BRAND SECRETS AND STRATEGIES

PODCAST #164

Hello and thank you for joining us today. This is the Brand Secrets and Strategies Podcast #164

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. In this industry, we spent a lot of time teaching brands how to pitch their products. We talk constantly about how to get your brand in front of investors, how to raise more money. Well, a lot of people do this or model this after the Shark Tank. Today, in this episode, you're going to learn about how Dustin Finkel from KaPop learned how to leverage those strategies to get his brand on Shark Tank, and more importantly, how to get their attention. In fact, during the show, he managed to get two endorsements from two of the Sharks, and while Dustin didn't get an investment, he did bring awareness to his product. In this episode, you're going to learn about the strategies that he used to get in front of the Sharks, and how you can use those same strategies when you're pitching your product to investors.

Dan: As always, I want to thank you for listening. This show is about you, and it's for you. In appreciation for your time, there's a free downloadable guide for you at the end of your podcast episode. I always try to 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 with, and compete more effectively with. Don't forget to go back and listen to prior episodes, where I might be answering some of your most pressing bottlenecks, strategies that are validated by leading CEOs and thought leaders in the industry. You're going to want to check them out. If you like this episode, share with a friend, subscribe and leave a review. Now, here's Dustin with KaPop.

Dan: At Brand Secrets and Strategies, you learn how to save valuable time and money, where you are in strategies to get your products in more store shelves and into the hands of more shoppers, empowering brands and raising the bar.

Dan: Dustin, thank you for coming on today. Could you please start by telling us a little bit about yourself and your journey to KaPop? I know you're on episode 126, but in case anyone hadn't heard that, can you please share it with us?

Dustin: Sure. I have a unique background in coming into starting my own company. I originally started my career in investment banking, which is not the typical entrepreneurial journey. But I went there and realized how important and gratifying it is to run your own company. And so, my journey and belief in running your own company at that time was a Fortune 500, obviously very different than what I'm doing now. I went to business school at Northwestern Kellogg, went into big CPG, big consumer packaged goods where I worked for General Mills, and I had the luxury and fortune of launching the first nationwide gluten-free product ever with Gluten-Free Chex. That really was a powerful experience, because not only did we find an incredibly wide space, but also it showed me how powerful food can be to consumers.

Dustin: We received letters because at the time people were still sending in letters about how it literally changed their lives. And no joke, even this past weekend, I was demoing at a new store in Minneapolis, and a woman came up to me, and we were talking and I told her a little bit about that, she's like, "Oh my God, you're the guy who did that, you have no idea how that changed my life. I found out that it was celiacs, there was no food to eat. I loved Chex for that." And so the power of that, I ended up going to work for Horizon Organic, did some other brands before taking on a more entrepreneurial stamp, working for smaller companies as interim CEO, CMO, and then have this crazy idea to start my own company, ultimately called KaPop, it was a pop ancient grain snack because I truly wanted to bring back authenticity, simplicity, and joy back to food. I do not believe there needs to be a trade-off between incredible ingredients and great taste, and you find that with our product.

Dustin: People love our product because they say that God, most of the stuff tastes like cardboard. Even on my Shark Tank episode that I know we'll talk about, Mr. Wonderful says that I've tried this GMO crap and gluten-free and it tastes like cardboard. This is really good. We've heard that quite a few times, and that's what I'm really proud of, is I believe great-tasting food does not need to have fillers and sub-optimized ingredients. You can get great nutrition and great taste in the same package.

Dan: Thank you for sharing that. I could not agree with you more. In fact, as you know, one of the things that I focus on is teaching brands like you how to leverage that unique selling proposition, those quality ingredients to help drive sales in stores. We'll talk about that in a minute. Can you back up a little bit, and talk about why KaPop? Where'd you come up with the idea, and then what were you looking to do, or did you just stumble upon this and thought, hey, I want to create a brand out of it?

Dustin: As much as I'd love to tell you, there's this great planned out journey for me, even though I've been in food for so long, this was as typical as most other startups, I think. I thought there could be a better way. And at the time, I was eating a lot of the quote, unquote, better for you snacks out there. I won't name some of those brands, but popcorns and other things, and I really realized there was empty nutrition and empty calories in those bags. You weren't getting any of your macros, you weren't seeing any benefits from it. I wasn't feeling good after eating it. And I'm a huge fan of ancient grains, I really do believe in how amazing these small ingredients can be. Everything from quinoa to sorghum, terf, millet, et cetera, and they haven't been modified or altered for thousands of years, they retain incredible nutrition. Sorghum, in particular, adds biodiversity back into our soils, 91% of the land that it's grown on is non-irrigated. It's an incredible grain.

Dustin: So, I went into my pantry where I knew I had ancient grains, and I came up with the, I wonder if you can pop this like popcorn, idea to see if the kernels would pop like popcorn instead of corn. And while they didn't quite exactly pop like popcorn, we got these burnt little morsels, and I took these burnt morsels around the neighborhood to the moms and to the kids, and said, "What do you think? It's really nutritious." But they really loved it. The problem was the eating format was a disaster. But I went to Expo West in 2016, and I was the interim CEO of another company, deciding what I was going to do with that company. I did Ziploc bag, I love telling the story of Ziploc bag of burnt sorghum, and I said, "Hey, I've got this great CEO opportunity that pays a lot of money. They want to move the company to Boulder for me, or the Ziploc bag of sorghum. What do you thinking?"

Dustin: I met with executives from whole foods and private equity people I knew, and there was such interest in this open white space of ancient grains and doing it authentically. And so for that reason, I chose to move forward with KaPop. And I'll tell you, I really believe in that, I was just at a major chain that has a private label, ancient grain granola. And I'll tell you that the ancient grain granola, the first ancient grain in the package is on the 10th ingredient, and that's it. Whereas our product is ancient grain pop snacks, we're 100% ancient grains, so there's no corn, no rice, no wheat. We add the oil and the seasoning, and that's it. And so again, bringing back the authenticity because I think consumers are really skeptical nowadays because we put too many once overs on them, and doing my own company, to answer your question was the ability to allow me to do it the way I thought it should be done in true authenticity, not compromise because it costs, not compromise because of this or that. I was going to do it the right way. And that's how we ended up with our product.

Dan: Thank you for sharing that. Let's talk a little bit more about ancient grains first because I think this is really interesting. When you're talking about authenticity, to your point, in great illustration, most of the products out there today, the quality healthy stuff is way down in the bottom. The big difference between what makes natural and mainstream brands, or is that mainstream brands try to trick us, quote-unquote, into thinking that their products are healthier, better-for-you, when in the example you just shared, that's not always the case. Can you talk a little bit more about that, Dustin, and then how does that relate to your journey and to what you're doing now with KaPop?

