Great resources for #CPG brands! Go get 'em! https://t.co/0VhXF0PBtq
— NatchCom (@NatchCom) January 3, 2019
“Dan and I talk about what retailers and shoppers really want, how to get your brand on the shelf, market changes, insights, trends, small brands and the future of the CPG industry!” “Always a great time and discussion with Dan!!!! One of the smartest most intuitive natural food leaders in the industry – thanks for having me on!”
Phil Lempert , CEO Consumer Insight, The Lempert Report, SupermarketGuru“Awesome to see BMC Black Belts Michael Sansolo and Dan Lohman in such a great conversation about the importance of remaining relevant at retail and with shoppers. Dan is the go to resource for natural brands – a tremendous resource for entrepreneurial brands.”
Bill Bishop, Chief Architect, Brick Meets Click and Williard Bishop Consulting“Listening to a half a dozen of your podcasts with the breadth of them being as many as they are, you can listen to half of those and get an MBA in entrepreneurship”
Scott Jensen, CEO, Rhythm Superfood and Stubbs Legendary BBQ Sauce“Scaling mission-based brands takes a specific playbook. Brand Secrets And Strategies podcast sheds light on getting to shelf … it’s working for HonestTea and BeyondMeat”
Seth Goldman, Founder, Honest Tea and Beyond Meat “Dan, Thank you for giving me hope again. I believe that our brand and the mission behind it is important. I know that we provide a unique solution to consumers who really need us because they write to us and tell us so. Listening to your courses over the past two days gives me hope that we can stay on shelf and compete with the big boys even though we are bootstrapped. Before I met you I was growing weary and questioning whether we could survive. Thank you for sharing your incredible guidance with brands like mine so we can help people lead healthier and happier lives. It is an incredible service to humanity.”
Laura Katleman, Founder BHU Foods“Dan provides his community proven strategies to help them get their products onto more store shelves and into the hands of more shoppers. This is possible by developing a more intimate bond with your ideal customer, much the same as you you would a close friend. Personalization is at the heart of this strategy in a world where most brands talk AT their customers, never really getting to know them. The ability to leverage the unique shopper insights of your ideal customer with your retail partners is how you can gain a sustainable and substantial competitive advantage. It’s selling 101 at the macro level.”
Doug Brown, CEO Sales Strategies, Former President, Tony Robbins & Chet Holmes Company“I was one of the three people who created the discipline of Category Management in the early 1990s and subsequently upgraded it to CatMan 2.0 in 2017. During my long association with the category management community, no one has been a more consistent, creative or committed contributor to the discipline than Dan Lohman. His work especially with the natural, organic and heathier foods community has been nothing short of inspirational because he has adapted the principles of category management and its collaborative ethic to a community which does not have all of the data advantages that large conventional manufacturers and retailers have. Dan's lifelong focus on helping companies in this increasingly important and growing segment benefit from the concept of category management has helped more companies succeed than even he realizes”
Gordon Wade, Gordon Wade, Industry Thought Leader And An Original Category Management CreatorDan is a shining light in the CPG LOHAS industry. I’ve had the pleasure of working with Dan on a number of occasions and each time I learn more about what it takes to succeed in retail, despite the headwinds of retailers and distributors. His wealth of knowledge is shared via his Brand Secrets and Strategies Podcasts (a must-listen) and his training academy. Both mediums provide exceptional insight into what it takes to succeed on retail shelves.
Dan helps brands avoid becoming an ATM machine and therefore scale with confidence. He has proven strategies to grow sales and profits and I would recommend any brand to seek his services out.
“Dan has keen insights into both the plant based and natural foods markets, derived from a lifetime of experience. He brings a unique understanding of what makes brands tick and how they can take advantage of undeveloped trends and is great interviewer!”
Seth Tibbott - Founder And Chairman, TofurkyHi Dan, I have to applaud you again, as you are consistently providing the most relevant content that I am seeing in the natural foods industry.
Your topics are spot-on, and you feel like some sort of guardian angel that speaks up just at the right time, just as I am starting to formulate the question!
Daniel is the foremost expert in brand building in today's marketplace. Daniel's common sense approach to helping all companies from small to large become successful in a sound process. Daniel provides passion and intelligence to ensure your success in every retail format.
Daniel provides sound strategies to guide your brand for increasing, profitable sales. I've been a follower of Daniel's for years, I feel his process makes sense in today's competitive business environment.
