The Sales & Marketing Partnership Ltd

What things do you need to consider when launching a new product or entering a new market? One way of growing your business is to enter new channels or markets. If you are thinking of launching a new product, entering a new channel or launching in the UK here are 7 things to consider as part of a range of steps to establish the potential for your product. View this one minute video here: youtu.be/egtjIUk0Gu0 #newproductlaunch #marketentry #entrepreneur #startups

You are a brand that has a mission-driven desire to progress the category and provide consumers with a better solution. You’ve created an innovative brand and your honest, authentic story is resonating with consumers and the online community you’re building appreciate your David vs Goliath mentality. Now you want to build on this and expand into the major retailers, but you’re stuck. You don’t have the contacts, time or expertise to position your product to hit the key points retailers will be looking for and its really frustrating. Here are a few tips: • Start by visiting a few stores to make sure you fully understand the category in each of your target retailers, take some photos, (try not to get thrown out). • Understand the dynamics of the category - what motivates shoppers, how the category is structured, for example good, better, best. • Who are your key competitors, which ones should your brand replace? Retailers don’t have elastic walls. • How will your brand add value? I had the pleasure of working Method Products, helping them to establish a multi-£m's business with the UK’s leading multiple retailers so know what it takes. Connect and let me know what your key challenges are, I’d be happy to help. #founders #founder #consumergoods #fmcg #Cofounders

How do you scale into major retailers (without adding fixed costs)? How far can you go without the right Knowledge or Contacts? You are a brand that has a mission-driven desire to provide consumers with a better solution and progress the category. You’ve created an innovative brand and have an honest, authentic story. Its resonating with consumers. The loyal online community you are building appreciate your David vs Goliath mentality. You want to expand into major retailers, but you’re stuck. How can you do this without the knowledge or contacts? How can you do this without adding permanent staff and fixed costs? We've helped a number of Innovative Challenger brands break through and scale faster into major UK retailers, sometimes going from zero to multi £m's. If this resonates with you I'd be happy to share my experience, just send me a connection request. #cpg #cpgindustry #foodandbeverage #export #InternationalTrade

What are the key things retailers will want to know before they will buy your products? Whenever I speak to retail buyers, I know there are certain questions that I will need to be able to answer. Here are a few of them: ❓What are the key benefits that differentiate your product from the competition? ❓Evidence that their consumers are looking for the solution your product provides ❓Who are your target consumers – (socio-economic profile, age, sex, demographic)? ❓What price will they be willing to pay? ❓What’s in it for me - what margin, what rate of sale, category growth, exclusivity? ❓How will you communicate with my consumers and drive traffic to my stores? ❓How will you promote your product – special offers, sampling, trade events? These will all lead to further questions. Put yourself in the buyer’s position. As the buyer responsible for the sales and profit from a huge category, what obstacles do you see to buying this product, why would you risk making a change? If you’d like to know more about what retailers expect and how to contact them, connect with me and let me know how I can help. #founders #founder #cofounder #ceo #Cofounders

Put simply it’s a systematic, disciplined approach retailers use in collaboration with suppliers to manage a product category as a strategic business unit to deliver turnover and profitability targets whilst bringing benefits to the shoppers of that category. Eight step process: 1. Define Define your understanding of the retailer, their customers and who buys your brand. 2. Role Is it to attract new consumers, generate traffic, meet everyday needs or be a destination for certain products? 3. Assessment Use data to understand sales by category, sub-category, brand, SKU, promotions, market status & consumer trends. 4. Scorecard Combine analysis and strategy including assortment, pricing, in-store presentation & promotion. 5. Strategies Strategy needed to achieve the category’s role using a combination of assortment, price, promotion & merchandising. 6. Tactics Marketing activities, promotions, range changes, communication & planogram changes. (range reviews) 7. Implementation Apply strategies and tactics and implement them effectively. 8. Review Review results regularly and plan necessary changes. #cpg #cpgindustry #foodandbeverage #export #InternationalTrade

