Retail Buyer Pitching Strategy: A Guide for Founders

[00:00:00]from us so okay we're at about 25 i'm sure people will start to file in so we'll kind of kick it off um so i know a lot of you that are on right now have kind of taken um have been a part of our virtual presentations we've done with buyers uh all this week and last week and so as we've done those presentations they've um they've gotten visibly better every single time we've done it and um i'm really proud of all the brands and and how they've just done a really great job of in a very difficult climate virtually getting the point of your brand across and it's you know super critical right now in this climate to be able to present your brand in a very effective way and once everything goes back to normal hopefully here in the summer and fall hopefully we can take some of these lessons and apply it to when we're doing in real time meetings uh once again so it's always you know i can sit up here as an ex-sales director and talk to you about how i would pitch a brand but it's always good to to i think get it from the other side of the desk on how a buyer would want to be pitched and presented to and so i was able to connect with ali ball uh she was the head of grocery at buy right for many years and has now been consulting um and with her online course retail ready and so we just thought it was a good time to kind of run a webinar riff off of one or each other kind of talked about you know how it is from the sales side how is it from the buy inside and really talked about how to craft your message in the best way so that you get to that yes and you get to your product being on the shelf so with that i will record everything we will open up to q a at the ends and i will let ali kind of start it off from here and we'll go back and forth between us uh throughout fantastic thank you for that intro cameron i'll tell i'll tell you guys a little bit more about myself but today i'm going to talk about my four-step process to perfecting your pitch and connecting with wholesale buyers so i've got so much information for you guys so let's let's get right to it so don't drop by this is my number one rule for having a successful first meeting and the opportunity to pitch to a wholesale buyer it's just that don't drop by so now i know that we are in this unprecedented time with kovid and you might be thinking like well duh ally like of course i'm not going to drop by right now but i need to emphasize the importance of this even after covid is long over like things are returning to this sense of normalcy and you might think at that point that it is appropriate to swing by so don't drop by has been my golden rule for years and frankly cameron like i went back and forth on whether or not this was even necessary to bring up and i concluded that it is okay so i want you guys to make sure that you don't get any ideas about dropping by is a good method when you pitch in the future either okay so buyers are busy just like you wouldn't want to be interrupted with someone dropping by your kitchen unannounced in the middle of a production shift buyers don't want you dropping by in the middle of their work days so while you might feel like this is the natural first step in connecting with buyers i guarantee you that it's not so i'm here today to tell you my four-step process for connecting with buyers without dropping by and how to have this super successful wholesale pitch how to land on retail shelves so it begins with this rule don't drop by okay so now that i get off my my soap box i'll tell you a little about a little bit about me so here is my 60-second background cameron like you said i am a former grocery buyer former head of grocery at buy right market in san francisco turned wholesale consultant so this is me i left byroid six years ago and started my consulting business coaching brands on wholesale strategy i saw time and time again that great product really delicious product really values driven product wouldn't succeed on the retail shelf or wouldn't even make it to the retail shelf in the first place because they weren't ready for wholesale i was determined to like peel back the curtain here and share wholesale secrets with emerging brands like you guys and that's why i started consulting and launched my online course retail ready so all that being said i've heard hundreds of buyer pitches i've had thousands of samples left for me with you know in little brown craft bags with my name on it when i was in a buyer role so i'm so excited like you said cameron to give the buyer perspective and talk about it talk about like what happens on the other side so i've got a four-step process for you guys today um and i'm gonna review the four steps and then we will go in depth on all of them so step number one prepare this seems obvious but i see people skip this step all the time i'm i commend you guys on being here because that's the very first first step here prepare step two is plan planning is even more important right now step number three pitch right like that's that's where that's where all of the the magic happens and then number four is follow-up so let's get into them step number one prepare i also call this craft your why so before you reach out to a buyer before you swing by with samples before you you know pitch them on range me before you reach out to them on instagram i want you to craft your your why and i know that you've heard this before in terms of branding and marketing but that's not what we're talking about today so what do i mean by craft your why when i talk about buyer pitching it means that there has to be a clear succinct why as why would the buyer bring in your product line why would they spend time energy and labor to bring in your product line there has to be a compelling here a compelling reason here so i'm going to stop and i'm gonna guess that a lot of you are thinking like because my product is really delicious because my product is the best ever because my product is unique if you are all sitting here thinking that your product is the best ever or the most delicious it's simply not true you can't all have the best ever product the most delicious product it doesn't work like that so put aside the thought that buyers bring in your product line because it's delicious when you are stuck on this belief you don't craft a pitch that's of any interest to a buyer i'm gonna tell you this when i was a buyer and i heard a food business owner starting their pitch by saying hi my name is sarah and i make the most delicious protein ball ever i would roll my eyes and think like okay yeah sure you and everybody else i know cameron you you get on this pedestal as well and talk about this right yeah so i mean for me um it's a few things here i think on a lot of the the conversations i've had with the brands that are on here right now i always kind of say like don't fall in love with your products like to me it's it's like the number one kind of that brands fall into yeah and i i do the same thing too as a founder right you're so in the you're so down a rabbit hole of your own brand and you're eating drinking sleeping like your brand 24 7.

