Getting your food brand on retailer shelves - Nailing your pitch

Cool, take it away, Karen. Okay, let's get started. First of all, well done everybody who's here this afternoon, and obviously I'm sure there's gonna be a lot of you watching later on. You've done extremely well. I don't know whether at the end Tara will share how many applications have gone in and who's been successful, how many people were successful. I know of our, the applications that I've been working with, we had 14 out of goodness knows how many have I written or put in. So probably about a 1 in 10 statistic, which is probably in line with what we had last year. So now you've done the first part, the second part is nailing the pitch. That's what we're going to do today. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Karen Green. I run a business called Food Mentor and work with food entrepreneurs helping them achieve profitable sales growth, and the majority of that is helping them get into retailers. And we've had some varied success over the years. It takes a lot longer than I think it should do. That's probably my piece of advice. It will take a long time. So what are we going to do today? This is the most important 10 minutes of your brand's life so far, so I don't want to build up the tension and the excitement, but you know, this is fantastic and I'm sure some of you will have retailers that you have dreamt of being in and some of you might go, Gorillas, who were they again? But I'm sure having done the pitches, you know who you've got, and we're going to go through that in some more detail. I'm going to take you through the 5 Ps of pitching as I see them: planning, preparing, practice, present, and persevere. I have to say, the persevere is probably the one I want to emphasize the most, and we will talk about it at the end, but My first pitch I think I did at Bread and Jam was 2018 with Hayes Ward sausages. It was to— in fact, we did 2. We did one to Ocado and one to Costco. Ocado came through I think 2 years later, and Costco we launched in April this year. Took us 3 years, but we did persevere and we did keep going. So that's So that's kind of one of my top tips. So the first thing you need to think about is planning this out. It is only 10 minutes and it is an exact 10 minutes and it's made even more exact by the fact that it's online, so at the 10-minute moment it will cut you off. And last year I must have coached 10, 15 people on putting it all together. And I said, don't forget at the end, make sure you get the buyer's details. And a couple of people who will remain nameless but are very experienced, and one of whom has since got a very lucrative listing in a major retailer, forgot to get the details and got— because they got so tied up in the presentation and so excited and cutoff. So in terms of the layout, kind of minute 1 is an introduction. It's probably only 30 seconds, but, you know, think that through. The next 2 to 6 minutes-ish is a brief presentation. I like using slides because that's how I work. I've just been looking at doing without, but I think slides help. Primarily because people have 3 different styles of learning: auditory, kinesthetic, and visual. And if you're a visual person and they've got to just listen to you and watch you moving around, it's not as interesting as if you've got a presentation you can put extra facts on it. The kinesthetic piece is a little bit more difficult because they can't hold your samples, but we can show samples on that. Can everybody mute themselves unless they want to speak because we're getting some feedback in the background? Thank you. And then kind of 7 to 9 minutes is questions and then 10 is get their details. So I'm going to go through in a bit more detail what to do as part of the actual presentation at the end, so don't worry about that, we're going to get into that in more detail, but I just wanted to give you that mindset that this is a short presentation. And the other thing just to say is, what is your objective for this? Your objective is not to get a listing. Your objective is to get a meeting or a request for samples. Those are probably the two. So you need to think about that because you don't need to get your entire pitch, your whole life story, your commercials, your presentation, your marketing plans, da ba da ba da ba. You need to pique their interest so that they want to have a meeting with you. and the next step. So just bear that in mind as we go through this. So preparation, preparation, preparation. A commercial director of mine used to say, fail to prepare, prepare to fail. You will all have different— and it'd be interesting to know actually at the end, maybe put it in the chat, who you're going to be pitching to. But you need to do your research. So I've picked Morrisons just as a theme. I've taken the screenshot of what was on the application. If you don't have those, I have all of the summaries of what they're looking for. I'm sure you have kept them all, and if you've been following me through this process, you'll know that I have a downloadable form which had all the information on it. But this is the first thing to go back to—

what are they looking for?

Because this is It's not an exam question, but it's almost—

it's—

this is the first piece of information. The second thing is that most of the major retailers, not all of the smaller ones and QCOMs, have got a supplier website. So I've taken Morrisons because it was easy, and if you go in and you click on this link, and I'm sure we'll share the slides afterwards, it will have a little bit of information on supplying Morrisons, and there's a bit of a chat about—

by—

from David Potts about what they're looking for. And there's a bit of an emphasis around British. Other things, obviously look at the website, if you possibly can go and visit the stores, and obviously if it's online, you know, the QCOMS, then download the app, use it if you can possibly get an, you know, actually if you're in one of their areas, use the app, have an order, have a delivery, it really makes a difference. Ocado, obviously go online, have a look at it, really get to understand each of your retailers. There's going to be some amazing working withs over the next 2 days at the Bread and Jam Fest itself, so I've got them all in my diary ready to go to Planet Organic, Harrods, Sainsbury's, I don't know, we'll go through the list at the end, but there are some. That's kind of, you know, required reading. You must go and watch that, okay? And then have a look at your category, go and do an audit of what's there, list out all of your competitors, the prices, what you think the USPs are, the packaging, maybe take a photo of what your product would look like on shelf, take your product in. I mean, you couldn't Photoshop it if you're panicking and you're going like I am, not necessarily living in South France but going, oh my goodness, I can't get there. Don't worry, improvise, but this is the best scenario. So gather up as much information as you can so that when you make the pitch it's as tailored as possible. So, you know, for some of you, I've got clients I think with, well, certainly one with 3 different pitches. Please do not use the same presentation for all 3 pitches. they should be different because there will be different positioning and thought processes. Okay, any questions about getting ready?

No?

