Take Your Amazon Brand to Retail (Here's How to Do it)

83% [music] of US retail spending still happens in physical stores. Every consumer that spends $100, they spend roughly 83 of those dollars in physical retail. >> Almost 99% of brands on Amazon are all micro brands. What would be the perfect timing for them to even consider going into retail? >> When you're running business online, you're selling one unit at a time and there's a much higher cost to doing that. But when you get into an offline situation into a retailer, [music] you're no longer selling one unit at a time. You're selling in case packs. And those case packs create volumes for a company. And those volumes transition [music] into cost savings. Everyone says, "Well, how do I get into Target or how do I get into Costco?" But they don't understand that there's specific requirements that [music] are needed for each channel of distribution and each retailer. And they have to understand how to craft their message and their communication so that the buyer understands that they're actually ready. You're watching the marketing misfits with Norm Ferrar and Kevin [music] KK. We're back. We're back. Back in the saddle again. It's another Tuesday. It's another episode. Norm, what do you think about that? >> I'm so excited. >> You're so excited. You should be excited. >> We've got a great guest today. >> We do have a great guest today. Uh Cory Minkus. I mean um [music] but you know everything right now is we come from the world of ecom primarily primarily Amazon is where we cut our teeth but you and I have done other ecom outside of Amazon it's not just Amazon and AI is a hot topic right now but you know what's something that is old school it's been happening for hundreds of years if not thousands of years actually thousands of years and hasn't gone away and that's going to a store and buying something and going [music] going and retail is still a huge huge industry. It's way bigger than e-commerce actually. Um, and if you take out gas and I I forget the exact number, but I think you remove gas and something else out of the the figure, retail is still about 80% or so of all all sales. And people still go into stores and still people still go buy stuff. And there's companies that's all they do. They don't they don't go on Amazon. They don't have a Shopify site. They might have a standard little site, but their whole business model [music] is retail. And then on the flip side, you and I work with a lot of people that want to get into retail and they're like they've done well on Amazon. They've kind of proven that they've got a product that this sells and they're like, "What's my next step? Oh, let me go into retail." And a lot of them try and they fall flat on their face. It's hilarious how this is working out, Kev, because, you know, the people that are on Amazon don't realize that world outside of Amazon, and the people that are, you know, rocking it [music] uh in um in retail, a lot of them don't realize what they can do in ecom. It's it's really interesting to talk to these people. >> Yeah, it's it's a different mindset. It's a different way of thinking when you get into retail. And it takes a different [music] different business foundation, different system, different structure. And that's what our guest today, she she runs a rock your product. And that's exactly what she does is uh she helps people rock their product when it comes to retail. And she's been doing this for decades uh I think uh with uh Costco and CVS and a whole slew of other big retailers. And she's got a system. >> Well, let's get her to rock the podcast. Let's That's awesome. Let's do it. >> All right. What happened? >> Don't hit the red one. That's the green one. There you go. You got it. >> Just went completely black. [laughter] >> How you doing, Cory? >> Nice to meet you and have you on. Thanks. Uh, thanks for coming on. >> Thank you to you both for having me. I'm excited to be here and you guys have a great [music] system to educate brands and I'm excited to be part of it. So, thank you for inviting me. >> I met you, Corey, at an Amazon event. [music] >> We did. >> I met We met in the hallway. I think someone introduced us and and and you were at an Amazon event, which is not a retail event. Um, [music] so were you there to like recruit retail [music] people to retail or you there to like just see what's going on in the e-commerce world or what's what was the crossover? >> So, so a little bit of both, Kevin. Good question though. Good question. >> [music] >> So, where most of my client referrals have come through from over the last decade is through uh e-commerce partners [music] like yourself and other types of e-commerce-based organizations that are working with brands to evolve them on the online world and then they get to the point which you mentioned early on in your in in your intro that they get to a point where they say, "Okay, what's next?" And so, Rock Your Product has been that what's next for a lot of these partners over the years. So, we actually met at Prosper in Las Vegas. I think it was in March of this year. I was speaking at their event, specifically two brands to help them understand how to get to that next step. And so, that's that's when we met. >> So, what is it about why retail? Why should an e-commerce brand that someone that's mostly who listens to this they're doing something e-commerce uh whether it's Amazon, Shopify or something. Why should they even consider going retail? Not not forget [clears throat] all the requirements of going retail. Why should they even consider it? >> Sure. Yeah. And I think you brought up an excellent point at the beginning of this that 83% of US retail spending still happens in physical stores. So despite all the excitement of e-commerce, you mentioned AI of course is such a a significant part of what we all do today, but really what this translates into is that every consumer that spends $100, they spend roughly $83 of those dollars in physical retail store locations. Which means if you back out to $17 of that hundred is being spent online, most founders are competing for that $17. But what gets brands super excited is understanding that there's a bigger piece of the pie that they can play in. So, don't get me wrong, we are strong believers in the power of e-commerce and we believe that every brand should master Amazon and Tik Tok and Shopify and Walmart.com so that they understand how to take the success that they're having there into a retail environment and makes them more viable. But we help brands understand how to take that validation and that proof that they've created online, the demand, the communities they've built, the reviews that they've generated, and how to take that and leverage it into a larger platform, which is retail. >> So most >> Oh, go ahead, please. No, please. >> No, I was going to say that most brands on almost 99% of brands on Amazon are all micro brands. And so what would be the perfect timing for them to even consider going into retail? Because a lot of them are just not ready, wouldn't be able to even exist on retail because they're not even a a brand. Even when you're in retail, you could be a micro brand. But uh what would be that dollar price point or when could you they consider coming over and getting into retail? >> Yeah. So, there's so many things I can answer about that. [laughter and gasps] So, there's so many opportunities for brands to get into retail. And one of the big misnomers that we could talk about is, you know, do I need to be a viral brand to be ready for retail? Do I need to be at a certain number? The biggest opportunity that people should consider when they're looking at is it is it my time is are they actually personally ready to take their company into that channel of distribution? It's really more important that the operator of the brand understand [clears throat] that there's huge opportunities to capitalize on for their brand. And it is a matter of learning the retail operating system to grow your business. So, it's not about a number or about how many units you've sold or about how successful you've been online that necessarily translates to retail success. But one of the biggest um misconceptions that people have is that they need to be in a certain place with their product to be successful in transitioning. And we've taken brands from pre-revenue all the way up to brands that are doing, you know, 7 8 n figures into retail. So there's no right place. It really comes down to the operator deciding that this is something that they want to do. um we can't twist their arm to get them to do that, but we certainly know that once they understand that there's massive growth potential for them that they start to ask those questions, but there are other important things as well that come up for brands norm that make them feel like that transition is something they want to look at. And and some of those things really come down to making sure that they're not taking as much risk in being one channel of distribution or feeling like they want to have more control, more margin. They want to have partners helping them sell their product. They don't want to be selling it all by themsel anymore. And so by expanding out and bringing in strategic partnerships in their business, it really allows them to quickly start to scale beyond the magnitude of what they've been able to create in an online environment. So there's there's many facets to to creating that opportunity of who is right to make that transition. [clears throat] Hey, Norm. I've got a quick question for you. I'm trying to manage all my affiliate and creator programs from Amazon, from Shopify, from Walmart, but it's just a freaking mess. I mean, I've got reporting coming from here and there, all these different Slack messages. Do you know if there's like a unified dashboard where I can do this all in one place? >> Yeah, absolutely. And you're right, it is a mess. A lot of brands are complaining about that. But