Michael J. O'Donnell, The Belmullet Food and Beverage Group, LLCDaniel has been extremely helpful in cleaning up and re-categorizing our data so we can accurately assess our brand's performance and the product categories/segments we are in. Our ability to perform accurate and insightful category management today is directly related to Dan's expertise in data analysis and knowledge of the natural products industry. If you are seeking to understand your market and category dynamics, I strongly recommend Dan as a reliable, thoughtful and well-informed category consultant to assist in developing brand strategies based on real and accurate data/facts.
The words passion, expertise and thought leader are words that come to mind when describing Daniel. As an advisory board member to several young and growing brands at the Innovation Center of the Rockies, Dan brought deep and specific guidance to develop our clients business strategy. He is a regular and expert contributor to our blogs and magazines at New Hope Natural Media and always provides targeted insights to help young manufacturers understand and thrive in the grocery space. He is truly and gem and I recommend him without reservation
Daniel is a very committed and passionate strategic adviser and advocate for companies seeking category management insights and solutions. In the short time we've contracted Dan’s services, he has brought significant value to GoMacro and continues to provide guidance and direction to help with our growth objectives. Dan has the keen ability to see things from the 500 ft. level and to bring it down to actionable strategies that help organization grow and compete in a crowded landscape. Besides his strategic business and category management acumen, I find Dan to be passionate, a consummate student & teacher, and a pleasure to work with.
Daniel is a very proactive and strategic thinker with a solid Category Management and analytical skills.
He is proficient in PowerPoint, Word, Apollo, and Excel designing and creating a whole suite of innovative and forward thinking tools/reports that raised the “bar” for our clients and his company well beyond anything they had seen previously.
Daniel was a tremendous asset to our team. He helped train and develop my team and out clients. His greatest strength was his ability to find unique and creative ways to add value for our clients.
He is an expert in both the natural and the conventional channels. He understands business from both the retail side and the manufacturer point of view.
Daniel has an impressive work ethic and his clients and co-workers all know that he will do what ever it takes to exceed their expectations and help them “win-at-shelf”. He has good listening skills and expertise in clearly identifying what each customer’s objectives and priorities were, analyzing the opportunity and developing a plan based upon each customer’s request.
I could always count on Daniel to be honest and accurate with the analysis that he provided and the information he presented. I found Daniel to be a team player and an asset to those he supported.
I worked with Daniel on several occasions over the last decade and can say that when it comes to understanding data and how to apply it in the CPG world with regards to category management and strategic planning …it would be hard to find anyone more suited than Daniel for whatever position or project you would consider him for. He is incredibly smart, a very good mentor and easy to work with. He deserves your sincere consideration.
Daniel is an outstanding thought leader and builder of key strategic insights for businesses. His 20+ years of experience in category management and brand building makes him a real asset to any business. He also has experience in companies, big and small, and across many consumer categories making him incredibly insightful and flexible. I highly recommend Daniel to any business!
I have known Daniel for many years and have been impressed with not only his analytical abilities but the forthright and honest way that he approaches his life and his job. Daniel exhibits a keen insight & understanding of the various components of the grocery & natural/organic business and can offer alternatives to a go to market strategy.
Daniel Lohman, Organic & CPG Industry Advisor at CMS4CPG.com adds a complementary voice to our LOHAS natural shopper market research survey insights that makes them highly actionable at retail on shelf. We enjoy partnering with CMS4CPG to help brands to leverage our resources thus giving them an equal seat at the retailer table – enabling them to compete head to head with their competitors. In addition to leveraging product & sales data, CMS4CPG uses our LOHAS consumer marketing insights in his Industry articles (featured in leading media from New Hope 360 to Supermarket News & Progressive Grocer) focused on key health & natural product industry topics from Organics to Non-GMO & Food Transparency. Daniel combines strategic trade & natural shopper insights to help brands better connect with their core healthy consumer – telling a story that helps brands help retailers sell their products.
Dan is a guru in the CPG space. How fortunate of us to have had the privilege to work with such a knowledgeable and friendly person as Dan. Through his guidance, our present Category Management model at Good Luck Chuck has been honed and refined. Thanks to Dan, we have gained the confidence and resources for a successful launch and the ongoing experience for continued success.
After speaking with Daniel on several occasions it became quite obvious of his talent and expertise in category management. I give Dan a resounding recommendation of his business insights and use of analytic tools to help your business. Daniel is an innovator in problem solving. Many kudos to an extremely talented CM expert. He has a very real passion for assisting you to grow your Organic/Natural brands.
Daniel is a delight to work with. He is extremely knowledgeable about category management and has his finger on the pulse on how to take brands to the next level by telling their story. He is available,helpful and on task to make things happen. His advice is “priceless”. I highly recommend working with him.