[00:07:11]but the buyer isn't and so the things that are important to you and all the hard work that you've done about your product and your manufacturing it's all great and it's all things that that you know has differentiated your product from anything else that's out there but you've just got to realize that that part of the story doesn't necessarily resonate with the buyer yeah craft or why in the beginning i think you have to craft your white not only for why carry my product but why your store is a perfect fit and i think you have to also do a lot of research on who's that who's shopping that store what other products that store have and those are the things that are going to impress the buyer not necessarily your product because you know whether it's kombucha or protein bars or anything like that every market right now is super saturated and so the best thing for you to figure out is what you can provide to that buyer into that retailer to make their job easier versus really pitching your product which might sound counterintuitive but it is super important totally i was actually on a webinar with the category manager of cahi yesterday and she said that get this stat it's crazy she said that last year in 2019 they brought on 19 000 new skus into their distribution catalog and cameron she said that they accept between 5 and 10 of products that are pitched to them so if 10 of you know their total products pitch ends up being 19 000 it's just insane yeah and then it's we see it every single day when we stock and so i agree like you got to understand who you're pitching and what they're looking for versus just pitching your product and what differentiates yourself from the market yeah totally so we'll talk about that a little bit more in a second but i want to talk about the real reason why buyers bring a new product so buyers perch products to enhance sales in a particular category in their store so their decisions are based on whether or not adding in new product will increase either increase overall sales or increase their margin or some sort of like financial thing that's tied to that particular category so remember that a buyer's performance is based off their sales results and based off their numbers so if your product doesn't increase total sales in your category it's not worth it for the buyer to spend that time bringing in your product line so it can't just be a one-for-one swap like for example if you make a cold brew coffee and your coffee the buyer brings in your coffee and it just takes away from chameleons cold brew sales but shoppers aren't buying more iced coffee in general then it is officially not worth it for your buyer to add in your product line yeah okay i think just to add two there i think that brands don't think about is um your product going on the shelf means another product's coming off the shelf so the buyer's making two decisions right like one continuing relationship with you and discontinuing a longer relationship they've had with a current brand so it's not like the buyer is yeah it's not an easy decision for them to make because they're going to have to pull something away yeah and that's why a big thing for you to really um harp on if you're a brand is incremental sales right something that you're going to add value to that to that category and so i'll use an example from when we were delighted by i mean we made chocolate hummus we weren't going to take any business away from from garlic hummus or red pepper we were going to people were going to buy that and then buy chocolate hummus and so that incremental sale made us an easy decision for that buyer to make gosh yeah if you had pitched me as a buyer like i i feel like a light bulb would have gone off or like stars behind my you know behind my eyes because i would have seen that right so clearly like this is a unique product that adds value to the category it expands the category without um like uh cannibalizing other other skus sales that's a great point cameron okay so in short if your product doesn't help that buyer meet their goals it's not worth it for them to take to time the time to bring in your product and that that sounds a little harsh right like but that's that's step one articulating why a buyer would bring in your product in the first place for their particular store and how your brand can help them achieve their goals i literally have my clients like bullet point this out so what does your brand bring to the table that helps your that buyer gain higher sales or more margin and how can you convey this to them to them so that's actually one of the reasons why i you know immediately latched on to this idea of we stock immediately fell in love with we stock because they help you compile this data and build a case that your product is going to move on that buyer's shelves once you have that dialed in you you're on your way to being ready to communicate with a buyer but until you're super clear on why your product is going to help the buyer you're you're not only wasting the buyer's time but you're also wasting your own time um okay ready to move on to step number two okay i call this so plan so don't drop by we already talked about this so you want to plan around how and when you are going to connect with that new buyer for the first time so this this is so important people i've had a lot of people reach out to me over the past six weeks i'm sure you're getting this too cameron asking if it is still an acceptable time to pitch to new buyers or new brokers or new distributors and i'm really glad to see that there's been awareness around this that people have paused and questioned it so while i don't think that it was necessarily appropriate to pitch to new buyers in mid to late march outside of some of those virtual pitches that were popping up around expo west being cancelled we are now at the point where buyers are no longer in that like immediate crisis mode it's still tough but they're no longer in that initial shock period and we're actually seeing brands i'm seeing a lot of retail ready students gain success with buyer pitches and landing new accounts starting you know um second third week of april i know cameron you guys are doing buyer virtual buyer pitches right now right yeah i think the biggest thing is talk to the buyers like they're a human right like don't start a conversation just pitching your product right now like everyone's at home everyone's like managing their kids everyone's managing their day-to-day so have a conversation just you know how are you doing like do you have time like you know make it a conversation to that buyer um because i the buyers aren't running around um you know in their corporate offices like they usually do they're at home they have more time for the emails we are seeing a higher response rate yeah you have to you do have to to reach out to them in a human way and and not just to push your product to them because that's totally like that's the