Welcome to day 3: Surround Yourself With Trusted Advisors and Experts.

The Retail solved Blueprint to teach you everything you need to know to confidently grow and scale your brand, build a connected community of loyal evangelists, and multiply your brand's impact, sales, and profits.

If we are meeting for the first time, my name is Dan Lohman. I’ve had the privilege of mentoring and working with hundreds of brands from pre-revenue to multi-billion dollars in sales. This a culmination of the best strategies that are working today. I’ve spent years testing and perfecting them to save you valuable time and money while giving you the edge you deserve.

If you haven’t done so yet, download the free 30 Days To Prosperity Workbook at RetailSolved.com/30DayWorkbook to help you get the most out of this brand-building series. Go back and listen to all of the episodes in this masterclass so that you don’t miss anything. The strategies build upon each other in the order of the series. Please share these and help me raise the bar in natural.

I want to take a moment to recap the last episode Understanding How Your Business Works, It’s important to understand the different roles everyone plays in your business, how they intersect, and how they align with your goals and objectives. I talked about the show undercover boss and how senior leadership can be so disconnected about what goes on in their business and about the specific role that some of their employees play.

The challenge is these most brands are very siloed, more so as they get big, they get distracted and they get focused on what's in front of them ignoring the bigger picture. They also lose sight of how your customer shops for and use your product. It’s imperative that you remain well connected and on mission throughout your entire organization. One of the best ways to do that is to work with mentors and advisors.

The secret, my success has always been able to bridge the gap between marketing, sales, and all the other departments. To be able to understand exactly what's going on in those departments and to be able to walk in their shoes. This is something that's critically important to your success. And if you do this and you do this effectively, that's going to give you sustainable and a significant competitive edge.

Now let's focus on helping you level up your skills and give you the edge that you deserve.

Running a business is challenging. Most of the programs available natural will not help you compete against the most sophisticated brands in your category. One of the advantages of working for a big brand is that they invest heavily in personal development for their employees.

I'm working hard to raise the bar in natural and help you level the playing field with big brands.

When I worked for Unilever I went to different trainings, literally every single month, sometimes for three or four days at a time. They were fantastic - even better than college courses. I learned about negotiation. I learned about advanced strategies. I learned about marketing. I learned about time management. I learned a lot of the fundamental skills that I use today.

The key thing is that those trainings are obviously very expensive and small companies don't have the budgets or the bandwidth to make that level of commitment to their team.

These trainings were invaluable and they helped shape me. They help to give me a huge competitive edge - the same edge I and sharing with you here. Those trainings provided a solid foundation that I was able to enhance to help keep natural natural.

On day 1 I recommended that you listen to podcast episodes SECRETS 115 Michael J. O’Donnell With The Belmullet Food & Beverage Group, Success = Brand Strategy + Execution to help you see what’s possible, why this matters, and how these advanced strategies can help open doors while exploding your sales and profits.

We also discussed how I believe that food business entrepreneurs shouldn’t have to also be full-time perpetual fundraisers. There is a much better way to grow and scale your brand!

Sally, in this industry, we spend most of our time teaching brands, how to raise money. And then we essentially tell brands that you need to hand your keys to your brand to someone else other than you to sell your product.

I don't think that's a good strategy. The same cookie-cutter strategies they are using with their other brands will not differentiate your brand. I believe that you need to set the machine orders for your brand and have others execute your strategy. If you're going to hire a broker distributor, an agency, you need to be able to hold them accountable the same as you would an employee that works for you.

In fact, the article that got me noticed featured that strategy. It was published by New Hope in the Natural Food Merchandiser. That led to hundreds of more articles in every trade publication as well as several keynote and featured speaking opportunities. The point is that these strategies are resonating with brands and they can make a huge impact on your future.

When expo west was canceled, I leaned in and launched a free weekly webinar series where I find the best experts to help answer your most pressing questions. Links to the replays are available on the events page of my website. There is a lot to choose from with more coming. Check out the brand secrets and strategies podcast, brand-building courses, articles, and other content while you are there.