Dan Lohman was one of my trusted Advisors through the Innovation Center of the Rockies. Working with Dan helped our company make decisions about marketing, new product development, new packaging, finances and taking our company to the next level of growth. Specifically, Dan knows everything about products on the shelf, what sells, financial projections, spread sheets, packaging and design and mistakes not to make. Fantastic at data collection and spreadsheets, Dan developed an extensive Cost of Goods spreadsheet that will have lasting value for us so that we know at any given time our true cost of goods sold.
As a mentor, Dan was highly effective in sharing his expertise in so many areas.
We benefited greatly from working with Dan and would recommend him as an excellent advisor, coach, analyst and strategic planner.
After talking with Daniel I can honestly say that he is one of them most knowledgable and informative people I know that has worked in the field
of Category Management. I was beyond impressed by his work history, and how successful he was in each and every job he held. I can only hope that I can grow to be as successful as him in my career. With helpful insight and positive feedback from Daniel he has helped guide me in the right direction on my path to advancing my career, and I greatly appreciate that he took the time to do so. I also would like to say congratulations on obtaining your CPSA, as that is quite an achievement! Best of luck to you and all of your future success!
Daniel Lohman is a true expert in his field. He provides strategic innovative ideas and insights for CPG companies that want to gain a significant competitive advantage. Many of his clients call him the guru in the CPG space, and say he is one of them most knowledgeable and informative people in the field of category management. And with good reason. With 148 articles published in magazines such as New Hope 360, Natural Food Merchandiser, and World Alliance, you know you can trust him with your merchandizing, if you want to grow your natural product sales.
“Dan has a wealth of knowledge and is so generous with his time and passion for the industry! I would not be where I am today without the help and guidance from people like Dan Lohman”
Andrew Therrien, Director of Business Development, Big Orange ProductionsDaniel has shown that he is a great Marketing Analyst capable of providing an outside-in perspective through execution of key market, product revenue and quantitative analysis linked to strategic planning support for product management, product marketing, and category management decision-making.He has exhibited an acute understanding of consumer-based sophisticated research and application. To do this, Daniel has demonstrated an ability to combine his knowledge to build specialized data analysis tools with syndicated information, create store-level demand indices, and delve into promotion activity and category growth trends that are critical to the category management process.
In summary, Daniel has the ability to take market-level information and uncover a wealth of untapped revenue tied to category management analytic support. If you’re looking for someone who can utilize point of sale or syndicated data and software tools to formulate category insights and recommendations on merchandising, assortment, and pricing to maximize sales and overall category profitability, I would highly endorse Daniel Lohman.
I had an opportunity to work with Daniel while he was a Business Consultant with SPINS. Daniel had developed a terrific category management tool that Sunflower incorporated into their assortment planning. Daniel has a brilliant mind and a solid, in-depth, understanding of category management. I was impressed with his outstanding analytical abilities in creating this assortment optimization tool for SPINS.
Dan is a great guy and a true expert in category management. His knowledge base is an asset to any natural CPG brand who wants to add missed opportunity revenue to their bottom-line. He has a real heart for helping natural brands thrive!
“If you’re trying to figure out how to manage your category and your product within your category within the store, you’ve got to contact Dan Lohman today. He’s The Brand Management Expert!”
I came across your article on BMC, ‘why it's time for category management 2.0'. The simplicity in your message for CM ‘return it to its original mission of helping retailers and manufacturers drive profitability by growing sales at the category level' is on point.
I interacted with Daniel during my seven year tenure with Natural Specialty Sales/Acosta as a Vice President for Client Services. My role entailed working with people in our organization who had a sound level of data and category management. This was a vital asset to the day to day interactions I had with clients on building strategies for sales and distribution growth. Daniel was able to understand the data and offer sound recommendations for opportunities with clients I interacted with. This insight was of great value beyond others who would just access and pull data without any meaning behind it. I relied on Daniel to pull the data I needed and place in a format that could be used for schematic generation, distribution void grouping, pricing analysis (elasticity), and space to sales placement. I also employed Daniel to interact with my clients to guide them through shopper analysis, promotional analysis, category performance (pre- new item) and creating action steps for increasing share in a sub-category.
During my current two year tenure with Aura Cacia, Daniel has been an invaluable asset with my team. Through his liaison with Acosta ( our broker) he has assisted me in scorecard development, diving into underperforming areas, evaluating growth categories, and leveraging assortment options.
Daniel is a talented and dedicated business strategist and category management professional. I reached out to him to help support a client of mine. Daniel was able to take consumer information I generated and turn it into a solid fact-based selling story that differentiated the clients brand from the competition and breathed new life into a category that was feeling old and tired.
