309. Why Your Products Aren't Selling? It's Not What You Think

0:00True category management. When data lied and the shopper told the truth. The truth every founder eventually learns the hard way. But first, I coined the term true category management to highlight the difference between those who rely on what I call push button category management, where they hit a button to spit out a canned generic report, and those of us who use creative strategies to build brands and give them an unfair competitive advantage. So why does this matter? Advanced creative strategies found in category management give your brand the edge it deserves. For example, some of my wins include growing brand sales by 215 % in four years, gaining premium placement and distribution over 1 ,600 stores for struggling brand.

0:43A key retailer instantly adopting the new Sortman Merchandising strategy nationwide, growing their total sales 9 % while other retailers are flat or declining. That strategy dramatically increased shopper foot traffic and market basket sales in the category by leveraging the strength of our brand. The key point is that the same generic charts and graphs your competition use don't drive sales. Being able to tell a compelling story that leverages the strength of your unique shopper is what gives retailer or partners predictable profits, a distinct category advantage in their market, and invites new customers into their store.

1:21This is how you give your brand an unfair competitive advantage in any economy. Those strategies can give small brands an equal seat at the retailer's table with the best funded, most sophisticated brands on the planet. This is exactly how I pushed around some of the biggest, most iconic brands. Those strategies are sprinkled throughout all my podcast episodes and in the free guides at the end of every episode and throughout the RetailSolve website. Back to our story. If you're an emerging CPG brand, chances are someone has told you that the key to winning in retail is more velocity, more promotions, more social media, more doors, more influencers.

1:59But here's the uncomfortable truth you only learn once you've been in this industry long enough. Most brands don't fail because of a lack of marketing or distribution. They fail because they don't understand how retail actually works. And retail, real retail, is driven by the shopper, the category, the retailer strategy, and the brand's ability to solve problems better than anyone else. Everything else is noise. Today, I'm going to walk you through the single most important capability you can master in your business. The skill big brands groom aggressively and small brands desperately need. True category management, not templated reporting, not syndicated data dumps, not decks filled with charts no one understands.

2:41I'm talking about the strategic discipline that helps you understand your shopper, anticipate trends, identify category opportunities, drive retailer profit, and become the most valuable partner in room, even if you're the smallest brand on the shelf. This is the kind of knowledge big brands send people to week-long trainings for, and I was lucky enough to receive that training, month after month, and at the highest level. Today I'm opening that playbook for you. Put a different way, I'm going to show you how to skate to the puck before the play even starts, and I'm doing this as the next chapter in the New Item Essentials series.

3:16But first, let me tell you the story of when I realized how powerful and how misunderstood category management really is. The story. When data lied and the shopper told the truth. Years ago, early in my category management career, I was working with a major retailer to convince a certain premium brand was underperforming. The retailer's ranking report showed poor velocity, low distribution, below average sales contribution. The recommendation from their internal team, cut the brand, replace it with something cheaper and faster moving. But something fell off, So I did something most analysts never do.

3:50I went to the store. I watched shoppers interact with the set. I watched how they moved, what they touched, what they compared, what they put back, and what they carried to the register. I asked shoppers to walk me through the decision-making process, and here's what I saw. Shoppers weren't ignoring the brand because it wasn't appealing. They were searching for it, and often they couldn't find it. It was misplaced in some stores, blocked by shelf tags, stocked incorrectly, replenished late, and in one store literally behind the wrong product. The data said the brand was failing. The shopper said something entirely differently.

4:25Remember that a confused mind will always say no. That's when I learned a lesson I've carried with me throughout my entire career. Data tells you what's happening. The shopper tells you why. And true category management is about combining both strategically, intelligently, creatively, so that you can give retailers something 99 % of the brands never offer, actionable insights that grow the entire category. That single insight not only saved the brand, it made them one of the retailer's preferred partners. That's the power of category management done right. Let's zoom out and see where this fits in the retail operating system roadmap.

