BRAND SECRETS AND STRATEGIES

PODCAST #208

Hello and thank you for joining us today. This is the Brand Secrets and Strategies Podcast #208

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: Today's webinar free webinar excited about this, because we're going to talk about the foundation that brands need to be thinking about. As you grow and scale, these are the fundamental things that you need to have in place to successfully grow and scale your brand. As you're thinking about what's, you know, how to get into new stores, et cetera. And the reason this is important is that a lot of times brands forget the basics to get so distracted with the everyday what they need to do. What's in front of them, that they forget that it's that foundational element that you need to have in place a solid foundation that is going to help you in times of trouble, it's going to help you stay on the right path. And so with that, I've got a couple of really great guys to help me with this Kevin Weber and then Patrick Weber.

Dan: Jeff was unavailable. Unfortunately, he's sick under the weather, but we're going to talk about how to build and scale a brand during the era. COVID the reason this matters so much is that if you can do this effectively during trying times like COVID, it's going to help you grow and scale even more later. So with that said, the reason we're here is I leaned after I leaned in after expo West was counseled and started this free webinar series, realizing that the best way I can help you is to help solve some of those most pressing bottlenecks that you have. And so that's why I've started that these are actually answers to questions. Brands have sent me wanting to know how to grow and scale, how to, how to solve a funding problem, whatever. So do me a favor, help me raise the bar in natural, and share these valuable resources with other brands wanting to grow in scale their brand.

Dan: What you're going to hear today are the foundations of how to build your brand. The trade marketing essentials webinar is going to be, how do you build this into your go-to-market strategy? How do you leverage those skills, those strategies to maximize each and every opportunity that you have to get in front of a customer as always. I want to thank you for listening. This show is about you and it's for you and appreciation for your time. This is a free downloadable guide for you. At the end of every podcast episode, I always include one easy to download quick to digest strategy that you can insulate, adopt, and make your own one that you can use to grow sustainable sales and compete more effectively with. And don't forget to go back and listen to previous episodes. I've been adding my guests to give me their most pressing bottleneck at the end of the podcast episodes.

Dan: So go back and listen to previous episodes to see what my recommendations are and how you can use those strategies to help build your brand. I also have a free gift for you, a $297 value that I've made available to help all the brands impacted by COVID. I've made available my proven strategies to maximize your trademarking ROI course. And if you use that code, try to at the checkout page, you'll get it for free. And this course teaches the foundations of trade management, which again, it, it max, this is how you maximize your cash flow. This is how you manage more effectively where you're in distribution, how your distribution, all the things are going to be talking about today. Kevin, why don't you go first? And then we'll go to Patrick.

Kevin: My name is Kevin Weber, my brother Patrick, and I founded four points, energy bar here in Denver, Colorado. We launched this about almost six years ago now. Um, and since also started a co-packing venture to help other small and medium-sized brands do their R and D runs and, and, uh, small and medium-sized co-pack runs kind of helping those companies out where we found a bottleneck ourselves. Uh, when we were starting out,

Dan: Can you get into a little bit of before it gets you to Patrick or Patrick unless you want to answer that. What is four points? What makes your bar unique? And I think the reason this matter is because you're not another me-too brand. So either Patrick or Kevin, whoever wants to take that

Kevin: Kevin Sagan. Sure. Um, yeah, you're right. We're not another me-too brand. Um, there's plenty of those on the market. Um, just plain and simply the market is full of a lot of junk. Um, there's a lot of high-glycemic, um, syrup-based date-based bars out there and what those bars do is they caused, um, blood sugar crashing and spiking. They cause gut issues. Um, they don't deliver on the promise of why a person buys an undergo nutritional product, to begin with. They're just a tasty treat. So we, we kind of began with the end in mind and creating our product, really trying to focus on, um, what do we need to get out of this? And, um, that's how we found it four points. So it started off as just filling a need in our own backpacks, uh, to support our own outdoor endeavors.

Kevin: And it turned into coming up with an innovative solution to a problem in the marketplace, which is there are no low-glycemic options, um, that really work to keep your blood sugar balanced and your gut healthy. And we're entering a really fun environment right now where they just reported it even last a couple of weeks ago in Forbes magazine, that the number one health and wellness trend going into 2021 is how is gut health. So we feel like there's a really good opportunity for us. We're kind of ahead of the curve. And, um, things are accelerating now because of COVID. And I think that brings a lot of opportunity for brands like ours

Dan: Sounds good, by the way, I'm interviewing the food editor, food and beverage editor for Forbes magazine next week. So we'll, I'll make sure I talked to her about that, uh, Patrick, and want to share your story.

Kevin: Yeah, Patrick, obviously we're brothers, um, climbing barters are each other's investment or

Patrick: Weddings. So we kind of, we do everything together. So we figured why not start a business together. And yeah, we created the bars for ourselves as we were climbing mountains and skiing and backpacking and, uh, you know, we got tired of making them for free for everybody. So we decided to give it a shot. And, um, you know, as Kevin alluded to, uh, you know, why we created, why we put in at what we do, uh, with the prunes. And, and then we, uh, you know, in our journey, uh, trying to, to fix our manufacturing, shored up our, our production. We, we had a bad go-round with a, with a co-packer and that led us to purchase our own equipment and opening a facility and offering honest, you know, small co-packing. So that's kind of where we're at is producing energy bars, protein bars, and, uh, doing RMD and coat back and consulting on the side as well.

Dan: That's exciting. And I met you guys at the nourish festival, so it's been a while since we actually physically met in person. Of course, I can think of, we can say that about everyone on the call today, but what's neat about what you guys are doing. And just to kind of frame this, I've done a lot of work in the bar category, and I don't think people realize necessarily how competitive, how hyper-competitive it is. And the challenge is that anyone and everyone thinks that they can make a bar and for, to some degree, that's kind of true, but yet have also been an avid outdoor enthusiast. I've done a lot of backpacking climbing, cycling, et cetera. And a lot of those products do not fare well when you're camping and hiking and all that other stuff, they don't last, they don't have the shelf life, they don't have the freshness and they don't provide that sustained energy. And that's really what this is about when you're doing extreme trail running or stuff like that. Then, you know, I would turn to some of the products in my, in my backpack and they just would not support me. They would not sustain me. And the reason what you have mattered as, you said, low-glycemic the things that fuel your body, kind of the foundation theme again. Can you talk a little bit about why that matters, Kevin, Patrick, whoever wants to take that?