Daniel and I have spent countless hours discussing business strategy. I'm impressed with his insights. He is committed to leveling the playing field between natural and mainstream CPG companies.
As one who worked closely with Dan Lohman, I highly recommend him as your key resource for business insights and for his ability to develop spot-on analytic tools for your business. Dan’s creative work is simply amazing, and his ability to create impressive tools ranging from the macro to highly detailed is truly the best I’ve ever seen. In addition to Dan continually looking for improvements and efficiency, he is a pleasure to work with and a true team player – truly asset to any organization.
It is an privilege to recommend Dan Lohman!
Dan knows data. He is a guy that can do deep dives into piles of numbers and surface with insights. He not only brings understanding of the data contained in the numbers, he also brings insights that manufacturers and retailers can act on to improve sales and profitability.
More than most in the natural products industry, Dan can provide you with actionable intelligence that can improve both your top line and your bottom line.
During my 20+ year career with Kimberly-Clark Corporation in sales and category/space management roles, I worked with Mr. Dan Lohman from 1994 until my retirement in 2006. I know him well personally as well as professionally.
During this time Dan was a highly respected category and space management analyst engaged in category management, schematics analysis and planogram implementation projects for accounts such as Albertsons, Kroger, Safeway, WinCo, Stater Bros, King Soopers/City Market, etc.
Dan’s role was to help these retailers better understand their internal POS data, also bringing data insights of Household Consumer Panel data from A.C. Nielsen and IRI. His impact was outstanding, resulting in the category managers being more knowledgeable of category trends and resulting in growth to their sales volumes and to their profits.
During my years at K-C, I attended numerous analytic training courses with Dan, such as efficient assortment planning, that increased expertise in both category analytical modeling and planogram analysis and implementation tools. Dan has expertise and real world experience in the following areas:
• Pricing and Promotion Analysis
Using customers’ POS data, Dan leveraged the data using Microsoft Excel to make observations and recommendations that improved the promotional strategies of the customer, resulting in increased sales on promotion and higher margins when products were off promotion.
• Consultative Selling and Insights
Dan uses creative consultative selling experience in business planning with retailers. He is especially adept at deriving insights from household panel data to comprehend category shopper behavior not only for the household paper categories he dealt with at K-C, but also adjacent non-paper categories.
• Space Management Analysis and Planogram Creation
Dan was a category management analyst for 8.5 years with accounts for the Western Region. He is astute and practiced at assortment analysis, manipulating data in Excel to provide assortment and shelving decisions to the retailer which improved days of supply and inventory turns. He is expert at importing syndicated store level and retailer POS store level data from the customers’ data into space management Apollo and Space Planning software.
• Industry Knowledge and Customer Presentations
Dan leveraged and presented data in Excel reports and PowerPoint presentations in effective comprehensive category reviews that resulted in better business solutions both tactically and strategically for the customer. He was especially adept at opportunity gap analyses that provided actionable insights to the category managers. Dan was asked on many occasions to train colleagues and new employees, especially in spreadsheet development and developing custom reports in Excel using Kimberly-Clark’s proprietary InfoBeacon software.
Daniel is an innovative and creative problem solver in Category Management. His business experience, expertise and passion make him an exceptional talent and contributor to any organization. One of Daniels biggest traits is to listen and work collaboratively with a team to identify the issue and work to a positive outcome that exceeds organizations goals!
His 18 years of experience makes him top of his game. It has been my pleasure working with him and I know first hand the exceptional service and expertise he will provide your organization.
Daniel is an exceptional practitioner of Category Management, and has passion that is contagious!
He was among the very first ever Certified Professional Strategic Advisors in the world, and his application/binder of accomplishments was by far the most impressive to date! I look forward to seeing what Daniel accomplishes in the future.
“Daniel was a trusted team player and a committed advocate – passionate about helping natural companies get the most from the SPINS tools and resources. He worked hard and took great pride in establishing himself as a trusted expert in the SPINS reporting tool and databases. He was considered to be one of the top power database users supporting clients needing deep dive in-depth analytic support and training. His contribution included developing several of the reporting tools at SPINS. In addition, he helped train and develop new clients.”
I worked with Dan Lohman at Kimberly-Clark, Inc. We worked in Category Management together from 1998 through mid 2006. During that time I was able to observe Dan’s knowledge of Category Management and attest to his sound understanding and expertise in this area. Some specific understandings and skills, I observed Dan to utilize were as follows:
Dan demonstrated he knew the benefits of Category Management by assisting his retailers lift sales, increase product margin, reduce inventory, use a strategic, fact-based approach to the business, and increase consumer satisfaction and loyalty.