there is a place that has a solution. It's called Lavanta. And they let brands recruit partners, track performance, manage payouts, send product samples, and even run creator programs across every major marketplace all in one place. And guess what? Brands can spend less time on tools and more time making profit. Is that the one that you sent me a link for like a 10% off coupon their gold or enterprise plan a few few days ago? >> You got it. >> Oh, cool, man. I think I've got that link here. Was it lavanta.ioisfits? >> Yep, you got it. >> le van na.iomisfits. >> Awesome. I'm going to go uh go hit him up right now and get that 10% off. >> Perfect. Me, too. Well, I watch Shark Tank. Uh, and I think Norm watches, uh, what's it called? Something's Den. >> Dragon's Den in Canada. But, uh, you see them on sometimes on there. And maybe this is what's causing some of the myth of what people have and the psychology of going into retail is that some there would be some entrepreneur presenting and like you got this is a problem. They're like, uh, our goal is we need your money because we we're going to go into retail. We need to expand. And inevitably someone on the panel is like absolutely don't don't go into retail. Stay what you're doing. Maintain those margins, those customer relationships and you're don't go into retail. And maybe that's cuz they're not ready. Maybe that's because they just think the opport there's no opportunity there. I don't know. But I think that causes some of the misconceptions. So why would someone say that don't go into retail? >> I don't know that I could even respond to that. [laughter] Uh let's see. Well, let's talk about it. Okay, there are reasons, right? If a brand really isn't ready to go into retail and they don't have a mindset that they want to expand, then then don't go for it. >> It's a margin issue was what what they usually are referring to. It's like, >> okay, >> why why you're doing well on social media, why would you with a 70% crazy margin, why would you go into retail where you're going to have a 10 or 15% margin and all these other headaches. So, I think that's the mentality. >> Margin that that's a key. >> Yeah. Or they don't have enough margin baked in to actually put a middleman in there, >> right? So that's part of our operating system is helping brands understand how to be ready for retail. But before we get there, I guess I want to address your question, Kevin. So, and Norm, I'm sorry I didn't hear what you said about the margin. >> Oh, I said sometimes uh it's not ready for retail because the margins are too thin, >> right? So that's part of being ready for retail, right? So that's under the operating system. But for somebody to say that so actually when you start to pull the numbers and we've done this math numerous amounts of time actually in many cases the scale that you can create at retail is a more optimized and larger margin capacity for companies than running business online. When you're running business online you're selling one unit at a time. And there's a much higher cost to doing that. whether it's shipping, whether it's marketing, whether it's conversion, whether it's optimization, whether it's just maintaining all of the systems online to be able to do that. But when you get into an offline situation into a retailer, you're no longer selling one unit at a time. You're selling in case packs. And those case packs create volumes for company. And those volumes transition transition into cost savings. But certainly the whole goal when you get into retail is to create optimized volumes. But the the net of your question though really is that once you start running the numbers and the math that actually it becomes more profitable in retail when you start to optimize the systems then you can actually create margin online. So it sometimes it's misunderstanding um you know certainly it could be bad price points that you know brands have set their uh their their nets or their retails at the wrong price points to begin. Sometimes brands set their retails at what they think a consumer would buy it at versus understanding the marketplace. And so oftent times that's the first place we start with brands is to better understand the math of their business because oftent times they have misrepresented what their business could could achieve from a capacity standpoint based on their own perception of their product online and not looking at the bigger picture of the category that it plays in in the offline world. So you use the term brand ready. A lot of people don't know what that means. Can you go through the word or the term brand ready and what does that mean? >> Sure. Absolutely. So, when we designed the [snorts] the five-step retail operating system that we designed and we've been operating under for about a decade here at Rock Your Product, we help brands understand how to position for success online and offline, how to prove success, how to prepare, how to pitch, and how to prosper. And so, really, we create this five-step system that helps them to be ready in every facet of their business. And I'll just take you through like a real top line of that. And then if you have any questions, we can get into that. But positioning is really owning where you win. And this kind of relates back into that price point conversation, which is once you can define your competitive advantages and your shelf authority, which is different than necessarily what you're what you're doing online. That means learning the categories, understanding the performance-based space environment that you're playing in. When you can start to really define that and understand the attributes of the differentiators, then you can really create strong um a case study for why your position is going to win in that category with that product. And so that's really where we start. And there's many layers within that, but that's the general basis of where we start to dive in. And then once we get there, we start to demonstrate demand. Now certainly it helps to be able to demonstrate demand if we've created that demand online. And oftent times brands that come to rock your product are doing six or seven figures online, even up to eight figures. And then they take that and we leverage that to be able to bring that into the offline sales environment. But sometimes there's brands that go into retail that have no online proof. As you mentioned early on, there's brands that don't even don't even have Amazon. So sometimes we help them to structure up what those opportunities are online. But we also help them to be ready by either testing and evaluating retail ready packaging, understanding all of the operational components that need to to be demonstrated in order to again dist de demonstrate that you can support the demand that comes at retail. So there's many different kinds of um uh you know preparing for velocity and traction um to create that undeniable proof and then preparing those brands. We call it fortifying the foundation of the brand so that they can then be prepared and confident to talk to buyers and talk to strategic partners about their business. One of the biggest things in preparing for growth is actually a different level of understanding of your own business than you think that you have today. A lot of people are very focused on online sales and, you know, their ad spend and making sure that they're hiring the right organizations to optimize their creative and their outreach and their right um influencers and all those things that go along with it. So, it's really learning a whole different language offline than what we've created online. And that's very important in preparing for those conversations so that they have the confidence to to communicate that to the partners that they're working with. And then two more things which is pitching and being being totally retail ready. So aligning packaging, pricing, inventory, um promotions, um your your your your pitch deck and each of the intricacies that go into that to be able to communicate the readiness through your pitch to those partners. and then prosper, just understanding scale and the mastery of scale. So driving sell through and understanding um how to strengthen your margins as you grow your business and building long-term partnerships. So there's all kinds of different steps in the process that we do to take them to that place to really be ready in that environment. >> So why then do most brands fail? Is it because they don't have the right system and mindset when they go to retail uh or the right guidance of a company like RP or is it are they trying to wing it and they just don't understand it or they approaching it wrong? Why why do most brands that say that yeah I tried that and it it just didn't work. >> So most people fail because they really don't understand the sequence of events that they need to invest in in their business to grow into retail. And it's um retailers really look for um preparation by brands and there's indicators, there's there's systems, there's metrics, there's language, there's a presence. One of the reasons that Rock Your Product brands have been successful is because not only do we have a whole network of buyers and reps and distributors that we work with when they're ready, but when we go to those partners, they see the signs and the cues that that brand is really ready. And that's really the preparedness that needs to go into stepping into that instance. I mean, Kevin, you're bringing up, you know, the exact reason to work with a company like Rock Your Product because we are a team of experts that understands the CPG industry and we understand retail and how to create that transition. It's all of these little intricacies and levers. And I mean, we certainly can get into some of the weeds of the things that buyers are looking for or how to transition some of that. But one of the biggest mistakes that brands make moving from direct to consumer to retail is that they chase retail before