Dustin: It's interesting, a lot of brands out there, and I think it's fair to a degree in marketing. I remember working for a company that had a brand, and I'm always trying to not name the brand, so I don't get into too much trouble. But the brand had the same product, exact same ingredients, marketed it as three different benefits. So, you'd see it on shelf as three different packages with three different benefits, the same exact product. Now, to me, that's a little bit of marketing conjecture, but actually, I would argue that's fine. You're getting a good quality product that has three different benefits, they chose to put it in three different packages, fine. It's when you're calling out a benefit or you're calling out an ingredient as the main benefit of that particular product, and it's lower on the ingredient deck. Your consumers are more educated than ever on how to read ingredient statements, but generally speaking, I don't think they understand it the way we do.

Dustin: And so, when they see something that says ancient grain this, or they see something that says probiotic that, they have an expectation, and the more times we diminish the authenticity of what we're doing with those expectations, all we're doing is hurting the trust in the landscape. I've done, and a big part of my world is I do demo, after demo, after demo, and I see it firsthand. They don't know I'm the founder, they just think I'm a random demo guy for my product, so I get very honest feedback and I can see the lack of trust, I can see the lack of authenticity that they're expecting from this products. The first thing they do is they hear my pitch, they turn it around, you can see the skepticism in their eye, and I'm like, "I swear we're just throwing ingredients", and they look at it, and there's this shock of, what? You're actually telling me the truth? It's fun for me to watch because I know I'm delivering on what they expect, but it's also very disheartening that we've created a culture of consumers, especially in the natural space that does not trust what we're saying, that does not get what we're saying.

Dustin: And so, whether it's paleo or keto or ancient grains or probiotics or whatever, I'm a big believer that you should deliver what you say you're delivering, and it should be that simple. And frankly, I'm not a big fan of the government getting involved in our world, but we get so concerned about so many other ingredient statements, it needs to save this 2%, and we need to have iron on there. Well, instead of worrying about iron levels and things like that, why not just make brands put on the package what they actually are.

Dan: What a concept? Now, if you started that, you might put a lot of brands out of business though. Yeah, I think a lot of brands would probably suffer greatly if they did that, but I love your story about the three different products with one item. I actually share a story a lot of times where a brand came out with five different versions of the same thing. And again, that goes back to that lack of trust, that lack of authenticity that big brands have. So, if you have a big brand that says natural on it or even organic ... I saw a major big brand in your category a couple of days ago that has an organic label on it. My first thought was, I don't know if I could trust it. And of course, I'm not going to mention the brand either, but my point is you're so skeptical because you don't know because they haven't done that to the degree that you're doing it today, even though the USDA organic seal the best seal out there for that kind of product.

Dan: So, when you're talking about this, one of the things that I like to focus on is the value proposition. And so, your product ... let me think of how I want to word this. Healthy nutrition costs more, but yet if you eat healthy nutritious products, you eat less. I think that's one of the biggest missed opportunities in this industry, is to focus on the value that we provide. So, the way I frame this a lot is that if I eat the generic bread, I'm hungry almost before I finish eating it. If I eat the best mainstream bread, that's whole grain, et cetera, I may be satiated for a couple of hours, but if I am what I eat, and if I believe that nutrition matters, if I eat the best organic bread, then I may be satiated for longer. So, even though I'm paying a few pennies at the shelf, I'm getting a much better value for my buck. So, when you're talking about this authenticity, how does that translate to the customers that you're talking to?

Dustin: I think you hit it right on the head, I think it's a macronutrient. I think another, I wouldn't call this inauthentic, but another trend we see is fortification. Protein is obviously something that everyone wants, it's the number one trend regardless of what diet you're following, you always want more protein, protein, protein, protein. And so, a lot of brands do that by adding in soy, or pea protein, or whatever else they're adding in. We took a stance early on, and I wouldn't say that we will never deviate from this, but we took a stance early on that I wanted my macros to come from the actual ingredients. So, the protein and fiber of my product comes from the sorghum, so it's incredibly intensely nutritious in those particular macros. And so to your point, eating a lot of fiber is filling. Fiber, I would say more so than protein or carbs, in a lot of ways. The other thing that you see right now is a lot of rejection of carbohydrates, and I see that it's probably the number one rejection I get when I'm done demoing, I don't want any carbs. Are there any carbs? Or I don't want any grains.

Dustin: And again, I think it's because people are making broad statements against particular ingredients because of this general movement of lack of trust. And so, ancient grains, for instance, are grains, but I would never put them up against modern wheat, modern corn, modern rice, I think they're superior in every way. And so, again, the lack of trust we've created with consumers has also created misinformation, and people just follow what they're hearing on TV, on different shows without getting a lot of education around what those different attributes are. I'll tell you another one that I deal with that I think is a great example. You talked about natural, so on a couple of my products, we have natural flavors, but I'm going to change it to say natural seasonings, but the reality is our vegan cheddar, it took me two years to create that product, to get that flavor to taste as good as it does, and I actually have multiple videos of cheese managers at grocery stores not knowing that it wasn't real cheese. I mean, we worked really hard.

Dustin: If I listed out every ingredient in order, you'd be able to probably replicate my formula. So, we list out a few of the big ones, then we say natural flavors, and the consumer is ... oh, you're trying to throw in over on me, what chemicals do you have in there? As the owner, if I'm there, I'm able to have that conversation and say, "Look, I'm the founder, I'm the owner, I'll tell you exactly what's in there because I don't think you're going to try and copy my formula." So again, this lack of trust around what natural means, I think organic is pretty safe for the most part because of all the standards around that, but natural certainly is not, and consumers now believe naturals is almost an evil word because it doesn't mean anything.

Dan: Well, it's certainly becoming adulterated. And again, the challenge is another segue, I think we spend so much time as an industry fighting amongst ourselves as to what does natural mean, that we've allowed other people to really weaken it, to change it, to dilute it. And to your point, that really does hurt us as a group. But what's interesting though is that the core customer that buys your product, that understands the benefits of it, that's a ripple on the pond that I keep talking about, where it's those customers that take the time to get to understand and know the stuff that are the ones that are driving all the trends in every category, et cetera. Have you seen that in your category as well?

Dustin: They're absolutely driving the trends. I mean, natural food is ... these natural consumers go in waves. I find it fascinating the speed with which trends happen nowadays. So, you think about probiotics, probiotics took years and years to develop as an understanding ingredient. Now, it's reached mass understanding, so to speak, and natural, at least, and is growing quickly. DHA and Omega-3s took a while ago, but now you see like paleo ... When I first started Paleo, everyone made fun of it, it was a caveman diet. But then that started getting steam. You compare that to keto, keto is the fastest growing trend I have ever seen. I think statistically it's proven that way. It not only has reached maturation so fast, it's continuing to grow at a speed that I've never seen with any other health trend. And this is the same thing as everything else, a 24-hour news cycle, access to social media, misinformation, people taking advantage of keto.