fastest way to get a buyer to delete your email right if you if you're just copying and pasting the template that you always use that's not going to work right now you know um one of the things we're talking about a lot in retail ready is almost like leading with um the discomf the discomfort like leading with the uncomfortable thing and saying like hey you know like i'm not even that canned like hope you're doing well right now but like i'm not even sure if it's appropriate to pitch out pitch to you right now but i have a product that i know is going to help your consumers i know it's going to help your this category xyz but like leading with that um that like oh i don't know if this is okay but like i'm gonna do it anyways almost gives you permission to um to go ahead and do it right for sure okay so i do when i was thinking about like presenting information to you guys i wanted to make sure that it was relevant for right now but also for the rest of this year so some of the other things that you're going to think about are seasonal shifts and holidays you know from when i was a buyer i wouldn't accept any new product inquiries that weren't holiday related during the fourth quarter so you need to think about that seasonal shift and how it affects the buyer when you know when i was in the fourth quarter i was up to my eyeballs in turkey and candy canes and i had zero capacity to meet with say a new ice tea brand or a chip company and in fact if an ict brand reached out to me in november i'd question if they knew what they were doing um when i when i managed the chocolate and confections category i did all of that holiday buying in june and july so it's really important to think about that the seasonality with buying and when when buyers are receptive to to receiving your we obviously think about promotions right like is the store doing a big promotion are you doing a big promotion like what is that promotional schedule look like is it labor day weekend like use common sense and don't pitch to them on the monday of labor day right in your mind it might just be another monday but if you're reaching out in a particular busy period buyers you know um not only you won't get a response but again that buyer is going to question if you know what you're doing from there category reviews i'm sure you guys talk about this cameron but you know when if anybody's in brand new and they don't know what a category review is it's when you know bigger grocery stores and chains are assessing your category typically you can get that information off their website from your broker your distributor from your other other vendors and you want to make sure that you are planning your outreach appropriately and then finally i will say just someone who's who's had products slotted in outside of a category review period those as a sales person i view that as those are um those are you know just kind of like boundaries but you can cross that category review back totally um if you feel like you have a very pertinent product or you've got a lot of demand for that product it's just the way that you you know are bringing it to the retail buyer and they do their resets but they usually do have resets in between those where they'll be able to bring in a few items um so don't view those category reviews as as law and order because you you still want to you still want to be pinging those buyers throughout the year and continuing to have that conversation with them and responsibly yeah i did a video recently cameron um on my facebook page that was basically like category reviews are bs like i have so many so many clients who get into you know frankly like big chains outside of the category review schedule and of course like vendors on the other side are saying like oh i can't pitch like they're not reviewing my category until august like i'm going to wait and that's not true if you make a compelling enough pitch to the buyer of course they're going to bring in your product if they tell you like reach back out during category review time most likely your pitch isn't isn't strong enough it's an easy note for them that they know is not going to be like offensive to the brand that in their back pocket yeah totally i got i used it when i was a buyer too i was like no oh sorry we're not reviewing your category until you know until august and it just meant like i didn't have to deal with them it wasn't it wasn't urgent for me to bring in their product because at the end of the day they hadn't convinced me that i needed it urgently okay so then of course like the day and the time is important too like buyers are often really busy in the early mornings especially if you if your target market is if your target retailers are independents or co-ops or smaller smaller stores they're often those buyers are still like placing orders managing staff getting their days going so reach out after those order deadlines in the early afternoon and then finally we get back to my golden rule of reaching out to buyers as i mentioned in the beginning buyers are busy and you've got one chance to make a positive impression on them and when you drop by again let's say three months from now when you drop by unannounced and interrupting their day it leaves a less than stellar first impression so again like you might be sitting here thinking like that this rule doesn't apply to you that you're that you're really polite and charming and that you can do this gracefully that those other people who i'm talking about are just like barging in and that you would do it differently you might think that you'll like swing by really quick super friendly ask for the buyer and if the buyer is busy no big deal you'll just leave your samples for them to try later you are not the exception here okay so i'm actually curious i bet i bet like lots of people are sitting here like raising their hands on the other end of their computer camera like um that they that they do this um i'm gonna venture a guess and say that like 99 of my clients would regularly do this before they started working with me cameron did you used to like swing by with samples when you were in a sales role sorry muted uh the way i usually do it is um i usually call ahead schedule an appointment awesome so buyers will do two things they'll usually forget that they made the appointment with you so i always call them day before yeah and then you get the name and then at least you're taking that like uh that fact-finding mission out of like when you're actually in the store yeah and i know that this lesson really applies to like independent small chains um and then you know but when you are you know reaching out to larger chains too like just be respectful about planning a formal meeting um one trick that i always learn and it's surprising how many times this works but like if it's worked for me for like target and whole foods and different things like if you say like hey i'd love to set up a meeting they don't want you to have to like fly out schedule everything coordinate things for just me with them so i would