they've really built a retail ready system. So, everyone says, "Well, how do I get into Target or how do I get into Costco?" But they don't understand that there's specific requirements that are needed for each channel of distribution and each retailer. And they have to understand how to craft their message and their communication so that the buyer understands that they're actually ready. And some of it is simply uh foundational things like packaging and pricing and communication and positioning and helping communicate that confidence to that buyer who in many cases doesn't even, you know, they could have just moved into that position because buyers change all the time. And for you to be able to demonstrate to them your understanding of the category and how your product can be a differentiator in that product category is extremely important to convincing them to give you a shot. Now, I'm not going to tell you that every buyer is going to say yes just because you have a system in place. There are times we get no, right? There's I mean that's just part of the the growth process within retail. And that's the hard part of retail is that unlike e-commerce, you don't really have to hear consumers say no. they just don't buy. But in retail, you actually have to go face people and you have to face that rejection to get to that success. But there are very specific key things that we do that we institute within organizations to create successful outcomes for them to be in a position that when they get in front of a buyer that they have more likelihood of conversion than less. So, I mean that's >> buyers though turn over about every someone told me once that the average turnover is about 6 months for a buyer. So, you're constantly having to I don't know if that's true or not, but you're constantly having to get new relationships. So, if you try it one time, come back again 6 months later. And then also, you have to remember that these buyers, if they take your product into the store and it doesn't work, that's on they get, you know, that doesn't look good on their record either. So they they they have their egos involved just like you have your ego as the manufacturer involved and they got to make sure that if you're going to displace something that's on that shelf, you better out they got to believe that you're going to outsell whatever they're displacing. Uh so how do you how do you address that? >> So I want to address what you said which is confidence. So people buy people business to business is about people to people. And so the most important investment that we make in brands is helping them understand that them exuding confidence in their ability to deliver inventory on time to maintain pricing and and not in infect's price point from an online perspective and protect them. Understanding the accuracy and forecasting all the things that you just talked about, right? Supporting promotions and understanding replenishment and how to protect their business. So really understanding what is important to that buyer or that organization is a huge part of retailers identifying that a brand is ready to go. And so it's very important that we help brands build that confidence. And we don't just work with founders, but we work with their teams as well to make sure that as they're going from an e-commerce brand into a retail brand, that they understand what the metrics are that they need to be presenting to be accurate to make sure that those buyers feel overly confident that they're investing in a relationship that's going to be meaningful to them long term. So, no doubt retail is absolutely about building relationships. And part of building relationships just like you would in your own life outside of the podcast and outside of our work lives is that we have to build relationship with people and that foundation comes from confidence. So you build respect, you build understanding, you build um instinct, you build [clears throat] um a sense of um of you know camaraderie and all those things that go into building those relationships. And that's why it's so important when you start transitioning offline to I'm sorry, when you transition from online to offline that you understand the entire ecosystem of how you can impact, how you can interact with buyers, how you can show up as leaders in your space, how you can be the brand um uh how you can be the brand um advocate in such a positive way that people come to to look for you I mean the idea is that you create a brand that people have FOMO to not be around and so then buyers start to seek you out and they want to be part of your brand because they see you being a leader in your industry. And it doesn't mean you have to be a viral business to do that. There's so many different ways to impact the retail business by getting in front of people and showing and demonstrating that you speak their language, that you understand the business, that you understand the category, and that you not only have a compelling product, but you can create a business that that buyer can depend on, that you can be that confident business to deliver success for them in that space. As you mentioned, they have to remove a product potentially to put your product in that space. So they have to have confidence in the fact that you're going to be able to deliver on the demand that they expect from that space on their shelf to be able to get the rewards that everybody's looking for, which is the return on the investment that they're making. >> You know, uh my my family's been in manufacturing contact contract manufacturing in retail for about 70 years. And it's crazy especially on the contract manu manufacturing side. you see the I I guess you could just say naive uh owners of these brands, these non-brands, the the poor quality logos, the poor quality package uh packaging that they might be okay for Amazon but is not retail ready at all or they don't know what a catalog is. And if they do present a catalog, what they have is it's an all about me catalog, nothing that the buyer wants to see. And once you once you get that I mean that is a a good step within that communication process um you know when you see exactly what the buyer wants to see and not about what you think they want to see and that's all about you which is wrong. And then the other simple thing that uh it astonishes me about how people will fight like hell to try to get into a buyer. Get into the buyer with a really bad email. uh they respond and then they take a week to get back to them. It's it's crazy. >> Yeah. No sense of urgency. >> No. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. And I think you know one of the interesting misnomers is that you know um first of all you know one of the things that we work on is helping brands or let me put it this way helping product based businesses understand what it means to be a brand. So that's one of the important things that we work through because a lot of e-commerce businesses are really product based businesses and they don't understand really how to become a brand. But retailers need brands and product just as much as brands and product need retail. And this is where founders often experience the biggest mindset shift when we work with them because most entrepreneurs walk into buyer meetings thinking that I hope they'll pick us and you know send an email as a hope and a prayer that maybe we'll get in the door. But the reality is that really it's about determining whether you can be a strong fit for that retailer. And Norm, that's a little bit what we were talking about is how do we break that down so that it becomes an obvious connection when you go into that buyer that um that you remove any sense of ignorance or you know preparedness and that you go in so that the retailers understand exactly that you understand and you filter that knowledge to them so that they can do that. Um, you mentioned Kevin that buyers change over every six months regardless of whether they change six months or every two years and they're rotating through an organization. They still understand the foundations of creating success on that shelf. And so what they're looking for you to come in and do is help them to understand potentially that category and how your product fits into that category to be successful for them. Whether you're creating a good, better, best scenario on the shelf, whether you're creating diversity on the shelf, whether you're going to bring different customers to the shelf, all those things are things that you need to make sure you're communicating to the buyer. So, it's all that language and understanding that convinces the buyer that you understand how to be a good brand partner for that retailer, right? Because retailers need product and brands to help them grow. They can't work without you. So whether you're bringing that innovation or that differentiation or that category growth strategy, there's different ways that we can position. I almost, you know, I I almost look at it as like being a lawyer, right? If you went in front of a jury and you had to convince them that your brand or your product is the right for this situation. It almost comes down to that kind of detail of how we build out product strength and brand strength so that when they're ready to reach out to buyers and they're ready to have that communication, they are positioned as strongly as possible. And just like in a court of law, when when somebody questions your judgment, you have to be prepared to respond. So when you understand all of the relevant responses, then you can more sufficiently get beyond the challenges and the barriers that are put out in front of you. Because believe me, there's plenty of barriers to get beyond because there's a lot of people trying to sell products to retail. But it's how do we make you positioned the best and the strongest. So not just I'm not just talking about is your product the strongest. I'm talking about marketing and positioning wins, right? So how do you