Stop letting promotions drain your runway.
Download Trade Management Essentials To Grow And Scale Your Brand and build promotions that create profitable demand — not margin leaks that quietly drain cash and runway.
Get the free trade management guide.
Use it before your next promotion, retailer program, trade planning session, or deduction review.
Give every promotion a job
Stop promoting just because it is on the calendar. Define what the event should accomplish before you fund it.
Include the real cost
Look beyond lift. Include fees, deductions, demos, displays, forward buys, inventory, and execution misses in the true ROI.
Learn what to stop funding
Protect runway by identifying promotions and retailer programs that make sales look better while cash gets tighter.
Sales lift is not the same as promotional effectiveness.
Trade spend can be one of your most powerful growth tools. It can also shorten your runway when promotions are planned, executed, measured, or interpreted poorly.
If your sales are growing but cash still feels tight, trade spend is one of the first places to look. Not because trade spend is bad — because every dollar needs a job.
Margin Drain
Promotions lift volume, but fees, deductions, and poor execution quietly compress profit.
Shopper Training
Over-promoting can teach shoppers to wait for a deal instead of building real demand.
Decision Quality
The event is not over until you know what to repeat, change, stop, or fix before funding the next one.
Build the system before more money leaves.
- How to stop treating promotions like calendar events and give every promotion a clear job
- How to connect trade spend to shelf execution, inventory, pricing, and retailer commitments
- Why base sales, repeat purchase, and true ROI matter more than temporary lift
- How to include deductions, fees, forward buys, and hidden costs in the real promotion read
- How to manage trade before, during, and after the event
- How to learn what to stop funding so you can protect cash, margin, and runway
A simple way to turn trade spend into better decisions.
The goal is not more data. The goal is better decisions before more money leaves the business.
Define the job
Clarify the shopper behavior, retailer outcome, budget, and measurement plan before the event runs.
Execute at shelf
Confirm authorization, pricing, inventory, display support, broker ownership, and store-level readiness.
Measure true ROI
Look beyond sales lift and include all costs, deductions, baseline impact, and execution gaps.
Stop the waste
Use the learning to decide what to repeat, change, reduce, scale, negotiate, or stop funding.
Trade management is a runway protection system.
Promotions, deductions, scan downs, distributor allowances, demos, displays, and retailer fees can look like normal costs of doing business. Some are necessary. Some are useful. Some help you win.
But when they are not planned, executed, measured, and interpreted with clarity, they quietly drain cash, compress margin, and make growth more expensive than it should be.
- Evaluate promotions by profitable demand, not just total sales lift
- Protect margin by including every cost in the ROI calculation
- Prevent deductions upstream with cleaner agreements and documentation
- Use scorecards so promotion learning does not slip through the cracks
- Turn every event into a better next decision before funding more activity
Practical retail clarity from someone who has been there.
I’m Daniel Lohman, CPSA, founder of Retail Solved and host of Bulletproof Your CPG Brand. I built this guide to help founders stop funding what is not working, protect cash, and make smarter trade decisions with limited runway.
Keep learning with Bulletproof Your CPG Brand.
300+ episodes of practical retail strategy for founders, CEOs, and industry leaders trying to grow smarter.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is this guide for?
This guide is for CPG founders and growth-stage brand teams trying to make smarter promotion, trade spend, deduction, retailer program, and cash-flow decisions.
Is this only for trade marketing teams?
No. Trade management deserves founder-level attention because it can impact cash, margin, execution, retailer trust, and runway.
Is the guide really free?
Yes. Enter your email and you’ll get instant access to the guide.
Will this tell me exactly which promotions to stop?
The guide gives you the framework and questions to evaluate promotions more clearly. If you want help reviewing your actual data or trade activity, you can explore the Retail Clarity Decision Tools or CPG Cash Leak Triage options after downloading.
What happens after I download?
You’ll receive the guide and occasional practical resources to help you protect runway, improve execution, and compete smarter.
Before your next promotion, run the check.
Download the free guide and start making smarter trade decisions before more money leaves the business.