The idea for that article was simple. The brand would formulate the strategy and then leverage their broker partners to execute it on their behalf. Brands need to their own their strategy.

We already talked about how running a business is hard. There's a lot to running any business and so much you need t know to be successful. Since you don't have years to spend in higher education, finding a mentor or a group of mentors is the quickest path to level up your skills. They will help guide you and keep you on track. I’ve included several podcast recommendations below to help you get the most from a mentor or advisor.

There are a lot of benefits from working with a mentor. Think of a mentor as an advisor or a business coach. They have already concurred the mountain and they now have the skills to help guide you.

A great place to start is with industry networking groups. There are a lot of talented experts who love offering a helping hand. That is one of the things that makes natural natural - all of us working together to raise the bar. The rising tide floats all boats!

Meet and talk to a lot of people. Get to know them. At the very least, they might become a sounding board for your ideas.

A quick word of caution. Don’t make the conversations all about you and your brand. Focus on how they had success growing their brands. Their stories will inspire and educate you. I’ve had the privilege of sharing a lot of their stories on the podcast. It’s always great to hear what worked and what did not. More importantly, you get to hear about their biggest challenges and how they overcame them.

When you show an interest in listening to industry experts, they will begin to return the favor by asking to know more about your brand and the struggles you are having. Meeting and speaking with fellow entrepreneurs at networking events will also give you an idea of the questions you should be asking when you have an opportunity.

Networking groups are also a great place to find and interview potential mentors. You want to make certain that you choose the right mentor or advisor. One that shares your values and aligns with your mission. You want to interview a lot of different advisors and get a flavor for how they work with brands. You also want to understand how they interact with brands, what their skill sets are, and how they can help you.

You want to surround yourself with people that can help guide you and support you. You also want to surround yourself with people that are going to hold you accountable. So for example, when you're working with an advisor, you put together a strategy, you brainstorm with that advisor about what that strategy looks like and how you should implement it. Then you put it together and then you leverage your advisor to hold you accountable again. This is where lofty ideas turn into actionable results.

Big brands rely on advisory boards. An advisory board is a group of advisors who meet on a regular basis to review the brand's performance and assess your strategies. They help you identify key opportunities and hold you actionable.

I recommend that if you don't have advisors that you get one. Remember to surround yourself with advisors that have different skill sets that complement each other. You don't want a bunch of people that are on the sales side of the business. You want people that understand marketing and finance and sales and production and all the different aspects of your business. You want to surround yourself with people that can give you a well-rounded education, people that have experience in the industry, and more importantly, people with a proven track record. You want to make sure that they're a good fit for your brand. You also want to make sure that they understand the difference between the customer that buys your product as well as the customer who purchases your competitor's products.

This is critical to your success. Surrounding yourself with the right people is going to help you grow incrementally and it's going to help you get the sustainable competitive edge that you deserve.

For additional inspiration listen to podcast episodes:
SECRETS 196 Brad Barnhorn, Leveraging Wisdom to Unlock the Full Potential of Your Leadership and Brand

SECRETS 81 Greg Fleishman With Foodstirs & Purely Righteous Brands, Connecting Generations With Love & A Passion For Real Food

SECRETS 46 Alex Hanifin From Alpine Start & Naturally Boulder, Community Is The Magic Ingredient Behind Every Brand's Success

SECRETS 219 How A Committed Community Can Help You Explode Sales While Fighting Hunger with Amanda Rodriguez Startup CPG

Tip of the day: You are not alone. Find a trusted mentor and/or advisor. Join mastermind groups that educate, inspire, and hold you accountable

I’ve recorded the video which has illustrations and additional information I can’t share on an audio podcast. You can watch the accompanying video on the podcast webpage and you can get there by going to BrandSecretsAndStrategies/Session229. In tomorrow's show, we’ll talk about How To Set Yourself Up For Success In Business. This episode will build on today’s conversation. Thanks for listening and I look forward to seeing you at the next show.