BRAND SECRETS AND STRATEGIES

PODCAST #23

Hello and thank you for joining us today. This is the Brand Secrets and Strategies Podcast #23

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. Today's podcast is all about selling. While the focus is on demos, there's such great insights in this podcast about selling. We discussed in depth, the core strategies that you need to take with you when you walk into any selling situation, especially when you're working with your venture capitalists, with your investors, and with your retail partners.

In fact, this episode should be Selling 401. This is the episode that you need to share with your entire sales team, perhaps your entire organization. The point being is that if everyone's on the same page, it helps you communicate your message to the end consumer that buys your product more effectively.

In a perfect world, the founder would be the person doing all the selling, making all the retail calls, all the buyer calls, all the distributor and broker calls and talking to all the consumers. Since that's not realistic, the next best thing is to make sure that your entire sales team is 100% on board with your message. You want everyone that hears your message to hear the same passion as though it was coming from the founder's own mouth.

In this episode, you're going to hear about effective ways to sell and effective strategies to make sure that you have the right message at the right time.

Product demonstrations have been for a long time They're perhaps the single best way to get your product into the hands of new consumers.

New consumer trials are the key to growing your business. Product demonstrations are one of the key ways that natural retailers rely on to bring consumers into the stores, to create excitement in the category and to boost category sales. There's a lot more to it, however, than just simply setting up a table and passing out samples. When done correctly, this can be a huge boost to your bottom line. Effectively, adding rocket fuel to explode your growth. When done incorrectly, a poorly run demo can leave a sour taste in the mouth of the consumer and your retail partner. You never get a second chance to disappoint a customer. This is what you need to avoid and this is why you need to listen to this episode to learn how to maximize the demo experience.

Welcome. Today, I'd like to introduce you to Andrew. Andrew is an expert in running and setting up demos. Before we get started, Andrew, can you please tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got started?

Andrew: Sure. I'm Andrew Therrien. I work for Big Orange Productions as a director of sales. I actually got involved in the demo space because back in college, I actually executed the demos just to make some extra money on the side and it was perfect for me at the time, and I was introduced to it by a classmate of mine who ended up going to work for Big Orange right out of college and she is actually the general manager and my boss now.

I went and did something else for about nine years after college and she called me up one day and said, "Hey, do you know any people that would like to come and be a director of sales over here?" I said, "Yeah, I know a really charismatic great salesperson." She said, "Well, who?" I said, "Me." She laughed and said, "I thought you said he was a charismatic good salesperson?" She said, "Yeah, I'd love for you to be able to come on board." She set up a meeting with the owner and myself and her and the rest is history.

Dan: Interesting. Well, I would certainly call you charismatic. I know you're being self-deprecating but certainly, I'm impressed with the way you communicated and the way you hold yourself but that's an interesting story about how you left and then came back. When you came back into the space, what were you looking for? Actually, let's hold off on that for a minute.

Andrew: Sure.

Dan: First of all, I'm a brand and I want to represent my product as best I can and obviously in the best circumstance the brand owner, the passion that the brand owner has is what you want in every demo. If I were personally to go out and run every demo, that would be great. I know I'd sell a whole lot of product, et cetera, I'd be a superstar company, et cetera, but that's not realistic.

Obviously, I need to hire someone else. How do I … First of all, what is a demo? How do I set that up and then what kind of thing should I start looking for that would help replicate if, you will, that passion?

Andrew: Sure. The first thing, if I was a brand owner or somebody who is working for the brand that was looking to take a step to allow somebody else to represent my brand in the store, you'd need to somehow vet out with the person that or the company that you'd be doing business with that they get that they have to create an in-store experience somehow to elevate the brand. How did they do that?

They have to understand that the shopper experience needs to bring value, not only to the shopper, but to the buyer and the category manager. Before someone sends out their brand ambassadors to represent their brand, understand why they're doing the demo. There's different reasons to do a demo that's out there. Sometimes it's just to appease the buyer and get the brand on the shelves.

You're a new brand. You're looking to get to a new retailer. How are you going to get in there? A lot of times, promising demos as part of the marketing mix that's going to go into it is a great way to create disruption but you're also appeasing the buyer.

Education, hey, you're not your everyday chip that's out there and there's something that needs to be educated for consumers to realize the value of why your product is out there and does the company have the ability to translate your energy and your excitement about why you chose to create this brand and actually get that through to the brand ambassador who's going to be inside the store.

The other idea is to capture market share. You're already established but the buyer might not be exactly thrilled with your turn ratio. How are you going to do that? Talking to people one on one, explaining the value of the brand, getting it to their lips, getting them to try it and realize how good your product is and be able to convert those sales and then sometimes it's just a PR correction whether it's an issue with an ingredient that you might have had that all of a sudden had bad press. How do you sit there and educate consumers that this isn't an issue with your brand and how do you professionally and responsibly overcome whatever objection that those consumers might have? Does that make sense?

