30-60-90 Day Launch Plan for New Retailers

Jordan Buckner: [00:00:00] Launching your new product in a retail store is one of the most exciting things for a CPG founder, but it also comes with a load of challenges. We've all heard that, yes, it's difficult to get on the shelf in the first place, but it's even harder to get your product sold off the shelf, especially when you're working with new retailers or are new to the grocery industry.

So what I want to do to talk today is really help you develop a 30, 60, 90 day plan for when you launch into a new retailer, provide some considerations to think about some tips, strategies, tactics, so that coming out of this, you have a good frame of reference for what you need to do for this conversation, I've invited on Tate and Harrai .

Who have a lot of experience at working for, with emerging brands on and launching into retailers and come with a lot of experience and they are going to add in their experience as well. Tate, Harrai . Welcome. 

Tate Glasgow: Thanks Jordan for having us. 

Jordan Buckner: Awesome. Tate, I'd love for you to give a just quick you know, 30 second intro just on, on the work that [00:01:00] you do and some of your experience.

So our audience has a good sense of that. 

Harrai Khalsa: Yeah. So day to day I work with Promomash, but I am been in the CPG early stage CPG space for the last nine or 10 years now. It's really, you know, the startup early stage is really all I've known on the marketing and sales front. So got to scale an ice cream company recently in the last six years from the beginning.

I was hand scooping in kitchen to about 5, 000 doors nationwide and saw the ups and downs and the pain points of that. And then I've also been able to help small brands. Launch into retail for the first time or launch into a new retailer, and really, you know, go through the process we're going to talk about today.

The lessons learned. 

Jordan Buckner: Harrai , how about you? 

Harrai Khalsa: Yeah, again, my name is Harrai . I am the senior business development manager here at Promomash. I come from, again, about, 8 10 years of CPG experience, although it goes back a little bit longer. My father was a food broker. I grew up in Anchorage, Alaska.

He was a broker there, so. I grew up going into retail stores [00:02:00] doing resets at the ripe age of six years old at 5 a. m. So as they say, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. I found myself working for a couple startups as well as one larger established tea brand, Yogi Tea, for many years where I got a lot of my experience and then brought that back into a smaller format later and then found myself here.

So I kind of run between both kind of larger format and Bigger companies and smaller companies with a mix of both. They're awesome. 

Jordan Buckner: Absolutely. Love that. You know, I wanted to have this episode because about eight years ago, I launched with my brand TeaSquares into new retailers in particular, there's an ascent where we launched into Mariano stores in Chicago areas, our first retailer of that size, and there's about a hundred stores.

And my mindset at the time was, Hey, let's just put the product on the shelf and see how it performs. And we were working with a new distributor at the time. We was a new retailer and we did not have anything set up. Lo and behold, when we had the product and they're supposed to be launching the store, we had so many problems.

One [00:03:00] ended up in the merchandise and four different categories within the store, kind of all different, depending on which location. And I went into the store, couldn't even find it myself. Then we were supposed to be like at the checkout to help drive sales. And only about the core of the stores were actually placed at checkout.

And so that was really problematic and our product for the most part sat there because no one knew where it was and no one even knew they could buy it. And it really got me thinking after that fact that. You know, I need to come into this with a launch strategy from the beginning to make sure we're driving trial and sales in those store locations, both from a customer support standpoint and from a retailer, because what happened when I did it, we ended up getting discontinued from all of the stores and had to start over.

So I love to kind of think about this from the beginning, from your experience, kind of, let's talk through those kind of first, 30 days, the foundational building of launching in a new retailer, maybe Tate, you can start, what are the things that a brand should consider to make sure they have a strong start?

Tate Glasgow: I would say, I'm going to push back right [00:04:00] away and say, let's start from before. Let's start you know, 30 days before that, when you're having the buyer meetings. How can you set yourself up for even that first 30 days and variety, I'll let you speak into this, but they're just that part of it's just so important to this whole conversation.