How do you prepare for a retailer range review or first presentation? I'm often asked this question. Everyone can prepare a presentation, right? The key is to make sure you understand the category and the role your product plays or would play. 1. Visit some stores and take photos of the category. 2. Understand category dynamics - what motivates shoppers. 3. How is the category structured, for example, good, better, best. 4. Who are your key competitors, which ones should your brand replace? 5. How will your brand add value? What unmet consumer need does it fulfill? 6. If it’s a food or drink product, how does it compare in taste tests to the leading brand or target competitor? 7. If it’s a problem/solution product, how does it perform vs. the leading brand or target competitor? 8. What promotions are there? How frequent and aggressive? 9. Purchase and analyze sales data to support recommendations. 10. Build a financial picture illustrating the sales and profit your brand could contribute. 11. Your store photos will help illustrate your points. Pictures paint a thousand words and are hard to argue with. 12. How will you support the brand? Prepare your marketing plan. Any questions, connect, and I'll try to help. #founders #founder #cofounder #ceo #Cofounders

Are you getting bogged down in simple details and becoming less effective as a result? The first few years for any small business usually means being very hands on working on all areas of the business, sales, marketing, logistics finance and more. This normally means that you are spending all your time working in the business instead of on it. It’s easy to get sucked in to micromanaging everything and believing you can get things done better and more efficiently than anyone else. This means you are not spending time looking at the bigger picture and shaping the future and adapting the business strategy to maximise business development. As the founder or owner, you are the one with the vision of what you want to the business to become and the one who is genuinely motivated to grow it. Part of running a successful business means knowing how to play to your strengths. We have helped a number of innovative brands develop £multi-million businesses in new channels and avoid the cost and commitment of taking on full-time employees. If this resonates with you and you would like results like this let’s connect and have a conversation. #cpg #cpgindustry #foodandbeverage #export #internationaltrade

Put simply it’s a systematic, disciplined approach retailers use in collaboration with suppliers to manage a product category as a strategic business unit to deliver turnover and profitability targets whilst bringing benefits to the shoppers of that category. Eight step process: 1. Define Define your understanding of the retailer, their customers and who buys your brand. 2. Role Is it to attract new consumers, generate traffic, meet everyday needs or be a destination for certain products? 3. Assessment Use data to understand sales by category, sub-category, brand, SKU, promotions, market status & consumer trends. 4. Scorecard Combine analysis and strategy including assortment, pricing, in-store presentation & promotion. 5. Strategies Strategy needed to achieve the category’s role using a combination of assortment, price, promotion & merchandising. 6. Tactics Marketing activities, promotions, range changes, communication & planogram changes. (range reviews) 7. Implementation Apply strategies and tactics and implement them effectively. 8. Review Review results regularly and plan necessary changes. #founders #founder #cofounder #ceo #Cofounders

How do you prepare for a retailer range review or first presentation I'm often asked this question. Everyone can prepare a presentation right? The key is to make sure you understand the category and the role your product does or would play. 1. Visit some stores and take photos of the category. 2. Understand category dynamics - what motivates shoppers. 3. How is the category structured, for example good, better, best. 4. Who are your key competitors, which ones should your brand replace? 5. How will your brand add value? What unmet consumer need does it fulfill? 6. If it’s a food or drink product, how does it compare in taste tests to the leading brand or target competitor? 7. If it’s a problem / solution product, how does it perform vs the leading brand or target competitor? 8. What promotions are there? How frequent and aggressive? 9. Purchase and analyse sales data to support recommendations. 10. Build a financial picture Illustrating the sales and profit your brand could contribute. 11. Your store photo’s will help illustrate your points. Pictures paint a thousand words and are hard to argue with. 12. How will you support the brand? Prepare your marketing plan. Any questions, connect and I'll try to help. #cpg #cpgindustry #foodandbeverage #export #InternationalTrade

Are you getting bogged down in simple details and becoming less effective as a result? The first few years for any small business usually means being very hands on working on all areas of the business, sales, marketing, logistics finance and more. This normally means that you are spending all your time working in the business instead of on it. It’s easy to get sucked in to micromanaging everything and believing you can get things done better and more efficiently than anyone else. This means you are not spending time looking at the bigger picture and shaping the future and adapting the business strategy to maximise business development. As the founder or owner, you are the one with the vision of what you want to the business to become and the one who is genuinely motivated to grow it. Part of running a successful business means knowing how to play to your strengths. We have helped a number of innovative brands develop £multi-million businesses in new channels and avoid the cost and commitment of taking on full-time employees. If this resonates with you and you would like results like this let’s connect and have a conversation. #founders #founder #cofounder #ceo #Cofounders