Dustin: If you searched keto now, I can't even imagine the number of results that would come up. Whereas if you searched it probably two or three years ago, it'd be a handful, literally. So, I think, to answer your question, it's amazing how trends are developing, how fast they're exploding, and the question I have is, are they sustaining or not? And so, that's where I think brands that make the mistake of naming their product after an ingredient or after a trend are putting themselves at high risk. If you're the keto bar, what happens if keto goes out of fashion? If you're the paleo bar, what happens if paleo goes out of fashion, and so on and so forth?

Dan: That's a very good point. In fact, on that note, again, misinformation, keto, the people that understand what it is, it's not the old Atkins diet. This is very different. And the misinformation out there really taints a lot of people's ideas of what this could be. So, getting back to where you're at, trying to have that authentic conversation about your product, et cetera, so what strategies do you have to educate the consumer about why ancient grains are better? And then, why KaPop is better than, say, other brands?

Dustin: Yeah, that's a great, great question. I think we're still working through all of that. I mean, there is an awareness element. There's a reason I named my brand ancient grains snacks versus sorghum snacks. Well, not the brand, I should say, but the marketing material, because I believe that the awareness build for sorghum is still a while away, even though it's the fastest-growing ancient grain, versus quinoa, it has seen a decline, although people know what quinoa is. So, we typically, if we're talking to consumers, I'll say, "Hey, we're Ancient Grains. Have you ever heard of Ancient Grains?" And you'll get maybes, I'll say, have you ever heard of quinoa? Oh, it's just like quinoa, and here's why it's different. But ancient grains has the marketing prowess where I felt okay with it, because I'm being authentic is, if you hear ancient grains, it sounds better for you. So, if you know nothing else, it just sounds better for you.

Dustin: And I get a lot of stupid jokes around it, but people associate old with better. And so, we have the communication on our packaging, on our website. The other thing we do is the typical today's world partnering with influencers. We partner with the sorghum council, who's a sponsor of ours, we attend a lot of show, we do podcasts like this where I can continue to educate. But ultimately, what I also rely on is the fact that our ingredients are super clean. So, even if you don't know what ancient grains are, you flip over my bag, it's going to show a handful of ingredients or less, depending on the flavor, I got it. It's simple, it's understanding. And I have known that since I launched this brand in April 2018 to today, in January 2020, the number of times I say, do you know what sorghum is? It's monumentally shifted already in the past year and a half.

Dustin: Now, I'm not saying that's because of us necessarily, but we've seen tremendous growth in that awareness to the point where I don't use that quinoa reference as much. "Hey, have you heard of ancient grains? Do you know sorghum?" "Oh yeah, yeah." And then I'll go into my spiel. But we're doing it through education, through all the vehicles that we have. But it's going to be a growth curve for sure.

Dan: I think it's great that you're doing that, so very important. I remember the first time I heard the word sorghum, I wondered, is this just another fancy chemical, whatever? But again, when you start to understand it, the benefits of it, et cetera, going back to the example that I gave a minute ago, it's, if you are what you eat and what you eat matters, and at the end of the day, that's what's critically important. Snacking occasions are one of the fastest-growing trends, the point being is a lot of people are augmenting or even replacing meals with snacks. And so, if you can have a healthy snack that gives your body the nutrition that it needs, that's a win-win. So, while you're educating the consumer, you're driving them to your website, are you able to capture those consumers and put them on a mailing list, and start sending them information and bring them into your community?

Dustin: Right before this conversation, I was on the phone with our email agency actually discussing that exact strategy.

Dan: Good for you.

Dustin: I will tell you, at worst, very candidly, we seem to struggle with it more so than maybe some other brands, or at least if, based on what I'm hearing other brands say or their PR sounds better than it might actually be, the reason being is we see such this move to Amazon. So, you come to my website, I only capture your information if you either buy or opt in to an email, and we incentivize it, we provide 15% off discounts, 30% off discounts, we do a lot of different testing, we did stuff around Shark Tank. But even with Shark Tank and incentivizing people to come to our website and spending a lot of money and effort behind revising our email pathway, we completely changed it. We saw probably 90% of our consumers buy on Amazon, and so we're still trying to figure out how to do that because the power of capturing those emails and the economics of it are so strong, that if I can figure out how to break that nut, we will absolutely be there.

Dustin: We're working on a lot of different communication tactics. I think the struggle is the trust and safety of Amazon versus this little dinky website from some brand you've never heard of before. It's tough, I see from my own consumer behavior. Despite being in marketing and despite being a branding, I get hooked on a lot of advertisements also because they are well-geared towards my fitness regimen. So, I will go to their website, the first thing I do, go to the Amazon, not to necessarily buy it there, but to check the ratings, because I trust them in the rating. And then I see, okay, I can get it on Prime for two days, I know the system here, I know the risk profile of Amazon versus going back to their website. All right, I'll just buy it on Amazon. I think this is the push and pull of how Amazon has really overtaken the consumer shopping experience, and food is one of the fastest-growing engines on Amazon from what I understand, 60% of all searches start on Amazon. So, it's just a powerful engine that's hard to compete with.

Dan: It is. But the reason I ask that and I actually asked that because I remember taking a look at your site last time you were on, and this is something that I think you need to do. The reason I think this is important, Dustin, is not necessarily to try to compete with Amazon, which of course that's not going to happen, but to develop a community around your brand that can help answer those questions, and chime in and provide antidotes and insights. Let's go back to your gluten-free example. My sister celiac so is my niece. A lot of people don't understand what that means or why that matters. A lot of people think it's just a fad. Well, if you've got celiacs, it's not a fad. It's a big deal. My sister shares stories on a regular basis where she'll eat something that she's told is gluten-free, but it's not as clean as it needs to be, and then she's messed up for a week or two. The point being that this is really dangerous to those people that basically are starving from the inside out, talk more about that on different podcast episodes.

Dan: But my point is, if you could develop a community around your brand and then leverage your community to educate or help you educate other potential shoppers, that's the win. And then the other thing is, if all the retailers went out of business tomorrow, where would you sell your stuff? And so, your most powerful commodity, I don't mean to use that term lightly, but let's say your most powerful asset is the consumer that buys your product. They'll go out of your way to choose your brand over another brand. So, being able to develop a community around them, and then you can give them additional incentives ... We talked a little bit about trade-marketing, I've got a lot of strategies around how you can do better with trade marketing through a program like that. In fact, we'll jump into this in a minute, but one of the comments you made at Shark Tank is that you're able to fund your trademark and your trade spending at a high margin.

Dan: And I got to be honest, I cringed a little bit when I heard that because there are better ways to grow runway. And so, because we're talking about it right now if I was going to buy your product anyhow, and you give me a coupon, well that makes me feel good, but that doesn't address the fundamental need of why you promoted your product. You promote your product primarily to drive new traffic, new trials to your brand, not to reward me for coming to get your product. And so, there's a shift or differentiation between how to do that, there are some strategies that we could also leverage with Amazon and other organizations to help do that as well. So, we'll talk more about that later if you want. But my point is, build a community around your product and then leverage that community in low slotting and some of the other fees retailers charge.