say like listen i'm gonna be in minneapolis uh this next week i'd love to stop by and have a meeting with you and then they're like oh you're already gonna be in and i might even have a plane ticket but if they get me i'm gonna get there so it's just about framing it in a respectful way to the buyer so you're not putting too much responsibility on them to set your schedule exactly and like they're you know i always say this disclaimer so like i'll say this so my husband works in in sales in the wine industry and every time i say don't drop by like he cringes because like that is what he does and he has so much success with it and like there is a time and a place for that um but the important thing i always think that like as brands you guys need to learn the rules first so then you know when it's appropriate to break them so as a whole like don't drop by i'll put a little asterisk there's a time and a place for it but like on a on on a high level that is not the way to start a relationship with a buyer and i want to highlight one reason why this technique doesn't doesn't work so why does it work simply because buyers judge you buyers are judgey so like remember i said that you've got this one chance to make a positive first impression and you don't want that first impression to be that you are a brand who interrupts their day right buyers make snap judgments about you like that is literally their job they judge your product line and how how you're going to be to work with so when a buyer does decide to carry your product line they're entering into a relationship with you one that is rooted in trust and mutual respect and if you break that respect by dropping by like in the middle of the workday you're already starting on the wrong foot okay let's did you want to say something cameron no i'm good okay cool um let's let's move on to step three pitch or i should say the one chance pitch so again you know i've said this a million times you've got one chance here so from that very first interaction with a buyer you need them to trust you to trust that you will not only help them achieve their buyer goals but you're going to be this easygoing low maintenance vendor who delivers upon your promises who's a breeze to work with and is a surefire win for your categories so when you when you think about pitching to this buyer and when you think about like how you're going to get your foot in the door to pitch for the first place like this is the the question that i get all the time like how do i get a hold of this buyer i'm not going to drop by i'm not going to bug them like how do i get a hold of them so outside of cobed time i always say pick up the phone and call the store it is so easy to ignore an email it's so easy to ignore a linkedin message or arrange me message so pick up the phone and call them so call that store ask to speak to the buyer in your category it's that simple so of course like there are other ways to get a hold of a buyer and pitch them especially now the virtual pitches that are happening nowadays through personal connections through range me through you know other buyer platforms and category review schedule application process but what you say next how you pitch to that buyer is the same technique regardless of the platform or if you're on the phone or like how you're getting a hold of them so in a succinct clear way you introduce yourself you introduce your brand you talk about why your product is going to bring high sales to your category in their particular store you ask them if you can send them samples and that's it it could literally be a four sentence pitch so i'm going to give you guys an example of a pitch here this is one that i i made up um i'm gonna i'm just gonna read it like imagine that i'm on the phone here so like hello my name is ali and i'm the founder of up the ante we make the first ever farm direct protein bar made with ants as i'm sure you've seen alternative proteins and insect-based snacks are in a trending category of 23 from last year in specialty grocery stores like yours i'd love to swing by next week with a sample how does wednesday at 1 pm work for you okay so i think that this works well because it's short it's to the point it gave a hard stat on how my category is trending and then i asked outright if i could drop off samples nowadays that might be can i ship samples to your home but same technique right so i i do want to say a side note here up the ante is a fake company this 23 is a fake stat if you are working with insect-based proteins please don't use the stat because i made it up um the biggest mistakes that i see here when people pitch to buyers is that they ramble on for far too long they don't let the buyer get in a word edgewise they turn into this just turn into like weird robots and are awkward as deliver as you deliver pitches even though i know that you could speak to your best friend about your product line all day long right or you don't explain exactly what you sell cameron you've seen a lot of virtual pitches over the past couple weeks or so um have you seen people like turn into this into this like strange robot personality that truly isn't them yeah i mean i think just like uh you know repeating the call-outs and things like that like it's an easy trap to get into because it's you it's a safety net but again it doesn't it doesn't bring a ton of value i think they're assuming that if you're reaching out to their store you understand what type of callouts uh you need on your product to succeed i think a few things too it's um you want to be doing research on the the retailer that you're reaching out to like you want to you want to contact another brand that's in that store you want to understand do they need slotting what type of professional schedule are they looking at what type of support do you need do you need to uh budget in 25 50 demos a month like so do that fact finding and if you don't know a brand like you can reach out to us like obviously we're gonna bring to connect you in that's been in any store in the country so i think that's a big thing you're gonna you really want to go in understanding like if you pitch you know a shop right and then you're not ready for that that slotting fee up front and then you pretty much wasted your time in the buyer's time you need to understand what that buyer is looking for because like after this pitch then they're going to want to know okay does this does this person check out all the boxes that we're looking at yeah yeah i'm going to talk a little bit about that um in the next step as well cameron but i think that the important takeaway is that again like going back to this idea that you have one chance that if you don't know what is expected of you as a brand and you pitch to this buyer only to find out that you need to do 25 demos a year and then and you realize you don't have the capacity to do that again you've just wasted everybody's time um not only the money oh sorry one other thing about samples that you said like sending samples if you have the opportunity always