So want to make sure we get it. The before is arguably the most important because , it's the evaluation of whether this retailer is a good fit. Do they have the right you know, is it, is it aligned with your demographic? Do you is it all these, are you checking all these boxes in terms of it being the right fit, right?

You could be asked by an incredible retailer, say yes to them. But could that be the best strategy for your brand and where you need to actually grow your sales, right? So. You know, the befores are looking at how, you know, the store count, what set are you in? What sets can you be in? And then obviously having that meeting with the buyer, you know, having that relationship with the buyer and setting up the expectations.

What are they looking for? What things do they, you know, what metrics are they looking to improve? What metrics are they looking to have available and to [00:05:00] be able to fully understand and actually succeed. Cause it starts with the buyer. It starts with them. They have their own. APIs they have to meet.

And so you have to understand those, know what those are, know what they need. And then. On top of that, the marketing, you know, work with the marketing team and what avenues, what levers can you pull within that retailer and looking short and long term plans with those buyers. So it all starts even before you get on the shelf.

Jordan Buckner: So Harrai, if a retailer, retail buyer says, Hey, I want to bring your product into the store. Does that mean that your product will just be successful off the gate? Because like, Hey, the buyer knows best, right? 

Harrai Khalsa: No, absolutely not. No, absolutely not. It's, you know buyers do you have a good eye buyers, you know, there's some excellent buyers out there that they can foresee and look at things and make that happen.

But you have to analyze that. You have to say, okay, is this what's best for my business, for my product in the right place, location, et cetera. So it really starts with you. You know, if you can, and the power of no is incredible when it comes to the retailers you select. 

Jordan Buckner: For early stage brands who [00:06:00] are launching and maybe a retailer that has 50, a hundred locations, some of those are going to perform better than others.

No retail stores are all kind of universal across. Do you recommend that new to retail founders should try to launch in all the stores of a grocery chain to maximize their reach, or should they try to negotiate a smaller footprint as a test? 

Tate Glasgow: We talk a lot, even internally, I probably actually talked a lot about the 80, 20 rule.

And you know, 20 percent of the doors for the retailer are going to bring 80 percent of the revenue. That's pretty well known in the, across the CPG space, but it's even more important for an early stage brand, a mid stage brand. That's launched into a retailer that they haven't done business with or doing business with them for the first time.

It's a heck of a lot less risk to, you know, ask for those a player stores versus say, Hey, we want the whole thing. And, you know that's where they're going to put us now. Is that always available? No, there are buyers that will tell you. You're either in or you're out because they want the slotting dollar or they, you know, again, they have the KPIs [00:07:00] that they need to hit, but my recommendation to brands and lessons learned from doing the exact opposite with, you know, large retailers like Albertsons and Kroger.

Is if there's a way for you to test first, please do that. it's a saving grace for you , and sets you up really well going forward. 

Jordan Buckner: Yeah, that was a great recommendation. I think that's probably best for most people. Like if you have to question it, like try to start with a smaller footprint.

What are the other things that you want to make sure to set up before you even launch? Like one thing I experienced was. Make sure your item set up in the correct is correctly so that stores can actually receive it. And the distributor is going to not just drop your product off at the back door, but also make sure that it gets, you know, on shelf if that's their service or having a merchandising team or someone who's looking out to making sure your product's ending up where it's supposed to be on the right date.

Harrai Khalsa: Yeah. I think that leads us into that first 30 days, right? Is resets take a long time, especially with 100 store chain. You know, it's not a, every store is resetting the same date we're talking about, you know, it could be for six weeks or [00:08:00] even longer. So making sure that you know, the first 30 days you're taking the time yourself or with a team.

To get in the store, merchandise, the product, make sure it's set where you thought it was going to be set. The stores you can't hit, you can use data like from Crisp, Crisp will show you or spins will show you where you might have some open holes out of the gates, but really the best thing any brand can do at that stage is get their feet.

In the store, talking to managers, cashiers, stockers, making friends introducing the product. If the product's not there, asking the manager, hey, can you make sure you get this ordered? I'll be here next week. I'll stock it for you. we forget a lot of the times that it's not just about getting in the store and the store will do everything for you.

