5 Steps to Pitch Perfect

Welcome to this flash talk at Pamply Live. My name is Karen Green, and we're going to be covering 5 steps to pitch perfect. So let me introduce myself. I started my life as a buyer for Boots and Tesco, buying everything from vitamins to food and eggs and fish, and I left Boots in 2002 and then went to the other side of the desk as a sales manager, on to commercial director for a number of food businesses, finally working for a sushi company actually, and we were selling to Boots and Tesco's, and after that I was working for a number of my clients actually, so I set Food Mentor up 4 years ago and since then I've been working with the likes of Zinda, we're in Tesco's, just about to launch into Budged and Relondis, Kays Wares in Ocado and Nisa, helped Fitbakes get into Sainsbury's and lots of other brands as well. I'm also a speaker, obviously I'm speaking to you today from a Zoom call actually recorded, but I used to do a lot of live pitches and live presentations and hopefully we'll do again Monday. Also been on LBC in their Business Hour, and I've also written the book Recipe for Success: The Ingredients of a Profitable Food Business, which is available on Amazon if you want to go and order it. So that's me. What are we going to do today? 5 steps to pitch perfect. Number 1, know your numbers. It's so important, and honestly, if you aren't making a profit, then there's no point getting a pitch together, let alone it being perfect. Working out what category you're in is the next important part, so you actually know which buyer to talk to and which category to research. Then part 3, get to know your buyer personally so that you make the right presentation. Get to know your retailers, so we're gonna talk about how you can know them inside out, and then how do you pull all that together and build your story? So let's get started with step number 1, Oops, and we've missed it. Step number 1, know your numbers. So first of all, are you mass enough? It's really important that you have enough volume to justify a retailer taking you on. So if you think about Tesco's, they represent £1 in every £7 spent in the UK. They have 27% of the grocery market. They are big, and so the products that they sell need to be mass. If you have a fabulous product but it's niche and it's very highly targeted, as some of my clients do, it might not be the right place to go, to go to Tesco's. Whole Foods, on the other hand, who look for that type of brand, might be a perfect fit. So you need to know your number and know whether you're mass enough and have the volumes enough to justify the retailer that you're targeting. The second thing about your numbers is your costs. So there's 2 things here. First of all, do you know how much it costs to make your product? If you're buying it from a contract packer, you will know the answer to that one because that's what you're paying. If you make it yourself, you may not know. I've had a lot of clients who make it themselves. They don't charge in their own labour, they don't cost in this, that, and the other. You need to really fully understand your business, and I do have a spreadsheet for that which I can send to you if you email me on karen@foodmentor.co.uk. And Once you know your costs, you can then put it into my spreadsheet, which I can also send you, which talks— looks at what margins you need to make for your business to be successful, but also what are the margin expectations of the grocer. And generally we make an assumption of about 40%, but it really does vary on the category. Some For example, commodities like milk and bread are probably much lower margins, and then other things like vitamins and supplements, which I used to buy, margins are much higher than 40%. So it does vary with your category. You can go out and talk to other people. I really would urge you to join Facebook Food Hub group. There's nearly 10,000 people on there. They've all got lots of varieties of experience of different buyers, different margins, and it can give you a good idea of what to expect. The fourth thing about your numbers is what other money are you going to need? Launching into a big retailer, you start to step up in terms of the money that's going to go out and the money that's coming back in. So if you are doing a deal with, say, Tesco's, you get 200 stores, they might want to put it in 2, 3 cases to fill the shelves. You might be looking at 800 cases, and if you're buying that from a contract packer or making it yourself, you're going to need to pay for that upfront. There's very few contract packers that don't do pro forma. So you need the money to do that, and unfortunately the retailer is not going to pay you probably for— best scenario, 14 days, worst-case scenario, maybe 3 months, 90-day settlement terms. So not only are you going to fill those shelves, but you're also going to have to keep supplying them maybe for up to 3 months. So you need a lot of cash. You can factor your invoices, but, you know, have a think through, have you got the money in the bank? Have you got funding? Have you got an overdraft? How are you going to do that? To get over that initial hump. And then what marketing investment are you going to be looking to put in? And that can split into 2: sampling fees, the listing fees, the investment that your trade customer is looking for, and then the investment that you need to put in the marketing to actually get people through the door and promote your brand and make it mass enough. So that's the first one. Second thing you need to be thinking about is what