try to set up the meeting to bring in samples yourself or like or make the samples yourself because if your product needs any cooking or any type of like you can't assume that the buyer is going to cook or prepare your product the way that you want it sampled so if you're going to drop off samples or anything you need to provide it in the way that you want it to be consumed um and especially if it needs to be heated or anything like that like make sure that it's dropped off in that that correct way um and then you know i know we're gonna talk about follow up but following up after samples and everything like that and that call to store i mean that pertains to a bigger store as well or a smaller core i mean you can go on costco's site right now and they have every single um you know line for all the regional offices you can call and get in front of any of the buyers right now so you can call the large offices too i mean they're they're not out of the scope for this as well yeah so i guess when i say call the store it should just be like call the call the company right um can i i'm gonna go off script for a second and and share some insight about samples is that okay cameron yeah okay so um i always like to tell i like to shed light on this idea of the sample box um and this idea that so often again like i know i i would see it all the time that vendors would swing by they would want to drop off samples with me i would like hide in the walk-in because i was too busy to to um connect with them and they would leave the samples with the cashier or with the grocery stocker or someone like that and i love my stocking team i love the cashiers like they are wonderful people but i will tell you like in the best case scenario or how should i say this if your products look really tempting and really appealing let's say you make delicious cookies or you make cbd drops or like whatever it is that cashier might be tempted to take them home you know if they are like literally delicious cookies like they are going home with the cashier and they are not ending up in the buyer's hands or maybe the buyer's on vacation and that cashier doesn't know that and so they just get put in the break room upstairs or maybe the cashier doesn't know like you said cameron that it's um a hot item that needs to go either be consumed or go into refrigeration or whatever it is oftentimes your samples just get tossed into this sample box literally like a cardboard box sitting at the buyer's desk and then that buying team typically goes through those samples once every six weeks eight weeks or so and by the time the buyers sit down and go through those all of those leftover samples that were just dropped off not in the hands of the buyers it's not the way you intended your product to be sampled you know they're again like say say the cookies made it into that box they're crumbly they're like um the bags are all like you know uh crinkled and stuff because they've literally been sitting in this box your sell sheet and your priceless are separated from your product you know it's it's not the way you want your product sampled so cameron i think you were spot on there saying that the most important thing is getting your samples directly in the buyers hands so that they're consumed quickly um and they're consumed by the right person right i think so often so often you guys drop off samples and you have no idea if the buyer even tried them and that really changes your follow-up technique right your follow-up messaging is very different if you know the buyer has actually tried your product than if you are wondering whether or not they even saw your samples um how does that land with you cameron yeah i know i agree i mean it's just i if you want to get in front of them right like yeah we're i mean obviously the best way is to sample at a meeting um we're we're talking you know it's it's like a crutch right being able to just have the samples there and have them taste the product and then talk off of that point um so always just try to sample in person whenever but if not try to make it you know as clear-cut gonna get to the buyer as possible totally okay so let's let's keep going here so i'm going to recap the first part of that step three was to get the buyer to say yes to accepting your samples right like cameron you said this too you want to get a hard yes before you just blindly ship them or blindly drop them off so again um so you get the buyer to say yes to accepting your samples by pitching to them in a succinct clear way um let me see okay so finally finally now what right you have made contact you've arranged a time that you can get the samples in their hands hands or ship them nowadays uh what do you do what do you do next you show up professionally and on time whether that's in person or on your virtual pitch you hand off your samples you hand off your sell sheet and a price list you tell them i'm talking about like again like if we're in person here but you tell them one sentence on why you are a good fit for their store and that's it you shake hands and you walk away so often brands think that buyers are automatically going to taste the product in front of them and that rarely happens unless you have scheduled a meeting with a buyer where you know you you have scheduled 10 minutes or 15 minutes where you know you're going to taste side by side it isn't it's not um it's not a given that they're going to taste them in front of you so from here your sell sheet does the talking for you so if you don't have a professional looking sell sheet that is the first thing that you need to change your sell sheet is the face of your brand and it needs to be as thoughtful as your packaging is especially nowadays nowadays cameron and i were talking a little bit about this before the webinar started as we're doing more and more virtual pitches your product photography needs to be dialed in your promotional package needs to be dialed in your sell sheet you're priceless everything needs to look super professional because you don't have the advantage of being face to face and um charming that buyer with your your wonderful personality so from there okay so from there you send a follow-up email and you attach that sell sheet and the price list again if you are lucky and you get a few more minutes of face time with that buyer you need to be 100 prepared to answer all of their questions that a buyer is going to ask you about order it ordering delivery pricing promotions demo strategy the logistics of getting your products to their shelves and cameron that goes back to what you were saying a few minutes ago that um it's so important that you research the store before you pitch because you need to have you need to know what's expected of you as a brand before before you get into that buyer meeting and you don't have the answers so if you don't have that stuff worked out don't call on buyers yet because the buyer doesn't have time for you for for you to like get back to him or her once you figure out how much it will cost to ship your product to their