Patrick: Yeah. I mean to, to understand, you know, it's funny, we, you mentioned outdoor the outdoor industry and being an enthusiast yourself. And we always talk about, you know, as outdoor enthusiasts, we always tend to care more about what we put on the outside of our bodies and our inside our body. So I can give you a number of $1,408 is what I spent on my last pair of skis, boots, bindings, jacket, ski pass. And then here's another number $2. That's the price of two cliff bars. And you wonder why you're not tearing it up on the mountain, you know, so it just as an example of, um, how people view nutrition and they don't really put the same emphasis on it. And so

Kevin: To understand what's going on, we, you know, every time you eat something, it causes a rise in blood sugar. And if it's super high-glycemic, you get a spike, which ensues a crash later. So we decided to begin with the end in mind of what are we really trying to get. We want to get three to four hours of energy sustained without bonking or hitting that wall. And, and that's, and it's incredibly tied to your gut as well. So we scoured the earth looking for the right ingredients to do this, and really just looking into our pantry. We, we found a secret ingredient that was low-glycemic, it was high in fiber. It was had a, um, it had high in prebiotics. It was great for your gut. And it was, it turned out to be nature's perfect. And during superfood and it's pruning, and most people identify prunes with the legacy functions that they were so good at being known for, uh, which is promoting, um, the digestive health and laxation, which, you know, I always kind of joke around if I'm giving a speech, you know, asking for a show of hands or who doesn't want to be good at being regular.

Kevin: Um, you know, and, and most people kind of pause for a second thing. Okay. I've only raised my hand that I'm full of, you know, fill in the blank. So, so we, we, there's a challenge using prunes, um, which is why no one else is using them, but we've really embraced that challenge since day one and the, uh, the crowded market and use that as our main sticking point for, for standing out. And so we built our product around that unique ingredient, um, and really, you know, the combination of proteins carbs and fats created something that truly takes three to four hours to digest and really giving you that long-lasting satiety and that energy that is uncompromisingly allowing you to do what you love to do and feeling your best. And so that was kind of the end goal that we had in mind. And we were able to achieve that after a number of, uh, iterations. So

Dan: I love the way you frame that my wife was dumbfounded when she found out how much I spent on my mouth, which I'm sure everyone on this call would be too. But the point is you it's quality, it's value. And too, in one of the things that frustrate me about this industry is that we don't do enough to celebrate the quality of the food that's in your quality ingredients, in your product. And this is something that I struggle with a lot and trying to teach brands like you and everyone on the call today. How I, first of all, I believe that our brand should not have to apologize for quality ingredients in their product. Secondly, trying to reeducate people, consumers, your consumers, the retailers you work with on why this matters. And so to your point, if I eat something that burns up quickly in my body, then I don't have the power, the fuel, whatever you want to call it, to do a fourteener.

Dan: And I've done a lot of fourteeners and they take a lot of work, some of them more than others. And if I don't have that, then I haven't heard that term for quite a while. Banca it's where you run out of gas. There is no fuel in the tank, and there's nothing left. There are no reserves, but to be able to have that's, what's critically important. So as you begin to understand, not only the brand four points but more importantly, the co-packer having a relationship with a co-packer and a brand that understands what your product brings to the market, where your product does for that end consumer. That's critically important. This is why I actually designed my free turnkey sales store strategies course, the idea behind it is we need to do a better job as an industry, educating consumers about the real value that we give them.

Dan: And so to go back to Patrick's example, not to pick on cliff bar, but to attend for $10, which I think is a really bad strategy, pulls a lot of dollars out of the category, et cetera, but that bar is cheap, inexpensive, and it's not going to last me many, many, many hours. So if I pay more for a more premium product that satiates me longer and meets more of my body's needs, then that premium product is actually cheaper in the long run because they less of it. And because of the way you guys have built this product, which I think is great, then not only do I eat less of it, I have a more regular put it that way. I need to stop less often eat all that other stuff. So, yeah, there's, there's a lot more to this equation than just, it's a cool bar. So with that, as the backdrop of everything we talk about now, let's begin talking about what we've been talking about behind the scenes. So the first thing that we decided that we're going to discuss is how do you start? And we talked about how you need to begin with the end in mind, Stephen Covey is the one who really frames that or our position that the, you know, I forget exactly. I said, um, was the sharpen the saw, I don't know yet, let you guys bring in the country.

Kevin: Yeah, I know I'm a fan of Covey's so yeah.

Dan: Yes. But the way you put it, I mean, it makes so much sense. And, you know, even way back when, you know, the idea that you know, Lincoln said, you know, you want to sharpen the ax, spend more time sharpening the ax and cutting down the tree. The point being is that this is where the strategy makes all the difference. This is where you need to think about where you want to be. Most brands are reactive in the sense that, Oh, what are we going to do tomorrow? Oh, we've got an opportunity to promote. So when you guys are thinking about the end in mind, how do you guys frame that? How do you position that what's important to four points and to base camp?

Kevin: Well, I'll, I'll, I'll start Pat and you can add to that. So it seems like a novel concept to begin with the end in mind and you're right. Most brands do that. Um, ourselves included, um, thinking about everything from where your product is going to live, how you're going to deliver it, who your target consumer is. And ultimately what's your exit strategy. If you have one, most brands are just happy to get off the ground. And it's an exciting journey those first few months when you see your product sitting on a shelf. Um, but you know, you tend to get there. You know, we've learned from a lot of our mistakes. We don't have a negative relationship with failures because that's how you learn. And it honestly gets you excited about learning how to do things, right? And so one of the mistakes that we made off the gate as we had a very strong strategy of building our brand first, um, growing slow, really hyper-focusing on niche markets, where we could communicate our premium benefits and tailoring the message to each specific demographic and then building that community around our product.

Kevin: And then like probably what happens with a lot of brands, big grocery, or a big opportunity comes and your eyes, you think this is it, this is, this is our, this is our jumping-off point or coming-out party. So, um, and then lo and behold, you get sucked into a game where you get penalized for not knowing what you don't know. And that's, you alluded to a lot of those things, like the MCBS, the chargeback slotting fees, you know, the game of distribution. And next thing you know, you see all these margin points going out the window, and that opportunity really turned into a big, giant distraction because you weren't ready for it. Um, you know, you may have been ready for it from a manufacturing standpoint, but you aren't ready from it, from a financial standpoint. And so that was a mistake that we made, um, pretty early on as we were building our brand.

Kevin: And it's more cost-effective to build your brand first and then let retail come to you. And that was our strategy, but we got distracted and it ends up costing you a little bit. So I think that's an important thing for all brands to think about when they start off is, you know, what, you know, what's their strategy, how they're going to, you know, if your, your goal is to get into retail, you know, how are you going to support those retail sales once you get in there? Because you alluded to a 10 for 10, it's not a great deal for your brand, like a flip bar, that's marketing spend for you. But if you're a small brand, like four points 10 for 10 means you're probably taking some 20 margins on, on that product. And really you're doing that just to show turns. It's not, it's not, um, it's just moving product. That's not proving any real quality value. So, um, you have anything you want to add to that, that

Patrick: I think you hit it pretty well. Um, you know, when you, when you're first starting out, uh, you know, it's easy, it's easy. I think to jump ahead to the end, as you put it in and say, this is where we want to go. We want to create a cliff bar like company, um, great company, by the way, we're just not, you know, we're burned out on the bars and, uh, wanted to offer a healthier option. But, you know, I don't think a lot of when you write your business plan, which is a very good exercise, but they hardly ever pan out the way you want them to. And as Kevin had mentioned, we found ourselves getting distracted multiple times and, um, you know, doing things the hard way with no shortcuts, uh, you know, proves to be a really tough climb. You know, it's, it's, it's climbing the mountain without a trail.