position for that? Now we don't want to put a product on the shelf that's not going to sell through because that's not good for you as a brand or for the retailer. So we want to put something out there that we're confident is going to sell for that retailer. creating that position. And you know, many categories in retail have challenges, right? They want you as the brand to come in and solve problems for them. And so they are looking for solutions. And if you can be that solution at that right time for them, whether their category may be, you know, maybe they're fighting internally to keep their four feet of space or their 8t of space and they need innovation in that category to to create more momentum. or maybe they have younger consumers who are shopping in that category and how does your product fit to that need or or an older consumer, right? So we have to understand that category because everything at retail is broken down in that way and every slot has a meaning in that uh retail distribution place every every you know they're merchants right they're merchants first and foremost so they have to understand how does your product or your brand help to make their category stronger and that's that's really important but I think also in that I just want to communicate that you know retails they're rational they want strong brands and strong product relationships. It is the only way they survive. You don't walk into a store and they don't have product on the shelf, you don't you don't buy, right? Consumers don't come back. So, if you've got something that we can position as meaningful and we can then figure out how to translate that into the buyer language of what they need. It's funny, Kevin, I had a client, this was a couple years ago, who um they already in a couple million dollars of retail and they engaged rock your product to help them to get to 20 and $30 million of retail. So really to grow their retail distribution and Costco was one of their nemesis. They could not get a Costco buyer to respond for, you know, the life of them. So we started helping them craft emails to the Costco buyer. And I remember the owner of the company and they had a whole team of people that were working on this. And he said to me, "Are you sure? Are you sure this email is going to get a response? This seems ridiculous. Like why would we tell them this or that or whatever it was at the time?" And I said, "Just I first of all I said, "Trust me. I've done this for many, many years. just trust us. We we know what we're doing. Um and he did and he confidently went forward with that. But the funny thing was I said, "You have nothing to lose because they haven't responded to any of your emails anyways. So, let's give it a shot and see if by positioning things differently with more um marketing, with more uh Costco speak, with more um analyzing their position of where you can fit in and make an impact and make a difference and being very bold in those conversations. Let's see if we get a response." And we did. and he was like flabbergasted, you know, he just said to me, "Oh my gosh, like I had never thought that this would work." So sometimes just understanding how to vary that conversation um and make it make it meaningful for that buying team. And some of it, Kevin, is just because as an organization, we're sitting in front of those buyers. I mean, I have clients who every day, in fact, I just talked to my Costco rep this morning. I, you know, I work with all of the major retailers. Um, do you know that there's over um a million independent retailers across the United States, stores across the United States? So I mean the amount of different needs you know every time you go to a trade show or an event you know you learn things about what is important to retailers at this point or that particular retailer or that particular category or that particular buyer which is why it's so important as brands to saturate into the offline world as possible because they can learn and grow at an expedited pace that they can then turn into good knowledge and experience that they can use and filter into these conversations for growth. Man, things are getting tough out there. Our dudes are getting squeezed. Things are changing. AI is playing a big role in what's going on in the e-commerce world. And there's a lot of people that are they're that are pretty worried. What What should they consider doing? >> Well, I think one of the best things they could probably do is go to an expert that understands the market sentiment right now. The first one that comes to mind is is Quiet Light Brokerage. And here's why. They're going to build you up. They're going to understand your company. And at the end of the day, you're going to know how to maximize your valuation. So, the very first thing you need to do is go and get your free confidential valuation at quietllight.com and then, you know, let the games begin. >> Awesome. Well, what was that website again? >> It's quiet.com. >> Awesome. I'm going to head over there. Can we address one huge hurdle? >> So, let's say that all the planets and stars line up for a brand. They're great. The biggest hurdle that I've I I hear about is cash flow. They're afraid to move forward because it's going to kill them. They're used to getting paid every two weeks. Now, it's going to be, oh, net 30, net 60, net 90. None of these retailers pay. Very few. Let me rephrase that. very few retailers pay on time. Um, and because they know they don't have to. Uh, and so that scares people and they're used to sending in maybe a,000 units or 5,000 units to Amazon. All of a sudden they get a PO for 50,000 units and like, oh my gosh, how am I going to finance this? And I know I know some of the answers, but I want to hear from you. Um, how how does that how does that work? And then on to piggyback on that, this is a long question. piggyback on that. >> It [laughter] was Mike. >> You get you get into it as a test. Then what do you got to do to prove yourself? So can you talk about that from the finance to the launch? >> Sure. >> Give us some information there that for the audience that uh doesn't understand this and what they should be thinking about. >> Thank you for answering my question. >> Yeah, I I said start there, Norm. [laughter] >> So Norm, you asked about I think about cash flow, right? And making sure that when orders come in that they can be effectively moving through cash flow. So, you know, this is a this is a giant issue for any brand and business out there. Any business out there, right, has this this issue. And so, every company needs to make decisions on how they want to handle cash flow. And there's um, you know, numerous streams of different ways to do that. I mean, everything from, you know, taking on uh, debt so that you can support the growth of your business when you believe in your business. We work with banks, um, SBA loans, um, debt providers. So, you know, if you're believing in the growth of your brand, which, you know, I would say that if you're interested in going from online to offline, you need to believe in the growth of your brand. So, most brands that come to rock your product are coming to us because they've been referred to us because they're brands that are ready to make that transition. But with that transition, you have to have capital. So, capital has to come from somewhere. So whether it's a debt scenario, whether you're self-funding that because your online business can afford to help support your offline business, or whether you need to site find um fractional uh purchase order um invoicing type partnerships, which we work with many, where they actually will give you capital based on a purchase order that you receive from a retailer. Um >> all factoring, right? Yes, [clears throat] factoring and they will fund that factoring between the time that the purchase order is arrived to the time that you get paid. So, it can help you with cash flow. Um, there are many companies that do that. So, there's all kinds of ways to fund business. And in fact, I find it um I find it a great opportunity for us to educate brands when they come to us in that experience and are concerned about that because there are so many ways to capitalize on funding in order to be able to get yourself in that position. Most brands who want to bring in private investors or you know go out there and raise capital we know that that is a very challenging path. Uh we do help brands do that. We've had brands who have raised capital. Um in fact I'm part of NCN which is called um nutrition capital Network. It's part of New Hopes organization and I'm on the advisory board where we bring in brands and identify brands that can present to capital partners who are looking to make investments in companies. But at the end of the day, we know that um you know the number [clears throat] was 83% of people still buy in retail and brick and mortar, but we also know that 2% of companies are funded through um you know through investments. So it's a very low percentage of companies that get money um through private equity or investment funds and things like that. So I would say that that's not a real um advantageous avenue to go down. So, we have to look at the other avenues that we can use in order to leverage cash for their business. But I have never yet had a company in I've been doing this for 35 years that hasn't found a way to make it work. You know, whether it's friends and families that invest, whether it's going through um debt providers that can provide debt and that could be again anywhere from an SBA loan uh to a small business bank to um to a large business bank, you know, it just depends on the partnership. Um, and then there's all kinds of funds and organizations that just invest in um or offer and lend debt uh to certain companies and certain categories of products and things like that. So, we've never not found cash to be successful. If a brand is willing to do it, we always find it one way or another. So, I don't know