store or once you have time to think about your promotional allowance that you can offer or if you confirm the lead time or if you'll do guaranteed sales or if you'll demo three times a quarter and when you don't have those answers to a buyer's questions the buyer hesitates and the foundation of your relationship starts to erode so make sure that you are ready for that first meeting because you've you know you've got that one chance so one once you do pitch succinctly and professionally and thoughtfully you are ready for step number four to follow up one question yeah sure so uh with i'm just going to read it so what the importance of sustainability do you think of print sell sheet and price sheet are appropriate this question is specific for alcohol beverage category when casings are typically the median that is secured and dropping off pimples isn't the norm well so i can speak um i want us i want to say a couple different things on here we are definitely seeing a reduced amount of printed collateral which i am all for i i love the focus on sustainability like you like this this person asked um even at trade shows like previously gosh like i've been going to expo for 10 years and in the first few years i would come home with like a binder full of sell sheets and price lists and over time that just like faded a bit more especially as we have more platforms for getting things electronically to buyers at the end of the day though i think a printed sell sheet and priceless is really important um even as we think about sustainability because buyers then don't have time i know this sounds so silly and small but like buyers literally don't have time to go back into their email and find your sell sheet um what i would advise that you do is don't don't print off tons right just print off a few and then you you offer to give it to that buyer and if they don't want to take it they don't have to and then you reuse it for the next buyer meeting um i'll tell you this too like with um with my husband in wine sales he brings a price list to every single meeting um that is it's a non-negotiable buyers want that um cameron does that yeah i mean i agree i would say yeah you want to make sure like even like when you're doing your full sales deck in your presentation like you always want to like print it out and bring it with you i know it's yes that will work but you just want to make sure that they don't lose it or like it's still top of mind to them um and you're going to end up you know dropping off the sell sheet and then emailing the cell sheet multiple times and it's going to be frustrating but it's just the follow-up process um i do want to if anybody has questions like please type them in and i'll we'll answer them throughout here over like the last like uh 20 minutes as we as we wind down and we'll definitely answer some questions here yeah i'm almost done like with my my my official presentation um but let me say this to cameron that um i think one of the silver linings of kovid has been that the grocery industry the food industry is embracing technology like when was i we'll tell you like when i was a buyer i never got on a zoom call with brands like that just did not happen and like how wonderful is it that now we're having those opportunities like the the grocery industry has been so slow to to change and has been really hesitant to to use technology and i the again like the silver lining here is that like we are being buyers are being forced to do this and that is really fantastic so again we might see things shift a bit um with printed collateral but i think for now that like we're still buyers are still like placing orders on clipboards like literally still faxing in orders if you can believe it or not so like that printed stuff is really important we had one more question coming i think yeah i see this yeah for this um questions that you think that that the brand needs to know before going into a meeting um i'm sure i can add some too but like i'm sure you have kind of like your top four or five like they need to have those hammered down yeah um gosh i'm just laughing because we literally have like an hour long module on these questions in retail ready because there are so many of them right but like um i guess for me it's four categories right pricing and that seems so simple but like what's the pricing if i order direct what's the pricing if i order through a broker what's the pricing if i order through a distributor pricing also yeah so pricing right like how much is it gonna cost for me to get the product on my shelf promotion so what can you offer me what sort of free fills and price reductions and sample allowance like what sort of promotion can you provide pricing product um order and delivery so if you're if you're going direct like what days do you receive orders like you as a vendor what day do i order and what is the cutoff deadline and then what is the lead time like what days are you delivering um again like if you use a distributor they want to know that for the distributor as well like there are deadlines and they have to make sure that that fits into their order schedule and then the delivery schedule as well so um at times you know like i knew that i would get a lot of deliveries on tuesday like that was my big delivery day so we would tell vendors like you have to show up at our delivery zone between 9 and 9 30 in the morning and that's it like that is your time slot if you cannot adhere to that time slot like i'm not gonna bring you in so ordering and delivery um i think those are the three big ones yeah like pricing promotion order and delivery um cameron is there yeah a lot of retailers that will always ask us like what other stores you're in like oh yeah yeah of course i don't know kind of like your competition back and forth you know where your pricing is in comparison to other brands on the market um you know just just being really dialed in on on how you can service them but that those are really like the core things that you want everything else is going to be really pertinent to your brand yeah the one thing i hear from a lot of brands is they get worried about especially as they start to go into larger accounts about lead time you control lead time so it's like the brand the retailer unless it's a very you know unusual occasion um they can wait to bring your pro like product in so it's like don't like don't give them an unrealistic uh lead time make sure you buffer enough time in because that's the one thing you don't want to do is not be able to run your on your uh product yeah that actually is some it like reminds me of something else um is availability right so like do you have seasonal out of stocks do you have like what what does your availability look like and i think cameron that's really important right now like obviously we're seeing so many out of stocks we're seeing supply chain issues in in all different capacities and so that buyer again i mean i guess again it goes back to trust right like that buyer wants to trust that if they say yes to putting