Good, nice and quiet. Okay, so we have been— I've been very lucky. Jason gave me this presentation. Well, sorry, Jason suggested I had a chat with Christopher Kong, who wrote this presentation for ASDA, and he gave us permission to use it as an example of what was a very successful pitch at the Plant Based Conference earlier this year. So we're going to be using that as we go through, just as some examples of how you can lay it out. Now I'm not saying this is perfect, and it also I think was a slightly longer pitch, but it— and I've taken some slides out as well just to make it a little bit more succinct. But the very first thing we have on the screen is his front page, and With 4 to 5 minutes to go, you might not want a front page, but I just wanted to show you this because I think it's quite powerful in terms of it's got who he's presenting to here. So he's made it quite clear who the customer is. There's his brand logo. Not sure that the brand logo should be bigger than Asda, but anyway, not to worry. And then the title I thought was really Summing up his mission in one short sentence: new innovative— it's a tempeh, by the way, if you haven't gathered already— new innovative all-natural meat-free brands taking tempeh into the mainstream. And for me, that's a real standout heading, which is saying the purpose. So instead of just saying, you know, today we're going to present whatever, meat-free chicken, he's really got into what the purpose is about. So he's set the tone for the whole piece. And really what you need to be structuring is, it's a basic traditional formula. Start with the category story, what's the opportunity, what is your product and brand, and then what's your proposal. And what I find with a lot of people is that they start with the product and the brand story and get really into that because that's what they're passionate about. When you're selling, you need to think about them. It's about them, it's not about you. Your story is interesting and it may well form an important part of your branding, but it's not the first thing you need to hit them with because at the end of the day, retailers are there to make money and your job is to come along and say, Mr. Retailer, I can make you more money than your current range. And that's really the purpose of what you need to be getting to, and obviously piquing their interest so they want to meet you again. So just in terms of layout, on the right we're going to have the slide and on the left we're going to have some thoughts. So the first one, as I say, category story. This will vary depending on each of you. I've written some for people recently, coached some, and they're all different. But basically think about the overall category, don't get bogged down in it. Most of the retailers, especially the bigger ones, honestly will know a lot more about the category than you do. They will probably have a brand leader who's presented them Kantar data, Nielsen data, the whole nine yards. What you're doing is you're creating the background, so Good sources of data, I know a lot of you use Mintel, that's available in the British Library. If you've never been and you're London-based, go along and have a look if you get time. It's just next to St Pancras station, it's free but you do need to register, so go online and have a look first. The Grocer is fantastic, they have focus on reports and there's usually some really good information in there. And then just good plain old Google, for themes and ideas. So what you're trying to do is define the marketplace that you play in, and you're building up a story which culminates in, you should list us, okay, or we are the thing that's going to create added value. So if you look at— you need to think about, well, what's my marketplace? So as I say, this brand is Tempeh. So they are talking about why tempeh. They haven't even got to why tempeh actually. What they're starting with is the background, which is about plant-based diets. So they're saying, look, you know, 300% increase in plant-based diets, flexitarian. Anyone who's seen the Whole Foods trends that came out today, there's now reducetarian, which is a new word. Write that one down if that's relevant to you, 'cause it's a really interesting concept, which I honestly haven't come across before. And then some category data. You know, they've obviously got some facts that have maybe come from, I don't know, I took off the stars, but it's obviously come from Kantar. It might have come from the grocer or what have you. So what you're trying to show is, is it a decent-sized marketplace? Is it in growth? It doesn't matter if it's in decline. 2 of the most successful turnarounds have obviously been Fever Tree with, in the tonics market, peanut butter. So the likes of and Nut came into a stagnant market. So it doesn't matter if it's in growth or in decline, both are opportunities, but you just need to think about what they are. So that's about the market, and then what's the customer trends that you can overlay on top of that so that you've got probably no more than one slide. And as I say, remember, the buyer will know it better than you do, probably, unless you're bringing a very new category. So for example, Keto, I think, is quite new potentially to some buyers, so you might need to get into a little bit more detail. But again, don't get bogged down in this because remember, 4 to 5 minutes and we need to talk about you and what you can do for them. So, you know, one slide, maybe two. So this is the second slide. So what's the opportunity? I like a gap analysis. I tend— who's laughing at me? So this is one that Better Nature used. The key is getting the axes right. So basically what you're trying to demonstrate is there is a reason for them to take your brand, okay? And apart from the fact that the category is in growth and, you know, it's all on trend, when you look at their range, what is the gap? And ideally the gap should sit in the top right-hand corner and you need to define your axes so that that happens. So I've just been looking at one with a client this afternoon and they've got low sugar, high sugar. Low sugar's at the bottom and high sugar's at the top because that's kind of mentally how it feels, but actually low sugar is obviously beneficial, so we've just flipped the axes. Should I send you the slides? Can I just ask everyone to mute please? Thank you. And then, so the axes is the first thing, the second thing is use ideally the competitors in the retailer you are presenting to. And I'm saying ideally, I'm trying to think of an example of where that might not be. I wouldn't get too bogged down in it, but Unless there are no competitors. So say you're bringing a new category, you might need to broaden it out slightly. So you can see what the Better Nature guys have done here. You know, we're talking about tempeh, which I'm assuming is great tasting and a natural product, which of course it is. So all the other plant-based products either come into the highly processed, so Meatless Farm, Linda McCartney, etc. Or they are bland tasting and natural. And that's not my opinion, that's the opinion of Better Nature. But what it means is up in the top right-hand corner, gap in the market, there's their brand logo shape, and there's tofu down there. And that's really clever because sometimes you will end up with a competitor who's sitting in that top right-hand corner, and to represent it that way, it works really well.

Sorry, just a question on that. Previously, I've sort of been instructed to not criticize another brand that potentially that buyer is very fond of. Here, I would say that, gosh, looks pretty, pretty bad. And that's quite a criticism, which is obviously a personal opinion. What are your feelings on that?