if that answers your question, Norm, but I mean to me that's um an unnecessary obstacle to put up because there's a solution to everything that we can create. Now Kevin, I think your second question was what happens once the product gets to retail and how do we create pull through on the shelf and I think that was your question. Is that correct? >> Correct. >> Yeah. So the most important thing to do is first to understand the customer and what's going to create that pull through before you even go on the shelf. So that work that you do around building the product for the shelf is extremely important which means that's a fundamental part of where we take some time to rebuild. I will tell you most the time brands are not ready coming from offline to uh coming from online to offline to sell into retail with the current packaging that they have. And so most the time we have to better understand the messaging um the critical um key indicators and sales tools that need to be part of that selling process at the shelf. We need to make sure that's communicated at shelf level. So that's the first thing we typically will work on with brands as they make that transition. And sometimes it takes layers and layers and layers to dig into to really understand. And of course now there's all kinds of uh testing platforms to do some testing to see how that sells. But one of the big misnomers is that just because the product is selling online in the packaging that you have, nine times out of 10, the retailer will not accept that packaging that you're selling it online cuz of course you have all the other stuff online that you can use to sell that product that goes beyond the packaging. So as rudimentary as it may sound, it really starts with the packaging. Because no matter how much advertising you run to stores, how much traffic you run, how much education you run, using your own databases, all that, if consumers don't really understand the product at retail, they're not going to purchase it. Now, if they've learned about it online and they understand it and they then see it in the stores, that's great. But to acquire and grow new customer acquisition, you've got to make sure your product is represented correctly in that category on the shelf. But on the back end of that, what are the things that you could be doing? And you mentioned several of them, right? I mean, using any kind of online social media platforms as well as your own database is a great way to start to drive traffic to your retail placement. But there are other tools. Um, we are currently doing uh for one of my clients uh recently just in the last 6 months um we're in one of the large retailers and we're doing uh specific geo targeting um protocol testing in certain areas. So, we'll take on a region, you know, whether it's, you know, a a region in I think the latest one we did was in Dallas, Texas, because we knew that that was a market that once we got on shelf, it was starting to sell. And what we wanted to do was pump dollars into geo targeting within that area so we could see what kind of increase and impact we can have. And uh we were just looking at some reports recently and we had almost a 50% increase in sales in that particular geoargeted area because we were just driving awareness to consumers who go into that location and go into those stores. So then they knew when they went into that store they can go look for that product. So um driving awareness that you're in stores is one of the most critical things that you can do once you make that transition. So any any way that you can do that is extremely critical. But I will tell you, Kevin, that the good old days of when you are on a shelf at retail and somebody is standing there in that 4foot section that a that a retail buyer has made the decision to put you on the shelf. There's a lot of times you acquire new customers that have never seen you online. They've never read about your product online, but they see your product on the shelf and they're inquisitive about it. And sometimes that drives them to go online to read more about your product. But it truly is in all ways a billboard and an opportunity to acquire new customers just by having that visibility because the stores are driving traffic into those retail locations. And they want to sell those products off the shelf just as much as you do. So depending on the size of the retailer, you know, when you get into smaller retail distribution or alternative retail distribution, they're helping you sell your product off the shelf because they want to see it sell off the shelf just as much as you do. And then there's all kinds of merchandising vehicles we work on. there's instore promotions. Um certainly we look at you know price promotions where we can when we can run um discounts and uh coupons and things like that in stores. So just like online price is a motivator. There's a sense of FOMO when you know there's a a promotion on something and it makes the consumer want to trial it at retail. So um there's all kinds of different metrics and and ways that we work with those buying teams to create that opportunity of urgency at retail. I want to go back to the um cash flow for a second. There's a lot of small brands out there that have that objection, right? They they they their fear. And there's one thing that you can do. Uh we've helped a a few brands that I've worked with. uh go out to the small pet shop, the salon, the barber, and just contact them in your local area and start contacting these small independent uh uh retailers that are in every small town, any city. I I live in a town of about 10,000 people and we've got all of them. But then you you just spread out and what what's beautiful about it is they buy a case slot. They usually put it on your on their credit card. And if you're small and you're worried, you can start out doing something like that. >> Yeah. I I mean, I think it's a great I mean, you know, everyone has the um the capability to select which channels of distribution they want to be involved in. And there's countless channels of distribution. We could talk about in terms of different retail and non retail distribution. I mean, there's, you know, colleges and universities and, um, you know, medical distribution and spas and salons and, um, of course, like I said, I mean, there's, you know, hundreds of thousands of independent retailers. So, there's so many different opportunities of where you can go. You can go into hospitality. I mean, the, you know, there's endless amounts of places to go. Um, and so you don't have to go into huge volume retail environments like you're mentioning where you feel vulnerable. And I know Kevin, you mentioned some retail partners uh will start small and they'll put you in a couple hundred stores even if they have 5,000 outlets. Um not always true. I have a brand that you know our first order was 1500 stores and that was just our first order at that retailer and which was fantastic and now um uh this year we're meeting with the buyer to look at store expansions because the product is out selling and performing the expectations. But, you know, certainly, Norm, to your point, like this is the beauty of the control that brand owners have. They get to decide where they want to go. And there's plenty of there's plenty of small regional retailers that they can get involved in that even have five stores or 10 stores or things like that. And, you know, some of the brands we work with, we suggest them to even sell their product on consignment to some of the smaller retailers so that they can help build some confidence. you know, it's kind of like um uh you know, restaurants or I think you know, we own real estate, so you know, your Airbnb properties, you know, in order to get your Airbnb properties loved, you got to have more reviews, right? So, it's the same thing that you go in and you build that confidence within those retail environments. If you don't have retail experience and you don't have online sales to prove that an item is successful, going into smaller retailers and doing things on a consignment basis where they take no risk, then meaning the retailer takes no risk. They don't even have to put money on their credit card. They you give them a 100% guarantee to say, "Look, I know our product will sell through because we're merchandising it correctly. We're giving you the right materials. It's priced right. We know the product will have demand in your retail um uh environment and space. we want to build that confidence with you. Let's do that over a six or eight week period. Let's move the goods and then let's talk about a longer partnership and a longer plan together. Um some large retailers uh you know drugstores in particular um they'll buy on consignment which is you know you talking about difficult for brands they have no purchase order upfront other than I mean they have a commitment to a number but the reality is they're not going to get paid until that product sells through the register. So there's all different kinds of relationships that you can create in different um channels of distribution. But um what I have seen in my 35 years of business and doing this and what we've seen in terms of growth of brands and their ability to be able to um capitalize on what they want to do, you know, a lot of brand owners that start businesses and you probably experience this all the time, they're pretty passionate about the product that they created. if they created something from scratch, whether it's patented or there's something that they've formulated or they've designed something, you know, they're they're very passionate about what they're doing in the instant that they want consumers to be able to have the experience of that product. And so it's those passionate business owners that are really the ones that become successful at retail. I mean, it's, you know, the Sarah Blakeley's of the world who stood in the Nordstrom's, you know, aisle to talk to the consumers because she wanted