Dan: That's actually an amazing answer because you've put so much great information out there. Let's unpack it a little bit. I'm always talking about how brands need to stop thinking about just themselves. They need to think about two different things. One, if no one buys your product, who cares? You've got nothing. The shopper experience, that's key. Focusing on the shopper experience but helping the brand communicate the shopper experience from their point of view as you mentioned, so important.

The other thing is retailers don't need more me-toos on the shelf. They need brands that are willing to step up and provide value beyond whatever the slotting fees are and whatever charges they have, sometimes they're ridiculous. I'm not a huge fan of some of the fees that are being charged but retailers do that because that's the way it's done in mainstream, unfortunately.

The point being is that the real value to the retailers, the ability to drive traffic in their store, drive sales in the category and drive loyalty so that those consumers come back more and more times. Appeasing the buyer, I get that. I understand a lot of buyers want it because we do this because we've always done it.

Education, that's critical. To be able to help the shopper understand the value of the product. Let me get to that. Why is a demo company an ideal solution here and how do you translate the value of the product beyond the four corners of the package?

Andrew: Sure, the big thing that I'm doing that will create value to the brand, the category manager and the shopper is demos are getting expensive these days, right? Labor is expensive. It's hard to create a return on investment.

To be the most impactful, we want to sit there and plan and whether it's us, whether it's somebody else, doesn't matter, right? Because there are other companies who do this and there are other companies who do this well and you just want to make sure that you're doing business with a reputable company who knows how to do this, which is the important part of why I bring it up.

Do something as simple as co-demos. Co-demos is you're a pasta sauce and you're a pasta brand. You bring those two together, you're talking about a 20-minute meal idea. For the shopper inside the store, it's important to them because they're thinking of two different products that might be a little bit different than what they normally buy. There might be some education that we can throw in there to build some sort of value as to why they're going to switch from the product that they always get every single time.

The category managers are thrilled by it because we're expanding the cart potentially. Now not with pasta and pasta sauce, but maybe if it's a hummus-wrapped pod that's out there that's a new product that's not out there with a beverage, now all of a sudden we're expanding the cart and we're making it really easy for the consumer to put extra things inside their cart.

Then the brokers are happy because they're pushing more products through and then the brand is happy because one, they're getting a true education because you can have better relationships and better conversations with the shoppers that are inside the store because psychologically speaking, they're more likely to actually walk up to a meal idea than somebody just handing out their cheese because think about our own personal lives.

We work all week, we go into the grocery store on a Saturday and we see somebody sampling a single product then we go, "Yeah, maybe I want to try it but I've been sold to all week. I really don't want to deal with this right now." Whereas all of a sudden there's an innovative meal idea where there's five people around that table, they're sitting there going, "Well, there must be something over there. I want to go try that." Those are the types of shopper experiences that can really make a difference.

Then you talk about visual merchandising and things like that to help supplement it, that's the part that's going to take it to the next level instead of just having Grandma Alice at the end of the end cap hopefully, not messing with the cheese kind of thing. Does that make sense?

Dan: It does actually and the funny story, a little bit of a funny end although I guess full disclosure, really. I used to be the grocery manager for Price Club. At Price Club, which is now Costco, I ran the demo people or no, I actually didn't run it, I would manage them.

Andrew: Sure.

Dan: What I'm getting at is that you go into stores, especially club stores, and they have people that do a good job and demo people that don't. I started playing around with some of the things you're talking about, the visual merchandising, et cetera, and the sales bump that I could get out of an effective demo with the right person who is charismatic and exciting and focused and makes good eye contact was incrementally, it was huge, it was shocking, staggering numbers in terms of what I was able to get. I mean, 2, 3, 4, 5, 700% increase over without having the demo.

Yet, to your point, you get a lot of people that will just, "Hey, you want some of this?" Not only that you feel sorry for the store and for them but it really turns people off. I really appreciate the fact that you've gone into that. If I'm a brand, now … Go ahead, I'm sorry.

Andrew: It's worse for the brand, right, Dan?

Dan: Exactly.

Andrew: It's worse for the brand, right, to have a bad demo happen. It's actually worth it for them not to have a demo if the demo is going to go poorly and they're not going to have the right people.

One of the ways that I try and ingrain it into the people who work for us at Big Orange is I want to make sure that the person in the stores doing the demo, if they weren't there doing the demo, they would be a shopper there.

I need somebody who knows the buzzwords. I need somebody not only know what non-GMO means, but how that also translates to your product and they may not be an expert on your product but they're passionate about natural food or clean eating or healthier eating. They can use that energy to translate over into making sure people get excited about your brand. Because if they're not and they're flat and they're on their phone or they're sitting down, which those are the things that like drive me nuts. That's the type of stuff that people sit there and go, "What's up with that brand?"

Because shoppers don't know that that person doesn't work for your brand. They're thinking that they either work for the store or they work for your brand.