You're absolutely right, Brian. You don't want to be criticizing anybody else. So, you know, really awful and really great are probably not, not an axis you want to put on there. Highly processed and natural. Is it a fact? It probably is. You could back it up. Bland tasting, great tasting. Honestly, is tempeh taste any better than— gosh, I don't know. But I agree with you. be careful that you're not slagging off the competition. Ideally you want something that's tangible, so high sugar, low sugar, high price, low price, lots of additives, no additives. Does that make sense? So they're tangible things that you can actually put— prove in, and it's not emotive and it's not subjective. I think, does that answer your question?

Yes, thank you.

Okay, cool.

So we've got them ready, yeah, so we've brought them down the— this is the category, this is the gap you've got, and now we're going, this is us. Okay, now the way Better Nature did it was in 2 slides. Again, depending on your time, you might want 1 or 2 slides, but they were then going, right, We make protein without compromise, and then they're talking about the elements nutritious, sustainable, whatever. So when you're doing this, once you've done your audit and you know what your competition is, it's pulling out the relevant components of your brand because again, we haven't got half an hour to tell them your life story and why it's so amazing and how you went to Sicily to source it, etc., etc. You need to get the real. Succinct pertinent points, which is what they've done, 4 points. And those are your USPs and maybe your mission as well. And remember, it's not just about your products, it's about the brand. Because I think we are all guilty of getting too sucked into talking about product and product components and not talking enough about the brand. And certainly the successful applications that I've seen go in and got pitches did seem to focus more on brand, although product is important as well. I'm, you know, I'm not belittling that. So then we need the ta-da slide. So it's us, buy me, buy me. That's the point of this one. So if you look at, again, he had several. How you construct this slide is entirely up to you, but you certainly want to be showing your products. You want to be reinforcing the USPs so you know you're getting across 2 or 3 key messages that says decent-sized market, big opportunity, pertinent to you, fill in your gap, here it is. And you know it's Tempeh, there's the retail prices. Whether you put retail prices on is your choice, obviously retailers choose the retail price, not you, but you can say it's recommended. Key points along the bottom again of the USPs. And then there's potentially what I call a come to us because we have gravitas slide. And I did one for another client and she literally was only in 3 stores and we wanted to get across to— it was a Sainsbury's pitch actually for future brands and we wanted them to think of her as more substantial and we constructed it by saying, you know, we're in CLF, we're in, um, I can't remember what we were in, and we're on Amazon, and we're about to be on this, and it worked. And, you know, this is some top facts, and again, you can have a look at this at your leisure. We'll send you the, the deck. Um, but what they're doing here is saying, look, Asda, which is who they— because Asda obviously big business— this is where we are already. You know, we've got 200 locations, we're already in some wholesalers, we've got Bidfood, We're the, you know, top 3 seller on Amazon. We've got a great loyalty, you know, good order values. This is who we are. And I think that's very compelling. And, you know, if you're a startup and, you know, I know we've got a couple of people on here who haven't even got listings yet because they're still at kind of pre-concept stage, that doesn't necessarily matter. But if you can put something in maybe about coverage, maybe if you've won awards, you know, something that will just reinforce your USPs. And that's a mistake, it shouldn't say include retail prices on this one because it's not relevant. And then it's kind of what's the proposal? What are you going to do for them? And again, this was 2 slides. I wouldn't get too into detail on this, it really depends on the retailer because some of them are quite new. So for example, I know I did write a piece about the QCOMS guys but I don't actually know what all of their promotional strategies are like. But what you want to be thinking about is what you're going to do in the store or on the site and then what you're going to do externally. So what can you offer them in terms of a launch program? Are you offering exclusivity? It's a question that came up a lot when I was working with people on nailing the pitches, sorry, the applications. And, you know, we, in most cases, we said yes, because there's always a way of doing exclusivity, whether it's one SKU, whether it's time, I don't know, there's lots of different ways of looking at it. You might wanna put in a promotional plan. So this is an example of just planning out the year, sorts of things you might do. You know, if again this is a vegan product, so veganuary is really important, maybe highlighting some of the times that you're actually really going to do something interesting. Maybe a press campaign, what press campaigns have you got coming up? What social media support have you got? Could you give exclusivity to your coverage for a year? Are you going to do sampling, which might be relevant, it's coming back kind of in to fashion now. We've just done some with Costco. I don't know whether Planet Organic and the Whole Foods guys are doing it. I certainly didn't see any when I was walking around, but they might do. Ocado have their own kind of bits and bobs in terms of banners and paying for reviews and couponing. And then if it's relevant, the value of the spend. So, you know, what you're going to invest. And this is a pretty impressive number, and I did talk to Chris about this and I said, whoa, have you got £180,000 in your back pocket? And he's like, no, no, no, no, but you know, if we got so many stores, then we've worked out it would be worth this, and therefore we would be able to give them whatever, 10% of marketing— sorry, 10% of sales as a marketing budget.

Hi Karen, quick question, I had my hand up.

Yeah, sorry, I can't— I can only see about 3 of you, so forgive me.

No worries at all. Karen, just on that previous slide, the cost implication of all of that. So how do we get an idea of what the cost for running the, for example, the intro promo, 50p off, there's a cost for that. So how do we budget that towards getting towards that £180K Marketing budget?

So I think that there's— when you're working out a trade promotional plan, there's 2 pieces of it. The first side is the promotional price cutting effectively, and that you need to work out on a margin basis. So you need to look at— and again, I have a spreadsheet that I use with, with my clients where it just works out normal margin and then a maintained promotional margin, and you can have a look and see, does that make— still make you money? Because you do need to maintain margin, that's what they're going to be expecting in most cases. So that's the piece on that side, and that really should be self-liquidating, so that should pay for itself. And then on the other side It's— it is a bit of a back of fag packet, and this is why in some ways you could put the bones of what you're going to do, but I wouldn't get into as much detail as he's done here because, you know, that's part of your negotiation. Because if you go and talk— who's on the gig? Morrison's, for example— and say Morrison's come back and go, well, actually, we're going to give you 300 stores. you would be sitting there going, right, 300 stores, this is the rate of sale, this is the value that we're going to sell in the year, we can therefore offer you 10%, and that's where you get to— how you get to your £180,000. If you've got someone like Ocado, and you know, some— anyone who's on here who's done Ocado can shout up if they haven't spent this much, but to get into people's baskets, I think you probably need to invest about £5K. So I usually put onto an Ocado presentation 5K because it's a reasonable credible amount. And then what will happen is as you increase your sales, you're going to put more in. But a general rule of thumb is about 10% of sales. Does that help?