to understand what do the consumers want or not want with her products. And so, it's it's really an investment of um human capital of that brand owner or of those people on your team to go out there and really advocate for their product and their brand because they want consumers to experience their brand. And those are really the brand owners that are successful. Um, if if you're literally just in an item business that is just, you know, competing against the 10 other same items on Amazon and it's a price war, that's not the kind of brands that we look to work with at Rock Your Product. Those brands probably won't be successful at retail. But it's those that have a lot of reason and value and passion and mission and vision behind what they're doing that can make almost any retail environment successful. Back in 2017, I developed a bone-shaped slowfeed [clears throat] dog bowl and I was selling it on Amazon, doing all right. But then I loyally here in Austin, I did exactly what you just y both just saying is I took it into several pet shops and gave it to them on consignment and it sold through and then I used that and I leveraged that to get into Chewy. Um, and so, uh, and then I also know someone >> and then in the book space that published their own their own book as like a marketing book and they couldn't get pickup, you know, into the stores. They were having trouble. So they used a little ninja tactic where they would they flew did like five or six different flights that were like a lot of connection flights and they would go into the uh the Hudson books in the airport or whatever the airport book stand you know little stand and they would put three or four copies on the shelf just let you just leave them there on the shelf and then when because they're ISBN and they they scan so when they would come up to the register they would scan uh in with the price and they would charge it for them and then what would happen is the buyers will get the reports the next week or the next month and say, "Oh, we sold 17 books. We need to order some more and and then it just started they they use that kind of ninja tactic to to pick it up." >> But what um and so there there's different things like that. But also on the flip side, there's I had a buddy that worked for I think it was Eminem Mars or whatever whoever owns M&M's uh for a while. And his job was to go around to like 16 different Walmarts in the Austin area and about 212 convenience stores and like go in there and make sure the stuff wasn't sitting on the back shelf, wasn't sitting on a pallet in the back because they don't care. You know, if they send it back to your marketers return, it's it's your money that you're losing, not not their money. and and make sure that you know the the Hershey's didn't come over and take some of the shelf space of the M&M's. And so they're making sure, you know, the spel the shelfing was all right. So there's a whole an there's a whole system and a whole world on retail that a lot of people don't realize. It's not just the soccer guys throwing the stuff up on there that goes into the game of playing. And if you don't know all the little tactics and strategies by working with someone like yourself, you could be missing out on a lot of opportunities. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. And and a couple things that come up for me with this, you know, first of all, retail is not for the faint of heart. Building a brand is not for the faint of heart. So, if you're not in it to win it, like I said, then you're not going to win. And that's true for any business. I mean, you know, I come from a long family of entrepreneurs and we own multiple businesses and I can tell you that it's, you know, it's none of it's easy, right? If it was easy, every brand would be successful. Every product that launched the market would be successful. And I think Kevin, you asked, you know, why so many of them fail. Um, a lot of times it's the operator and it's it's the um the approach. It's the consumer need. It's matching your product with the consumer need. So there's there's, you know, a couple things there that we try to help isolate. But, you know, we work through all those things to make sure that brands are are really ready to take that step. And you know, if we don't feel like a brand is ready, we don't we don't make those introductions to the retail partners because we've built such, you know, solid foundation of partnerships, you know, over the 35 years that we've been doing this as an organization that, you know, we're not going to jeopardize our relationships until we feel that a brand is really ready to be in that situation. Now, um, the other thing I want to mention to you is, you know, you talked about building some of that, uh, grassroot confidence in your product. I you know I can't emphasize enough and you know certainly I'm probably not telling you or your audiences anything they don't know but Amazon to me is not just a sales channel but it's actually a marketing tool and it's actually one of the most powerful marketing tools on the planet and of course we know now with AI coming on and I and I think you guys have a program that you're you know you're doing and you're starting to educate too as well how to utilize and optimize AI for as a search engine for brands because that is you know extremely critical and a lot of people are just turning to to AI I to identify a product, but still once they identify that product, where are they going to go? They're going to go to Amazon, right? And that's still the number one tool. Um, number number two would be uh Walmart.com, which we could talk about in a few minutes. But the point is is that these online marketing tools, if a brand is not investing in Amazon as a marketing tool and not just as a sales tool, but as a marketing tool, then they're missing a huge opportunity if they're looking to transition offline because everything that you do on your Amazon, I mean, Amazon's like a, you know, it's first of all, it's a 24-hour 247 customer focus group, right? That's what Amazon is because as you sell product, results come in, right? people either love it or they hate it and they leave a review and that's that's part of the experience. But, you know, we talked about the transition of um buyers and any kind of distribution partnerships that you're working with. The first thing they're going to do is they're going to go there and they're going to want to see what your customers are saying about your product, but they also want to see how you're presenting your product. How, you know, what is your messaging and how are you showing up for the consumer? And, you know, it's no different than showing up for a meeting. Like, you know, we wouldn't have come to our meetings today in pajamas, although maybe that would have been fun. we came to our meetings prepared to have a conversation and looking the part. And so that's what brands need to do. So whether it's differentiated imagery, whether it's, you know, how they create the messaging, whether it's um how they're communicating the importance of their product to the consumer, the buyers are going there to see that. So, not only are you using Amazon to build that platform of um leverage so that when somebody goes there, they can see that consumers are excited about your product and there's there's already relevance in your brand. But it's also for buyers to build confidence that you know how to show up. And that's a very important uh distinction that we help brands understand in using their Amazon platforms. You mentioned earlier too about someone might discover you on the shelf. I'd never heard of you online, but I remember I was at the pet with the same dog bowl. I was at a pet show in Vegas uh several years back trying to get dist get distribution on uh you know get distributors and stuff to pick up my pet bowl. First question out of their mouth was are you on Amazon? I say yeah. And they said not interested. Now I think that mentality has changed. >> You say are you on Amazon? >> Yeah. Am I selling on Amazon? And if I said yes, I sell this on Amazon, I'm not interested. I was immediately like, get get out of my face. I'm not interested. I think that has changed a little bit. And I know places like Walmart sometimes will say, hey, well, you're selling a six-pack on Amazon, sell a five pack in our store. Or you're selling 13 O on Amazon, sell 16 ounces in our store. So, it's a different UPC code, so it doesn't it doesn't match up. Uh, and they can't price compare. Can you talk about is that actually going on quite a bit right now or does that >> Sure. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. So, great point. I mean, Kevin, I've been doing this long enough that I remember the days that we weren't allowed to tell buyers we were on Amazon. [laughter] We weren't able we weren't allowed to bring that up in the meeting because, you know, yes, it would be a stopping point to the conversation. today. Most buyers don't even want to buy your product ideally unless you're on Amazon. And they I mean, yes, they love Tik Tok and they love the fact that you're investing in building your brand. Don't get me wrong, again, I'm not, you know, downplaying any of the importance of what we do online because all of it is important and we work with our brands on all of those things, but Amazon is like a a necessary evil today. It just is. And honestly, Walmart.com is that secondary necessary evil. the more that you show that you're investing in those platforms, they're just platforms to educate consumers. Again, if you look at them from marketing, even if you made zero money on them, but it cost you nothing and it was free marketing, it the they're the best marketing tools you can go after. But what retailers are most concerned about is they don't want to compete against you online. And so what they want to know is that you're going to price protect whatever you're doing with them. And so there's all kinds of ways that we set up price protection. Now whether it's through um uh different kinds of policies that we put into place that if if somebody purchases our product that they can't undercut the retail online etc. But the most important thing is making sure that you can build confidence in the fact that whether it's that retailer wanting a differentiated skew or whether it's a matter of making sure that we just protect their retail. And protecting their retail could mean that their retail is less than what you have it on Amazon for. So, if it's on Amazon for $12.99, maybe it's in retail for $9.99. And that's something we have to analyze and evaluate. Now, we also have to decide, you know, are we even at the right retail price point or should we be changing that? And there's an entire system we bring brands through to help them understand their price points. Like I said at the beginning of the call, a lot of brands are underpricing where they need to be at retail. Now, it's a highly commoditized product. I understand that you're within, you know, you got to be within a certain amount of money, but I can't even tell you products that you would think would be highly commoditized. We've actually changed the trajectory of them by just repricing them and then repackaging the way that we explain what the product is about. And we have won. I have never, knock on wood, in my career, increased a retail price point and not been successful with it. In fact, it's probably one of the most successful things that we do as a company. It's always risky. We always hold our breath when we do it and the buyers I'm sorry the um brands are always um you know they tend to be concerned about whether it's the right decision but we try to build enough of a foundation around it to show proof that we have mis retail uh we have mispriced the retail of our product so that we can get a better more um higher margin for it because obviously every margin dollar back in our pocket we can use to reinvest in our business. So, um, so there's a lot of, um, tools and techniques that we can use to protect the retailers. And I think Kevin, that's that's what the retailers are saying. They're not saying, "We don't want you to be on Amazon or Tik Tok." I mean, there's no way today that retailers are going to be able to keep brands from selling their product online. Even live streaming, I mean, you know, QVC, whatever those different platforms are, they're not going to isolate you and tell you can't sell somewhere. They're just not going to be able to do it. So all you can do is build confidence that you are going to price protect them so that there's a reason for that consumer to go in the store and the consumer in the store is not going to feel bad that they're purchasing that product in the store because they see it cheaper online. So that's the most important component of creating that um that omni channel experience and making sure that you're creating confidence in that buyer relationship that you're going to protect them through that process. >> Hey Kevin King and Norm Ferrar here. If you've been enjoying this episode of Marketing Misfits, thanks for listening this far. Continue listening. We got some more valuable stuff coming up. Be sure to hit that subscribe button if you're listening to this on your favorite podcast player. Or if you're watching this on YouTube or Spotify, make sure you subscribe to our channel because you don't want to miss a single episode of The Marketing Misfits. Have you subscribed yet, Norm? >> Well, this is an old guy alert. Should I subscribe to my own podcast? >> Yeah, but what if you forget to show up one time and it's just me on here? You're not going to know what I say. >> I'll I'll buy you a beard and you can sit in my chair, too. We'll just You can go back and forth with one another. Yikes. But that being said, don't forget to subscribe, share it. Oh, and if you really like this content, somewhere up there there's a banner. Click on it and you'll go to another episode of The Marketing Misfits. Make sure you don't miss a single episode because you don't want to be like Norm. >> So, we're getting to the top of the hour. I I do have one question and I I think it's important. Uh the difference between going to a brand by yourself or letting a distributor handle you and and your brand and what's what's the difference? >> Sure. Yeah, good question. So there are all kinds of ways to sell your product as I mentioned. I mean there are over you know thousands of channels of distribution you go through and some of those include layers of people like reps and distributors and wholesalers and what I say is you know it's very independent based on the product the strategy and the distribution efforts that we create for that particular brand. So, we look at that as a team to identify what we want to do. But in most cases, in general, Norm, we know that selling to a distributor or wholesaler is going to be our lowest net price because they're going to have to resell it, maybe resell it once or twice before it gets to the consumer. So, in other words, you're going to make the least amount of money, right? We know you make the most amount of money when you sell direct to consumer on your website. We know you make the least amount of money when you sell it through a distributor or wholesaler. So there's everywhere in between. Right now, one could argue that what it costs to drive traffic to your website, you actually make way less because of all the money to market your what we call the island that you're living on on your website than being in a mass retailer. But that's another conversation on a topline basis. If you're just looking at topline margin based on where you're selling it at, selling at retail, direct to consumer is the highest. Selling it to a distributor, wholesaler is the lowest. But why do you do it? Well, you do it for distribution partnerships because who would love to have somebody else going out and advocating and selling your product besides yourself or your sales team. It's so lovely to bring people into the mix to have them out there advocating for you and some of the largest, you know, distributors. In fact, I'm speaking um I'm I'm speaking at an event in in October and one of the people on the panel with me is um Kahhei. And Kahhee of course is one of the largest uh grocery distributors um for food and beverage out there in the market. And um they're Khe along with UniFi and some others. I mean these are partners that can get you into mass distribution and mass retail. They also handle a lot of operations for you. So they handle all of the shipping to those independent retailers. So there's advantages to working with distributors that are, you know, part of the cost of working with distributors because you don't have to manage some of those things on your own. And so there's advantage that, not to mention their relationships. So there's different reasons for being for each um I guess cog in the wheel norm that you put into your business. But the idea is that the the larger the cog we can build for you, the less vulnerable you are as a brand. You know, one of the things we've seen this year with this transition of AI is a lot of brands and then of course over the years and you all know better than anybody, you know, as soon as an algorithm changes on Tik Tok or Facebook, you know, affects ad buying and then it costs more to buy ads and then, you know, you're vulnerable to what it costs to continue to keep the online wheel going. And so, a lot of brands come to us because they're just they're exhausted from that process. You know, do we have the right content creators? Do we have the right content? you know, we spent all this money on ad spend. I mean, I, you know, I used to speak on huge stages before I um when I left corporate and started my consulting firm, you know, I spoke on huge stages in front of thousands of people and I'd ask them, you know, how many people are have had ineffective marketing in the last year and 99.99% of them would raise their hand, right? Well, a lot of times it's because they don't even understand the consumer or what their real brand attributes are for the consumer. So they're going to hire a company they don't even know and then they're hiring a company that doesn't know either and they're just not able to be efficient in what they're doing. So we know that there's money that has to keep feeding that that opportunity. So what we do is we help brands really leverage all of these different opportunities within business and each comes with a cost. Each comes with a cost. So I hope that answers your question Norm in terms of you know partnerships with distributors. >> Yes it does and it is that time. I've got I've got one last real quick question is about personal branding. You see people like uh uh Mr. Beast has got massive personal branding and it goes into retail with chocolate and and you see several others kind of doing that and that's like a major opportunity I think for a lot of uh creators right now that have huge followings. She's the Kardashians, you know, they launched a popcorn or whatever, a protein popcorn under one, I forget which Kardashian sister it was. Um, but person why is personal branding and working on that as a founder important or maybe a fast track if you can actually do that uh to actually getting into retail? Yeah, that's a great question and today more than ever um transparency is so important and people consumers increasingly want to know who's behind the brand and that's been going on and transitioning for a lot of years. I mean you know even even from um you know celebrities who think that they can launch products because they know they can um use their celebrity for that >> all the tequila and liquor people doing all that stuff. >> Right. Exactly. But not all of them succeed. Yeah, >> right. And you would think because they're celebrities and they have all this following and these big brand names that people would automatically buy their product, but