He is capable of utilizing the Category Management model. He understands how to work with the retailer to gain knowledge of their overall retailer strategy e.g. corporate mission statement, competitive strategy by format/channel/region, pricing, assortment & promotion.
He is capable of finding out how they define their categories and roles. Dan can quickly assess and assist the retailer in developing their category plan by determining how a particular category is doing in the market? What tactics will help achieve the overall category strategy and objectives? Or how to track their results vs. targets in the category on an ongoing basis.
Once the category plan was developed, Dan demonstrated a strong ability to assist his retailer’s implement the plan. Dan would ensure the category plan was aligned to the retailer’s overall strategies, that the measures put into place were agreed to internally, and that the plan would attain the category objectives. He would help define the resources required to implement the plan and ensure that the plan was communicated to all those affected.
Dan understands assortment strategies by category and item, consumer/shopper focused strategies, category definition and segmentation, data analysis, category assessment, sales fundamentals and supplier shipment data.
Dan had a strong command of Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Spaceman and Apollo. He often times would be called upon to train his peers. He was a ‘go to guy’ when his associates had questions. He is a true team player with strong interpersonal skills.
K-C recognized Dan’s talents and abilities and on many occasions would post his presentations internally to show examples of best practice presentations. K-C management would often call upon Dan’s expertise to assess current market trends and conditions.
It is with profound respect that I submit Dan Lohman as one who is well versed in Category Management and strongly submit my recommendation regarding his abilities and skills in this area.
Dan is extremely very intelligent and has an extensive understanding of the retail industry. His thorough insight and progressive knowledge of the supermarket/natural industry was extremely critical in our ability to design and develop a complete Customer insight Business intelligence System(CBS), that helps retailers to gain insight on their customers’ shopping baskets in real time. Most importantly, his passion and drive to succeed in every aspect of the project was evident as we partnered to develop a comprehensive product.
I would highly endorse and recommend Dan to any retailer willingly to develop winning strategies that lead to bottom line improvements.
I have been reading your “What You Need To Know” blogs on Category Management Solutions (WWW.CMS4CPG.COM) for some time now and find them to be excellent. I loved your Strategic Solutions and Guide To Grow Your Natural Business. For years now I have seen the value of category management in the natural channel and have watched how major retailers such as Whole Foods and previously Wild Oats were challenged to achieve success in this area. From what I have read on your web site and your blogs, you have a solid knowledge of how to effectively implement true category management.
Dan Lohman is a strong contributor to SPINS and our business partners. He is a capable manager who works effectively with our broker partners and our manufacturing clients. Dan has a tremendous amount of insight into SPINS data and the state of the Natural/Organic Industry. His energy is boundless and he is a great person to work with.
During my time at SPINS, I had the pleasure of working with Daniel. He has a thorough understanding of how the consumer packaged goods industry works, and is simply excellent at taking his clientele to the next level and beyond. He also has advanced technical and teaching skills and was instrumental in helping me learn how to make intricate yet easy-to-use Excel-based tools that allowed our clients to quickly see the most impactful data that would help advance their business. Daniel was always careful to take the time needed to ensure that I had the tools and knowledge needed so as to make our client meetings successful.
Daniel is a dedicated, collaborative, strategic thinker and a visionary person. With the analytical work that Daniel provided for me while I was a Key Account Manager at Kimberly-Clark helped grow my accounts business by 8%. He was always willing to help, very detailed, did whatever it took to get the job done and his fact based projects and presentations were easy to understand, organized and accurate. Daniel is a high integrity person and has the highest work ethic.
Dan Lohman was very helpful, providing needed insights and understood business needs. Dan was able to extract information from many sources and development a fact based presentation with a reason of need. He listened and asked questions to understand needs to insure his focus aligns with your goals. Dan was creative in his approach to find hidden data nuggets and put in the time to make it a compelling, and logical solution to meet customers needs.
Dan is a very proactive and strategic thinker with solid Category Management and analytical skills. He was an asset to the team in terms of his ability to mine and analyze data, and to present information in a relevant and impactful way. – I found Dan to be a strong team player, always willing to commit the time and effort necessary to accomplish tasks and exceed expectations.
Daniel has access to wisdom/secrets and strategies for brand success. I highly recommend keeping up with Daniel and everything he's involved in – It's going to add value to your life and business!
These testimonials are the recommendations from my Linked-In page and podcast
Brands Who Trust Brand Secrets And Strategies – Partial List