Dan: At the end of the day, retailers want three things, and I think a lot of people forget this. They want more people in their store, more traffic, they want a reasonable profit in their category, and they want a competitive advantage. And if you can help the retailer achieve their objectives, they're going to bend over backward to help you achieve your objectives, I .e.some more, get more displays, promote more effectively, get more distribution, et cetera. Your thoughts?

Dustin: I 100% agree with you. I think the challenge, and this is why you and I always have great conversations, I think the challenge is how to break through this cycle that exists in the marketplace. Because the reality is while you and I see eye to eye on that, there's become a pattern of execution in the world of natural foods, and probably even big food as well, where you get in, you do your OIs, you're off voices three to four times per year because that's where unify and caky really focus on for you, and then you go from that to doing your MCBs at store level, your scans, the only way the OIs are effective is if you add a scan on top of that. And so, you might be, and you talk about this all the time, losing money on OI's, I know I am, and then you see the forward buying. So, the distributors are buying a significant amount while you're on OI, and so the whole trade dynamic really shifts. On top of that, the retailers and the brokers have come to expect is just part of the execution.

Dustin: So, we just got into a new retailer, and the first thing is we're so excited to have you, we're really looking forward to having KaPop in our stores, we want free fill, we want this, we want that, and it's literally a bulleted list of probably seven different items, they're going to cost me a fortune. And this becomes the way of the world, it's hard to break free of that cycle, especially as a small brand that doesn't have the power, doesn't have the opportunity to leverage other assets like maybe a bigger brand can, or at least the category management, which I know is another big thing for you. So long story short is saying, I agree, it's hard to figure out how to break this cycle effectively. And that's, I do think the power of Amazon and web from the transaction value. Because if I can say, hey look, I got a great business here, and in your region, I have a great business, that great philosophy is, hey, you're losing consumers in your store because they're going and buying on Amazon. There is some power to that as well.

Dan: The answer to your question is relevancy. This is the focus of what I talk about. So, if the retailer wants to remain relevant and they want to compete effectively against Amazon and other retailers, the way they do that is by keeping customers coming back in the store again and again and again. The focus behind my free turnkey sales store strategies course is to teach brands how to leverage their insights about that consumer, develop a relationship with the retailer focusing on that, and develop that trust. To answer your other part of the question, the reason this is the way it is because retail is broken. It doesn't take a lot of skill for a broker or an agency or a brand to go into a retailer and just write a check. There's nothing special about that. The challenge is retailers look at that as a profit center, and a lot of people don't realize that. Well, if you think about some of the big retailers, or for Kimberly Clark, they were leveraging diapers, for example, as a loss leader. Because they knew the consumer that came in to buy diapers would spend a lot more money in their store.

Dan: And so, while mainstream retailers were asking for a 20, 30, 40% margin off diapers every day, and then of course when it's being sold, and then you've got the biggest retailer that's smart enough to realize that, hey, I want that consumer more than I want that little bit of margin. And so, that's part of the overarching conversation. So, what I recommend all brands, especially you, is here, you have a unique opportunity to educate the retailer about that customer that buys KaPop over any other brand, and those retailers that are savvy enough to pay attention, know that you're trying to help them grow sales by leveraging the strength of that unique consumer that you specifically drive into the store. And Ooh, by the way, when your customer comes into the store, they spend a lot more in other premium products throughout their store, therefore they're more valuable as a checkout than the customer that buys, like you said earlier, the private label item where the sorghum was way down the list or the ancient grain. Does that help?

Dustin: Absolutely. It's very helpful. I was just going as you were talking, trading, I have a sales meeting tomorrow with a big retailer actually, and I was just thinking in my head how to spin that out on the deck I'm presenting, so I think it's very helpful.

Dan: Well, I hope that helps and I'd love to talk to you more about it offline, et cetera. But this is the focus almost every podcast episode, the new YouTube channel, everything I do, the point being is that if I can help you grow, thrive and succeed, then we're going to change the dynamics and help natural brands become more ... I hate to say mainstream, become more of the focus, and that's how we change our healthy way of life. That's how we change the conversation from, what the heck is sorghum, to I know what that is, I want it. So, thank you for that. Since we talked last in episode 126, what things have happened with your brand? What successes have you had beyond Shark Tank? We'll talk about that in a minute.

Dustin: Well, this year or 2019 I should say, was one of those years that was game-changing for me as a human, as a leader, and the emotional roller coaster I went on to us as a brand. I remember sitting in December 2018, we had just launched that summer saying, okay, if we can just get through 2019, we'll be fine, we'll be okay. And then, I remember seeing December 2019 a few months ago, or a month ago saying, okay, 2020. And I think what I'm realizing is this journey will just continue in that fashion for some time, but we've had a lot of wins. I mean, I think our brand really resonates with people, and the problem that we're solving, if you think about what we're coming into to solve problems for our consumers, is we're solving the problem of great taste while meeting the needs and checking the boxes that are really required as table stakes nowadays; gluten-free, non-GMO, allergen reduction or allergen-free, in our case, vegan as well.

Dustin: And so, instead of saying, hey, we're, no, no, no, and I always talk about this a lot. There's a lot of brands out there very serious and they focus on the no, no-nos. We focus on the taste, taste, taste, and we check all those boxes. And so, that's where we're focused on, and that's what's really had a dramatic impact on how we differentiate from our competition, and we differentiate for consumers. So to answer your question, we were a part of one of a handful of brands selected to be part of the Kraft Heinz's Incubator Program Springboard, which is a 16-week program that Kraft put on. And I could talk about that for hours and just what an incredible experience that was on so many different facets. I came in as the most experienced person, I started a brand without CPG experience, and I still took so much away from that. We won the Unify Pitch Slam event in the Las Vegas tabletop, we won a couple of other pitch events that we were a part of. And then also, we were part of the 7-Eleven Next program, which is their effort to bring healthy snacks into their stores.

Dustin: So, a lot of these nice wins, but what I would say is what I see as an incredible experience is our growth on the retail channel, the trust and the relationships that we have with retailers. I would tell you, we make it a big commitment to build incredibly strong relationships with every consumer we have, whether that's a retailer, a store manager, or consumer at their house. We spend a lot of time building those relationships, and that to me is what's most promising because those have paid off the most. And when we did get onto Shark Tank as an example, we found out most people don't know this, they give you about two and a half, three weeks notice for your air date, and you don't even know if you're going to air, it's not guaranteed.