category are you in? It could be quite obvious, you might say, well, I sell chocolate, it needs to be in chocolate or confectionery, but actually, are you front-of-store chocolate? Are you a free-from chocolate that might sit better in the free-from category? Should you be at back-of-store? Are you gifting, so are you having gift boxes? Should you be with gift chocolates? Should you be in a completely different aisle for maybe Christmas and special occasions? There's lots of different places your category can go, and some of the things you might want to think about Is, for example, which retailer is it? You know, I've had a cup of tea recently which is targeted at new mums and mums-to-be, and we've looked at 4 different retailers in all different places. Holland Barrett, supplements. Boots, should be on the baby aisle. John Bell and Croydon, I think a completely standalone fixture because I think the brand would justify it. Sainsbury's, I don't think they're big enough for tea, although it would sit well in tea, so it's probably going to go in supplements. Think about how your customer comes to buy your product. So what's the journey? What's the thought process they go through? And therefore, where would they expect to see it? So we did a lot of work on sushi journeys. The majority of sushi is eaten at lunchtime, so people are going to go to the lunchtime, the food-to-go fixture, but then They might be looking for lunch, for dinner, and certainly here in South France, sushi is eaten more at dinner, so they might be thinking, right, I'm going to look for sushi daily, for Yo! Sushi, which is why the counters are doing so well. So think about your customer journey, and that should enable you to understand which category you're in. You might even want to dual-face. This is Simply Cook, who actually were in 3 facings, 3 different places in Sainsbury's: produce, meat and fish and poultry, and the actual thing that they are, which is cooking ingredients or cooking sauces. They had a lot of funding, got a lot of investment, and obviously were talking to pretty senior people in Sainsbury's, but it's doable, so bear it in mind. Third thing you need to think about is who your buyer is. We think a lot about who the retailer is but not actually the buyer personality, and in some cases where you're pitching blind, you may just be pitching to the retailer, but when you come come to have your second meeting or even your first meeting, you need to know who that buyer is, and one of the things that I am completely addicted to, and if you do nothing but take this one key fact away, Crystal Knows is fantastic, because what it does is it's a very clever piece of artificial intelligence and it analyses LinkedIn profiles. You don't have to be linked into that person. This is an example of Kate, the buyer at Tesco's. She She's, she's a great person actually, but what it does is it shows her personality on the right-hand side and it tells you that she's a stabiliser, she's very analytical, she likes numbers, she likes detail, she's considered. So I need to think about how to adapt my presentations and my approaches to her, and also what Crystal Knows does is shows you where your personality is, and as you can see in a little circle on the right-hand side, she's the opposite to me, so I need to think very much about how I'm going to adapt that pitch. That's really critical for making a perfect pitch. The fourth thing, obviously you need to know who your retailer is. I'm sure none of you who are watching this would do this, but please do not ever go to a meeting having not been to the shop in question. I've had buyers— I've had sellers actually come to me and they haven't been in when I was at Boots and at Tesco and I hadn't been in and I was just like, how can you expect to come and talk to me about my products if you don't know my stores? So top tips, where do you go? Go to the biggest store possible so you can see the biggest range, and also go and have a look at an average store as well so that you can see what would happen if you were going into smaller and smaller distribution, what's left, so that from that you can work out what's best-selling lines and how they're structuring their offering. Have a look at different formats, so you'll find the superstores are very different to convenience stores to city centre stores, and also have a look at competitors because my goodness, you are helping the retailer increase their sales and increase their competitiveness, which is why some of them will ask, would you do an exclusivity, for example, in something you could consider. Go in, collect, notice, observe, take photos of the fixture, it's so important, you can put them in your presentations, you can use them afterwards when you get home and you think, what was there, what was next to that product, you can also see what's there in terms of shelf-ready packaging, point of sale, how they do their shelf edge tickets, are they on promotion, Some retailers like to promote, some retailers don't, so you need to understand what their policy is so that when you're putting your marketing plan together, you're making the right proposals from the off rather than saying, well, I'll just do a— I don't know, a multi-buy, because a lot of retailers don't agree with multi-buys, or they might be everyday low price, and actually you're offering a promotion which won't fit either. So think about it, collect all the information, and then if you get a chance, have a chat. To the people in the store, talk to the shoppers, the store colleagues, find out what the