How Plugin Brands Is Using TikTok to Explode Sales w/ Charlie Knight || GTG S07 E04

0:00We had a client called Pick 'em, which was a flavoured toothpick and they did a million pounds in three months on TikTok shop alone. And I thought, wow, we really need to think about this. It's kind of the new QVC. I think for younger customers, traditional telly is dead. Like I never watch anything because it's on at 9pm. Being able to hop on and off a TikTok live on their phone and being like, oh, that's an interesting product. Oh, that's quite cool. She's presenting it live. That's how people are going to consume a product. Yeah. Sometimes startup brands try to go too fast. that phrase of like go slow to go fast and it's like it's like a well-trodden word but i think there is a time when people can just like jump in too soon to a retailer when they haven't done the background work the last sort of three brands that reached out to us have said oh we've just got into sainsbury's i think we're going to get delisted it was like their first listing outside of anything else that you would expect before we get into today's episode i want to give a shout out to a special sponsor sam lawrence recruitment we all know that finding the right people or the right job can feel really overwhelming and that's exactly where Sam comes in.

0:58He really just gets it. It's not just about ticking boxes, it's about connecting the right people with the right opportunities. He takes the time to understand you and exactly what you're looking for, whether you're building a team or taking that next career leap. So definitely get in touch. Trust me, you'll be glad you did. Charlie is a three-time founding member of Startup Brands, taking each from 0 to 1 million within 18 months across different categories, channels and countries, including launching operations in the US and Australia. He is now the founder of Plugin Brands, an award-winning, outsourced FMCG sales agency working with the fast-growth food and drink brands, and Dive-In Agency, a tick-top shop agency helping brands turn social commerce into real revenue.

1:41With a background in go-to market strategy, brand development and distribution through retail and wholesale channels, there isn't any one better place to help you supercharge your brand. Charlie and the Plugin Brands team work with a host of brands including Moju, Muller, Clipper T, Who Gives a Crap and Lovecorn so if you're in need of an extra pair of hands to really step on your growth this year Charlie is the guy you need to be in touch with Getting to Grow is also brought to you by the Coconut Collab and full disclosure as I'm sure most of you are aware I work there so I know how much love goes into everything that we make we're all about creating delicious dairy-free plant-based treats that do not compromise on taste.

2:22From our creamy yogurts to our indulgent desserts, everything's made with coconuts and a whole lot of care. If you're looking for something naturally good but seriously tasty, and my favourite is just our natural coconut yoghurt, I have it most mornings with granola and lots of honey. Trust me, you're going to absolutely love it. Hello, Charlie. Hello. Welcome. Hi. Hi. So nice to have you in the studio. Yeah, it's nice to be here. Thank you for spending your morning with me. now very excitingly Charlie is the new sponsor of Getting to Grow for the year I'm so excited to have Charlie on board he is a top dog in the industry but I'm going to let you introduce yourself I wouldn't introduce myself as a top dog you are a top dog Charlie knows everyone I'm second to you at least if not third or fourth so Charlie founder of Plugin Brands my little claim to fame is I was a startup founder of, a founding member, sorry, of three startup food brands, going into like tricky categories and seemingly making them a success.

3:28So my little one is, my little phrase that people hear me say all the time is I got from inception through to retail a million pounds in sort of 18 months, give or take, and left on a high with my most recent one which was uh milly ways plastic free chewing gum company shout out to those guys um and just went off on my own to do some sort of fractional work uh and found myself uh getting clients hiring people getting clients hiring people to the point where we're now a seven person i believe agency of plug-in brands and we've got 19 20 brands that we work with across food surface retail and everything else in between and i love your team i have to say the guys are amazing there's so much energy when i walk into your office like i can tell them all like they're like hi hi how are you like there's it's a really fun place to be yeah yeah yeah it's never something that I like to be honest I never really thought that that was something I was gonna do I'll be really honest if I had I've got a little boy I thought I'll spend more time with him that'd be nice like fractional work it's a bit more freedom a bit more flexibility I was just telling someone about this earlier and there's just a need this is such a need and so many people have like reached out to us and our thing now is just making sure that that energy and that vibe still there for the team because we are very fortunate with the team they are they're they're so so good I have to admit and my first hire which was Adam which I will give him a little shout out he is a large reason as to why we're we're able to build and grow yeah so you have diving agency as well as plug-in brands so talk to us about the two separate businesses that you have now okay so it kind of everything's been born that was born out of plug-in brands yeah um so I'll go back just a step quickly so we had about seven or eight brands at the time for plug-in and uh people just think that I like I either will know someone or be able to do it um and half of those brands said TikTok shop tell me about it I'm like I don't even know like I don't I'm not even on TikTok my wife sends me TikToks and I have to have the app so I can look at it and have a little chuckle and know what she's on about um but saw some numbers and we had a client called Pickham which was a flavoured toothpick and they did a million pounds uh in three months on TikTok shop alone and I thought and that's flavored toothpicks flavored toothpicks um high margin just incredible and huge like marketing tool right they were incredible um and it just made me think wow we really need to think about this and and with the clients that we already had that were after it we had like a ready-made business already so we had an office we had a client we had back start back office of the of the business and the options were to hire someone in-house who's a bit more junior and give it a go um or find someone to like partner up with and i've been really lucky so will belitho who is my co-founder was the first hire of tiktok to launch tiktok shop in the uk he's an adult he's been there he's done it um it's a big beast like i don't think it's i wouldn't have respected it enough if i just went right okay we're just gonna hire one person to see what happens it's a real like operation and so so diving was born out of a need that we had from clients but it's its own separate entity but we're both in the same office they'll probably move out soonish and that's got six or seven clients will kill me now I think we've got seven clients for diving agency some big ones and some sort of smaller ones the bigger ones are starting to understand bigger companies are starting to understand a little bit better now so I think we're like in its infancy but it's like a super exciting space it's kind of the new QVC it is the new Q well you know that than you TVC.