Dan: It might be fair then to say that you transfer the passion that the owner has for the product to the people that do the demo. I guess the next question is, can you do the next demo for me? Just kidding.

Because your passion is so evident and I love the fact that you're really throwing in a lot of buzzwords and a lot of … You're painting a really, really good picture of what a demo should be in a perfect world and I think that's what people need to take away from this and quite frankly, this is exactly why I wanted to have you on the show because I really wanted people to understand that demos aren't just a thing you have to do and they shouldn't be approached as one more thing to check off your list but rather if you're going to do them, you need to do them right, one, and then two, you need to consider them because a demo can exponentially impact your business in a very positive way.

You're talking about market share, talking about getting it in front of consumers and customer awareness. One of the things they talk about is that a lot of consumers believe that non-GMO is better than organic. It's not true but the point is that that educational piece, helping consumers understand what's the difference between one thing and another thing and then a natural organic space that challenges that so many of the ingredients, the value-added proposition, those are the those points if you will, those talking points are just glossed over especially by big retailers.

In fact, let's go one step further, what makes natural, natural. Meaning what makes the naturals retailers more effective at communicating the value of the natural products over their mainstream competitors is that the mainstream competitors tend to commoditize basically the products and the consumers. To have that passion to be able to effectively communicate that passion and the value that the consumer can expect to get from their product is key to the success of any demo, any sales presentation, period. That's really what this is. It's individual sales presentations to a live consumer that is looking for your solution.

Andrew: Or not looking for it and they just don't know it yet.

Dan: That's even better. I'm glad you threw that in there. I'm a brand and I've decided to do a demo so now what?

Andrew: I want to throw in there that I'm a firm believer in competition. Keep in mind that there are going to be certain times where the buyer is going to tell you here is the company that I need you to call and set it up and I need you to pay for it. That's going to be a decision that you have to make. In some instances, there's no question about it. You just go to what they ask.

One of the things that I would challenge the brands to do is really push to hold them accountable. How are they going to train their reps? How they're going to get that passion by osmosis type scenario going on to make sure that the brand ambassadors in the store are effective? Ask the question of the buyer of, what happens if?

If you tell me I have to use such and such a company to go out and execute my demos and things don't go well, does that really mean that you'd be able to delist me if I'm a brand new product to the shelf and these demos are critical in getting my product into somebody's hands? Usually at that point the buyer who's busy and working 80 hours a week will sit there and look at you and go, "I don't want you to have that leverage over me."

Therefore, utilize whoever you'd like because they want to make sure that things go well. Because if things don't go well for whatever reason with that exclusive agreement that they have there, potentially you're sitting there and saying, "I just spent $10,000 on demos or $20,000 on demos, it didn't work out and therefore, people don't know about my product yet because they haven't been disrupted going through the aisle." That's one thing.

Personally, I believe in the person paying for the demo should be able to choose who represents their brand because it's a very personal decision in a lot of cases, especially for the smaller brands.

If you have a strong enough relationship, just ask what the training's going to entail, okay? How are they going to learn my company's story? How are they going to learn the three main selling points about my brand? These are the common objections that I have about my brand and how are we going to make sure that when the person gets a tough question like this that they're going to handle it in a positive and a clear concise manner.

Thinking of an example about probiotics, right? We had a brand where they had a reasonable amount of the good bacteria inside their product and the customer came up and said, "Oh, the one I take has like 100 billion of those." The good answer would be something along the lines of, "Your body actually from a physical standpoint can only take so much in and anything else that it doesn't need it wastes out."

A bad answer to something like that would be, "You're just overpaying for the product that you're getting simply because they're putting all this extra stuff in there but your body is not going to utilize it and it's just a waste of money anyway."

Dan: Good answer.

Andrew: It's something very simple and the person doesn't have any bad intentions about it. They're trying to sort of be vigorous for your brand but if they're not coached the right way, it could really turn into something fairly ugly, which could be a huge turnoff to everybody in earshot. Never mind that some manager happens to be walking by hearing you talking poorly about the competition. That generally doesn't bode well inside the store and then all of a sudden, you're getting a call from corporate saying your brand ambassador is not allowed in the store anymore because X, Y or Z just occurred.

Dan: I think it's important to mention that we need as a society to stop talking about what we're against but rather what we're for and to your point, we are for improving lives and helping people.

Let me back up a little bit because like one of the points that I'd like to throw in there, and you had some great points, is that ret stores, first of all, retailers, effectively don't really sell anything that they make. They sell other people's stuff. They make their money by selling real estate in terms of shelf space.

The buyers that buy their products whether they're called category managements or buyers or whatever, the point is that their incentives or the goal that they're trying to meet is based upon the sales that they get in their category whether or not they can increase it, et cetera.