These are relationships. And I had someone recently talk to me about how you know, the retailers are in the real estate business. You know, they're renting shelf space to you and it's your job to be a good tenant. And keep things moving off the shelf and do what they ask and make sure that it's stocked.

And yes, they will help. But [00:09:00] you gotta motivate them to help. You gotta be a positive, good brand and have some positive light in , those stores. So.

Tate Glasgow: And some ways to do that is obviously the relationship, find the right people, talk to everybody, you know, know that you have a presence and, You have a product worth selling and, samples, merch, anything you can do to elicit excitement out of the people who are seeing and dealing with that product every single day, right?

So the cashiers, again, the stockers, anyone who is touching that product, it doesn't matter who it is. They're going to get asked by a consumer. They're going to interact with the consumer at any level in any way that you can get them to do that. I spent some time with honey mamas and. He was our kind of field marketing and he's got, he's touched a lot of places, Gabe.

He's fantastic. I watched him and, and took example from him is that we would walk into a Whole Foods or most stores that have a break room. And he would walk right in and put a full case of Honey Mamas right in the refrigerator for that brand. So any way that you can hand it to them, you can get it in their break room, you can interact with them on any [00:10:00] level, and just do that till your feet hurt and your brain can't handle it anymore, cause that's really where you're gonna pull that lever.

Jordan Buckner: Yeah, you know, as I mentioned in that story earlier, I didn't even ask like one of the grocery managers at those Mariano stores was like, Hey, where can I find TeaSquares? I'm like the founder. And he's like, Oh, let's go check out the Tea aisle. And I was like, well, our products are actually energy bars and they're probably in this aisle, right?

Like you get just no idea. And imagine if that was just a customer coming in and he was actively trying to buy the products. And they can't, not even the people working in the store know where it is. Can definitely be problematic. And in that state, I like that you mentioned as well about thinking about as real estate, because a lot of times.

Founders think like, Oh, I'm just selling my product to the retailer and it's their job to sell the product for me. And really the ownership stays with the brand all the way through, right. Until it gets into the consumer's home. 

Harrai Khalsa: And most of the time, even past that, I mean, if there's a customer service, Nina, I mean, the brand's the one that's going to get the.

Yeah. Redirected back to them. So yeah, absolutely. it is [00:11:00] your job to make sure that the product looks like it needs to look like on shelf and to get you, your friends in the store to help you do that while you're out there. I mean That's what makes this whole thing so difficult and why we're even talking today.

Tate Glasgow: you utilize your network, your friends, your family, the friends of friends, your cousins, whoever it is to get into those stores, a buy the product, talk to the product, take pictures of the shelf for you give you updates wherever you can. Utilizing your network will be, especially with limited resources and people that'll be invaluable.

You know, you may not be able to have afford merchandising service or The broker level that you're at currently isn't quite up to that merchandising level. You can, you know, utilize your network, your friends, they're there for you. They want to, you know, build champions, build those people who believe in you and get them out there.

Jordan Buckner: Harrai I love for you to share too. I love that. Well, there's some of the other things that brands can have set up from the beginning in store to help drive that trial. Thinking about. Okay. Like merchandising or should you run promotions right off the gate? 

Harrai Khalsa: Yeah. I mean, there's every [00:12:00] retailer is unique.

They'll have their own unique subset of levers and different programs you can do. A lot of retailers have an intro program or have a, and usually you're going a little deeper on promotion. You are ideally doing demos as well, especially if it's a demo product, a product that's able to be demoed.

From there, you're going to be able to utilize information from your consumers, you're going to be able to get it out there. Demoing is expensive but if you want to manage it well Promomash does have a nice service available and a product to help you do that. Otherwise, you know education is huge.

Any way you can get things in people's hands, shelf talkers, information on the shelf, if you can get off shelf displays, if you can get. Any of those levers you can pull to bring an awareness to those people. One thing that I did with Yogi team many times with one of my favorite retailers, moms is that we would have they would get together with all of their staff once a year.