Dustin: And so, we got about three weeks notice, it was right around Christmas time, so we lost Christmas, we lost New Year's, so we didn't have very many working days, and we had to get a new production in, I had to work with all my retailers on merchandising opportunities, and I can tell you those relationships we built enabled us to quickly go to the Harmon's of the worlds, the Gelson's, the Bristol farms, the Lucky's, God bless them, and Fairway, and so on and so forth, and all of these in whole foods, and all these amazing accounts that we're in, and say, hey, we just got this incredible opportunity, I know you're merchandising cycles, usually 90 days, what can we do next week? And those really paid it off. So, a long way of answering you, 2019 was about building relationships, building the framework of our brand so that we could really see strong growth in 2020, and already January is off to a rocket ship start.

Dan: Thank you for going through all that. I love that. And by the way, thank you for giving me the opportunity to come in and speak at springboard. I really appreciate it. That was a lot of fun. You're talking about your merchandising cycle, how you had to compress it. You just answered the exact question that we're talking about a minute ago. You now have a relationship with these retailers, and if they can react based upon that relationship you've got with them, that personal relationship, that's how you get them to change a conversation. That's how you get them to leverage the strength of your brand. And so, when you're talking about gluten-free, plant-based, vegan, all of that stuff, those are the trends. Those are the ripples in the pond, those are the trends that are driving all the sales. Let me back up a little bit.

Dan: Several years ago, I wrote a feature article for the 2016 Category Management Handbook, and the focus of the article was actually plant-based, but I used organic because people understand that a lot easier. So, the point being is this, if you look at organic products, organic products are the ones that are driving sales across every category, in their absence, every category would flat out decline, specifically dairy. Dairy is a multi-billion dollar category, huge, huge, huge category. Total dairy was up 1.5%, organic dairy is up 12.3% or something like that. Organic dairy represented only 9.8% of that multi-billion-dollar pie. If you remove organic dairy from that pie, total dairy, it'd be flat or declining. When you look at plant-based, you look at gluten-free and all those other attributes, that's where the real opportunity is.

Dan: Now, as a side note, one of the challenges, that none of the databases do a really good job of coding or capturing the customer by the way that they shop. We've talked a little bit about that, got some strategies around that if anyone's interested. But my point is you, that's where that ripple in the pond is, and so when you're talking to that big retailer tomorrow, and you take off plant-based, that's a big trend, you take off gluten-free, et cetera, and how the gluten-free shopper is so specific to, these are the products I'm going to buy. Again, if you focus on the plant-based market basket, the gluten-free market basket, the ancient grain market basket, the vegan market basket, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, that compounds your customers far more valuable than the customer that isn't. So now that you've got this relationship, let's teach you how to leverage it at retail so that you can do more to help that retailer drive sales. Does that make sense?

Dustin: Absolutely. And I think where it works, it's incredible. My challenge and I'd love your thoughts, I'm going to push it back on you, I'm going to podcast back at you, become the interviewer, is the retailers that are more nimble allow their stores or their regions to have a lot of autonomy, which allows us to move quickly, which allows us to leverage those secondary opportunities that aren't just focused on what's the price point? Is it two for six, is it two for five? We're focused on endcaps where we can communicate vegan, here's a plant-based end cap, or here's a local end cap. I think what you're seeing, and unfortunately, there's been recent announcements in our local Rocky Mountain region, for instance, around stores closing, that as the retailer has become more centralized, which creates efficiencies for their operations, it provides more difficulty for brands like us to leverage some of those conversations.

Dustin: So, I have a great relationship with X store manager, and he's willing to do anything. We want to help build our brands because we've developed that powerful give and take relationship, but he's handcuffed because of the policies at HQ. And so, I think that's been a challenge for us in execution because of some of those gaps. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

Dan: Well, first of all, thank you for asking that question. Again, retail's broken, so to your point, let's dumb everything down to the lowest denominator. Now, here's why that happens. Most every brand goes to the retailer and says, hey, pay attention to me, this is what I need from you. You need to do this for me. Okay? That's what they're used to hearing. Instead, you want to walk in and talk to the retailer, here's how I'm going to help you achieve your goals by leveraging the strength of my consumer. Retailers have a ton of information thrown out, a bunch of canned topline reports or templated reports. The reality is that those are just a waste of ink and paper. The reality is that a savvy retailer already knows how well your brand is performing in their stores. What they don't have access to, Dustin is your consumer and understanding what's unique about your consumer, how your consumer shops, why your consumer's more valuable, et cetera.

Dan: So again, that free course, turnkey sales store strategies, any brand that has the discipline to do that, and I mean, honestly has the discipline, even against the big brands, this is a strategy you need to leverage going forward. How does this work? Many, many years ago, when I was a DSD driver, actually grocery manager, and then DSD driver after that, I came upon this strategy. And the way it worked was, because I had that personal relationship with the retailer, back when retailers can make their own decisions, I was able to get incremental displays and opportunities the biggest brand couldn't get. I think I shared with you in the last podcast, that for Superstars grand opening, I got a 4,900 bag chip display in the lobby plus other end caps and stuff like that, where the number one salty snack brand in the country could not get a single display. Because of that relationship, because I was doing more to help them achieve their objective.

Dan: Now, I was able to parlay, that's when I was working for Kimberly Clark. I was able to do something similar with one of the biggest, fastest-growing retailers, one of the retailers that's not afraid of Walmart. Now, the other retailers, they actually go head to head with them on a regular basis, where they would invite me in and then give me an opportunity to put together programs like that. So, while they don't share their data or didn't share their data with syndicated data providers, they don't share profit data and stuff with any other brand, they were sharing it with me. Of course, I didn't share it back to KC, but my point is because of that relationship because I was able to prove to them time and time again how I could help them drive sales, they start giving me a chance. So what do you do? I would challenge the retailer to say, here's what I can do for you.

Dan: And I remember sometimes when I was working on the chip company, I more than doubled the size of my route in a couple of months, but I had to get in front of retailers faces and say, if I can achieve this goal, then I'm going to give you my shelf space for another retailer or something like that, something super, super audacious. Now, I don't know what that would be in your world, but my point is, maybe you could leverage more demos, maybe you could leverage more opportunities with your community to drive traffic into the store. Anything that you can do to help build awareness and drive traffic, give them a reasonable profit and then help them give a competitive advantage, that's your point of negotiation. Now, leverage that on top of plant-based, gluten-free and everything else, that should be your selling story. Does that help?

Dustin: Yeah. No, I love it. I'm very ... what's the right word? I can't think of the right word, but I'm excited right now.

Dan: Good, good, good. So now, I'm going to-

Dustin: Inspired. Inspired was the word I was-

Dan: Oh, that's good.

Dustin: I'm fired to go tackle some things as soon as we're done.

Dan: So, we need to wrap this up right now, right? Just kidding. You're going to be up all night.