I would go one step further, Andrew, and challenge people to challenge the buyer to realize that, hey, I'm going to be able to provide you an exceptional value with a known quantity you can "take to the bank" that's going to help you look good, that's going to help your numbers look good, that's going to help your store look better and I've got a lot of experience with those, et cetera. My main point is that instead of just shoving someone down my throat, I know that sounds really harsh, but instead of forcing me to use someone who I don't have that relationship with, I've already trained people, I've got people engaged, I've already spent the time and energy, the effort, whatever, to develop the best most optimal brand selling story within this group and I'd really appreciate the opportunity to help you drive sales, et cetera, by giving me the best platform to be able to do that. Let me put my best foot forward, I guess. I'm really glad that you spelled that out.

What should you look for in a demo agency?

Andrew: I would say probably the most important thing is somebody that understands more than just demos. Somebody who understands what the category managers are going through, what the brand's going through, supply chain, how this stuff actually gets there to make sure that they're communicating with a broker team, to make sure that the product's actually going to be present and there's going to be additional products.

If we're doing a great job, we have product to sell. Somebody who has a track record of logistics. Something as simple as making sure that we're going to be able to get that napkins, the cups, the gloves, the [inaudible 00:24:19] signs and the people in there with actual safe certification.

Understanding the life cycle from the time that it leaves the brand's warehouse or co-packer all the way until it's actually put on the shelf. How does that all work? If somebody doesn't understand how that works, it's probably a red flag to sit there and say this might not be the company for us. Somebody who can find the right people that will care about the brand.

Something as simple as going on to their Facebook pages and taking a look at pictures and taking a look at the feedback that might be online from a review standpoint and critically thinking about what those reviews actually say, meaning the workers, the people who actually work for them. What's the perception out there in the market?

Do a little bit of research to figure out who you're potentially dealing with because anybody can create a great website that makes them look like a Fortune 500 company but what does it really look like from a systems standpoint? Ask them to see what their systems look like. How did they source their individuals? Is it a retail trade organization that they source their people from or do they just go to ZipRecruiter or Craigslist and hire off Craigslist? Go ahead.

Dan: No, I'll just say so much to think about it and this is in my niche talking about advanced business strategy. Well, actually business strategies, it's the exact same thing. Brands don't know what they need to know. I joke about it but just because your mom likes it doesn't mean everyone else will.

The point is that you've got to be able to not only transfer your enthusiasm about your product but you've also got to be able to oversee and overlook the entire business. A lot of brands, especially in this space that I play in primarily, effectively hand the keys to someone else and say, "Here, you do this for me," and they expect tremendous results and then they're disappointed because they don't get those results but yet they never set an expectation or they didn't know what to really be paying attention to.

Your point about being aware of, engaged, involved in every step of this process and driving it down to that granular of a level where if you're going to hire someone, and I could not agree with you more, they need to understand how everything flows to the system.

Back to my experience, I've done demos before where I told the brand I needed extra product on the shelf, they didn't get it to me or in the backroom or something, they didn't get it to me so I'm paying someone to stand there and twiddle their thumbs and trying to look pretty or whatever and yet the reality is there was no product for them to sell.

I would usually just take that person and have them demo something else and the sad thing was not only is that a poor reflection of the brand and let me say that again, this is all about the brand. If your name is on the package, every single thing that happens, if you have an out-of-stock, if your product tastes bad, if your product's demoed improperly, if the person is not exciting or says something that you would not represent in your own brand, that's a reflection of you, the brand.

You've got to be so laser focused on this stuff and even if you don't have to dig into the weeds as you suggested, knowing how to find the people that can help them bridge that gap is critically important as you said. I really appreciate that. Thank you for getting into that.

What are the dangers of working with any agency? You've spilled out some of this and without pointing any fingers, what are some, I guess, horror stories or what's some things that people should watch out for, one, and then two, the positive side of the equation, what would you look for as you stated already, but could you go a little bit deeper?

Andrew: Sure. I think probably one of the biggest things that's happening right now just out in the world and it's not to get political in any sense of the word but states are very cash trapped, I guess you could say at this point.

When you're talking about hiring somebody who's going to go out and hire people to represent your brand, one of the things you really have to be careful for is that you have an agency that has a track record and a financial health behind them to be able to make on-time payments to the reps.

The reason why that's important and you're sitting there going, "What's the big deal? Why should I even care about this? If they don't pay their people, not my problem as long as I pay the bill." It actually could become your problem because if all of a sudden somebody puts in a complaint to the labor board. There have been three mid-sized agencies in the past three months that have gone out of business before they pay their people but they got paid from the brand.

They filed bankruptcy, they went belly up and they have really little to no assets to be able to cover those expenses. Not only did the brand pay those agencies, but they're going to end up having to pay again probably based off of the track that things are going because from a labor standpoint, they're responsible now that the other company in between, the agency like ours, went belly up so now they're responsible for paying again those reps over and above whatever is not liquidated on bankruptcy so they're on the hook.

Dan: That's kind of scary.