Patrick: And when you're using an ingredient like Bruins, you have, or you want to think about using an agreement that not a lot of other manufacturers are using your products are using, uh, keeping in mind that you have a lot of marketing, a lot of information that you need to get out there, um, to really educate the people on why this ingredient, why your value proposition is solving the problem. And, you know, those are things that you or your business plan needs to be a living document. And that was one thing at the very beginning that we, we didn't do. So it's easy for us to look back. And from the co-packing side, um, we have a unique perspective because we've been there and we've done it. And Dan, as you said, you know, there's a lot of people trying to jump into the bar market.

Patrick: And a lot of people reach out to us. And, and we do a, I think a really good job of steering those companies when they're in such a beginning stage, or just an idea phase of, you know, visiting their ingredient list. Why are you using this? Why don't you think about real food where the trends are going? Um, you know, why don't you think about certain things along the line, uh, that, you know, maybe four points has lent it's experienced to base camp and, um, you know, and, and we also have a pretty good relationship with our co-packer since we have both, but, uh, that's about all I can add to that. I think,

Dan: Well, I appreciate your sharing that, by the way, I love the climb the mountain without a trial, without a map, without a trail. I know exactly what that is about our skiing, the backcountry, where you're not supposed to be, but try and no, I think it's, I think it's great. Well, so let's back up a little bit. You're talking about your business plan and I'm so glad you guys say this, you know, I've made the comment a lot of times you can either pay, pay me now or pay me later. It's a lot cheaper now to, to pay me now, whether you're hiring me or not, my, the, the thought or the idea behind that is that if you do things right from day one, it costs a lot less money for someone like me to come in and clean up the mess. And so when your business plan, this is something I focus on a lot in terms of the foundation of every brand.

Dan: In fact, this is the focus of the last weeks for your webinar. So go back and check it out. But the point is that I believe that your business plan should be so thorough, so robust, so complete that someone else could come and run your business for you on your behalf, in your absence, flawlessly without any problems. So it needs to include your trade strategy, your distribution strategy, where are you going to grow sales? What is your current customer look like? Not the generic customer, but your customer, the customer that understands why your product is more valuable to them or more satiates them better as is it better value to them than other products. And by the way, I do think cliff is a great company. I love their products, et cetera, but yet there are times where I will turn to products that will satiate me longer and help me get over those humps.

Dan: So it's kind of like that commercial, where the guy eats a Snickers bar and all of a sudden, he's his normal self, that sort of mindset in terms of being able to, um, fuel your body and give your body what it needs. So it doesn't crash bonk, as you guys said. So thanks. So in terms of the go-to-market strategy, thank you for sharing that, because one of the things you mentioned, Patrick is at the 10 for 10 strategies, large brands had the ability to buy volume and they'd pull dollars out of the category. They pull profits out of the category. And the reason that matters is that consumers have been led to believe that that's more important having cheap stuff, cheap, inexpensive stuff. And the reality is, is that retailers have thin margins, to begin with. And as a group of brands, as an industry, we need to help those retailers understand that we're the ones that are driving profitable sales across every category.

Dan: We are the brands that are helping them compete more effectively, that are driving more traffic in their store that are keeping brands at keeping them relevant. Meaning keeping brands from going online, customers are going on online as much. So that needs to be a part of your go-to-market strategy. And so when you're thinking about your go-to-market strategy, it also needs to include how do you address each one of those issues? How do you bake that story in your go-to-market strategy, and then communicate that clearly across every aspect of your sales funnel? Guys, you want to jump in your thoughts, Patrick, you want to start first?

Patrick: Yeah. You know, I think that's a really great point and, uh, we hear it all the time is, is when you, when your brand strategy and how are you selling, how are you going to pitch your product? Then, you know, what makes you a trustworthy, you know, product who, what makes you the authority on it? And, um, you know, I think from our standpoint, and we could always do a better job of it. Cause I feel like we're pretty humble guys. And we don't really talk about the things that we do and the things we know as much as we should. And that's something that brands, you know, uh, I think should really focus on is you have to yourself out there and you have to lend your expertise to it. So, you know, Kevin being a sports nutritionist and a personal trainer and a wilderness athlete, you know, that's why he was so good at helping to formulate these ingredients.

Patrick: We had a culinary partner at the beginning who just new flavors and nuance and, um, and I just kind of rode the magic carpet with him. I was just climbing mountains and doing triathlons. So I was like the Guinea pig, um, helping out where I could, but, um, you know, we, we, we back it up, you know, like we've, we've climbed all the fourteeners. I just climbed Mount Rainier. I use my product daily. I'll eat it for breakfast, even when I'm sitting in a zoom meeting, you know, all day. Um, so I think the brand strategy is really focused on, you know, why your product is, is better. What problem are you solving and why should somebody, why should even that retail buyer trust you? And then you can get into the battle of why they should carry a really small brand with not a lot of marketing dollars to try to compete with the cliff bars and the RX bars of the world. Um, but I think it's great because I think a lot of these smaller natural markets, uh, that's why people go there as they know, they can find them really cool, small, you know, artists tunnel or, um, small company products. And they don't have to walk down the aisle and see the regular players of just the large, big food brands that just sort of dominating the, uh, the shelf space.

Kevin: Well, I'll pick up the Baton where Patrick left that off and kind of act on some of the stuff we've talked about offline Dan, which is we get out an entire conversation or webinar just on how retail is broken. Um, you know, we've seen, you know, there were fishers before COVID and now they're, they're big, giant chasms and I've, and I think we're entering a time right now where the power has never been more with the brand to control their own destiny, as far as communicating who they are, who they're for the premium nature of their products and, and working to get loyal customers and consumers retail, in my opinion, has the biggest uphill battle because they need to provide value again to brands like that, because we talked about, you know, we all know that the key to category growth and in the industry is finding innovative brands that push the envelope, disrupt the market and bring new ideas.

Kevin: And when you walk into a category as we'll just pick on the bar category, cause that's where we're in. You walk in the bar category and all you, as you said in the beginning, a bunch of meats, your products, a bunch of products that are constantly on TPR, a bunch of products that are not providing value. They're just providing turns. So if you're a retail category, the buyer is your, is your idea of success? Just turns is that's what growing the category, or is it making margin because the retail is not making anything off of 10 for 10. So, but then when you, when you approach these buyers with a premium product, that's going to sit on the shelf like ours, it between two 79 and three 29 as a premium product, you know, they're making more margins, but they're not doing anything to help us stand out or to be really successful.