And we had the opportunity to do a huge kind of educational course with every single one of the managers of those stores. So if there's opportunities for that, sometimes you have to pay for it. [00:13:00] But if you're in front of these people telling your story, telling them benefits, anything about the product Those are some of the great levers.

And that's what you have to ask in the very beginning with those buyers is to say, what levers can I pull? What things are available to me? 

Jordan Buckner: Yeah, I love that. And having that set up at launch. So it's kind of ready to go. Yeah. Right. The software kind of at the end of that 30 days, what kind of reporting or analysis should you be looking at to understand how things are starting out to know if you're on track or not?

Tate Glasgow: Oh, there's, you know, for a small brand a lot of retailers won't give you the information you need. But again, that's a relationship with the buyer. Understanding that if as a part of that process, is this a retailer I want to work with, ask some of your friends, ask some of the people that are in the industry.

are they able to give us the reporting that we need, that we don't have to buy? And so some of that reporting is obviously sales. And then, you know, going into, if you're working with a distributor like UNFI, looking at their shipment data. Looking at what's going out their door, if it's going out of the right DC to the right store.

Making sure you can track it there. And then again, looking at your spend. [00:14:00] I mean, that's part of the planning process is looking how much you're going to spend on it. And if you can. Ideally set up a scan with a customer or with a retailer. Scans are one of your easiest ways. The easier billing cycle, it gets billed directly to you.

Then you can see how much output you actually have and what you're going to be spending at that account over 30 days. And again, looking at your PODs and then looking at velocities and then making sure you're still aligned with the KPIs that, and the metrics that the buyer has given to you from the beginning so important. 

Jordan Buckner: right. Let's transition to phase two, that next 30 days of kind of really about kind of scaling, optimization, you're still going to be getting a lot of. new trial than that time, but it might actually be doing some things to result in a second purchase. So what are some of the things that we need to be looking at for phase two tape?

Harrai Khalsa: We're still talking intensely about the 80 20 rule at this point. You've found, and you have an idea of what that could 20 you know, 20 percent of stores. Those top stores are going to be for your brand and for the retailer.

And making sure that they're starting to correlate when they're [00:15:00] not correlating, going in, spending some extra time with the mayor, spending some extra time in the store, understanding why you know, a good performance store for the retailer isn't for you, but also lean into the ones where you're seeing the success right away.

It's a lot less expensive and a lot easier to drive more sales somewhere where the sales are already coming in instead of going and having to. Kickstart something in an area where it's already difficult for you and your brand. And it's always going to be that way just because the demographic lean into what's happening and the success you're seeing by this time you're probably, you know got some relationships with the store level team.

You can do some pulse checks on how they think you're doing. How's the distributor doing on getting product there on time? Good. how they're in instances where the shelf's been empty, hopefully, you know, you spend enough time in the store where they're not, but that's not always the case.

It's difficult on that first reorder with any distributor to make sure everybody knows how much product needs to be ordered and then that the stores know how much [00:16:00] product needs to be ordered. So it's a push and pull a little bit on that front, but it's something that you can work through.

And then start to you know, Harrai and I I've talked about this a lot, but deeper local engagement you know, we've got all this stuff happening at the store and we've invested in our demos and we continue to do so. And we're looking for that second purchase and we're looking for, in this case, still probably our first purchase a little bit, but how can we get The people who shop at that store in the local community, maybe outside of the store some brand awareness you know, where else can you get that traction inexpensively? And an example of that recently I was running a program with a potato chip company and the partnership with a local hockey team.

Was a very inexpensive option for us to not only be a partner with them, but all of retailers that we were in were also associated with that same group. Which means that the people who attend those games are likely shopping at those locations and doing some small [00:17:00] local engagement things there to bring brand awareness to, you know, what you're doing.

If you think about it, It gives people the chance to say, Hey Fred Meyer, huge sponsor of Idaho Steelheads. They did that huge, massive thing. I'm going to go shop at Fred Meyer. Well, on the way out the door, see the potato chips and the concessions, or they see a small ad about the brand and they put it together when they see him in the store.