Andrew: That's really scary. Making sure that you're doing business with a good healthy, stable, financially stable company, but also a reputable company is critical because there are a lot of times where a brand ambassador gets the idea of, "Oh man, this is really easy. I'm going to open up my own agency." Anybody can go to the secretary of state website and pay a $400 fee to incorporate a business but it's different when you talk about insurance.

If somebody gets hurt inside the store, making sure that you have a certificate of insurance. If somebody doesn't have that insurance coverage, that should be a red flag to you right there. That's an easy question that you can have to say, "Can you send me over a certificate of insurance where I'm listed as an additional insured?" If they can't do that right away, that should be a red flag to run because if something were to happen and that somebody gets hit by a forklift in Costco, all of a sudden you're going to be the one paying out because chances are there's not going to be any assets on the side of that agency. Does that make sense?

Dan: Yeah, absolutely a lot of think about. Things that I don't think people really think about in terms if they get the product on the shelf and anything. I mean you never want to hope that anything happens like that.

Andrew: Sure.

Dan: You've got to be prepared for a rainy day. Let's be honest things happen. You certainly don't want … Imagine this, if you are the brand and something happens, how does that impact your relationship with the store and with the retailer as well? That's another thing.

Andrew: Reputation.

Dan: Exactly. Yeah, you don't want the retailer to be afraid to hire you in the future or to use your product in the future because something wasn't handled right because something went wrong, so definitely very important.

The demo happened and now what?

Andrew: Well, just to back up one more other thing that you should be looking for is, ask for some sample reporting.

Dan: I like that.

Andrew: Nothing [crosstalk 00:32:37] trade secrets, right? You strip out the pictures that we don't know what brand you're looking at. Maybe just have them put in some very basic numbers but literally, you could have somebody do a wonderful demo but if the brand doesn't have the ability to go back and count the results of how great that round of demos went, not only to the category manager but a lot of times to their venture capital firms who put up the money and is expecting to see a return? How many events executed out and how many were scheduled? How many units per SKU were sold? How many customers were in the store as an estimate? How many people did you interact with and how many people actually tried the product and out of that, how many people who bought it?

That's pretty simple and that's basic information along with some photos to make sure that the demo actually occurred is important for purposes of justifying the expense. Also, when you're doing your category review and they're deciding whether or not you're going to stay on there, you did 200 demos across the country for a retailer, you should be able to sit there and say, "Look at the support that we did for you." I'm willing to bet there's a lot of brands who miss that mark. Even though a lot of brands end up doing the support and doing the demo, they don't do a great job about sharing the results to sit there and say, "Look how great we did. Isn't this nice? Aren't you happy with us? You should really give us better space without having us to pay additional slotting fee."

Then the buyer laughs but understands that yeah, this person really is invested and this person is taking the extra step to make sure that not only do they do the demo but they did a great job.

Dan: Well said. In fact, actually, I did an episode, a podcast episode, Secrets 19, Promotional Effectiveness: The rocket fuel to get your products in the hands of more shoppers. The point of this and I'm so glad you brought this out, Andrew, is that this is part of your promotional budget. This is part of your … It's usually the largest single line item or on every brand's balance sheet, income statement, excuse me, the point is that most promotions are just wasted money.

I go into a lot of this and where I'm going with this is that if you can't account for not just where the dollars went and what you got out of the dollars but more importantly, how that grew your brand and whether or not it created new trials or et cetera. Again, I impact this quite a bit in that episode so I encourage everyone to listen to it again, it's Secrets 19.

To go into that and understand what really happens, what is the real impact of a promotion, that's something that a lot of brands gloss over. Given that demos are a lot more expensive than a coupon or a temporary price reduction, then that makes this even more important because again, if you don't understand your numbers and if you don't understand how one promotion impacts another promotion, et cetera, then I think it's going to hurt you on the long run. I've seen a lot of companies do this where they'll have a demo in the store, their product will not be on an end cap or it will not have a price reduction on the shelf.

I don't necessarily mean that you have to have an end cap although it would be ideal.

Andrew: Sure.

Dan: But yet to not have a price reduction or some other sort of complementary promotion going on during the demo is typically a mistake. Without getting into the nuts and bolts of it, going back to your point, if this isn't done right, this could have a profound negative impact on a business. If it is done right, then this could be a tremendous win and at the end of the day, more consumer trials, new consumers coming into your business, boost consumer loyalty, boost sales in the category, help the retailer grow their category, that's the Holy Grail.

Andrew: Yup. Base sales, base sales, base sales.

Dan: It is. Most people don't realize it. I mean I forget the way someone put it once but nothing happens if somebody sells something but they had a really clever way of putting it but my point being is that that's what this is about. Until somebody sells something, nothing happens and I guess really, that's the point I want to make and if they don't sell it effectively, this could be a huge suck on your income statement.

With that said, I've decided to and thank you for bringing it up by the way. You've decided to do a demo, so now what? Is there something I need to be thinking about afterwards? What are the kinds of things you want to throw in here?