Dustin: I love these conversations because you do get into the same heading as everyone else, and what I love, what I'm hearing you say is we check all the boxes. How do we leverage? And I come from big CBG, and this was stuff that we actually used that was powerful, some of the good of big CPG is, here's our consumer, here's why they're so valuable to you, let's play that as effectively and efficiently as possible. I would argue with a small brand, and a lot of ways our consumers are more loyal, they're more dedicated and they're more-

Dan: Exactly.

Dustin: No, I'm inspired. Thank you.

Dan: Well, and on that note, you mentioned blinders on, one of the strategies that I use that I've always been able to leverage, I loved going against the big ... Well, actually when I worked for Unilever, they were the biggest but the second biggest CPG company in the industry because their Achilles heel is that they have blinders on. This is the way we do it because this is the way we do it because this is the way we do it. I think I shared with you the ham story, where a radio host once said that he was at his son's house for Thanksgiving, and his son's wife cut the ends off the ham and they said, "Why'd you do that?" And she said, "I don't know. My mom always did that." And their mom was right there, and they said, "Why did you do that?" And she said, "Because my pan was too small." Think about it. That's how we do things, we do things because we don't think about, hey, my Pan's bigger, I don't have to do that. But that's the way most brands approach things. They use the same strategies.

Dan: Okay, pro tip, the larger brands out there, this is their Achilles heel. If you could leverage these creative strategies, and if you could speak to what you can do differently, better, et cetera, then that's how you beat the big guys at their own game. Because to your point, they show up with their ROIs and stuff ... No, go ahead.

Dustin: The other thing, I think, and having worked with big brands, and I think this is a huge Achilles' heel of there is the speed of execution. I recently was having a conversation with this group, and they're talking about, hey if we only had two years to plan this activity they were talking about, and I sat there laughing because we had two and a half weeks to plan our Shark Tank appearance, and had to get everything they were talking about doing all the same things we did in two weeks. And they were talking about gosh, I wish we had two years to plan this because they only had 18 months that they did it. I think the other power is that we can be nimble. I'm the one on the phone with the store managers, I'm the one driving in and doing those things, and those are the powerful reasons that the store managers love working with small brands because they know it's yours, they care, they know you care, they know you're willing to do whatever it takes to succeed. Speed to market is another huge advantage of ours.

Dan: Absolutely. So again, one of your core strengths, leverage that. Leverage that with the retailers, tell them that, hey, wait a minute, we can do X if you need us. So back to what we were talking about a minute ago, that retailer that doesn't share data with anyone else, that's extremely difficult to deal with, that I am growing. I mean, every month, every quarter we were growing by not five or 10% by 20%, 80%, 30% et cetera, quarter after quarter, after quarter, because they would call us up at the last minute and say, we've got an end cap, can you fill it? We've got an incremental opportunity. I didn't pay for any of that, and I didn't pay for their data, which is another benefit. So, we're able to use my expertise to go to understand the retailer of the category, et cetera, I would even analyze categories that we didn't even participate him. But again, the net payoff is we got incremental displays they didn't get, and the greatest compliment I think we ever received is the number three brand in the category came to us one day and said, "I don't know what you guys are doing. I need to hire you because I can't afford to ... you're going to put me out, you know what I'm getting at, so that's cool. Thank you for sharing all that.

Dan: Let's talk a little bit about Shark Tank, how did you get to the point where you're going to go on the ... Why did you decide to go down this path, and then some of the things that you had to do to get ready for it so you can help other brands position themselves?

Dustin: Shark Tank is an amazing opportunity. When I joined the Kraft Springboard Incubator, one of the questions I got constantly is, why did you do it? Why are you going to spend 16 weeks in Chicago? When I decided to do Shark Tank or after people knew that I had done Shark Tank months later, why did you do Shark Tank, similar questions to what you're asking? I take the opposite thought process and maybe wrong, who knows, but why not? So, I always evaluate things on the benefit that can come to me to the risk that can come to my brand, to my company, or me personally. We'll start with Springboard, because I think it parlays into this, which is, at worst, I go to Kraft Springboard, it gives me something PR to talk about, it gives my brand some buzz, I get some money out of it, and maybe I learned something along the way. That's the worst-case scenario, everything from there is an upside, and it's exactly how that played out. Everything was upside from there.

Dustin: Shark Tank was no different. As a small brand, what other way do you get nine minutes or 10 minutes on TV? There was no other way to do it unless you do something horribly wrong, most likely. And so to me, what other great opportunities could there be to go on there, and what's the risk? The risk is, and it's actually a fairly higher risk than Springboard, that they don't like my brand and make me look bad. But that's where you have that confidence in what you do and a really strong belief in what we do. I had never heard bad comments from consumers. I knew that people loved how we presented our grant. I knew that we had a great brand story, so I felt that the risk was low. The story is, from what I understand, there are over 40,000 brands that apply every year for Shark Tank, they film about 150, and they air less than 100.

Dustin: The process usually starts quite a ways in advance of their shootings. We shot in June, right? Usually, it takes months, and months, and months, and months, you're talking six to 12 months in advance, and I know multiple brands went over multi-year processes. I was actually at Expo West, and talk about Springboard's benefit, I was at the Springboard booth. I would never have been there had I not joined Springboard, and I see this woman staring at me, and ... You notice there's always some people just stopping and watching, and I see this for about 20, 30 seconds and I realized she's wearing a Shark Tank casting shirt, and I didn't waste a beat. I marched right over there, said, "Hey, my name's Dustin Finkel, I own KaPop, blah blah, blah, blah, here's why I should be on Shark Tank. And she looked at me, she was like, "Holy crap, you have a ton of energy. Barbara is going to eat you up. You're going to be perfect for starting. We've got to get you on Shark Tank."

Dustin: I've talked to a lot of colleges recently and classes in groups about Shark Tank, and the one thing I say is, you have to be ready. Everyone's heard this, but very few people realize this. You always have to be on your A-game, you never know when the opportunity's going to strike. And third is always have your elevator pitch ready, and not a boring elevator pitch. Mine was very near, very engaging. To digress for a second, I talked about my first investor ever in this company, flying back from Minneapolis, doing some work for another company, was sitting in first-class talking to somebody, and the Dean of my old business school, had this great saying that he would always talk to the person next to him because you never knew, and if it didn't go anywhere great, you just go your own way, but at least he can learn if there's something valuable there.

Dustin: So, I take that approach 99% of the time, I talk to the person next to me, we'd get a great dialogue going, he invests in food companies, and I say, "I got this idea, I want to start my own company, here's what I'm thinking about, here's what I'm interested in doing", by the end of play, he's like, "I would invest in you and here's a check for $25,000."

Dan: Wow.