problems are, watch how shoppers shop, see whether they're picking stuff up, putting it down, what do they eventually buy, and then buy the competitors' products. You need to know what you're up against. Taste them, use them, critique them, and then build your one-pager. I'm a big fan of one-pagers, putting all the information into one sheet, and you can get this from me as well. Again, I'll I'll put my contact details at the end. Have a look at their branding, what's their USP, what's the retailer strategy, who are their target customers, so that you can then overlay on top of that where you sit, where's your fit. So is your key customer the same as their customer? What products have they got? Where do you fit in terms of the gap? And then, as I say, your buyer profiling doesn't just have to be LinkedIn. Google them, they might have done some press releases on the marketplace, even stalk them on Facebook if you can find them. Just get to know these people. And then finally, what you need to say is, why would the retailer stock my products? What is my USP? What brand would I replace? I mean, you know, you don't know the sales figures, you can't actually say that in the meeting, but think through who looks a bit vulnerable, who's not in the smallest stores, who's fallen off the fixture, who could and why would you be better than them? And then you can build it all together and build your story and build up your why. Why is your brand beneficial to us? That's what you want to be asking yourself. Sit yourself in the retailer's shoes and remember it's the brand, not the product. You know, so many people I've seen pitch at the events like Pitch Live and you find people talk about the product, you know, it's sugar-free, It's organic, it's this, it's that. They don't talk about, this is our brand, this is our brand values and our mission, this is what we're doing on social media, this is the following we've got, this is the press and the PR. That's the story you need to be telling, and you need to back it up with facts and statistics. You cannot just say, yeah, we've got a really good following. You need to say, actually, we've got 35,000 followers on Instagram, and every day they're engaging and we get whatever. Build in your numbers. If you're already selling in other stores, in independents, another retailer, share that information. Be careful, don't breach confidentiality, but if you're selling 200 packs in a store, you tell them, tell the buyer, because the buyer's suddenly going to sit up and go, oh, that's interesting. Because ultimately what you want to do is create a need in that buyer. You build the gap analysis and say, look, there is a gap in this marketplace. There is a gap in your store. I can bring something to your category that's gonna grow it, but you also know that I've got experience of doing this in the past, and therefore I'm reducing your risk. I can demonstrate why we will sell. It's not always easy if you're quite a new fledgling brand, but there's always a way that you can build your story realistically using data, using experiences, And then finally, I use this quote from Alex, a couple of years old now, but I remember he was at Enterprise Nation, and he said, we list 2,000 new products a year. And I went, right, that looks quite easy for me. And then he said, which means we need to delist 2,000 products. And what he was saying was, one, it's one in, one out, so you have to think about who's gonna go, which we've talked about already, but also you don't wanna be in the 2,000 and they delist next year. So you need to have a long-term strategy. It's not about being pitch-perfect for today, it's about how do you keep that brand in for tomorrow and the next year, so that actually you're reinvesting in the category, growing the category, and you may even want to say to the buyer, this is the range now, but next year we've got plans to do X and Y, so they can see that you're thinking long-term. So let the dance begin. I hope you are looking forward to some really interesting meetings through Pantry Live and after Pantry Live, and the dance begins, and it's not easy, and a lot of people can take years to get into retailers, but let me help you if I can by doing it for you. I'm offering everybody at Pantry Live a power hour, and basically what we will do in that hour is we will help build your pitch. For you, or I will help— well, we together will build the pitch for you. We'll go through during the session what's the 3 or 4 key selling points, and everybody's are different. What's the category that you need to be going after? I'll help you get the 2 to 3 slides that you need if it's a 10-minute presentation, or the structure if you need to do something a bit broader. We'll think about what the script is, we'll think about what you need to take to the meeting. It might be online, you might want to send them samples, etc., and we'll think about what next steps there are, what you need to do to make sure that you're ready, retailer ready for those meetings so that you can be pitch perfect. You can book in with me, there is a charge, it's £200, but I've done 4 now and the testimonials are fantastic. Everybody has really enjoyed it and got a really good result out of it, so the link is there, and if you need to get in touch with me then please do, this is my contact details. karen@foodmentor.co.uk. There's my phone number. Please link in with me. I'm a massive fan of LinkedIn, and just let me know if you need anything, and I'll be happy to help. Thank you so much for listening, and good luck. Thank you.