shopper journey is the key to success with any brand, any retailer. Don't get hung up on the 80-20 rule, the Pareto Curve.

Make the decisions for the category that best meet the needs of the shopper. Remember the Kleenex example. If you focus on the items that don't necessarily belong on the Pareto Curve, you might be missing out on other sales. Develop a scorecard to manage, implement, validate and assess category strategies. I talk about this in other podcasts. There are free downloadable guides for you on my Resources page to help you understand how to use this vitally important tools. Use them. More importantly, education, education, education. Use each and every opportunity to get in front of a retailer to educate them about something about the category.

Trends. What's going on with your brand? What's going on with your product? Make sure you develop that solid relationship with the retailer. Make sure that it's a two way collaborative street.

There were a lot of times where I didn't have to pay slotting or for incremental merchandising. The retailer looked to me as a valued resource. They knew that I could deliver at a super high value. They knew that they could trust me to deliver.

If you can do these things, you will eventually get to the point where the retailer will view you too, as a trusted ally, a valuable resource. They will bend over backwards to help support you and your brand, to help you grow. Remember, if you help them, they're bound to help you. In addition to that, you'll be the first brand they call if they have an incremental opportunity.

Thank you for joining me today. Ill be sure to put a link to this week's show notes in the podcast website. You can get there by going to brandsecretsandstrategies.com/session76.

Check out the courses that I have for you at brandsecretsandstrategies.com/courses.

These courses are designed specifically around your most pressing questions and challenges you’ve shared with me (many of which can be found on my “Start Here” page). They are game changers. This is what you need to succeed. These mini courses are bite-sized, easy to digest on-line courses that help solve a specific problem that you have. I have a couple of the courses built already and will be uploading them in the next few weeks so stay tuned! My goal is to have 6-12 courses uploaded for you by the first week in October.

This is important, and I can’t stress this enough. I HIGHLY recommend that before you dive in, go through my free Turnkey Sales Story Strategies course in it’s entirety first. Consider it a prerequisite to the other courses. This will provide you with insider secrets into how to get your brand on the shelf and what retailers REALLY want. This is a free course. It will give you a strong foundation on which to build your brand.

My free download this week is my "Turnkey Sales Story Strategies course." As always, I appreciate your listening and your feedback.

Remember, this show is about you and it's for you, so keep the suggestions coming.

This episode's FREE downloadable

Your brand's selling story is the cornerstone of all effective business building strategies. Learn How To Get Your Brand On The Shelf and What Retailers REALLY Want. This Is Your Roadmap To Success.

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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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I appreciate all the positive feedback. Keep your suggestions coming.

Until next time, this is Dan Lohman with Brand Secrets and Strategies where the focus is on empowering brands and raising the bar.