Dustin: And you just never know. And so, I always take that mentality, so Shark Tank is a perfect experience of how I got myself noticed and brought to an awareness of Shark Tank. From there, because we had such a short window, a lot of applications, a lot of processes, anyone who knows me knows that I do everything at 110%. I hate the 80-20 rule, I hate with a passion mediocrity, it drives me insanely crazy. And so, we do everything top-notch and we filled out those applications to a tee, we prioritized getting them in, we beat every deadline they gave us, we beat every deadline with great efficiency and execution, our application video, we spent two days filming, created an awesome video that we sent in. And so, long story short, we ended up getting to do this story on Shark Tank, and I prepared relentlessly for that. What's amazing about our world today is there's something called Google, you may have heard about, and there are endless resources, so it's amazing to me how many people have done research on Shark Tank. You can get every algorithm known to man on what offers you should go with, what happens, which Sharks do, which Shark does what, which Shark takes what deal.

Dustin: And so, I knew everything about everyone, every aspect about being on that show before I set foot on set in Los Angeles. And so again, it's about the relentless pursuit of perfection. I make a lot of mistakes as a leader, as a businessman, but one thing I will feel bad about is I didn't put 110% into something. And so, that was true with Shark Tank and our preparation.

Dan: It says so much about your brand. Thank you for sharing that. Great insights. And that's one of the challenges, I have the privilege of working with a lot of brands, hundreds of brands from pre-revenue to multi-billion dollar brands. So many of the brands in our industry that are pitching for nutrition, capital, network, circle up, et cetera, Expo West was one of the mentors for that, FMI Emerge, I could go on and on and on. But the problem is, the point is, so many of those brands just phone it in, unfortunately. I hate when I'm looking at a business plan that says we're going to go from $30 this year to $3 million next year, and we're going to be in generically these stores, and there's no path. So, I talk a lot about business plans and the podcast and in the mini-courses, et cetera, and I believe that you should have that in there.

Dan: In fact, one of the things I'd recommend to any brand listening, is that your business plan should be so thorough that you could hand it to anyone else and they could execute on your behalf in your absence, and your brand would still thrive. And that goes back to exactly what we're talking about a second ago, the way that you bring it, and that's why I love having you on the show. I love these conversations because you're bringing out a whole different level. It's not someone who, hey, I came up with this in my kitchen. I thought it was a good idea. You have a strategy, you've got a plan, and you're going to do everything in your power to make it work. And so, just that mindset alone, set you up for success. And that's what's going to help propel your brand tomorrow and your big meeting and beyond.

Dan: Thank you for sharing that. Any other thoughts that you want to share?

Dustin: Well, around Shark Tank or beyond?

Dan: Beyond. I mean, I'd love to hear more thoughts, and then, of course, I'll give you an opportunity to ask a question or two.

Dustin: Well, I'll save then my question because I'm ready for my question. One thing I will say is to elaborate on what you just said, the biggest gap, I've mentored a lot of small brands too, I teach at the University of Colorado, I have the opportunity to talk to a lot of budding entrepreneurs, or even those in theory, that have more experience than I do. I think the biggest gap, and something that's helped me be really successful, my career is a lack of analytical wherewithal and understanding how to manage your business through the P&L, and you hit it right on the head. One thing that was shocking to me when I started raising money pre-revenue, and even till today, is I get a lot of compliments on, how your investor deck is really well done, your model is really well done, your sales deck is really well done.

Dustin: And to me, it's one of those things where I'm like, we put a lot of work into it obviously, but so I'll ask, what is it that is really special about it to get feedback, so I can continue improving it. And it's usually about, there's a quantitative perspective to the deck. It's not this Willy nilly, we have this great idea. To your point, we're going to hockey stick growth, we're going to do this, we're going to do that. It's a very well thought out organized plan that's based on strong financials, based on a strong assumption of velocity. It's not based on distribution growth alone, it's based on velocity growth, it's based on what's realistic with my cashflow. I think that understanding ... I would say one other push that I got that was game-changing for me as I was presenting to a billionaire potential investor, he said, "This is great. You have 100% retail acceptance rate, you have all these things going for you, why don't you go bigger?" I said, "Well, okay."

Dustin: And he said, "Well, what would happen ... I was asking him for X amount of money, he said, "What would happen if I wrote you a blank check? What would you do?" It was the first time in an investor presentation, I actually had zero, I couldn't BS my way through it, I had no answer. I stumbled for a second, I said, "You know what, give me 24 hours, I'll get that to you." And it forced my thinking, not that I really expected a blank check, but to say, okay, if I really needed to understand the cash flow needs of my company, if I really wanted to understand growth A versus growth B versus growth C, what did that look like? Where did it require, how was I going to spend that money? What's the growth evolution of my company? It really forced my thinking in a different way than I ever had done before, because I had built it based upon a very detailed model, but in a more conservative X philosophy equals X growth, equals X cashflow.

Dustin: I thought that was a great exercise, so it's one now I put my team through on a regular basis, I recommend to others to think through that because it really does force your thinking of what's possible if you free your mind from the limits of cashflow for a second, but put it in a very quantitative way that you could come back to somebody and say, "Okay, I don't need to blank check, but I need this and here's why."

Dan: So, your question then, just to make sure I get it, is you want to talk about understanding being able to quantify your business plan, understanding the strategies behind it, the planning, the benefit of it, and then why not go bigger? So, those two questions?

Dustin: No, that's more of my recommendation to your listeners on one thing to focus on. My question for you is this, and this is the being in the seat versus being in the consultant-

Dan: Okay.

Dustin: I've made a great career before starting this company and going to other brands and helping them succeed. And one of the big foundations was always don't have a shotgun approach to distribution. Be focused, be specific and focused on velocity. It's better to have, and I oversimplify, it's better to have 500 stores crushing it at velocity than 10,000 stores where you're barely scraping it. I was very good at strategizing, executing on that. Now, sitting in the seat, when X retailer comes to me and says, "Hey, they want us", it's very hard to say no. And there are other considerations that I think about now opening up DCs, opening up unify warehouses or KT warehouses, versus it being a strategic retailer. Where do I want to allocate my funds? What happens if that retailer doesn't work out, and this one does? How do I make my revenue targets? My question to you that we're grappling with right now, is how do when to say no to those retailer opportunities?

Dan: Great question. Okay. So first of all, let me point a reference. Velocity, that's the thing that everyone focuses on in our industry. I think that's great for what you're talking about, but when you're talking to the retailer, I want you to focus on contribution. Contribution is the profit that you bring to the category, so a big point of differentiation. But in your sales deck, and as you're talking to investors and stuff like that, have that number there. So, if you can say that you're growing more contribution in the category, that's a point of leverage. To me, that's a lot more powerful than what a lot of brands do. And here's why. If I am a big brand, I've got deep pockets, I can buy velocity. That doesn't mean I'm going to be around tomorrow or the next year. That just means that I can physically get a high ranking on a generic report, but it doesn't talk about the health of their brand.