Yes, yeah, it does. It does, yeah, thank you.

But I think, as I say, the objective of this pitch is to get another meeting. So you kind of want a tickle. You want them to to see that you understand their business, see that you're serious, see that you understand the numbers and how much is there, but not to get into the detail, which is why I tend not to put commercials on unless they ask for them. And I think the only person who asked for commercials was Ocado in this gig.

Sorry, Karen.

Yeah.

Oh, sorry, just one more. Just out of curiosity, how long was this pitch in terms of time length?

I think it was 15 or 20 minutes.

Okay, okay, thanks.

Okay, but I have taken some slides out.

Sorry, Karen, just a quick question. You said not to mention commercials, but is it worth teasing them, at least with the front margin, just to give them To make it kind of seem worth their while, or would you not mention margins at all?

I think it will probably come up in one— it might come up in one of their questions. The challenge with margins, and I always use the examples when I was selling Yumi Sushi into, I think it was Spar, and we did a deal and I agreed a cost price, and then they said, now you need to send it to 11 depots, and when we costed it out, it just didn't make money at the price I'd agreed. So you do need to be a little bit careful, and I've been through the same process with Booker recently with Budgens and Londis. You, you need to think about your commercials and your cost price as part of the overall package, because although I said your promotional pricing needs to be part of your kind of overall margin negotiation, you also need to build in that trade piece. So if you're saying, well, I'm going to spend 10% of my sales, that's another 10% off your margin.

Yeah, the media spend.

Yeah, yeah. So it's, it's, for me, the less you can get involved, the better, so long as you look credible and it's interesting. at the moment you're trying to sell the concept, not the details of it. And then this was— this is Chris's end slide. You know, it's useful to have those details up there in terms of your social media. It's reinforcing the branding. It's got a photo so they remember who you are and an email address. Obviously you leave that up and then you try and get their— you need to get their email address as is the priority. But, and yeah, and just to say thanks to Chris who's been really helpful with giving me this and also talking me through it. Oh my goodness, so you've prepared now, you haven't done anything, you've at least got ready. So next piece is practice. As I'm not gonna keep saying it, but you have got only 10 minutes. And practice does make perfect, and it's worth, if you can, presenting it to a friend, present it to a mirror. The more times you can go through it without becoming wooden— so I wouldn't have a script, I'd just have something you can talk to— I think works really well. And then start to think about what are your— what are the difficult questions they might ask you? And what are your answers? Because the sort of the objections— people say that objections are a sign that someone's interested and wants to buy, or a buying signal. So you need to think about— so if it is a question of, well, what margin can you offer us? Or Selfridges usually ask what the cost price is, and you've got it, you can say, well, the cost price will be £3.50, but it will depend on you know, which wholesaler you want us to use, whether you want to do sampling, etc., etc. And don't be afraid to say, I'll come back to you on that, because, you know, I've been in meetings, I've been doing this a long time, and I still get questions where I go, oh, no idea, never even thought you'd ask me that. And that's a good excuse to get their email address.

as well.

And then create a fact book. It's a little bit old-fashioned, but we used to always have a fact book. And basically, that's every bit of information you've ever written about your brand. Maybe your brand plan, maybe your target customer, maybe their target customer, maybe their annual report. Just everything that's relevant to your brand pitching to this retailer so that you've got it at your fingertips just in case. And it's always useful because occasionally you do go, oh, I'll just look that up, although it needs to be accessible because you can't use up your time. So practice makes perfect.

And then on that, you mentioned about cost price and mentioning that. I guess you've got a kind of cost price which includes if they're using a distributor or whatnot, do you normally give the full, um, cost price, or do you just give like the retailer's cost price, which might already take off an allocation for a distributor?

I would go with your retail price and then ask them how they, you know, do they work directly. So for example, some retailers will backhaul, so it's not necessarily a wholesaler, it might be their distribution. So we work with a backhaul system for Ocado where Ocado actually do the deliveries for us for one of my brands.

Okay, yeah, because then you can give them a, a much bigger margin opportunity if they want to buy direct from you.

Potentially, and this is the reason that I honestly say to people, don't put up commercials on a presentation because it's such a variable number. You think it's a defined number, but it's not.

And so does it not matter that it might be different for 10 different retailers that you have? You might have different cost prices for all of them?

No, not until like Getir buys Deeja, or— and then they suddenly realize you've got 2 different cost prices. And I have been through that where if, if one retailer acquires another one, then you go through an interesting negotiation. Which never comes out in your favour.

Yeah, I can imagine. Okay, but I mean, like you're saying, because there are lots of variables in it though, that could very well become the case that you've got different cost price with different—

Yeah, no, absolutely. I think the key thing to remember, and I remember having a conversation with somebody who was working with Holland Barrett and saying, well, we don't make any money, but we'll put our cost prices up when we deal with the next retailer. And I said, it won't, you've got can't do that because it gives that retailer who's got the lowest price the opportunity to bring their retails down because you can't set the retails, they set the retails. And if you give them a cost price which is just ludicrously low and then the next one is too high, it doesn't really work.

Okay.

