302. Help Retailers Win- The Key Trends Category Leaders Know

0:00Welcome to Day 30. Help Your Retail Partner Key Trends to Know. Develop a collaborative partnership with retailers. Educate them about key trends that they need to understand. Put their needs first and savvy retailers will often return the favor. If you've been following this series, then you already understand the fundamental truth about all category leadership. Retailers don't make products. Retailers sell real estate. Every inch of space is an investment. Every skew is a bet. Every brand is a tenant competing for relevance. And because retailers compete on the same crowded playing field as you do, they share three universal goals.

0:38Retailers really want more traffic, a competitive advantage in their market, a reasonable profit in every category. Your ability to help them achieve these three things is what separates just another brand from a true category leader. So today we're going to break down how you help retailers win and how doing so creates an unfair advantage for your brand. Number one, help retailers drive traffic. Shoppers don't walk into a store because of a retailer. They walk in because of your products and the complementary products that help them solve a specific problem. So your job is simple. Make your retailer the go-to destination for your shopper.

1:15You do this by making it easy for your customers to find and buy your product, ensuring floss merchandising, supporting product discovery with education, highlighting complimentary solutions across the store, building community around your brand, and pointing customers to your retail partners. When a shopper knows exactly where to go to find the products they rely on, they return again and again. This is how you help retailers build loyalty. And loyalty isn't embossed on a plastic card. Loyalty is earned through clarity, through consistency, through trust, through ease. When you help the retailer become the obvious friction-free choice for your core customers, you become indispensable.

1:55Number two, help retailers gain a competitive advantage. Most retailers default to price-driven strategies, but price wars destroy profits and teach customers to shop around. You must help retailers differentiate through destination categories, solution-based merchandising, basket-building promotions, clear consistent shopper journeys. Category insights as it can't get anywhere else. Early in this series, you heard how organizing around the market basket can transform a category, build solutions, co-promote with complementary brands, build seasonal lifestyle displays, create a flyer highlighting the full solution, anchor the shopper's entire journey around your category expertise.

2:38These aren't price-driven tactics. These are value-driven strategies. They give the retailer what every retailer craves, a way to win without racing to the bottom, And the moment you help a retailer win on value instead of price, you become their go-to partner. Number three, help retailers grow a reasonable, sustainable profit. Here's a truth few brands want to admit. Promotions pull profit out of the category. Promotions are bad when they're strategic, but the industry overuses them and retailers often treat them as the default lever. Your job is to help retailers understand that. Base sales matter more than spikes.

3:15Deep discounting teaches shoppers to wait. Over-promotion erodes category value. Not every discount brings new customers. Sustainable growth requires consistency, not volatility. Use promotions to introduce new shoppers. Drive trial, support key seasons, anchor larger basket solutions, reinforce brand storytelling. But don't rely on them as your retail identity. When you help retailers balance excitement and sustainability, you become a stabilizing force in their category. They remember that. What retailers secretly want, but rarely say out loud. My friend Sarah at ECRM hears the same question from retailers that I've been hearing for decades.

3:56Why won't brands take the time to educate us? Why do they show up unprepared? Why do they all bring the same generic reports? Retailers generally want brands to, number one, fill out paperwork correctly and completely. Show respect for their time. Number two, teach them something new. Insights about the category, your customer trends, blind spots, gaps, opportunities, anything that they can't get from a syndicated report. Number three, help them grow the category. Retailers cannot possibly be experts in every item they sell. They depend on brands who understand their shoppers, trends, the market, emerging behaviors, how your unique customer shops.

4:37Number four, act as their eyes and ears. Retailers rarely have time to shop competitors, track national trends, study emerging insights, scan innovation across regions, bring them intel that helps them win. A brand that consistently brings insights becomes far more valuable than a brand that only brings discounts. Your goal, become their trusted partner, not a vendor, not a commodity, not an interchangeable skew, but a partner. A partner solves problems, brings clarity, brings creativity, brings insights, removes friction, adds value across the entire journey. When you do this consistently, retailers begin to seek your advice and eventually they give you opportunities no other brand gets.

5:20Early previews or resets, preferred placement, incremental displays, special promotional windows, direct asks for help, influence over broader category strategy. This is where your secret sauce pays off because this is exactly how I've pushed around some of the largest and most iconic brands in the world. Category leadership isn't about size, it's about contribution and contribution always wins. To drive this home, remember my story from yesterday? We helped the retailer increase traffic, basket size, and profits in their category. We also became an invaluable resource to the retailer in the process.

5:58Brands are lucky to get a few precious minutes with that retailer in a year and yet because they viewed us as a trusted valued partner, we met with them almost monthly for hours at a time. This is the power behind these strategies. They work for the brands I've worked with and they can work for you. A final thought, retailer partnerships thrive when you approach the relationship as a collaboration rather than an adversarial exchange. Your job is to help retailers drive traffic, help them differentiate, help them grow profit, help them simplify, help them delight their shoppers. Do that consistently and retailers reward you with support, trust, and opportunities you can't buy with promotions.

6:38This is how brands scale. This is how leaders emerge. This is how you build a future-proof business. Next up, we'll continue building on this retailer-first foundation and show you how to weave these strategies into every facet of your go-to-market execution. This is the final episode before closing. Wrap up here. We're getting close to the summit. Let's keep climbing. For additional inspiration, listen to the following podcast episodes episode 23 salesmanship 401 mastering the art of sales with andrew theron with sampler sales are the key to every brand success learn effective ways to ensure that your sales strategy is consistently communicated to shoppers retailers brokers investors and more and then this into episode 122 brand building success strategies for retail growth with mathis of m2 brands and formerly kroger the goal of most brands is to get on a store shelf and be featured by a retailer it's not as simple as it sounds you need to know what the retailers want and expect from the brands they sell learn what you need to know this is your roadmap for success and then listen to episode 129 knowing your core customer is critical to your success at retail knowing your ideal customer is at the heart of every successful strategy retailers need brands to collaborate in educate them to drive shopper traffic and category growth.

8:01It's the foundation to build sustainable sales. And then listen to episode 166. Produce is the gateway to center store sales growth, with Lori with Produce Mums. Produce is where customers begin their journey to healthy living with simple, easy to understand ingredients. It's the gateway to growth, sales in every category. Brands should celebrate their connection to the produce department to build trust and sales. Tip of the day, develop a collaborative partnership with retailers. Educate them about key trends that they need to be aware of. Always put their needs first and savvy retailers might return the favor.

8:36Thank you for listening. This episode has accompanied video with illustrations and additional information I can't share in an audio podcast. You can watch it at retailsolved.com slash 30daychallenge. You can get the show notes for this episode by going to retailsolved.com slash session 302. Tomorrow's episode is a conclusion. You are now a category leader. This episode will build on today's conversation. Want more sales? How to profitably scale a food business today, tomorrow, and beyond. Here's this week's free downloadable guide. The 30-Day to Prosperity Workbook is a companion to the 30-Day Challenge.

9:11This retail-solve blueprint will teach you what you need to know to confidently grow and scale your brand, build a connected community of loyal evangelists, and multiply your brand's impact, sales, and profits. Every slight improvement means more runway for sales growth, higher brand evaluations, better terms when negotiating with investors, fuel for more innovation, greater support for mission-based causes, and much more. Thanks for joining us today. Please reach out and share your most pressing questions, and I'll do my best to get you the answers that you need on future episodes, including expert advice from CEOs and industry thought leaders.

9:44Comment, leave your questions, and get this week's free downloadable guide and the show notes at retailsolved.com slash session 302. Remember that?