Dan: So, where I'm going with this, is the health of your brand is critically important. Now, this goes back to what you were talking about a minute ago, exactly why I put together the free turnkey sales store strategies course. First of all, you need to call an expert in your brand, your consumer, your competition's consumer and the retail's consumer. And when you can align those three things together, that's where you have the win-win. So to your point, one of the challenges that I see a lot of brands do is that they accept any type of distribution, and if you can't grow in your backyard, you're going to fail clear across the country, simple as that, just like you ended up. So, the answer to your question is, if you can align those three things together and identify which retailers identify or align with that core consumer, which retailers are going to allow you to align with your competitors, so you've got a competitive set where you've got an opportunity, and then if you can assess that, that's where you begin this conversation.

Dan: And so for example, I would never, never, never, never, never say that a small brand should launch in the biggest retailer in the country day one. First of all, you don't have the volume to support it, you don't have all the infrastructure and stuff like that. So, you grow steadily, and obviously, I'm not saying that well, you need to go on this retailer or that retailer and this retailer, specifically, I mean ... but if you understand generically, okay, here are the core retailers I'm going to go after, and you understand, for example, that Kroger, the gateway to Kroger's in your backyard, a couple of them. And so, if you can get in and you can thrive and you can do well with them, that creates opportunity in other stores. Target, a great opportunity for you there, that's where your core customer lives. So, understanding where that core customer is, aligning the opportunity with that store.

Dan: Now critical to all that, getting back to the business plan we talked about a minute ago, is you've got to know what your capacity is, what you're capable of doing. So, if someone came to you like a billionaire and said, "I'm going to give you an unbelievable amount of money to grow and scale", that doesn't mean that you can effectively do it, you still got to build up the infrastructure, all that other stuff that's going to take time. I would say is probably not a good strategy at all. In fact, actually, I was happy that you ended up where you did with Shark Tank, because not only did you build awareness, you got a free commercial for Mr. Wonderful liked your product, love your product, but more importantly, you gained insights into the industry, and you had an opportunity to learn more about your brand because you did the due diligence, not because of your TV appearance, but because you did do the due diligence.

Dan: Springboard taught you how to do the due diligence, and because you did that and you put that together in your plan, you knew that if I go to A, B, C, D, E, here's how I'm going to grow. The challenge, Dustin, is in this industry, is that the shiny object is the investor, and the shiny object is getting retail distribution without thinking about does that make sense? It may not make sense for you to go to a distributor over direct, you need to think about that. I'm working with a brand right now that has a distributor, but I'm trying to talk him into going with the DSD model because then you've got individual people selling their product like you do when you do the demo. So, a different philosophy, different strategy, but the point is what works best for your brand? And you can't answer that question until you know your consumer; how they buy your product, how they evangelize your product when they take it home.

Dan: So, back to what you were talking about, when you've got the strategy put into place and you bake this into your go-to-market strategy, your business plan, so that if you're ... like you were just talking now, you're not going to be able to show up, you're not going to be there at NatchCom in a couple of weeks, but you've got your wife going in your place. Well, she has your passion and your enthusiasm, then that's a good fit. But if you had to hire someone off the street or whatever, maybe not. So my point is, if you could have a complete business plan that had all of that in there, I'm going to go to store A, store B, store C in that order, I'm not going to get ahead of my skis, and then if you could stay laser on that, that's the best path forward. Now, the quantifiable analytic piece, category management, by definition, it's a diluted definition, and a lot of people think of category management or the advanced strategies that the big brands use are natural, a lot of times people think, you're the guy that draws the pretty picture where my product goes into shelf, that's not me.

Dan: So, I believe category management should include this, should include the go-to-market path, what strategy, what retailers, how do you grow, how do you scale, how do you compete, et cetera. And by the way, the benefit to all this is that when you have a plan and what you can do, you know exactly where you're at every moment of the day, et cetera, then you can negotiate for better terms. So, if you're on the Shark Tank and they said, "We're going to give you deal X", and you can say, "Well, you know what, I know what my future looks, I need less equity, more money, et cetera", and you have the ability and the confidence to answer that question. And then, more importantly, that gives you the impetus to be able to grow and scale. Now, you're going to be adjusting this and reviewing this all the time, but my point is you've got to do the hard work right off the bat, and most brands fail to do that. I think that's the biggest mistake in our industry.

Dan: Does that help answer your question?

Dustin: It does. No, it's fantastic. You and I will have many more conversations about this I'm sure.

Dan: I'm looking forward to that. Good.

Dustin: And I would just say for your listeners, as a plug to you, I think the courses that you offer are phenomenal, and anyone who's a brand new business owner, and Dan did not ask me to say any of this, I will tell you, truly, it's a pleasure to work with you, listen to you, your coaching classes. I've had 15 years of experience, and I'm always learning something from you as well. So a huge opportunity for those out there to learn a lot. So thank you.

Dan: Thank you. I'm honored. I really appreciate it. I'm trying to raise the bar in our industry by disrupting or changing ... Okay. You're disrupting a category, I'm trying to disrupt an industry. I'm trying to get this industry to think more strategically. When I started writing my articles 10 years ago, the goal was to challenge brands like you to think differently, now I've up my game, by the way, I've got the YouTube channel now. I'm going to put your previous interview on YouTube really soon, and then, of course, we'll follow it up with that, but thank you so much.

Dustin: with your podcast. I'm expecting a makeup before we go on video-

Dan: You are?

Dustin: clean this up, so-

Dan: No, I think you're great.

Dustin: Daniel, thank you so much.

Dan: Well, thank you. Well, before we go, tell us about KaPop. How do we get ahold of you, where can we find your brand, how can we connect with you?

Dustin: Awesome. You can find me at www.kapopsnacks, K-A-P-O-P, snacks.com. For those of you listening, use the code Top KaPop because I'm the CEO, the Top KaPop, T-O-P-K-A-P-O-P for 15% off, and you can always reach me directly through our website, [email protected]. Happy to integrate with anyone out there, and you can always find us on Amazon, your local retailer hopefully as we continue to grow, and let me know what you think. We have nearly perfect five-star reviews online, so it's a great product that people love.

Dan: Well, and my opportunity to say thank you to you. You've got a great product, and I remember when I first met you at Expo West actually, that same show, I fell in love with it. It's great. I absolutely love it. So thank you so much for coming on.

Dustin: Thank you, anytime.

Dan: I want to thank Dustin for coming on today and for sharing his insights and his wisdom. I want to thank him for sharing the insights that he gained, the lessons he learned from swimming with the Sharks, the strategies that he shared on the podcast to help you pitch with any of the investors that you're working with, including a natural products Expo West, and so on. Today's free downloadable guide is my new item checklist, Your Recipe For Success. This checklist is going to help you identify the things that you need to do to be able to build a healthy foundation to help you grow brand, grow and thrive. You can get it by going to the podcast show notes and on the podcast webpage, and by going to brandsecretsandstrategies.com/session164. Thank you for listening, and I look forward to seeing you in the next episode.

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