Kevin: And so I think it's kind of a, a good strategy to really focus on building your brand and let retail come to you with, there are some retail buyers out there that are starting to get it that they're really good. They review their categories on a regular basis, as opposed to this kind of antiquated once a year. I don't want to touch it. I don't want to think about it. Um, and they're looking at growing that category. If you look at the bar category lab, just in October of last year, it was a five and a half billion dollar category that was still experiencing growth. So there's no wonder why there are new players coming in, but that where's that growth without where's all those new players. If you go into whole food or King Soopers or Safeway, you're going to see, you know, five or six line extensions from the same, you know, same players, Kellogg's general mills, cliff, you name it.

Kevin: You're not seeing these innovative brands that are coming out and doing things differently. And that's because retail is broken. And so I think the good strategy is to pick you, pick your niche, own your stripes, be who you are and keep your dollars in your margins, where you can be most effective with it and let retail, once they start to see, you know, this, the center store really empty out in the end caps and the, you know, the end dials and produce, start to, you know, you know, cleaning their clocks. They'll start thinking about things a little bit differently.

Dan: Love the fact that you put it that way, by the way, let me back up a little bit, Patrick, I'm impressed. You've climbed all the fourteeners. I've only done 38, so that does what,

Kevin: That's a good analogy.

Dan: I started writing them as when I was younger. So, I mean,

Kevin: Hi, you're showing off Dan, I've done 42. So I've got a or 45, I've got a few left to go to 45 and 46. I got to go to,

Dan: Uh, you know, that's it, my goal was to do stuff. I mean, anyhow, we, can we go off on that tangent for quite a while, but no, that's pretty cool. 52 that's in 44. Um, that, by the way, any way, for everyone less thing doing a fourteener that takes a lot of work and it takes a lot of work to have that energy to run it. Uh, for example, um, long's peak one of my favorite. I used to be able to do that in two hours and that takes a lot of work, but it's, it's climbing altitude gain sometimes 3000 feet, et cetera, and, and, and back down. Um, so that's why this matters. So let me get into, thank you, Kevin, for sharing that when you're talking about innovation, real innovation is what we provide. And one of the reasons why I've been saying that retail's broken actually a couple of reasons.

Dan: One, because the, as, as Patrick said, now, retailers have, now we have the power and the, what I've been getting out there is that retailers, the myth is that retailers think that they have all the power. The reality is, is that they need us as much, if not more today than they, then we need them. And the reason for that is that as a consumer, I've got a lot of different choices to where I spend my hard-earned money. And so the strategies we're talking about are rooted in how do you help your retail partner grow sales? How do you help them thrive? How do you help them succeed on your behalf? Which is a benefit to all of us? And so with that said, real innovation is what we're providing dates, et cetera, teaching people why healthy products matter. I did a project for a big legacy, a big CPG brand, and they had an energy drink, put a different label on it.

Dan: Now it's a diet drink, put a different label on it. Now it's a breakfast drink. Now my point is five different versions of the same thing with different labels. And they call that true energy. I mean, true innovation, which it's not. And those are the things that pull dollars out of the category. And those are the things that make it difficult for our brands to survive and thrive because it's that sugar, high pun intended that retailers are focused on slotting and all that other stuff. So, Kevin, what I'm sharing with you is I agree that retail is broken. And the reason retail is broken is because retailers today spend more time trying to get this, buy the stuff on their shelves, rather than trying to sell this stuff we want. This is why this matters. So if we can help the retailer, understand what consumers really want, what really matters, help them understand how to drive out, to grow profitable sales by leveraging the strength of our unique customer, that's going to better position them to compete more effectively against their biggest counterparts.

Dan: Oh, and by the way, if we can help that retailer get to capture more of the sales in their store, instead of inviting me as a customer to go shop their competition. That's the win-win at the end of the day. So with that is the backdrop. That's the thing we need to be thinking about as we put together our go-to-market strategy or a business plan, et cetera. So the second point that we talked about Kevin was going to market. We've talked about that a little bit. So how do you guys leverage what we've been talking about as you work with retailers? Kevin, you want to go first this time?

Kevin: Yeah. So we'll just, I'll just use ours as selves as an example. So we, we, we built our product for ourselves and for our needs in the outdoors. I'm also drawing on our, um, uh, inspiration from our family's fight with diabetes. And so we, we said, this is how we're going to build our brand. We're going to focus on the outdoor channel, not on conventional retail or natural, organic. And so we felt by doing that one, we were able to avoid the sliding fees, able to avoid, um, some of the things that, you know, big grocery is notorious and famous for beating small brands over the head with. And we started going after places like ski resorts and golf courses and climbing gyms. And we really focused on REI being our number one customer. And that was our strategy, in the beginning, our go-to-market strategy and it worked really well.

Kevin: We were able to keep up more margins. Um, we were able to go DSD or direct, direct dropship with a lot of them. And for people that don't know what that means, um, and avoid the middleman and that worked for a really long, uh, good time. Um, I always pride myself on the vendor relationship we had with REI. I look at that as a very, as a perfect example of how a retailer should embrace a vendor and how a vendor in return, uh, embraces the retailer to grow sales. And, um, we, we did that, I think pretty successfully in REI and REI. And, um, but then after a while, um, you know, people start to see you at events at places like REI, and they say, where else are you being carried? You know, causes you to realize that people aren't skiing every day. They're not shopping at, um, REI every day.

Kevin: And so they want to find you in places where they're, where they're at. And so that goes back to the million-dollar question is putting your product where consumers, where your consumers are, will outdoor enthusiasts buy stuff in natural, organic, and they buy stuff in grocery. And so naturally when safely came calling, we couldn't say no and the same thing with natural grocers. And then next thing you know, that leads you down the path. And so I think there's nothing wrong with going down that path. Um, however, I think that it's, you have to be in a, in a, in a healthy financial position to understand the rules of that game, because most brands don't understand all the rules of engagement when it comes to dealing in natural, organic, and with big distributors, like a UNF and how that impacts your business. And, and the next thing, you know, you get distracted and you forget about your old pal REI and how they were the ones that gave you your, your shot and, um, which we never did. We always made REI our biggest focused all the time. So that was one thing I could, that's one thing I can say we've always done. Right. So, but I think that's really important with your go-to-market strategy is, is to think about where your product lives, your target consumer, and then you have your secondary consumer or where else they shop that you can focus on after you've found success in that first go-round. Patrick, you wanna throw in any, any thoughts?