it doesn't always work that way. It doesn't always transition. And it's interesting that sometimes the more that you expose your story, the more that you expose yourself, the more that you highlight the authenticity of why that product was created, the more the consumer loves that experience. They love it. And so if you look at the successful brands over the years that have done that, um it doesn't mean that every founder has to become some social media influencer or that every founder has to be a celebrity, but it does mean that founders should become visible in their business. And I am a huge advocate for that. So whether they're building credibility within the industry or outside the industry direct with consumers, um people just they don't invest just in products, they really invest in people with a mission. And so the more that um buyers in a retail environment can understand the company's existence, I mean in fact one of the events that I do with clients um it's a an event with at Walmart once a year. They give an outline of how they want the deck built and they want the number one or two slide to be about the founder. So it shows you the importance of they want the story first before they want to see the product. And and I think that's the um the underlying difference is that people really buy from people. And I don't care if it's a consumer or a B2B sale. It's I always say it's it's P2P. It's never B2B or B TOC. It's it's it's literally P2P. It's people to people. And so the more that the founder companies create that purpose, they create that connection, they create that trust, um they create an understanding, right, and a familiarity with consumers. It creates this whole another level of credibility. And I tell clients this all the time. In fact, I had a client call today and we talked about this. Um, a woman who is um she's a um a nurse first first and foremost, then became an esthetician and she's created this entire line of product and she has massive credibility around her. So, what is the difference between her skinincare products and her fragrance products versus somebody else's? there's really only one main differentiator and it's her. She's the one that can stand out from the crowd because there's no two of her. And so the way the way that we utilize her to build that um experience for the consumer is really what the differentiator is. So I am a huge fan of building founder credibility. I'm a huge fan of founders speaking at conferences and participating in panels and attending trade shows and walking trade shows to meet, you know, other industry leaders and writing articles. I, you know, I am a huge advocate. I come from corporate, so I'm a huge advocate of LinkedIn. You know, when people do business with people, they want to see who you are. They go to your LinkedIn, they want to see that you're um engaged and that you're doing things. In fact, I mean, I know we live in this world of social media for consumers, but B2B is LinkedIn. I mean, people want to see that you're actively involved in your, you know, and interested in what you're doing. Um, and that you're telling stories, you know. I mean, they talk about storytelling being one of the greatest things ever, right? To be able to explain, um, you know, why you're doing what you do. I mean, I've been in this industry for 35 years. I mean, oftentimes I get interviewed about why I'm still here and how it all started and how did I, you know, stumble into this business. But there's so much passion behind why founders create businesses and to hide that is a shame for consumers. And um one of the things that I'm a huge advocate for when it's right and when it's meaningful is to make sure that founders even end up on product packaging because there's nothing like a product that you know is a meto thing in a category of 4T or 8 ft of space and then they pick it up and they see a human being on it. that is the the face of the brand and why that brand was created. There's there's a whole deeper uh emotional connection that consumers can have to that. So, I am an [snorts] enormous advocate for that. And I I've seen how it works. And I can tell you that my experience is that the brand owners that show up for their brands, they stand in that booth at the trade show, they go to those buyer meetings, they come to um industry events, um they network, um they create a reputation that is a differentiator and a game changer. And that is a lot of what we help consu um brands, you know, brand owners and and brand businesses do because I get that a lot of that you don't have to do online. A lot of us get to make money online in our pajamas, you know, behind the scenes. Um, and hey, we all love making money in our pajamas. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with that. But if you really are committed to growing your brand, then you really have to show up for your brand and be strategic within your own organization to really create that impact. So, I hope that answers your question, Kevin. >> Yes. And so how do they do that if they want to reach out to RP and get your assistance to do that kind of thing? And I think you have something special to offer them uh as well. What what what's tell us about that. >> Sure. Sure. For sure. So the best way to reach us is to email us at support which is pretty easy. Support su ptroyouproduct.com. Um certainly you can go on our website rockyouproduct.com as well. But the best way to do is email us at supportrockproduct.com. And if you put in the subject line, retail readiness review. We'll send you a couple things. Uh we have a um a five-step retail operation system that we've baked into a case study of a brand that we worked with for about three years. Um and you can see that so that you can start to look at how you can integrate that into your thinking in your business. Um, within that we also have a retail confidence architecture that is our pitch deck and it is a entire outline of the strategic pitch deck that we've developed over many many years of doing this. Um, I have designed over 5,000 pitch decks in my career and have helped brands uh use them to to sit in buyer meetings and hear buyers say all the time, "This is the best pitch deck I've ever seen from a brand." If you're interested in scheduling a 45minute um retail growth strategy session with us, we'd be happy to have you get on the phone with us and talk about what that retail growth would look like for your brand and whether you'd be a good fit for Rock Your Product. >> Okay, awesome. >> So, now that we're at the bottom of the hour or top of the hour, uh we always have one question for our misfit if they know a misfit. Uh I know lots of misfits. [laughter] So I certainly be happy to make introductions um in so many ways uh for your organization. So um you know whether it's branding, marketing, positioning, retail, uh event planning, um you know, it depends on on exactly what we could do to satisfy your needs. And so there's so many opportunities that brands can take advantage of um that, you know, I'd be happy to introduce you to any of the misfits that I that I work with in my business. So >> awesome. Well, Corey, I appreciate you coming on and sharing uh sharing your experience and uh some some really cool information today with everybody. I think this has got [music] people's wheels turning on what they what the opportunities and what they might be able to do with their with [music] their brands. >> Thanks, Kevin. Most people walk away from these conversations saying, "How fast can we get started?" Because they're excited. There's [clears throat] other channels of distribution that you can play in outside of just e-commerce. and uh we recognize the need and that's why the business [music] has grown so so much over the last 10 years that we've been doing this and um we're very very grateful that we can offer um the services that we do and [music] we honestly keep doing it cuz we love what we do and we love seeing brands succeed. So we look forward to servicing anybody in your community that needs that kind of support. >> Awesome. Thanks Corey. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. It was wonderful meeting. Appreciate Thanks. >> So, you ready to get into retail, Norm, with your uh what would one of our other podcast guests say you need to be doing a beard oil? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And you could be that you could be the uh the the uh spokesperson of the brand, you know, the authenticity. And I get to get I know you're a master at packaging. So, you know, that's not going to be an issue, you know. So, you you you're ready to launch. >> Done. [laughter] >> Maybe it's maybe it's not a beard. Maybe it's a cigar. That's what it is. You need Cory's help to launch the Norm cigar line into all the cigar distribution and and to get it into all the Specs liquor stores and all the non typical cigar places. That that's what it is. There there's there's the there's what it is. >> But hey, if you if you want to get uh more information, how do how do they do that about uh marketing and uh different >> All right. For Marketing Misfits, all you have to do is head over to YouTube, go to Marketing Misfits podcast. If you want the short versions, 3minute clips and under, go to YouTube, too. Marketing [music] Misfits Clips. >> Awesome. And we also have a newsletter at misfits.news that comes out every Wednesday. Podcast comes out every Tuesday. [music] And every Wednesday we have a brand new newsletter. Started about four or five months ago. So, make sure you get that at misfit.news. And watch for an announcement soon about Misfits Mayhem, a really cool little game. Uh something that we do at one of my Market Masters events that we're taking online uh with Norm and I. So coming up soon, I guess I'll see you uh next week or do I see you again next week? >> Yes, you will. >> Oh man. All right. I I'll prepare. I'll get prepared. Take care everybody. We'll see you again next episode. Bye. [music]