Pricing is definitely an interesting challenge.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, thanks. Okay, so be prepared, this might be a little bit Boy Scout overkill here, but things that I would take with me. Ideally, another human to manage the time in the background. If there is literally just you, then so be it. I would definitely have a stopwatch which maybe vibrates at the 7-minute mark and the 9-minute mark, or as I say, another human in the room to do the same thing, because you'll get so into your presentation, you'll be so excited, the nerves will have gone, and you'll just be talking, and you'll run out of time, and you don't want to run out of time. You want to make the very best use of those 10 minutes so it looks impressive. Back stuff up. I was at a presentation the other day, their Wi-Fi went down, down actually. So if you've got a phone and a landline, Wi-Fi just in case, extra source of power. Talking of which, I should plug mine in because it's not actually plugged in, it's probably just going to die on me. Maybe even another laptop, depends how reliable everything is that you've got. Print out the presentation, save it on a cloud rather than just on your laptop as well just in case. And then your brand and then your branding. So I did some presentations last year and they were quite surprised that I didn't— I had the products. They were like, oh my gosh, no, we haven't seen any products. Have your products because you can't give them to them because obviously it's virtual. So you can show the products. Have a branded background or your products in the background. I don't particularly like Zoom backgrounds and I'm not even sure we can use those. But something that reinforces it. Wear a branded t-shirt, branded hat, branded banner, I don't know, something that says this is who we are. And then a pen and paper to make notes. I was trained as a buyer and I make copious notes all the time and it's really critical. Yeah, so have someone to take The notes if you possibly can, keep an eye on the time, get their contact details, and make sure that you agree next steps. Relatively straightforward actually on the day. And then, as I say, the last P is persevere. You've obviously, if you've timed it right, you've agreed the next steps. Actually do them. I spoke to somebody the other day and they went, yeah, the buyer wanted me to do this, but I just, yeah, I just, yeah, I haven't got around to it. It made me quite cross actually. I was just like, do it! This is such an amazing opportunity, you know, as I say, the most important 10 minutes of your life. So send the samples, send the follow-up information, arrange a meeting, do what you've agreed to do. And then don't be surprised or devastated or both that you don't hear anything. This can be for lots of reasons. It might be that actually they're not looking to do a review on your category at the moment, so, you know, it's not time yet. It might be the wrong buyer and they've got to pass it on, and then you're chasing that buyer and they've passed it on, so they just keep deleting you, and you just need to keep drip-feeding more information. And do what we did with Costco. I mean, as I say, we met Costco in 2018 and we finally got the listing at the beginning of this year, and we just kept going. And every so often we'd do something, we'd win a Great Taste Award, we'd win the Pie Awards, Dee would be win an award for something or we launched a new product. And it was actually that final launching of the new product which I sent them an email in January and said, oh, you know, happy new year, we're coming in with a new product. And bang, he replied and said, can we have a meet? We're interested. And I was quite surprised, but you know, perseverance pays. So I think you have to be mindful of that. I think the fastest listing I've done is 6 weeks, and as I say, the longest is, is that Costco one, which was 3 years. Okay, thank you for listening. Do you have any questions?

Hi, Karen.

Hi, how you doing?

Very well, thank you.

How are you?

I'm very well, yes. A bit tired. I've been doing an awful lot of talking about print jam in the last week or two.

I just wanted to ask 2 quick questions. If your product is quite sort of innovative and new on the market, any sort of tips regarding market research? And if you haven't really got a competitor to benchmark against, is there another marketplace where your category might be successful? For.

So, you know, is it big in the US? Is it big in Europe? Is there something you can extrapolate from? So that's one way of doing it. I think the other way is to build on consumer trends. So you move away from looking at market data and you look at consumer trends and you say, look, you know, this is nailing consumer trends and it's innovative. And Mr. Retailer, I'd like to offer it to you exclusively. Maybe you might not, but there's that option, that tickle, and if it's a good enough presentation, it's interesting enough, they might, they might be wanting to work with you on that basis. It's hard when you've got no sales, no reviews, no award, no traction, but then You know, you can— might be pushing it in a week, but you could certainly do some online research. You could set up a SurveyMonkey survey amongst, I don't know, 20 of your best friends and get their opinions. That might work. Does that help? I don't— yeah, I just— because obviously we haven't talked about your product, so putting it in context.

Yeah, no, I will make contact with you after Yeah, give me a shout.

I mean, the details are there in terms of my email address. I am doing a few— I don't have a lot of space this year, unfortunately, but I am doing a couple of power hours. So if you want to come and do a specific hour with me and we can craft the pitch, I'm quite happy to do that. We're launching Pitch Perfect course, which takes you right through from the start through to pitching and finding buyers. Because I don't know about most of you, but certainly most of my clients, yes, we've had some success, but we didn't get Selfridges or we didn't get this. And we will then be sweeping that up and starting to approach buyers in a different way. So the course is quite interesting. I'm also doing a free webinar on Friday, which is looking at how to approach buyers if you haven't got the buyer of your dreams and how to approach that. So I'm sure we can send out— I couldn't put it all down on one slide, so, but if you're interested in any of that, just drop me an email and I'll send you the details and the link, and it's on my LinkedIn as well. Oh, and LinkedIn, link in with me as well, please. I think most of you are actually. I haven't seen everyone on here, but most people know who I am, so.

Hey, Karen, just a question as well. I guess similar to that one. So for a brand, so I'm not actually launching until March next year, Is there any kind of different way that I, or different things I should be saying because of that? Or kind of follow what you've talked through?

I think in some ways it's easier to do it when you're still in the planning stage because you can be a bit more creative. I think it depends on who you're presenting to.

Yeah.

So if it's somebody like Selfridges, they are much more used to fledgling brands. If you're suddenly presenting to Tesco, it's a bit more complicated. But then because they're—

I'm presenting to Gorillas actually.

Okay, so they're a little bit of an unknown quantity, but they're certainly looking for smaller brands.

Yeah.

So you won't— you don't need to be sort of crazy with the, yeah, I've got the capacity, you know, I've got enough to produce 2 million a week or something, because their business is going to be much smaller. But for them, I think it's about partnering, both being, you know, on the start of a journey and partnering together.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, cool.

I think that would work quite well. Hi.