Patrick: I think he cleaned up pretty good there, he, um, you know, mentioned choosing, you know, a great partner, then the thing that REI was for us was it was that legitimacy, um, to get into some of these larger grocers. But yeah, I would, I would say that, make sure you're in the

Kevin: Right headspace and you're at the right time in your business to venture into giant retail. It's a big distribution, um, and seek out help from, you know, Dan cause if we would have had some information, you know, about, uh, how to, how to follow that path, uh, in the beginning, we probably could have saved ourselves a lot of headaches, a lot of money. Um, but, uh, you know, the experience is a great teacher also. And hopefully, you know, you're, you're smart enough that you can, you can learn from those and, and bounce back. So yeah, we've, we've had some, some bumps and bruises along the way in that, but definitely be prepared, um, for everything to come at you when you start venturing into the big food world,

Dan: I appreciate your saying that fact, that your point earlier, I forgot to mention that avoiding mistakes. That's why I do this. That's why the podcast 205, 206 episodes live. And that's why I've got the YouTube channel and all the courses. And that's why I'm partnering, looking for other people to partner with, including on this free webinar series where I'm trying to answer those questions to help brands avoid those problems so that, you know, that payment now pay me later thing I was talking about earlier so that you can confidently grow and scale your brand and not waste so darn much money. So you're right.

Kevin: Yeah, no, I didn't even add to that. No, that's all right. Sorry. I just don't want to forget. I'll wait. I did that, that the, one of the best parts about growing slow and having that smaller go to market strategy is that you're going to make mistakes. And so those mistakes that you make are minimized on a smaller level that maybe don't penalize you as if you, you know, you jump into Safeway, um, you know, I'll pick, I'll mention Bobos or, you know, like I personally, you know, or not even Bobo's, but there are some other brands out there that, you know, you go to the market and you jump way ahead of the game and little things come up that you, that they probably, you would probably say, Oh man, you know, if that had not happened on such a large scale, wouldn't cost us so much. So, you know, we, um, you know, w we found that out as well, you know, and, and that goes back to your foundation of a business plan. You know, like it is a living document and, you know, as much as you try to shore it up, it's just like a house. Eventually, it's going to need new windows and a new door. And, and, you know, you just want to make sure that you, you're not overextended when you have to replace that door

Dan: Well said. And on that note, just give you a couple quick examples or people to really understand why this matters and thank you for sharing all that. So you've got the push strategy versus the pole strategy. The push strategy is then shut up, sit down and get out your checkbook strategy that everyone else uses with the cookie-cutter tactics, et cetera. That's why we're doing this to avoid that. The pull strategy is where you have people reaching out to you saying, how can I get you? And if you can position yourself well enough, and you've got the go-to-market strategy, not only can you negotiate with the potential investors more effectively, but then you can push back and retailers and say, you know what? I'm not going to pay slotting because I understand that my customer is far more valuable to you as a retailer, then the customer then than the other brand's customer, because your customer drives more traffic in their store, reasonable profit in that category, a bigger market basket ring is just some of the things I talk about through the courses and podcasts, et cetera.

Dan: So go back and check those out or reach out to me if you've got more questions, but a quick story as a brand that I'm working with that is in California, just got distribution while it just got taken on by a distributor, she's thrilled, right? So they put our product in Florida. They put her product in Indiana and they put her product in Louisiana. She's in California. So how is she going to support that brand effectively in those retailers? She's not, it's a recipe for failure. It's a recipe for, for, for going bankrupt down the road. If you're not thinking about your go-to-market strategy, where do you need to go? How do you need to get there? The other quick story, working with another brand and energy bar, she has to keep her what's the term I want to put her all in costs her, her cost to get the product on a shelf in the package, everything else down at 80 cents, a bar, to be able to sell it for three 99, there is no margin of error for her.

Dan: There is no money that, I mean, not, that's basically her kind of breaking, even with all the people that have their handout, the distributors, the brokers that's ever, and everyone else. My point is having these strategies like you guys have talked about in place are what are going to help you navigate that so that you can decide, where do you want to go? How do you want to get there? So she's in a position where she wants to be organic, but she's being told by her investors not to be organic because they want their money. But yet that takes her away from her mission. Same as with you guys, if you guys were told that, Hey, you need to not use dates. You need to use high fructose corn syrup or something like that, which is against everything you're talking about. Why does it matter?

Dan: And how do you position yourself around that? So thank you for sharing that, by the way, this is exactly why I put together. I mean, this is exactly what I proved in the 2016 category management handbook, that our products are responsible for all the sustainable growth across every category. So leverage the insights in that. There's a link to it on the podcast webpage as, as your part of your go-to-market strategy. So the next thing we talked about, and I know we're kind of spending a lot more time talking about the foundational part, which is good. And so what does that look like? So what does that mean? So where to invest your website, affiliate programs, influencers, how do you drive traffic, your site,

Kevin: Your approach, et cetera, guys, you want to share what you, what you do first, Patrick.

Patrick: Yeah. So, um, that brings up a whole lot of things that you know, that we didn't do at the beginning. And, and, and that's why I think we have a pretty good insight on this is that you gotta, you gotta, when you're your customers one at a time when you start and, you know, farmer's markets, um, local shops, uh, your, your Facebook, your Instagram, all those things are so important when you're going to market, because you want to build up that, you know, that energy around your product and that people will get excited and see what your brand is all about. Because, you know, in the, in, in any food category, a big food company can, can look at your product and say, I like that product. Let's go break it down and make our own, and they could do that. Kellogg's could do that to you tomorrow.

Patrick: And there's nothing you could do to stop them. Um, but people don't necessarily buy that. People buy the story, they buy your brand, they buy into you. And that's, what's so important is to show your consumers, show your fans, who you are, what you're about, what your product is for, why you made it, and what makes you the leading authority on that. And, and I think that was something that we started with and we got away from, but we've gotten back to it and it's, it pays dividends. So, um, being true to yourself and just putting yourself out there and being okay with one battle at a time, one customer at a time, um, having conversations with, uh, with individual people commenting, um, that's not necessarily, um, you know, the technological tools that you'll put into it, but that's like the mindset, you know, that we have, um, as far as driving traffic to this site, I think it's smart to dig into the analytics of, of Facebook and learn, you know, dabble a little bit in Facebook ads. They have a lot of great resources for free that you can, you can learn that. And you can, you don't have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars at the start. You can spend $10, $10, and learn what works, learn about the people out there that have never heard about you, that have questions about your product and engage with that person. And that helps you learn in return. That's, that's sort of where we've been going lately.

Kevin: Kevin, you wanted your thoughts. Um, yeah. You know, I like, as we alluded to earlier, I think it's, it's easier, you know, when you, when you get that first purchase order from a large retailer and you see all the deductions and you sit there and you think, wow, that $1,500 invoice just came back at $738. You start thinking about the balance there and thinking, you know, did, what did we miss if we had that and reinvested that into Google ads or Facebook ads or, um, things that drive traffic to your site, affiliate programs, you know, would you, would you have been able to stretch those dollars more? And the answer is always going to be yes. So it's, um, you know, like Patrick said like if you, you, you stick with your story, which is what endears you to people and your brand is what attracts you to people in your, if your product's good, then you've got the recipe for winning over consumers, and then you just have to follow through with it.