5:03Why category management is the North Star. True category management sits at the center of new item success, merchandising, assortment, brand health, data storytelling, retail relationships, and trade marketing are a why. It's the backbone of every other strategy you'll use. When founders ask me, how do I get more distribution? How do I avoid delisting? How do I get better placement? How do I stop overspending or trade? How do I build the selling story retailers care about? My answer is always the same. Start with the category. Because retailers don't buy products, they buy category performance.

5:41Retailers don't buy stories, they buy outcomes. And retailers don't buy products, they buy solutions to shopper problems. This episode is your roadmap to understanding how to think, act, and sell like a category leader, no matter your size. Let's break it down into five micro strategies. Strategy number one, think like a category, not a brand. Stop selling your brand. Start selling the category. Retailers don't buy products, they buy category performance. The founder mistake. Most brands talk about their mission, their ingredients, their clean label, their certifications, their packaging, their values.

6:18All great things, but none answer the question retailers care about. How does this improve my category? The retailer's lens. Retailers are responsible for increasing trips, increasing profit, maximizing space, improving conversion, responding to trends, and beating their competition. If your product doesn't help them do these things, they don't need it. The better way? Become a category interpreter. True category management is the art and the science of understanding shopper behavior, specifically how your unique customer shops, identifying unmet needs, the gap that increases customer churn in their store, mapping trends to assortment, improving the shopper journey, Highlighting contribution, not your sales, but the profitable dollars your brand generates.

7:06Showing incremental growth opportunities. How your brand gives retailers a distinct and unique competitive advantage. When you speak that language, buyers listen. Action steps this week. Number one, write a one-sentence answer to, what problem in the category does my product solve better than anyone else? Number two, identify the shopper segment that drives category growth. Number three, rewrite your pitch so it leads with category logic, not brand logic. Strategy number two, retailers want insights, not reports. Data doesn't sell, insights do. If your data isn't telling a story, it's just decoration.

7:46From the Mining Your Data Field mini-course, data does not equal insights. Most brands throw syndicated data tables into a deck and call it a category story. But true insights are shopper behavior, switching patterns, mission-based needs, premium trade-up trends, category value drivers, seasonality patterns, basket linkages, market gaps. The founder mistake is presenting data without interpretation. This is what most brands are trained to do, including big brands. The better way? Tell the buyer, here's what the shopper is telling us, and here's how we help you respond. Suddenly, you're not a vendor.

8:23You're a strategist. Action steps this week. Number one, pull your category's latest 52, 26, and 13-week sales. Number two, identify top growing attributes, fastest growing shopper segments, declining mainstream behaviors. Number three, turn each insight into a two-sentence takeaway for your deck. For example, there's a$1.5 million gap in your category, and here's how we plug it. Strategy number three, map the shopper decision tree. The shopper decision tree, your placement superpower. If you understand how shoppers navigate the shelf, you can win any shelf you want. This is a core principle of true category management.

9:04The shopper decision tree explains how shoppers navigate the shelf, what they look for, what they compare, where they go next, their emotional and functional priorities. The problem? Most founders never build one. The power. Once you map the decision tree, you instantly understand where your item belongs, what it competes against, what it complements, where it should be blocked, what signage improves conversion, which attribute drives trial. Big brands spend a lot of money paying outside consultants to solve this puzzle. You can simply just ask your loyal customers how they shop for your brand and what's important to them.

9:42I talk about the power of building an online community for your customers during several podcast episodes. This is one of the best strategies to leverage the strength of your brand with retailers. Imagine being able to tell retailers this is exactly where your most profitable shoppers look for your brand and here's a list of products they purchase with it. Priceless. Action steps this week. Number one, identify the top three reasons the shopper enters your category. Number two, identify the attributes they check first. Number three, build a three-level decision tree. Number one category need number two attribute group number three product type this becomes your placement logic and your negotiation leverage strategy number four learn to see the assortment gaps like a buyer find the gaps the retailers can't see the fastest way to land shelf space is to show retailers the opportunity they're missing retailers can't possibly be experts in every category in every item they sell.