you on their shelf they know that you are going to provide product and that it's going to sell right like there's there's nothing more frustrating than being a buyer committing to a product and then having like intermittent out of stocks yeah and they're gonna especially the larger stores they're gonna want to see some sort of sales data on velocity and sell through and so you're bigger if you're a bigger brand of course you'll probably subscribe to spins or nielsen and that really only makes sense if you have national distribution uh if you're smaller hopefully you're on we stock but the biggest thing that they're going to look for is uh sales per sku per week per store and so you really want to be dialed in on that number so you know like hey listen the average hummus sells eight units per week which is i think what the number is at walmart and mine sells 12 at a competitor this is why i think would be the perfect fit uh you one of you dialed in on that number yeah cameron you just had the perfect pitch right like as a buyer i'm like all right so yeah he's right like on average hummus you sell eight units a week he's telling me that he sells 12. if i can increase my sales by 30 like why would i not swap out his hummus for what i've got on my shelf um okay so step four we're almost done here step four is like uh it's it's so simple and so complicated right so um i like to call it you know so the follow-up i call it the squeaky wheel and you know this is based off the the phrase the squeaky wheel gets the oil it is totally true here let's talk about how you follow up with buyers so i'll tell you the most common complaint that i get is that buyers don't respond to your emails they don't call you back even when they say they like your brand or even after they promise to bring in your product line so you guys i i want to be the first person who says that this is normal so i am you guys don't know me that well yet but i am perhaps the most organized person you know and it would still take me months to bring in product even a product that i truly like was devoted to and that i wanted to bring in there are so many steps to bringing in in a new product that you guys as the vendors like might not take into consideration so while the buyer works all of this out you want to make sure that you're emailing consistently to stay top of mind you want to make sure you know in the past that you were going to trade shows to stay top of mind you want to make sure that you are showing up where the buyers are to make sure that you are on their radar so i'm talking about emailing every two weeks to say hello to let them know of any recent press that you've had or any new promotional materials that you that you have or any new like category reports that have come out basically any reason to email to pop into their inbox and to remind them that you exist so you might think that you are annoying at this point and again remember that squeaky wheel gets the oil if you are the first brand that the buyer thinks about when they do your category reset you are going to be so much closer to the top of the list so i want you to follow up and follow up and follow up so i always say that a camera and i'm actually interested in how you found this too like i always say that it takes about seven points of contact to get your product on the retail shelf and when we work with retail ready students our goal is to have that happen with three touch points you know you're succeeding when you can have it happen like very rapidly like that um cameron do you have like a a stat that you cite or that you think about from your experience uh not a specific but i will say like i mean i've been doing this for a decent amount of time and i've i've never i mean i've had some you know whether it's like target or publix or whatever so many tellers where i've sent you know 20 or 30 follow-ups before often uh katrina has asked a question like if the follow-up should be should be off this the same thread or a new thread um the way i kind of do it is like once you get to five maybe like send a new one but what i want to say is that i have i've been borderline very annoying to buyers and said 30 responses you know new emails same thread whatever i've never gotten a please leave me alone or a listen you've got to stop i've never i've never received an email like that um and i've been i promise you i've been more pushy than anyone like in this chat so i i you know you have to stay diligent you've got to put a reminder a lot of your crms will allow you to call the drip campaign yeah and it will just automatically send the email every two weeks and my my biggest thing is always try to get to the next step so it's like the next step is just filling out the paperwork just like hammer them for the paper point paperwork next step is being like on board with the distributor they want just get to that so just try to make it as easy as possible so when they come back you can say i've already taken care of that what's next and so those are kind of my two things but katrina yeah it's it's really preference like if you're on your fifth email on the same email thread maybe send a new one and kind of update it another little trick is like maybe you you peek at their linkedin so they see you looked at it and that's like another reminder it's like oh yeah i owe this person a response yeah but on that note never ever ever ever reach out to somebody over linkedin it's it's informal and uh i forbid anyone to i hate it i hate it um yeah and cameron i think that you make some really great points here and katrina this is a good question and i think that um the important thing is like if you're if your subject line isn't getting a response yeah start a new thread right like it you change up change up the the try change up the offer right um and so cameron i think it's so you're spot on there saying that like it's you've got to try to get that buyer to the next step and one tiny tweak that i see that leads to really good results is making sure that you have the um the ask up top in your email like hey ally i'm writing to um i'm i'm writing to get you to i don't know say this nicer but like i'm ready to get you to fill out this paperwork then you know info info info again like please send back the paperwork from whatever um and i think so it has to be so clear what you're asking that buyer to do um and you know if you're rambling if you don't have a direct ask if you don't say when can i ship samples or what is your address like that buyer's just gonna move along to the next email if it's just an informational email the buyer doesn't do anything with that so you have to be the one telling them what you want them to do um cameron i think you also make a great point i love that you say that you you had um accounts where you were reaching out like 20 30 times a buyer is going to tell you if they want you to go away so until you get that hard no from a buyer it's your responsibility to keep following up and the thing is like i get it like it's gonna push you out of your comfort