Andrew: You're going to want to set it up from the start about what the expectations are.

Dan: Good idea.

Andrew: From a reporting standpoint, right? Out of the gate, when you're having those initial negotiation discussions, you really want to dig in to what that reporting is going to look like.

How is the brand going to ensure that if they're in San Diego or LA or Washington or even Chicago, but they're executing nationwide, how do you know if the person is actually in the store?

Dan: Good question.

Andrew: Then, from there, what are the reporting questions? What are the information they're going to give back to me? Usually, a good reputable demo agency is already going to have a template, but don't just take the template. My encouragement to everybody who is listening today is take that basic template that they have that is an umbrella for everybody and customize it to your own brand. What's that report going to look like specifically for you? What questions are you going to add to that that are going to be critical and then, but understand that when you ask a question, you may not always like the answer.

I will tell you that the brands that have been the most successful with demos that I've seen were very interested in the negative feedback, more importantly, than the positive feedback that they've received.

Dan: Interesting.

Andrew: Because they've dug into the why. Why did somebody sit there and say they didn't like the ingredient list? There was a brand that was out there, I'm not going to mention the name but they're actually a really great brand, one of their ingredients was palm oil. It was right around the time that the whole palm tree deforestation situation happened and there was a big pushback against palm oil. It had nothing to do with the taste. It had nothing to do with the packaging. It had nothing to do with the price. Most people weren't buying it simply because of the palm oil. They changed it to sunflower seed oil. 30% boost in sales over the next six months.

Dan: Wow, okay. Good antidote.

Andrew: Look at the reporting, try and make the reporting custom to what you're going to be looking for and it really depends on where your product life cycle is. Are you a brand new brand, are you an established brand, are you a legacy brand, whatever it might be. What are your goals and then figure out the reporting around those goals? You can actually quantify or qualify what that's going to look like. Go ahead.

Dan: No, I was just going to say, I love that. I'm sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to throw something in here. Essentially, what you're saying if I'm hearing you correctly, you're essentially an extension of their brand. Let me make a point. To have a consumer panel test your product to spend the money on the R&D, that is a tremendously expensive endeavor for any brand. To be able to leverage your demo companies, you just stated, to able to help you in that initiative, to help you stay on track and stay within whatever the boundaries your core consumer wants you to play in I think is a brilliant idea. Be able to use those insights to help you improve your product, that's something I have never thought of before.

I just wanted to really make that point that, again, as you stated, that an effective demo, an effective demo company is effectively an extension of your brand with the ability to help you with your in-field marketing efforts, your R&D efforts, et cetera. Anyhow, thank you for letting me throw that in. Please continue with where you were.

Andrew: The other thing is having something inside there for manager or store employee feedback. Making it where the store manager feels comfortable enough because they at least know who this company is that they can write down some feedback whether it's about the brand ambassador themselves and the presentation of the brand ambassadors or something about the brand that they can give feedback on that they think might either improve or some positive or potentially negative information that the manager can actually get back.

That's critical. These are the people on the front lines. These are the people where the magic all happens. Why wouldn't you want their input on this whole thing? When you talked about reporting, something as simple as photos. Photos will help complete the picture of what the recap is starting to paint. Is there an issue because the kid didn't come in and they just had to go buy any old napkin, they had to buy a box of gloves and there's no POS on the table. That helps paint the picture as to why a demo might not have been successful and then you shouldn't dig in to, "Why didn't that kid show up on time? Who was responsible for sending him?"

There's no product on the table because, and this is a huge pet peeve of mine and I don't even allow it at this point anymore and it's not just me who doesn't allow it. It's the whole management team on our side. I'm willing to bet that there are tens of thousands of demos that happen every year that are called "educational demos." The product didn't get [inaudible 00:43:50] from wherever was delivering the product because the order went in a little bit too late and they didn't have a backup product or some instances a store brand as a backup or a line extension for your brand and the person sitting there handing out coupons, if they even have them talking about your products without handing out those samples.

I'm willing to bet there are companies out there who bill for it and tens of thousands a year occur where somebody's paying for a demo and nobody's even tried their product.

Dan: What a waste.

Andrew: What a waste. Pretty much putting it out there that if my product isn't there, something as simple as doing a pre-call two days before and if the product isn't inside the store, rescheduling it right at that point for two weeks out because I'm not going to send somebody in because the second an employee or a contractor walks into a store for their shift, everything is due half of that shift. You have to pay that person by state law. How about you figure out a way to incorporate the broker to really ensure that the products would be on the shelf? This is critically important for the brands that they just got in to their retailer or their third retailer. They're told, "Oh, the reset is going to be completed on such and such a day."

Give yourself three weeks after that day to even think about scheduling a demo because very rarely does it happen on the right date and maybe have your broker when you're doing their weekly or biweekly or monthly stop-bys. Making sure that the product is actually on the shelf before you go ahead and schedule demos.