And just like a little brand awareness plays, and it doesn't have to be as big as a hockey collaboration. There are plenty of other things, farmers markets, events in the park, but try to become more of a community around the retailer with the people who are likely shopping at that location.

Tate Glasgow: and to add to that really quickly, that's also your relationship With the buyers, you know, you may not be local to this place, right? So ask the buyers, ask the managers, ask anyone that's around those stores. What kind of things are going around around here? Are there, is there a 5k is there, you know, whatever different events and things that are meaningful to the communities around them.

If you can be a part of it, if you're aligned with [00:18:00] those events tap in as much as you can. 

Jordan Buckner: I love that. You know, one of the, my favorite questions to buyers is asking them, What types of promotions or activations have you seen other brands do that were really successful? Right. Like in your stores, particularly and they'll know, and they'll tell you like, ah, there's one time, you know, this brand did X, Y, and Z, and it really worked for him.

Then we got a lot of people in the store. We got a lot of people buying because every store as we kind of mentioned, like operates differently, you know, different levels of promotion, drive different amounts of sales. Some stores displays work really well. Other stores like out of aisle displays, like don't, they don't even allow it.

And so really understanding, like, what can you do in the store? And then all those things outside the store, I think are really important. And it really brings the home, like a plate that it makes sense, but you don't really realize it when you're so into as a founder, but when you're launching in a new market.

There's usually very few people who actually even know your brand exists and your product exists at all. And then secondly, even those that do, how do you let them know that you're actually in that store? Maybe someone shops at a store has heard about your brand, but they have no idea that you're [00:19:00] even available to purchase in that store, and so there's multiple levels of awareness that you actually need to build as a founder and it takes time, it takes time and it takes.

Getting your product and your brand out there in as many different unique places as possible so that they can see you four or five, six times before maybe making that purchase. 

Tate Glasgow: And I think that the time point that you made is really important. Patience pays,, you know, you can't it's not a flip of the switch, you know, you really have to make sure you plan, you do your due diligence, but then again, it will take time. And sometimes the time isn't available because it's just by nature of resets and the retailer that you're working with. But you know, time is, is definitely important.

Jordan Buckner: Two months can go by really fast kind of in this industry. And so let's kind of transition to phase three, right? That final 30 days of this quarter, you know, 90 day push. Well, there's some of the things that, you might be thinking of as you're thinking about that 30 days evaluating me, like what's been working, what's not to really hone that strategy.

You have enough time to know the initial view of [00:20:00] what's working, what's not kind of, how do you. Reframe the strategy. 

Tate Glasgow: Yeah. And internally at Promomash, we actually have some data specifically on demos that demos and threes are very powerful. So making sure you're hitting, you know, the same store over the course of a couple quarters, three times.

And getting that re repeat view with the customer, a repeat purchase, or you know, just you know, Letting them see the brand for that one, two, three, third time. I, a long time ago, I heard a restauranteur talk about. Something very similar to this about if you can get, if you're launching a new restaurant, if you can get a customer in the door sitting down and enjoying their meal for a third time, you've got them for life.

And I'd like to bring that into the CPG space too, in a way, because if you realistically can get a customer. To try to buy again, and then to buy again in multiples or to buy, you know, a couple of different flavors. You've got somebody now that is a lot less expensive for you to keep acquiring.

And that really helps the long term value, lifetime value of that customer at that [00:21:00] retailer. So, I like to think about it a little bit like that. How do we, whatever we're doing, how do we get as many customers as we can? And a short amount of time to that third purchase, but a positive third purchase.

But you know, as you, we started getting to 60 and 90 days, we need to start looking back at how, you know TPRs and promotions performed over the first 60 days. Now we're able to probably get a little bit of data. We're able to see, you know, what worked, what didn't on those likely launch promos, which are going to be potentially a little bit more aggressive start to have some conversations that are more along the lines of like, you know, Hey, it's been 60 days.

It's like, how are we doing? Tell us how we're doing. Open conversations with the store directors and with your assistant category manager or your category manager, whoever you can get that information from. and start to make the adjustments as needed going forward. There are always going to be adjustments you have to make always you're never, you know, it's, you're never going to get it perfectly right.