zone you're gonna think that you're annoying gosh i have a stat cameron i am i don't have it off the top of my head but it was something like some sales stat i can pull it up but it's um it was something about how like most sales managers most sales reps reach out you know it's like 100 reach out one time like you know 70 to reach out two times and then it went on and on and it was like you know it got down to it where it was like 10 of them reach out more than five times and like that's when the sales get closed so and i'll say like the brands that go to expo west and go to fancy food and say like you know and i hear then a year later like oh it wasn't worth it it's just because they didn't follow did you just see my face yeah i'm sorry that i made that but um yeah the roi isn't going to be there until the next year right so you're going to like you're going to need to continue to follow up it's going to take some time any of our radish customers who deal with this on the sales side yeah it's like hey listen we haven't seen anything this month like it just takes a long time it's going to be continuous follow-up and you know a lot of times you can open open up 3000 stores in a year all those might fall into two weeks of each other so it's just kind of everything totally we i mean i'll tell you i had a retail ready student um late last year who was like ally like i'm gonna throw in the towel it's been three weeks since i first started pitching and i haven't gotten a response i was like it's been three weeks like you're just getting going like of course you don't have any responses back like it's this is just like the natural cycle like grocery is slow okay so let's let's um let's recap a bit so the four steps step one prepare craft your why why is your product going to drive sales for that buyer and how can you prove that until you have that nailed down don't proceed step number two was plan right and of course i said this don't drop by remember that no one likes to be interrupted during their work day so plan about the time of year the season the day that you're pitching out the category review schedule just plan like don't don't wing it step number three was pitch the one chance pitch you have one chance to come across as prepared and trustworthy you want to make sure that you are able to answer all of those buyers questions before you even make that initial conversation that an initial pitch and then four is the follow-up the squeaky wheel follow up until you get that hard no okay that's what i've got um i hope you know we definitely have a little bit more time for q a so when i hope these four steps gave you guys some guidance for next time that you're pitching to a wholesale buyer if you if you guys need help with any of these steps let's continue the conversation you guys can send me a message i'll um here i'll put my contact information here i'm always on instagram that's like the the most common place where you see me hanging out um you can send me a dm i'm on facebook as well um i have a i have a great newsletter where i email wholesale tips every day or excuse me every week um every day would be a little excessive but cameron this was so fun do we have any other questions that came in um so we have one question is there any way to repair the damage if we didn't always go back to be i mean there's listen there's people that get kicked out of retailers and then get back in a year later i wouldn't say that the golden rule is like it's easier to get on the shelf than off the shelf and you know it's easy to open up new accounts it's really hard to support them so you do want to make sure that you're ready for an account when you get it and you're doing the right stuff but yeah i mean if it's been a few months like reach back out to the store and and start up conversation i mean like it's it's never too late to to to reach back out to them and say hey listen a few things have changed so yeah then we have another one that says ask for trade shows would you recommend independent shows or distributor and trade shows i have thoughts on that and um i'll just say with sarah's too like sarah buyers change uh quite rapidly um there's a lot of turnover in what categories buyers are managing and stuff so like don't think that um don't think that you've missed your chance you can always you can always go repair that relationship um okay and then for trade shows it there's so much there's a lot of thought that goes into trade shows and which makes sense for your brand it depends where who you're trying to sell to um whether or not they are at those shows where you are in the stage of your growth and if you can support the accounts that you might get at those trade shows um i love expo west i love fancy food i love the good food mercantile if you guys are smaller brands looking to sell regionally or into your independence um but then i also i also like some of the buyer shows i used to go to unifi tabletop and that was a great one cahi show was great um and then the um ecrs show was really really fantastic and like more curated um so it just depends on you and your brand and what your goals are your best bet is you're gonna have to do most of them and then measure the roi on the show and then craft what shows are your best fit based on what's the most successful for your brand and i know you you talked about price sheets i know you did like a um like a kind of like how to build your price sheet so we'll definitely like send a link out with that and then um in terms of sales decks and sales presentations uh for everybody like on the call uh we're going to put together like a plan on how to craft your sales deck and your presentation to the buyer um so that will kind of we'll try to send that out in the next two weeks and so i know we've been getting a ton of sales decks for the virtual presentations we've been doing so we'll kind of put together a format on what to follow in a guideline and then we can pair that with ali's price sheet and you should have kind of a really good outline to follow for both those assets great um i wonder gosh cameron too i'm wondering if i have a podcast on um sell sheets or pitch decks and stuff i don't know i didn't i didn't mention this but it you know i maybe you did cameron at the beginning like i i have a podcast it's called food biz whiz um cameron actually and i cameron and i are recording an episode for it next week which will be really fun um but there's a lot of good resources on there we've done a few a few recent like covid related episodes that have been really um insightful for emerging brands and i encourage you guys to check that out if you haven't joined in on the podcast episode yet awesome any other questions cameron i think that's it for now so i will i'm sure more will trickle in and i'll send them through this definitely probably won't be the last thing we do together so i'll keep everybody posted and i appreciate the time thanks so much of course thank you for having me thanks thanks you guys this was really fun all right stay safe thank you bye bye