6:54I think for younger customers, traditional telly is dead. Like I never watch anything because it's on at 9pm. I know everyone's obsessed with like Love Island and Traitors. But they're like, that's the exception, not the rule. Nobody sits down and watches like normal telly. And I think we're all glued to our phones. We know that. And being able to like hop on and off a TikTok live on their phone and being like, oh, that's an interesting product. Oh, that's quite cool. She's presenting it live. That's how people are going to consume a product. Yeah, I don't disagree. I think that if you look at traditional marketing versus like the world that we're in, which is like commercial side.

7:29And I think that commercially you can still put it in places where it's for marketing. So I call it sales and marketing. This is like the ultimate sales and marketing, right? You've got people that are addicted to their phones that are flicking through it every five seconds and without knowing being sold to with respect. And in two clicks of a button, you can buy that product. So if you have someone, it's like word of mouth on steroids. so if you're flicking through and you go oh actually I'm interested in hair and beauty and beauty fashion and like supplement based products are like absolutely killing it and food and beverage as always is like always sort of the last it was the last in Amazon now everyone's doing like a million pounds on Amazon a year like you hear all the time and TikTok shop's gonna be that but like I said just just like the speed in which it's happening is incredible and it's basically someone that you you you should really um respect their opinion they're telling you buy this product you've got much better chance than if you put it on a shelf and it's just in with everyone else and you don't really know either trading on price promotion maybe you like the look of the brand like nothing's really influencing influencing you to buy that product on tiktok shop you've got people telling you about how great it is for these for these particular reasons yeah it's an interesting space and one to like definitely keep an eye on and with plug-in have you got any examples of brands that you have taken on board and then if you're able to share like values or percentages growing their business by from the sales arm yeah I won't say the client name I'll give you some examples so there's two that stick in my mind straight away one is we took a brand on that wanted to build their distribution and their sales out in the out-of-home market, specifically within like router markets like Breaks and DDC and a couple of others.

9:15And month on month, we've grown that 51%, sort of an average of 51 % each month. So compound, compound, compound, which is fantastic. Core listings now across a couple of contract caterers. And we've really grown that. And what we were able to do was within the sort of first two, three months, we don't really know because it's such a new thing. we didn't really know what the KPIs and the targets could look like but very quickly we could see that and with that trend of 51 % we've actually started to exceed that in certain times just because of on promotion or seasonality fine but when it drops down it doesn't drop down below that 51 % so for us that was like it just shows that we can add value and it shows that we are really doing a good job the second one is in forecourts it's quite an interesting one actually so it's a really big company won't name the company name but it's a really big one and they just couldn't get into four courts and convenience for whatever reason and I semi knew the guy and I said look give us six months like why not give us six months see if we can crack it for you he knew me he knew like that we're like you are very tenacious and give it a go what I didn't tell them was I didn't actually know anyone in four courts um so in eight weeks we got them for four courts wow um across one national and three regionals but all of them were about 100 stores or above so like quite sizable um and it was full range and it was super easy and they were like wow what's happened here and i actually think that is a great example of having a startup energy having a startup energy um going into a brand that everyone knows is like the most powerful thing you could ever get because we as startup people are working with brands that typically outside of London or even Little Bubbles, they're not going to know, or even outside the food world, they're not going to know.

