Are you a small or emerging brand-owner looking to get onto retail shelves? This webinar series was developed especially for you!

Bruce Montgomery and Tracey Priest each have a wealth of experience in working with CPG brands to get their products on the shelf. In their work with emerging brands, they realized that many of them faced similar challenges in engaging with retail buyers. To help these brands to better navigate the path toward success on the shelf, Bruce and Tracey developed a series of webcasts based on interviews with buyers that outlined some key insights based on those buyers recommendations.

“The idea for the Road to Retail series came about due to inquiries from many talented and passionate CEOs/founders of small and emerging brands,” says Montgomery. “The core question, at some point, always became: ‘How do I get my brand in to one of these national retailers?’ After all of our years in the business, we felt we had a pretty good idea of what it took. But upon reflection, we had an even better resource: a network of smart professionals working in the merchandising departments of these national retailers—so we decided to ask them directly.”

What follows are an introductory video with an overview of the four webinars, followed by each webinar, which together provide answers to the question: “What does a small or emerging brand need to do to ultimately get on your shelf?”

Intro: Road to Retail Series

Bruce and Tracey provide an overview of the webinar series, how they developed it, who it's for, and a summary of the topics covered in each.

Road to Retail Part I: Securing the Buyer Meeting

This webinar focuses on securing meetings with buyers and how to best prepare for them, and covers the following topics:

• How to land the buyer meeting.
• Buyer expectations
• How should the brand prepare?
• How will the buyer prepare for a meeting with a smaller/new supplier?
• The dynamics of the buyer and category.

Road to Retail Part II: The Presentation

This webinar focuses on the elements of a successful buyer presentation, and addresses the following topics:

• How does a buyer determine the viability of a small/emerging brand?
• What do buyers like to see in a presentation?
• What elements and metrics must be included in a solid presentation?
• What do buyers dread about a meeting?
• How to best follow up with your buyer?

Road to Retail Part III: Strategy, Math & More

This webinar covers everything from strategy, to the role of distributors, trade math, and how to identify a good sales agent. It addresses the following topics: 

• What is a Go-To-Market strategy?
• What are the costs of doing business with a national retailer and how do I budget/negotiate accordingly?
• Understanding some key trade math: margin, markup and calculating ROI
• What is a distributor and its role with my brand?
• What should a good broker or sales agent do for my brand?

Road to Retail Part IV: Execution in the New Normal

Part 4 addresses how to secure a meeting during the current environment driven by the pandemic. While business continues, this ‘new normal’ has changed the rules of engagement significantly. Topics covered in this webinar include:   

• Virtual meetings
• What actions should a small or emerging brand take. (Doing nothing is not an option!)
• Benefits of ECRM and RangeMe
• The Success Kit: including building a crisp deck, getting set up on RangeMe, and creating a video in the actual voice of the CEO/Founder