10:42They need your help. This is an opportunity for you to help them gain a significant competitive advantage in the process. Helping retailers get what they want equals more traffic in their store. A competitive advantage in their market and a reasonable profit is how you earn their trust and admiration. Savvy retailers might even reward you with incremental opportunities not available to other brands. This is the exact playbook I when I work with brands. This is how small brands compete head-to-head with better funded, more sophisticated big brands. Retailers don't look at products. They look at patterns.

11:19They ask, where's the duplication? Where's the white space? What item trades shoppers up? What items drive premium basket? Which items attract new shoppers? Which items serve future trends? I go deeper into this in my True Category Management, the Roadmap to Sell Success mini course. Tools like the Pareto Curve, Generic Ranking Reports, Share Analysis by Brand and Segment, Market versus Account Comparison let you see what the buyer sees, sometimes even before they do. The better way? Show the buyer, here's the element you need in your category, and here's how our product fills it. Sometimes this requires an ad hoc analysis.

11:58This is where a talented category management expert is worth their weight in gold. That one slide can help you win the shelf. Action steps this week. Run a simple gap analysis. What the market sells. What the retailer sells. What are shoppers searching for? What's missing? Highlight and quantify the opportunity. Strategy number five. Use category management to earn trust. Become the category advisor, not a vendor. Category management is the fastest way to earn retailers trust and the shelf. Retailers respect brands who bring insights, simplify complexity, anticipate problems, support execution, take a shopper first approach, identify opportunities, keep them at least one step ahead of their competition.

12:45The founder's competitive advantage. You are closer to your shopper than big brands ever will be. This is a big reason why I encourage brands to build an online community and get to know your loyal customers intimately. I go deeper into the power of this strategy and how to set it up on other podcast episodes. The better way. Show the buyer you understand their shoppers, their goals, their limitations, their competition, their operational reality. Solve their problems before you pitch your brand. Then align the strengths of your brand to help them achieve their objectives. Category management turns you into a trusted advisor, not another brand begging for space.

13:23Action steps this week. Send your retailer one insight that helps him with no ask attached. This builds reciprocity. The five principles are true category management. Number one, think like a category, not a brand. Number two, turn data into insights, not reports. Number three, build a shopper decision tree. Number four, identify and articulate assortment gaps. Number five, use category insights to earn trust and partnership. Master these and you'll never walk into a category review or a retailer meeting insecure again. This episode is part of the Retail Operating Series, the system I created to help retailers constantly launch, place, and scale their items at retail, using the same strategic foundations that big brands invest millions in to train their teams on.

14:13You can learn more about the foundational building blocks in the New Item Essential Guide at the end of this episode. In upcoming episodes, we'll go deeper into merchandising, assortment strategy, data storytelling, brand health diagnostics, market basket growth, broker performance, landing shelf space, and how all the supports extending your runway. If you found value in this episode, subscribe to the show. Listen to other episodes. You can see the entire library, complete with guests at retailsolve.com forward slash podcast. Visit retailsolve.com for more resources. Connect with me on LinkedIn.

14:48Share this with the founder who needs a competitive advantage and download the new item essential guide in the show notes. I'm Dan Lohman, and this is the Bulletproof Your CPG Brand Podcast. Together, we're helping mission-driven founders get on more shelves and into the hands of more shoppers who need what you create. Want a competitive edge? The recipe for success. Here's this week's free downloadable guide. New product innovation is the lifeblood of every brand. New products fuel sustainable growth, attract new shoppers, and increase brand awareness. Learn the crucial steps to get your product on more retailer shelves and in the hands of more shoppers.

15:24Maximizing your trade marketing can pour rocket fuel on your lunch. 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. Comment, leave your questions, and get this week's free downloadable guide and the show notes at RetailSolve.com slash session 309. Thank you.