11:02So it's trading, it's a lot harder. Whereas if you just went, I'm going to put this brand that everyone knows in an environment where everyone can buy it, brilliant. So that was a really good one. And subsequently, they've now bought more time from us as well. So now we're doing some food service piece with them and et cetera, et cetera. But you're not just out of home? No, no, no. I think what happened was my background is retail and out of home. and when I first started I was fractional right so basically I just said tell me what you want me to do and I was like jack of all and what I did find was I had like one retail client and then most of them were coming out of home based on the fact that it's high on resource sort of low on profit with respect like the big opportunities with the Tesco is the same reason etc it's a lot bitty a lot more bitty so they were quite keen on outsourcing that out of home piece keeping retail in-house so we built our business based on the need of being an out of home but my background is retail as well so what we've got now is we've got out of the 18 19 clients we've probably got four that are in retail and retail spans across traditional grocers and then convenience and forecourts but what we have now we have a very very strong and capable person called Simon Greenwood Haig who's coming in and looking after our head of retail who's being head of retail for us so we're really trying to expand that side so what people might see is we're experts in in wholesale out of home I think that's where we were born but I don't think that's necessarily where we're going to be you know we should be both we should be experts across both absolutely so for any brand listening um out there you are the kind of go-to guy if you need to expand distribution in retail in food service in out of home in four courts convenience like the lot you have the expertise and the capability to really help brands scale in so many different areas.

12:50Yeah, absolutely. And I think, and I think also it's a case of having a consultative view. So we have a couple of really senior people and then some really, really strong, like more junior talent. I don't want to say the junior piece because I think they warrant being like, they're learning and growing so quickly. But you've got a lot of people that are talking to a lot of people. And then you've got some, some, some experienced heads that could go, don't do that because what you're what you'll realize in six months time is x and we all know those horror stories across I suppose it's more retail in that side obviously I'm not here to shout out names but there are often times that I can see on LinkedIn or whatever I'm going oh I can see that's going to go wrong so it's that sustainable growth that we're able to give but also access to more people because we've got a resource of seven people yeah and I think it's also worth just getting in touch with Charlie if you're you know even if you're on the fence like have a call with you and just explain your worries and say look this is where my struggle is or like I'd really like to expand here um and you know I'd love to understand from your point of view how would you tackle my issue like just have a call with you because like that's how we started right like we didn't know what was going to come from our initial chat so I think those those conversations are really important and you know you are you're super approachable as well I think sometimes sales agencies and consultancies can be scary is the wrong word because you know you people it's a service right like you need to pay for their their time and their energy and stuff so it's understandable from that point of view but it's more like they are also there to help you and they want you to grow as much because ultimately that's a success story that you can then tell other customers say well actually we took you from 10 pounds to 100 pounds absolutely so i think i think you're right and i think that there's um i expect there's quite a lot of people that were on the fence and there was a stat I can't even sure what it was now back in the day there was a stat where I said it pretty sure it's about 50 that we turned down so out of the inbound people that come to us and in a good example of this is from middle of November to the end of December we had 20 clients that want to work with us and for various reasons from non-compete perspective we might not be able to but there was an element that we don't think we can have enough value right so there are times and there'll be people listening to this going yeah he did that with me where reached out to me and I went I just don't think one you're going to get the ROI on the amount that I need to charge and two maybe at that point in time we don't have the we don't have the um we won't add enough value to to actually help you with that I always say like oh we're not really that good in like grotty for um grotty conveniences but we can do it in four courts and like the higher end convenience so we do have our place and we do know the ones that we would add value to and I think yeah you're probably right I'll be careful how I say this but there there might be people that are sat there going I've been burnt by an agency or by a consultant for various reasons we are it's all about reputation for us and to a point 10 pounds to 100 pounds obviously hopefully it's more than that yeah that's what we're here for right because we will get more business based on more people going they've done a great job for us here's the here's the evidence go speak to Charlie all the team um so I think that what's been really like heartwarming for me is although we started uh 2024 because we're 26 now 2024 and it was me on my own I then hired someone in September of that year so I actually really only think we've become an agency as of last year and so to have like 20 brands of which 18 of them reached out to us and we and I haven't been able to do any outreach shows that we are doing that 10 pounds to 100 pounds and people are seeing that we're approachable so I think you're right like people should reach out and I'm not going to like sell our services i'm going to understand what you need and i'm going to say i don't think that's us or absolutely we can help you for these reasons yeah and you'll turn down people because you don't think you can add value or deliver and ultimately that's exactly what they're going to want to hear completely because if they are going to spend their money they want you to deliver yeah and we've and we've given tough feedback to our existing like current clients um could be anything from taste which is always tough because it's like it's their baby and it's like well i think it tastes good and we're like well we just send it to like 20 people and they've all said so we can be the buffer the conduit between a buyer that sometimes doesn't actually tell you exactly what they're thinking they just go no and shut it and you're like where's the feedback though what can i where can i like learn and develop from um and then you've got um and we can we can do that for you right down to like price or whatever else so we do want even though say we take that client on board and we start hearing things we can still give you that sort of constructive feedback that Maybe you won't get anywhere else.