But as long as you're willing to pivot where you need to pivot Everybody's going to appreciate that. And [00:22:00] everybody's gonna give that some credit for sure. And then when we look at like a long term marketing strategy, this likely would have been thought about before the launch and should have been thought out before the launch.

But I just want to give some tips here that I've seen very helpful for myself and other brands and lean into what the retailer is doing. You mentioned it earlier. Jordan, if the retailer's putting time and investment into a certain strategy internally for their own marketing, that probably means that it's important to them and something that they want their brands to participate with.

A couple of examples is like, this is big, but like after COVID, we started looking at Walmart pickup, right? As something, if you're in a region of Walmart or if you're a larger across the nation at Walmart and you're not focused on Walmart pickup, there's only 40 plus percent of all grocery pickup in the, in the country, then you should probably be thinking about that like long term that becomes something that you really need to be aware of.

Or the fresh market, the fresh market a couple of years ago [00:23:00] launched a. Kind of like an internal TikTok style seasonal cooking show. And their e commerce team put a ton of effort into it and really wanted participants and wanted brands to come in and give it a shot. Because they saw a lot of value in it.

So, on the front end, it was really inexpensive to get in there and be a part of it. And it turned out to be a great thing. It turned out, out to be awesome for both the brand and the retailer. 

Jordan Buckner: So that's awesome. Love all those tips. Harrai What are you thinking about at this time? 

Harrai Khalsa: You know, again, you're going to be looking at some of the reporting that you're getting.

And hopefully by this point, it's gotten a little bit more in depth. You have longer term data to work with against your velocities and, and effectiveness of your promotions and what those are that, you know, that we spoke to and, you know and then really re evaluating and then continue to evaluate as you go along and, in some ways not being afraid of experimenting again, you know, if something didn't work, if you have the time and you have the bandwidth to be able to do it and the resources, give something a little bit of a nudge, you know, give, if it's A little bit [00:24:00] deeper or you're too deep, you know, maybe raise, you know, raise up your discount a little bit or raise that promotion up or down a little bit, or you know, look at the timeframes, look at which, you know, was this the right cup, you know, timeframe was this the right two weeks.

So we let her in the better in the back half of the month or in the front of the month or the full month or. Just getting into the weeds of that and understanding how that is affecting your business and then obviously looking at the 80, 20, seeing how those 20 percent of stores are performing and looking at what things are working there and continue to do so.

You know, there's always that saying, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. So you can live by that as well. 

Jordan Buckner: I love it. What would you recommend for brands who say launch, they're getting to the end of their 90 days. And they're like, It's just going okay. Like maybe it's not terrible, but like we're getting a couple of sales, but it's kind of not hitting that performance.

The promotions aren't really panning out that they're doing. Like maybe they're selling during demo, but as soon as they stopped demoing, they don't see a pickup in sales after that. Well, there's some things to, some questions to ask. 

Harrai Khalsa: I'll let you take that, Tate. 

Tate Glasgow: Yeah, I think the [00:25:00] first question you need to dig, dig down into look around at the retailer. What is this consumer looking for? Am I in the right set? Am I somehow displayed on shelf in an awkward way? Am I hidden? Am I you know, we're learning stuff about how this retailer operates. What they'll allow us, won't allow us to do. So if you're, you know, hidden on the bottom quarter of the shelf, we have a really great.

Relationship with the manager and you haven't had the conversation about, Hey, can you get us in a secondary placement? I mean, no, one's going to see us here. Can we get a shelf tag? Fight for what you now know it needs to happen in order for yourself to be successful. And there's nothing wrong with asking absolutely nothing wrong with asking.

I ran a demo program in Albertson Southwest, and we're talking about a retailer that will not normally let you do anything without paying for it. And good conversations with store directors led to us leaving aisle clings in the [00:26:00] frozen aisle up on the door as we left the demo, which would normally be something you'd have to pay thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars for.