Dan: Well said, in fact let me re-emphasize again. It's your product. Your name is on that product. How do you want your product represented in the store? Do you want to have a demo where there isn't any product? Do you want to have a demo where you run out of product? Do you want to have a demo where the salesperson, the person doing the demo, the brand ambassador, isn't doing your product justice? Of course, the answer to all those are just a resounding no.

To your point, this is such a tremendous opportunity for brands to get right to really make a big splash but at the same time, it could also be a huge issue for failure, I don't want to say opportunity for failure but if it's not done right, this is a missed opportunity, let's put it that way.

One of the things that you said, I kind of go back to that, we're talking about slotting and how you can use this. I understand why companies charge slotting. Some of it makes a lot of sense in the sense that, and by the way, I've been doing this for most of my life and some retailers do it because they help offset the labor to put their product on the shelf. Some retailers do it just because it's a profit setter. Let's just be honest.

Andrew: Sure.

Dan: Then some of the menu fees and some of the other fees that they charge brands. I guess my point where I'm going with this is that, again, retailers need brands to help support them and help drive sales in their store and that includes driving new consumer traffic in the store that's why we're having this conversation about demos. You should effectively leverage what you're able to deliver back to the brand to help build that good will in exchange for some of the things that they might ordinarily charge you. For example, if you are a category captain for a category and you're working the brand you can sometimes with savvy retailers leverage that to help you get maybe incremental merchandising.

It's not that you're paying something or they're paying you, it's not that kind of situation but because you're providing extra value to the retailer and because they appreciate and realize that you're going out of your way to give them something that no one else does, they will bend over backwards to promote you and to favor you and to give you opportunities that are incremental. Opportunities that may not be known to everyone else like a last minute demo, I used to do a lot of these.

My point is that brands need to take what they've got, that entire selling story. Not just, okay, we did a demo but that selling story. Here's how I'm committed to supporting you the retailer at shelf and leverage that to help the retailer understand how you're making a committed effort to support them and obviously, you're going to hope that they're going to reciprocate. I appreciate you getting into that.

We've covered a lot and again, I really appreciate and thank you for coming on this episode. You've unpacked a lot of information, things that brands need to know. Brands aren't even interested in demos because the same type of thought process, if you will, is what you need to bring to the retailer when you bring a new item to him, when you're talking to the buyer even if you don't do a demo. In terms of your sales process, this is a good episode for anyone who is selling any product anywhere in any store.

What are the things have we not covered that you'd like to bring up?

Andrew: The big thing would be as it relates to preparing. Everything, it sounds like a lot of work, right, and it sounds like why would I do demos? I have way too many things for me to handle to sit there and worry because listening to the podcast, that's all these things to think about. You need to find somebody who is going to be a consultant to your business. Somebody who can sit there and help walk you through it. To help understand because is it going to be a little bit of an extra work upfront? Yes, but going to your point earlier, if you do it properly and you prepare accordingly [in the end 00:50:12] and everybody has clear expectations and the ability to execute.

It's going to make your life exponentially easier in a long run. You're going to be able to hit your financial goals as it relates to what your responsibility is back to your brand and you really need to partner with the company who takes that seriously because if you we do a really bad job and we really screw it up and we don't find a way to fix it because I will tell you, we are not perfect. Any demo company that tells you they are is lying to you. You need to be able to sit there and trust who you're going to work with so when the rubber meets the road and there's an issue inside the store, it doesn't completely shut your brand down because that manager goes to corporate and causes a fire kind of thing.

Somebody who will go into the fire with you and sit there and say, "Hey, I'm willing to take responsibility for this, I'm willing to do whatever it takes to make it right and I'm going to go above and beyond to make this an opportunity for us to actually make people happier than if the bad thing never happened."

Dan: Well said.

Andrew: This goes back to your point earlier that I love and I wasn't sure how tight we were going to be on time. The big thing is going to be taking a look at your promo schedule for the year and figuring out where it makes sense to pencil in the demos to be able to offer support. Because what happens a lot of times is, you're putting together this promo schedule, demos are an afterthought, and if they don't ask for it, you don't really offer it kind of thing. That's common sense reasons, right.

What you want to be able to do is pencil in where you think those demos are going to go and let your demo company do the work for you to go figure out a co-demo partner that makes sense. Marry the two of you up, make sure that you approve of their product, they approve of your product. In that way, there can be more strategic planning instead of I got a call from Wegmans three weeks ago. I forgot about it. They have a demo next week but they're asking for support on. Can you please find somebody in a week? If I find somebody in a week, they're my C squad.

Good talented, professional brand ambassadors are making their schedules four to six weeks out from a demo date. If you're under four weeks, you're getting a B squad. If you're under three weeks, you're getting a C squad kind of thing. If all of a sudden you meet with your demo company who is a good partner of yours and you look at the next three, six, nine months of your promo schedule and you sit there and say, okay, a pasta company and National Pasta Day is October 19th. We really want to make sure that we have great events that are going to happen that day and all of our key retailers that are key to our business.