Kevin: You know, I think a lot of brands, the other, the other problem that a lot of brands have too, is that in the beginning, the founders are doing so much work within the business. They're not working on the business and, and that's a challenge. And that, that's a, it's a real thing. It's not skirting. Um, it's not saying you're trying to get too big by saying you don't want to get jumped into the dish pit and do dishes of the B because you have to, but if you're doing that, then you're not doing something else. And so it does take a while. Um, it, there's a learning curve in it, but some of those things you just have to do and you have to dig into, and we're all guilty of it. Um, you know, but small brands they have to, you have to dig in and you have to do the small things like just responding.

Kevin: You know, people reach out to you, on social media. You gotta take the time to engage with them. It's, you know, it's easy to just do your posts and then turn it off and go away. But engaging with one person leads to maybe, you know, turning them into one of those Seth Godin type sneezers that then tell a hundred people. He's another one of my favorites along with Kobe it's. Um, but those are the things in the beginning that it's easy to jump ahead to and forget about, and then stop doing, because you get distracted with the big shiny PO of, you know, getting into a hundred stores, you know? So I think just keep, you know like we've been talking about just focus on your website, make it it's your storefront e-commerce is here to stay. It's been growing. I think last, I think in October, they said that 19% was the, um, the growth projection for eCommerce brands before COVID, um, especially in the bar category. I imagine that's probably grown since COVID, so it's, it's definitely worth more money to focus inward than to focus outward.

Dan: Thanks for saying that. And you know, the real thing that pushed me over the edge when I was trying to decide whether or not I wanted to do this was when expo West was counseled. I listened to brand after brand, after brand, through social media, LinkedIn, et cetera, talk, how about how they're going to fire their staff or let their staff go their team. And I thought, no, don't do that because you spend a lot of time finding the right person, training them, grooming them, et cetera. And they took something off your plate. So you could be more effective, like you were saying, founders, work way too hard. So there's an efficiency to that. And they're thinking about laying those people off, and I'm thinking don't do that. Let's think about other ways to find the money to survive. And a lot of that is in the trade-marketing is by making sure you're focused on the right customer, getting the right distribution in the right stores, all the stuff we're talking about.

Dan: So thank you for sharing that. One of the things that you said, Patrick, you were talking about that. Yeah. Other brands could copy what you've got because let's face it. Our recipe is pretty much on our package, right? But the difference is trust. And as both, you guys were talking about it's that relationship that you have with your buyer that makes your product so unique. So what I mean by that, I believe that every brand, every, every, every brand needs to be available, wherever your customer's shop, meaning that you need to have a digital presence. You need to be able to leverage your dessert, digital president presence, your community, to grow sales within a retail store. The power of that in terms of negotiating with retailers is something that a lot of brands overlook. So if you can go to a retailer and say, here's who buys my product, and here's why they bought it, et cetera, this is how you grow and succeed.

Dan: I did a project you many, many years ago for dang chips. When they were starting out where I had them do an informal Facebook study, it was not scientifically accurate. And it wasn't scientifically valid. But what we did is we took some of the comments from their Facebook community, their local community. And I baked that into the selling deck that I put together for them. They went from only a few stores to every store within the chain 1600 stores. They went from being regional to a national, a much larger Bram and, and they, they just blew up overnight. And the point is by leveraging the strength of all of these assets that we're talking about, this is how you gain a significant and sustainable competitive advantage. And back to what you said, Kevin, the mistakes that you guys make. Sometimes I made them too. I had the right, the wrong email service provider, the wrong website.

Dan: I grew my list to be huge. And because I didn't have the infrastructure to support it, I lost it. I didn't have the infrastructure to support the courses. So now that I finally have all that in place, we're doing what we're doing today, but as a brand, you know, how can having you take a step back? I mean, think about all the things I should have done differently myself. And if I can help you and help other brands not make that mistake, why we're having this conversation, that's what this is. That's what this is about. That's, what's important. So thank you for sharing that. So I know we're kind of bumping up a little bit on time. The next thing we want to talk about is the co-pack relationship. So why did you guys decide to have a co-packer by that's a huge investment hat off for you guys for doing that? That's a pretty risky thing for a small brand. Well, why did you do that? And what does it mean to have a relationship with a co-packer that is yourself?

Patrick: Wow, great question. Um, so the quick version of the story was, and, you know, I mentioned at the beginning, of this webinar was that manufacturing is always a headache when you're trying to get out there. And, and it's, you know, in the beginning, you're in their cottage food laws, depending on where you're at. So you're doing things in your kitchen, you don't know the ropes, you don't know what you're doing. Food safety is like, Hey, I cleaned my countertops. Do you know? Um, so at the very beginning, there's a lot that you don't know. And we had to find our way through that. And, and as we started to grow and started to realize, Hey, you know what, we can't, we can only roll out two to 300 bars, every five to six hours. This is not sustainable. This is not a plan. And so we started looking at co-packers and, and most of the time co-packers look back at you and go you're how big, you know, um, they don't want you to have the conversation if you're not at a million-plus revenue, or you're not doing 20 to 30,000 per skew in a run.

Patrick: Um, and that's just, that's big, that's a big food and most companies, most small businesses, it's really hard for you to kind of see out that far and think, wow, that's, that's a lot of units. What would we do with all that? Um, so we finally found one that was willing to take a chance on us. And, um, you know, we spent about six months learning, integrating kind of learning the process, sitting there with them, getting the recipe dialed in on the machinery. And as we placed our first order, they went out of business and it turns out they were always planning on shutting down operations. And so we felt tricked and we were really in a bad spot. It's now we're production shut down. We have, we've lost retailers at this point. Um, and we had just pulled in a few friends and family money, and we were going to use to market, to trace, and to get the word out.

Patrick: And we took all that money and we bought equipment. And the reason we did that was that we were tired of manufacturing holding us hostage, and we decided, Hey, we had six months crash course boot camp at this co-packer, which was run by great people, not at the very top, but the people in the plant. And we learned how to run that equipment while we were there. So, and we found a brilliant food scientist in Boulder that allowed us to park our equipment there and, and worked with us. Um, she was great. And then we found our own spot. And then we thought, you know what? We're not using all of our equipment all the time. And if you have all this expensive equipment in this expensive facility, and it's not running, you're losing money. Um, so was definitely a financial

Kevin: Reason behind it, but also, you know, we saw how much of a struggle it was to jump from a commercial kitchen or your kitchen to professional food manufacturing. And we have so many, we had so many mistakes and so many successes along the way that we, we got so good at learning, you know, like the food system and the production and the food safety. Um, we thought, why can't we help other small brands as we pay it forward? And while we go and grow our own brand, and that's why we're in it, Patrick locked up, I guess I'll pick up where he left off. I don't know what happened to him. So now he's, he's right. That's why we're, that's why we're in it. I mean, as a, as we're all in this together, we're collaboration, you know, there's always been three pillars to our business.