Hi Karen, it's Susie. I just wanted to follow up on that actually, just as you talked about the QCOM retailers, but based on the fact that they are at the start of a journey, as you say, kind of new wave of retailers, yeah, do you think we need a different approach for them? Even insofar as, do we need to be presenting the big category opportunity like we would for the likes of a Tesco and a Morrisons, or is this much more about, hey, we've got a great product that resonates with customers and your customers are going to want it when they want their last-minute short purchase?

I think what you've got to remember is that the majority of the QCOMs have taken buyers from elsewhere. So Getir, for example, is that his Sorry, their head of buying is a guy called Neil Franklin who's come from Tesco.

Right.

And I can't remember who's taken the 2 buyers from Whole Foods, but the 2 main buyers from Whole Foods who we used to talk to are now at— and Jason might know the answer to this, I can't remember which one it is, I've got muddled up— but so you're talking to buyers who are experienced in the field.

Who are trained, yeah, okay.

So yes, you can say, you know, we want to get to work together, but These guys, you know, there's multi-multi-millions invested in them. So although they look like a little startup around the corner, if you go onto LinkedIn and you just have a look at the article I wrote, it's about two weeks ago.

Lovely.

It's got a little bit of detail about the top five or six of them. And yeah, I mean, GoPuff, who've just bought Deja, and I think they've just renamed. It's like billions, yeah, millions of pounds. It's quite, yeah, it's probably bigger than Tesco, God forbid.

No, thank you.

And I just had another quick question. Do you think it's appropriate that a colleague joins for the presentation, or is it better to just be individually at the pitch presenting? I know you mentioned have somebody take notes. Are they kind of doing it on the sly in the background, not known to the audience, or do people rock up? What do you think?

It's entirely up to you. If you want 2 people on there, I don't think it's a problem. Make sure you can see them. I did a presentation the other night as an investor pitch and we could only see one of the 2 of them. At the end of it, I was like, oh God, we can't see both of you. And yes, absolutely, but don't waste too much time introducing. But you could say, you know, I've brought Karen along today and she's our commercial person and she's going to be taking notes and keeping me on time. So you can say that very quickly. You don't necessarily in a pitch like this want the 2 of you presenting unless there's a reason for it. I think one person, one pitch, because it's so brief.

Yeah.

Yeah, thank you.

Hi, Karen.

Hi, how you doing?

Yeah, thanks for, thanks for the presentation. I just have 2 quick questions. So, um, similar to Sophia's before, so we're also kind of a very new startup and new in the category. And so what's the kind of proposed kind of CTA that you would put on the last slide or something if you were to say that the samples, for example, can only arrive in 4 weeks So they're not readily available, but we're kind of kicking off production just like any week now. So what would you say is a kind of nice, you know, last kind of CTA for the buyer that keeps them kind of hooked in the game?

I think honesty is the best policy. You know, if you're a fledgling brand and you are, you know, there's a couple of people on here who wouldn't be able to manufacture until they get a pretty major listing because of the MOQ.

queues. Yeah.

So therefore you say, you know, we've got samples coming in 4 weeks' time, I'd really like to send you some samples and have a follow-up meeting once you've had those. So can we diarise meeting? Or the other thing you could do, which is really useful, in fact I would say for all of you, is ask them when their next range review is. Now for some of them, like Selfridges, Adrian Boswell will say there isn't one. I'm going to launch it, you know, you give it to me, I'll launch it. But it's quite useful information because actually if somebody says, well, that's actually— we're not launching until April next year, what you then need to ask is, well, when's the review date? They might be doing the review in next March, but they're going to review it, say, in November. So you need to be getting in for that. So if you can say to them, you know, we'll have samples ready in about 4 weeks, how does that sit with your timescales for talking about this going forward?

So that would be kind of what you would say on the last slide, right? And then they ask questions.

Yeah, you can do, or you can weave it in.

Oh, we've got some space, Karen, we have some space.

We all mute each other unless you're having a chat. Thank you. Yes, I think I would— I put a call to action on the last slide? Probably not, actually. I think I would probably just say, do you have any questions?

But like, as a kind of verbal sort of like last word, like follow-up, and then what would you kind of expect to have as questions in there if they're really interested? Or they're kind of—

They're going to be— the challenge that the buyer has with any new product that's got no traction is the risk. So buying from you is a risk, and they're obviously not going to buy from you until they've got, you know, proof of concept and all the rest of it. But I think what you're And all of this is relevant to all of you. What you're trying to do is, yes, get a call to action, but you're also starting to reduce their risk, their resistance to buy. Because if they buy from you, they're gonna have to take something else off the shelf in 95% of cases. Even Ocado now, who've got a big range, haven't got enough space.

Would you say that, for example, because I mean, for investor pitches, you usually also put your kind of degree and university background and, for example, former work experience? Do you think that kind of decreases the risk a little bit so they know that you have expertise in that field?

Not really. I don't think they care.

Okay.

We did put it in the pitch that I mentioned that we were— she was a very small business and we won the— we got a listing on Sainsbury's Future Brands. We did have a team one for that. And if you— it could be relevant if you want to demonstrate that you've got gravitas. So say there's you and maybe a marketeer and, you know, some support, maybe an ambassador, or you've got funding. That might be helpful if it's— especially if you're trying to break into a category that's quite new.

Yeah, that's what I thought. Yeah, because you also mentioned before that you can put in like if you won like certain accelerators, for example, or been finalists, so you would put that on the last slide?

Yeah, you could do, so long as it doesn't become too much about you, because at the end of the day what it's about is about them. What are you going to do for them? That's where I get uncomfortable when I see team slides. Okay, thank you. I'm quite happy to have a chat with you separately if you want to dig into it because yours is a little bit more— I was going to say more interesting, but it's a bit different to the straightforward pitches that we've done here where most people who are on here will have some traction already.

Yeah, that's why I'm a bit concerned on how to—

Well, you've got interest. Who are you presenting to?

Holland and Barrett.