And they're up, because the relationship was good they appreciated what we had done, and they'll be up, you know, they were up for 4 or 6 weeks before they took him down. So, you know, you gotta start getting creative, and that's what this is all about. You gotta, at the end of the day, it's gotta be fun, man.

It's gotta be fun. If it's tough, where are we going? So I think, you know, when it comes to like reporting and stuff you know, Promomash is an awesome tool. And I think it is a tool that every brand, no matter the size can get a little, and a lot of value out of just from understanding your lift, understanding how the demos went.

 It's a great tool and I'll open it up right now to anybody who's going through this 30, 60, 90 days and gets to the 90 days and says, Oh, what's going on here? Like use Harrai myself , and Jordan's tools to help you have a conversation with us all because we've been there and, you know, I've openly failed that I've had some wins along the way too, and happy to chat with [00:27:00] anybody.

Jordan Buckner: Yeah, the biggest thing that you just mentioned as well, like start measuring how things are going from the beginning as best you can. Because the worst thing is to proceed down three, four, five, six months, and they realize like, oh crap, we've been underperforming since month two, but didn't even know it.

Or, like, we've been really doing great at this one store, but like, not all these others, but we've been focusing on that one, like, what do we need to do for these other ones or have those conversations? And most times it comes way too late. To do anything with that impact. So a lot of times data can be scary because especially when it's showing your performance is not doing as well as you want it to do, right?

Like don't want to look at those numbers sometimes, but it's really important to have them front and center so that you can be focused and know where to spend your time to measurably impact that. 

Tate Glasgow: A lot less scary though, going back to the beginning where we talked about, do you go all in with all a hundred or do you just take the top 15 to test it out?

I think that a brand, once they make that decision, both sides scary, if it's not performing well, if you can learn that a product's not going to work in a [00:28:00] store with 10 or 12 versus a hundred doors, then heck yeah, you can start to affect that a lot better. 

Jordan Buckner: I love that. And the last thing, you know, I'll say as well is A lot of the things we've been talking about require a lot of work, activations, discounts, programs.

And I do want brands to know like going into retail is a investment that can be expensive during that first year. Most brands that I've heard are not profitable at a retailer or chain for that first year, because you're making a long term investment. In the success, even without slotting fees, like slide fees, who definitely know is a big investment, but through demos, TPR is like discounts that you're doing all these activations.

Like it's expensive to launch into stores. And so that's why it's important to have. A strategy that you're testing out in five, 10 locations so that you know, how can I optimize it early so that I can then scale that program as we expand to more and more retailers. 

Harrai Khalsa: And then I want to reiterate what Tate said is bring as much [00:29:00] enjoyment, as much light, as much fun as you possibly can.

This is not easy. None of this is easy. It gets harder and harder, but more joy and light and energy you bring to this will be beneficial. I mean, look at some of these brands out here that are doing this. Midday squares is an example. These guys are out there in stores, dancing with store.

You know, store managers and making sure it's out there. And that's the enjoyment, you know, bring some joy, do some fun things, you know, go on, you know when you do some store visits, do it, you know make it fun, do some fun things, bring your team with you and just bring that enjoyment and people that's infectious.

and, and if you're in there. Being sour and being mean, then what's the point, you know, bring that energy to every place that you go to and people will. We'll definitely resonate with it.

Jordan Buckner: Yeah, I absolutely love that. It's a great place to end as well. So Tate and Harrai , thanks so much for joining today and talking about helping brands build a 30, 60, 90 plan.

Thanks so much for listening and understanding some of the considerations that you need as you're launching new retailers. If you have questions, I'll put info [00:30:00] for. Tate, Harrai , myself in the show notes as well. So you can reach out, ask those questions and get the help. And then of course, make sure that you're measuring your success along the way.

Promomash is a really great tool to be able to do that with. So I'll put more info in the show notes on how to get connected to their team. But, most of all, we want to make sure that you're leaving this with some tangible ways of building your brand so you can bring that joy and success to your business.

Thanks so much, everyone. 

Harrai Khalsa: Thank you, Jordan.