Kevin: Um, both the co-packing and four points, which is being authentic, being transparent, and then collaborating. And one of those collaborations things is helping other small businesses. And, um, because you know, you, you help a small business out, make their product. They might have a friend who's a retailer, or, you know, we're all in this together. Everyone's got to eat. Um, so that's why we do it. Um, and that, you know, that's makes it easy to have that relationship with a co-packer when you're going, it's you, but it's also when you go back to one of your foundation points about your product when you first start out the number one thing that you have to do above the glitz and the glamor of how great your product is, is your cost of goods and your margins. And if your, if your cost of goods are high and your margins are too low, you're going to get, um, you're going to get clobbered and then you have to go back and redo it again.

Kevin: And it's really expensive. And now you're going back to retailers and you're raising the price on them. And none that goes over badly. So you really have to have your manufacturing down to it. You know, you've gotten, it's gotta be a very, very strong pillar. And that's why we did it because we knew that as long as we had that leg to stand on, then we had, we had a margin, we had scalability. And at that point, it's just gross sales and makes sure that the phone's ringing good. Patrick, you want to come back in so that you take, I think I knew where you were going. So, you know, I don't know where it froze out, but this is just another, one of the challenges that come at you, right? 20, 20, um, a way of doing business, a way of like, well, it's okay. We had plenty of time to talk about you. You'll have to listen to watch the replay. Well, thank you for sharing that. Now, the reason I want to go one step further with this to really dig into this is that I know again, that running up on time is that a lot of the co-packers a lot of the organizations that you're working with

Dan: As a brand, look at you as an ATM machine, like a paycheck, whatever you want to call it, but having a relationship with people that understand your business. That's what I try to do. Understanding, you know, having a co-packer that you're working with a try to understand your business, having a relationship with a packaging supplier, with a marketing income, whatever it is that sets you apart from other brands. And that helps you avoid some of those pitfalls, some of those mistakes and most failures that so many brands fall into. And the reason this matter is because if they're able to work with you and help you get from a small batch to a large batch, to a, whatever that helps them down the road. Can you imagine, for example, if you were a small co-packer and you took a chance, aren't say RX bar or cliff bar or whatever, and where you'd be today, if you were, if you had that initial relationship with them, pick your brand and insert any brand in there, the point is, imagine where you'd be today.

Dan: So gambling, aren't a brand like you at the beginning where you don't have the volume, you don't have everything in place, you know, that's that says that that takes a lot for a co-packer. And that's why they have those minimums in place because they don't want to be stuck. So you guys being able to help other small brands and being able to appreciate what you're bringing to the table. This is something that brands need to be thinking about. So at the very least, I encourage any brand to have a conversation with you guys to at least see what you're capable of doing on their behalf. So again, we're, we're coming up on the hour. Why don't you guys tell us a little bit about how to find out more about four points in base camp, and we'll go from there. Kevin, you want to start

Kevin: There? Um, yeah. Find more, uh, about four points. Um, you can just go to four points, bar.com. Don't go to four points.com that take you to the Sheraton. Um, unless you want to go stay at a hotel somewhere, which, um, but, uh, yeah, you can go to our website. We're very active on social media. We actually do a lot of blogs. Um, most of our blogs actually center around the journey of entrepreneurship and mentorship and, and trying to get things right. We try to take the lessons that we've learned in business and be very vocal with it, because like you said, it's, it's, it's very important. Like, as Patrick said like you start talking to somebody who is a co-packer like us, and we start talking to you about your market strategy. Most co-packers don't do that. They don't think about what your end game is.

Kevin: And a lot of times they'll go, Oh, wow. I didn't even think about that. Most co-packers are just, uh, you know, they're the ones that, you know, you just, here's your product. This is what it's going to cost as demo cue, come back to us when you're ready. So we try to, we try to be very active, blogging, and helping people out, but you can go to four-point spar.com. You can find our product there on, you can find it on Amazon. It's very easy to buy from us two days shipping. Um, you'll, you'll love our product. Um, Patrick can talk more about how you can get in touch with us for base camp PillPack.

Patrick: Yeah. Um, thank you. Yeah. And then one more point on four points is it's just four points bar on Facebook and add four points bar, uh, Instagram, we're pretty active on there. We're always sharing our adventures. If you want to see us standing on top of mountains and things like that, we're always posting stuff like that or talking about why, uh, you know, we think that our, our product is above the rest and, uh, for base camp, it's just base camp copack.com. Um, it's Patrick at base camp, uh, co-pack dot com or, or Jeff, my partner who couldn't be here. Um, again, we an email, there's his contact info on site. We'll answer questions all day. We'll just have conversations. Cause we're not just a production house without the frills. We have, we bring the frills, we call ourselves base camp for a reason because every great adventure starts from base camp.

Patrick: And that's where all your resources are. And you can go up the mountain as high as you want. Um, and we're, we're there to provide you with that. So we're transparent. We're always going to tell you what we think if we liked your product, or if you think there's room for improvement. Um, and we're always going to try to steer you on the right path, no shortcuts, real food. So we're going to take the things that we apply in four points. What makes our product great there? And we're going to offer that same service that we give ourselves to, uh, other brands that come calling. And they said we hit it. Even if it's just an idea to somebody who just needs to switch co-packers, which we get a lot of those calls too. So, um, you'd have base camp copack.com and we're starting to get the social media going on that side a little bit, but not a ton of time for that.

Kevin: Well, thanks for sharing. This is why we do this. This is what makes natural natural air. We're all in this together. We're trying to help each other out. I know we're over the hour. So if you need to drop off, that's fine. You'll be able to listen to the recording on YouTube after a while. And eventually, I'll put this on a podcast. I don't do that for every show, but this is important in this. This really matters a lot. Again, trying to provide value to this industry. Gentlemen, what bottleneck do you have that I can help solve?

Patrick: Mmm.

Kevin: I think the bow, the bow, I think we're all in the same. We're all on the same discovery game right now. The biggest bottleneck right now is how do you with so many brands now going discovering the value of direct to consumer e-commerce? Um, how do you drive traffic to your site? That's um, that's a, it largely pays to play model, you know, with the advertisements and all those kinds of things. That's um, and then how you parlay that into, cause you're not going to, we're not, we're not going to change and solve the problems with retail overnight. You know, that's going to have to come from within various retail channels. There are great retailers out there that are very innovative and ahead of the game, like the, uh, you know, the Dwight Richmond's at the fresh market who are, who I think after expo West was canceled.