Okay, that's a good one. They're pretty open to newness.

I just heard that they have very specific margins.

They do have very specific margins, bless them.

Okay. Can I just add on that point? I share those concerns. I'm pitching to Ocado, and in my naivety on the pitch application, they'd actually written about commercials and I just completely didn't know what that meant. I think I took it quite literally for commercials, so I didn't really answer that. And now I'm dreading thinking that's going to be the first question put to me by the buyer regarding commercials and margins, etc. So any tips you can give on that, Karen, would be hugely appreciated.

I think, I think you've got to— with Ocado, you've really got to build the Ocado business plan. And you've got to say, to do well, the whole point of Ocado is getting in the basket and getting in the favourites, because if you get in the favourites, you'll get repurchased. And to do that, you need to invest in marketing. And what I've always done is, you know, people say, well, you know, I'll invest £5,000, for example, but if you're say they're only going to sell 10,000, that doesn't make you any money. So you've got to balance out. And also the other thing, I've sold to Ocado a couple of times and been unsuccessful because we've been too expensive actually from a retail point of view, retail price. So again, go on the website, look at the competition if you have competition. And even if you are a completely unique category, there is still a share of stomach. So, you know, sushi, sandwich, it's the same stomach, it's the same meal occasion. And think about what would be the retail price that you're going in at, and therefore, you know, are they looking for about 40% margin, which is generally what they're looking for. Some categories are slightly different, but it's the same. And then say, you know, it's part of a package. This is one my standard spiel, you know, ideally we're looking to give you 40% margin, but we also want to really want to invest in the brand. Or you can, you can do what negotiation trainers do and what we talk about on my course. And the trained negotiator avoids being first, which you've done, you've avoided it, you have not given them the commercials.

Yeah.

So, so, so, you know, what you could do is you could turn it on its head and say, what do you expect? Or what, what would you be looking for? Actually, not what would you expect, what would you be looking for? And see if the buyer answers and let me know for future reference.

Yeah, Karen, just on that point of cost, I was just looking on to check costs. I mean, my product is like twice as expensive as any of their bottled waters that they currently stock there.

Right.

And just, I guess, the way to go into that, obviously I've got a margin that I can offer them. I'm sure I can offer them 40%, but yeah, my, my RRP is actually over double more than anything they're currently stocking.

Who are you presenting to?

Gorillas.

Oh yeah, sorry. Um, you're just gonna have to go with it and see what, see what they say. And, and with a very high price item, you have to justify it by the fact that your marketing is premium. You know, you wouldn't expect to pay £30 for a Mulberry handbag, but you might do if you went into Primark. And it's the same for you, you know, you're saying, look, you know, this is a premium brand and it's— and these are the reasons that we can charge this. And Gorillas, this is going to increase your overall category because you might sell a few less, but actually they're going to— the overall average selling price of your category is going to go up because our retail price is so high.

Yeah.

So long as it's not nuts. Now double the price is a little bit nuts, but you know, it's— I honestly don't know, and without having a look at it in detail. And again, it's all about— it's a negotiation and a discussion.

Yeah, cool. Okay, thank you.

You're welcome. Any other—

Hi, Karen, can I ask a question?

Yeah, of course you can.

So I'll be pitching our overnight oats to Gorillas, Ocado, and Harrods, and you've talked about Ocado.

Yeah.

Great, but it's quite new for me, and I'm not kind of entirely sure how much margin they'll want to take, and I wondered if there's a way to like ask them. And you did say that we could say like, what are you expecting, or what are you looking for, but would you recommend like asking them kind of that upfront in the pitch or just trying to find that out like beforehand?

Forewarned is forearmed, and if you can network with people, you know, on things like Food Hub, people are really great, they might give you an idea of what they're looking for. But at the end of the day, I mean, if you talk to someone like Selfridges, for example, he will only ever ask for a cost price. And, you know, you'll say— because I've asked Adrian Boswell before, what margins are you looking for? He says, I don't want to talk about margins, I want to talk about cost price. What's your best cost price? That's what he always looks for.

Okay.

And that's absolutely correct, because when you get into the bigger retailers and you look at the Grocery Suppliers Code of Practice, you are not responsible for the retail price, they are. And therefore talking about margins is actually in violation of that practice. And it's a kind of slightly weird scenario. We all talk about margins, but actually what we really should be talking about is cost price. So yeah, ask around is my advice.

Okay, do you have any like idea of what kind of margin Harrods or Gorillas might be looking for?

Harrods are probably more premium, so they may well be going up to 50. Gorillas, I don't know. I mean, their costs are higher, so they might be looking for more margin. They're a bit of an unknown quantity, I think, for most of us. I think when I posted the article on LinkedIn, I did put it on the Food Hub, and I think somebody came back and said they're in Weezy, so it might be worth putting Weezy in the search on the Food Hub and getting in touch. I honestly can't remember who it was, but he said he was having a really good experience with them, so he might give you an idea on margarine.

Okay, cool, that's great. And just on the matrix that you shared—

Yeah, I'm just reading that the question that you put in the chat.

I just thought maybe logos would be more recognizable at a quick glance.

You can use logos. I often build a gap. I've just done one for Costco where I actually cut and paste the brand photographs, actually the product, a product photograph. But yes, you can use logos. I think the reason Better Nature used the plain text is that the tofu didn't stand out very much. Yeah, but yeah, I think logos look better. I think it's easier to look at.

I just got one more quick question. If a retailer asks like, how much is the category growing? And like, I'm struggling to find the exact figure for the breakfast category. All I can find is like data from like 2014 to '18. Yeah, I know it's a very specific question, but like, would you just say this is what I have been able to find and just be honest?

I think I would be honest and say that there isn't category data available. You don't have category— it's a new category, overnight oats. And I would look at— there's quite a good grocer report on breakfast that's probably worth having a look at. And just quote things like, you know, and we know that there's a lot more breakfasts have been eaten through the pandemic, people are going back to work with food on the go. There is, it's going to be a growth category, it is a growth opportunity. And then also, you know, weave in, you're plant-based as well, aren't you?