Not all of the stores but maybe top 20 store, top 15 stores, whatever it is and we'd like a co-demo partner to be able to help reduce our cost and create a better brand experience inside the store. Not to say that you're not going to call me up and say, "I just got into Mollie Stones and we need demos in six weeks." I might not be able to find you a co-demo partner that quickly because it's got to be a brand that's also sold inside the store but you at least want a skeleton of what your promo schedule is going to look like and what your budget's going to look like for whatever period you're comfortable with. The longer you can make that, the better it's going to be for you, the brand, the buyer, the store. All of those things because you could be strategic instead reactionary.

Dan: Good point. I'm glad you brought that out and let me drive one more point home. Co-demos, excellent idea for anyone listening. Believe me, I know the numbers as a category manager, I've seen them, and when you promote a product with another product, the lift or the increase in sales is exponentially higher. When it's a really good complement it is a tremendous benefit to both the brand, well actually both brands and to the retailer. Definitely think about that as you're going down that path and I like the idea that you can help them find a co-demo partner, so that's great.

The first question I asked you is why you came back? Could you share that a little bit with what is Big Orange?

Andrew: Sure. Big orange is a company that is actually headquartering in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. We got involved because our owner was a starting actor back in the day. He liked the idea of doing the production side of things and he started out actually in the beer, wine, spirits side where they would actually productions in like Boston bars and the live music scenes. It evolved and luckily, he was a visionary enough to see that really, one of the growing things before it was cool was going to be the clean eating and the natural food. There's a lot of specialization around the natural space.

Then when I came on, that was part of the reason why I came on was because really, we needed to tackle that natural space in a more strategic way and a lot of times they were going by word of mouth. They never had anybody going out actually engaging and they realized that that was good but if they wanted to take it to the next level, that's what we needed to do. The other interesting thing was that we supported a lot of agencies to do what we do. They would go out, they would get a contract, they would try and fill it and if they couldn't they would then engage us to help fill in the slots. That's how we got our legs under us and then from the time I came on, it was more a focus of going out, being active, building relationships with different people within our ecosystem of the broker teams.

Something as simple as being able to call up, pick up the phone, talk to the broker and sit there and say, "Hey, here's what we have going on, here is the schedule." Sharing that schedule out with the broker more than just two days before the event happens. That's the stuff that I get involved in, that's the stuff that I'm responsible for and the people who work for us to be able to help communicate and I brought … I was in software and hardware sales before this where I would look at somebody's business like a workflow solutions. How paper past through their business to understand sort of how business happened.

My expertise came to understand the process of how food actually gets on to the shelves at the grocery store and I was able to bring that with passion for natural food and clean eating even though you might not know it looking at me. I apologize. It was one of those things where just the culture of the company. If you ever have a chance and you're visiting UNFI in Providence, let's say, give me a call and say, "Hey, I'd love to stop by at your office." The energy and the atmosphere of where I work is really second to none. I've worked for, what, four different companies in my lifetime and I'm hoping I'm never changing. I'm not just saying it, come visit us, you'll see for yourself. Just because the people who work for us are so dedicated and excited about what we do. I think it's really contagious and I think it's something that you wouldn't be able to ignore if you come to visit us.

Dan: Love it. That's what the show is about, that's the heart of the show. Working with quality people, working with a quality group of products etcetera. That's why I do this and that's why I'm in this industry and that's what this podcast is about. It's about you, it's for you as we always say in the podcast. My point is that, the helping, working with people that are likeminded is definitely going to help you grow yourselves and the brand. Thank you again for coming on. I really appreciate your time.

Andrew: That's why we click so much, right?

Dan: It is. Yeah, I've known Andrew actually for quite a while. Thank you for your time and you're being, like I said, modest I guess at the beginning but you're very charismatic and everyone, I'm sure, can hear the passion in your voice and enthusiasm and the way that you're able to articulate what needs to happen. Again, this isn't just about demos. It's about how do you develop a selling story, how do you educate yourselves. In fact, that's what this episode should really be named is that how do you develop an evangelistic sales team that's going to help you take your product from the top of the funnel all the way down to the end-consumer. What are the parts that you need to know. Thank you for covering that in such great detail.

Again, I appreciate your time and I look forward to our next conversation.

Andrew: Thanks for the opportunity.

Dan: Thanks so much.

Andrew: You bet. I'll see you soon.

Dan: Thanks. Look forward to it. Bye.

Dan: I'd like to thank Andrew for coming on today and for sharing his expertise and his insights. I'll put a link to his webpage on the show notes and on this show's webpage. That's brandsecretsandstrategies.com/session23. This week's freebie is going to be my retail scorecard. You can get it instantly by texting retail scorecard to “44222” or looking for it on the show notes. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode.

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