Kevin: He did something that no other buyer I've never seen this done, which was, he started talking, you went out on LinkedIn and he started taking 20-minute interviews with companies that wanted to pitch their products. Um, there was a vetting process, of course, but that's an example of a retailer. Who's understanding the environment that we're in right now and understanding that things have to change. So, but until everybody gets that way, retails, um, retail's a long play. So the biggest value is how do we grow as a small brand direct to consumer increased traffic to our site, make ourselves so appealing to retail, comes to us, and wants to deal with us on our terms.

Dan: Great question. I love this question. Okay. First your homework, everybody takes the free turnkey Salesforce strategies course it's free. Take it. The reason for that is that this helps you identify who that unique consumer is. It buys your product, not female had a household, 2.3 kids, college-educated, right? Everyone else says that this is who our customer is. Very commoditized. Instead, get to know your customer. We spent a lot of time talking about ourselves now, you know me better. And so now you would know better how to market to me as an individual, right? Someone who likes to ride a nice mountain bike, do a lot of my app. I put a lot of miles on it, but the point is, how do you, what is your unique customer look like? Where do they live? How do they buy your product? How do they use your product after they take it home?

Dan: That's what's in that course. It's about that discovery piece, right? The next thing that I would cover some of the foundational pieces, what a syndicated data, like what a shopper data look like, what are the things you need to know? Because a one size fits all strategy does not work for you. A little side note. If you want to know how well your brand is doing in the natural channel in Denver, Colorado, there is no database on the planet that will answer that question. And yet you're led to believe that there are several solutions out there that are not true. Okay. So what does that mean? Why does that matter? So you don't waste money on things that aren't going to help you. Next thing, as you understand your core customer, where do they shop? How do you get distribution, et cetera? And then the most important thing about that course, the main premise behind it is that if I tell you a story and you tell someone else and they tell someone else in Psalm, by the time this story comes to background, to me, it's unrecognizable.

Dan: This is literally the Achilles heel of every brand. This is how I was able to push her on PNG and Frito in my earlier life as a category management expert. The point is that your sell story, your brand story needs to resonate across every aspect of your sales funnel. It's gotta be, everyone's got to have the same passion, enthusiasm, and authenticity. As when you tell your story, now that's the foundational stuff you need to have in place. So now, to answer your question, if you've got that healthy foundation in place and you're developing a robust, rich community committed community online, then you can leverage that community to drive sales anywhere you need them to be. If you had, for example, a robust community in Denver, Colorado, and you could say, you know what? We'd like to get into King Soopers. We need you to please go into King Soopers and say, where are my four points bar?

Dan: Okay. So eventually King super says a hot, a lot of people want this. What is this product? And they reach out to you. Then you can go to them and say, you know what? We're not going to pay slotting because we're a small brand. And we're going to do more to more to value. We're going to add more value to you as a brand, in terms of the value we bring into the customer, into your store. So what I mean by that retailers want three things. They want more traffic in their store. They want a reasonable profit, and they want a competitive advantage in their market. So in lieu of slotting, in some of the other ridiculous fees that they charge, now, you can go to them and say, here's our, what our customer looks like. Here's how they shop at your store. When they buy our product.

Dan: Here are the other things I buy when they buy our product. Therefore our customer's far more valuable than the other products that you're selling. And by the way, retailers don't have access to this level of insights. This is why they need brands. Like you willing, able to step up and become a category leader, helping them grow Grice drive sales. Okay. So once you've got that in place, now we're leveraging the poll strategy where retailers are pulling you into, straight into their restores in terms of your go-to-market strategy. When you're working with different retailers or online community, et cetera, now you've got your robust community. And when you can leverage your robust community, your online community, you can also use that to maximize your trade marketing. So you get more runway. When you go to retail, you can reach out to your online community and say, you know what, we're going to come out with a banana or chocolate. Which one did you want? What would you buy? What do you think about that? Or you could give me an additional incentive to buy that product because I'm online cause I'm one of your, your core fans, part of your tribe, um, over and above what you'd give someone in the store. So there are ways to save money there too. That's where the trade marketing piece is so valuable. I know Kevin had to drop off. I see that he's gone. Um, Patrick, any questions? Any thoughts?

Patrick: I think that's all great. And, and I, you know, to anybody listening, I think it's, it's important, um, to seek out, you know, advice and ask questions of, of, from, you know, individuals like yourself who are, who've been there. And, uh, you know, I always, I always tell our internal team and I tell other brands when they call our other brands, when we're talking is four points is, is, you know, the great John wouldn't always say that, um, you know, if you don't have the time to do it, right, when are you going to find the time to do it over? And, and then I think that's at the beginning, you're, you're almost intimidated. And I think, um, you know, what you're doing is great because I think you can, you can ask the questions and you can reach out and you can learn so much and you've put it out there.

Patrick: And a lot of it's free and it's all right there at your fingertips so that you can avoid the mistakes, as you said. And, um, that's great. And I think the advice that that, uh, that you just gave about how to create that buzz around your product, how to get your consumer motivated to spread the word about you, to retailers is exactly the strategy. Um, and I don't think, uh, I know for a fact and four points got away from that, um, in the middle, as we just got pulled into this grand jury of, we get to be on big store shelves and it's, and it's hard to turn those giant POS down of, you know, 30, $40,000. But then when you get paid, then you realize that you didn't get paid 30, $40,000, then you start to realize, okay, we saw the shiny light and we flew to it. Uh, you know, we should have, we should have taken a bigger, broader look at it and stuck with our core consumer and gone that way. So, um, I can tell you from experience that what you just said is exactly the way to do it with, and the other path is, is not exactly a great path to take, but it's, it was one that, uh, we did and we learned, and, and now we're back on the right path. I think so.

Dan: Well, congratulations again. Thank you guys for coming on. I appreciate that quick note. Uh, Eric [inaudible] was on a while back and he called his wife. He called his wife and his wife said, Hey, I've got good news and bad news. He said, uh, the good, the good news was that we sold $19,000 worth of stuff. The bad news is that they got a check for $12 and 34 cents.

Patrick: Ouch. So out.

Dan: Yeah. Can you imagine any old guys, thank you so much for coming on? I really appreciate it. Let me know what I can do to help support you. Thank you everyone for listening. And for those of you stayed on even longer. Again, I will be putting this out on YouTube sometime, hopefully later today. And then also the podcast episode will be out in a couple of weeks. So look for that. This kind of information is so valuable that this is why I want to put this some out, but this information out the way I, again, not everything is going to be put on the YouTube or the podcast, but you're always welcome to go back and listen to, and watch previous free webinars or check out any of the content. So thank you for being here. Appreciate it. And I look forward to our next conversation.

Patrick: Thanks for having us, Dan, appreciate it. Take care.

Dan: Thanks and tell Kevin Good luck with the daycare. So, anyhow. Thanks.

Patrick: All right. Take care.

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