Yeah.

So weave in the plant-based piece as well. And do you want to make— you could extrapolate the market size if you wanted to, but, you know, it's still new.

Yeah.

So, I, you know, don't be afraid to say you don't know. You just say, you know, you either say, I'll come back to you, or I've really looked for the data, don't have any at this stage, but this is where it was in 2014. Or what you can do, and what I've done in the past, relate it back. So if you've got data for overnight oats for 2018 and you've also got, I don't know, cereal from 2018, can you extrapolate the two? So if overnight oats was 10 million and Crunchy Nut Cornflakes was 100 million, then you're 1 to 10, and now Crunchy Nuts are doubled again, could you double again? Does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah, you can try and do that. Yeah, that's really helpful. Thank you so much.

It's a pleasure. Any more for any more?

Yes, Karen, it's me. I'm Karen too.

Hi.

Hi, just a quick question in terms of the matrix, actually, and just touching base on the comment that one of the people that are actually present to just make a question. The retailer Planet— I'm basically pitching to Planet Organic. My product, it only has— I only have one competitor which actually retails in Planet Organic. So I don't want to come across as like really targeting the competitor to really compare myself to them. I don't know. I'm just be like, how can I do— as I only have one, it will look like I'm just going for them. So it's like, how do you recommend me then to do the metrics in a way that it comes kind of— or should I not make it? Or I don't know, like—

What category are you in?

Breakfast.

Okay, so there's lots more than one competitor for you.

Also, but it's also kind of low carb and keto, so it's really specific.

Yeah, so, but in terms of the breakfast marketplace, you can say, you know, go into Planet Organic and see what breakfast they've got. Okay, so you've got high sugar breakfast cereals, you've got low sugar breakfast cereals, you've got a keto. Yes, you can. If you remember how the Bretta Nature guy does it, so he puts all of, all of the, all of the vegany things over there. There is only one tempeh if you notice. he doesn't talk— there's no other tempehs on his spreadsheet. Other tempehs are available incidentally, but he's not put them on because they're not listed in that retailer and he doesn't really want to point out, look, there's another one over there that you could have instead of me. But what he's done is he's broadened out the category. So what you need to do is take another step back from the category. Instead of going keto breakfast cereals or breakfast things, you either go keto Or you go breakfast and you say, look, Planet Organic, you've got these things. What you really need is, is another keto one.

Got it.

Or honestly, you don't have to have a gap analysis. You don't have to have a matrix. Okay, you know, it is— you will not be shot or, or drummed off. Jason won't cut you off if you don't put on the gap analysis slide, on slide 4. It's just a pictorial way of representing. Another great one to do, which we did with Rebelicious, was a matrix which was tick boxes, and we put a list of all the different— so Rebelicious is a CBD drink, and we put all— and we're pitching to Sainsbury's— so we put all the other CBD drinks that are listed in Sainsbury's, because she actually said to me, she said, why on earth are they going to take me? And I said, right, well, let's have a think about— let's answer that question. So we listed out all the other drinks and we, you know, they've got Trip and I can't remember all the other ones, but you know, some big brands in there.

Yeah.

But actually, when we went through it, her— the natural flavours, the, the, the types of flavouring, I can't I can't remember, but there was about 6 or 7 different criteria and you pick the criteria to fit. You know, if you've got no social media followers, don't put social media as one of your gigs. If you've got 18,000, happy days, put that one at the top.

Got it. Okay, no, no, perfect.

Be creative.

Yeah, no, sounds good. Thank you so much.

It's a pleasure.

Okay, I can only see 6 of you, so if anyone's got hands up, please shout. No? Everybody done?

Actually, I have one more question regarding— is there like, I mean, obviously every presentation is individual, but would you say there's like a, you know, a kind of standardized, these are the slides that you should always kind of have? I mean, in terms of titles or like certain asks, especially for very new brands?

I think generally what I've tried to do in this presentation is give you the basic skeleton slides. I think the emphasis Obviously will change. So for example, for you, the traction slide, i.e., we're in 2,000 stores or 2,000 distribution points, is not relevant to you. So your traction would probably be a couple more about the category, the trends, what your product's doing, and your future plans.

So you would include kind of a vision slide or where you see Yeah, absolutely.

Years, you need to take them on the journey.

Okay, okay.

Um, yeah, and that's an interesting point actually about the next 2 or 3 years. You might not want to get super into— I was talking about this again today with somebody. Um, if you've got 1 or 2 products, but actually And they go, oh, okay, so, you know, you've got 2 recipes or 3 recipes. You could say, well, you know, we, we want to own this space, whatever that space is, and over the next couple of years we're going to be launching this and this. So they can see your vision and they can see how you might be going to grow that overall category. Okay, okay, thank you. Yes, I think you need to do a power hour with me. I'm not, I'm not overselling because I haven't got much time.

Oh, thank you.

It might help you. Okay, I think we are about done. I know we're over an hour, that's for sure. So I shall come out. Have the bread and jam people gone home?

No, I'm here.

Hi, Tara. I was looking for you, actually. I was like, where's Tara?

Well, we'll send round details about your course and your email address to everyone.

No problem.

I think we have details actually, no, yeah, everyone here has details of that.

Yeah, no, I think you've more than shared who I am with people, but as I say, if anyone wants to come along, have a chat, happy to help, and yeah, good luck with it. It's just, it is really exciting. And don't forget, for those values you didn't get, we will do the webinar and we'll send you those details as well. And good luck. All right, good luck everyone. Or shall I— I'm going to close here, Karen, is that all right? Okay, yeah, absolutely. Thank you very much everyone.

Thanks, Karen.

And see you tomorrow, 9 AM. Yes, absolutely.

Bye.

Thank you, Karen.

Thanks, Karen.