17:16And I've written a load of questions, but classic me and you, we haven't even... We've done half of it. I know, which is great. I've just thought of a question, actually. And a lot of people, when it comes to sales agencies, are worried that you've got eight employees working across a few different brands. So how are they prioritizing my brand in front of that buyer? And how do I know that actually they're going to be as passionate as me selling the product how do you overcome that barrier it's a great question and i think the the if we're going to snap this up but in the pre in the previous question you asked um uh like how do you choose your brands right and i think that's important is we we need to be able to know that we can one add value to these clients number one and without adding value means that we believe in it so if we believe in it then we're going to give it the time of day so i think there's there's a if if I was to tell you the type of brands the portfolio brands we've got they're all quite similar they're like similar vibe they are cool brands they're doing something different it's not just an just a like a normal whatever product so everyone that we do is like everyone that we sign up is curated so the team are excited um the second thing that we did and we did this very recent not very recently maybe like uh the start of last year and it felt filtered through to the summer of last year that we now have like channel experts so the plan and the the way that we're doing it is that people our sales team are experts in regional route to markets or bid food or breaks or forecourts so essentially out of the brands that we have we would be able to then speak to that buyer about three or four five or six brands because one they trust us two we can speak to them because we've got a great relationship so it's it means that that brand will will get the right um opportunity at the right time yeah so it is definitely that and i would say that we we do cap of how many people like how many brands we have until we start hiring and getting some new talent of which we're always looking yeah and ultimately like fmcg if anyone listening that knows it's a really small world like everyone knows each other so you're not gonna take on on a business that you don't think is gonna work for you because your friend might know them and then there's a bad reputation for you and that's obviously detrimental to your business.

19:33So if you are sat on the fence, just give Charlie a call and he'll give you like the honest kind of like next steps for you as a business and any other questions that you definitely do have, he's happy to answer. Yeah. I would also just say one thing on that because a good example of all of us getting excited and seeing the value and then something like stopped us in our tracks um i feel very open to say this because i know the guys well so at pickham was exactly that so pickham we had a few um opportunities on on the table but there was a legislation that meant that we couldn't actually work with that retailer for whatever reason um and we we had a contract we had length on the contract and because all everything stopped because we couldn't do this particular piece of work out of our all of our controls we had to go to an external consultant it was to do with um like uh like a regulation thing um that we decided well we can't do anything we just got to pause it or stop it so in our in our world it's very much a case of if we're not adding value and we're a cost to your business for whatever reason then like although there's a contract in place we should we should be doing the right thing and cutting it there yeah so it brings a huge human element to like everything you do as well so looking ahead what does winning in FMCG really look like now so I think it's uh what I see from really strong brands um is really knowing who you are um as a brand so personality uh tone of voice and being like unapologetically that person and shouting about it quite often do I see brands the the reason for the brand be being a brand they get bored of it after like a year of shouting about it and then they go off and talk about something else because they but you need to really deep root into one thing and just talk about it talk about it talk about it based on the fact that you know the touch points with everyone in the UK is like so minimal that actually you're if you're talking to the same people yes that might get a bit boring for them and it might be in the office it might get a bit boring but you need to keep saying the same thing because you're just broadening out your audience every single time so you might touch someone new each time you say the thing the reason why you're a brand so I think there's something around just being like really really strong in your values and your personality everyone talks about perfect ted it's a really good example of that like they own the color green right like there's nothing better than that um and that's because they're saying like the same things and they're shouting about it and they're showing their personality and i think that's just incredible so i think that's one i think um i think that uh omni channel in terms of working in out of home space retail and online is is other as important as each other and what i i often see is when you're a startup brand you first started out you're like oh we've got into harrod selfridges um whole foods that sort of space but then next year they get into sainsbury's and they forget about all this bit here and then they start losing that tail which is actually the brand like personality and it's like the way you know the way you started so i do feel like there's a an element of making sure that all these channels are well looked after and the omni channel piece of being like online obviously i'm going to pitch tiktok shop but i do think that that is the one that's going to push rate of sale in your in store as well as um like on in sales on on tiktok shop so i think i think that's a really important one um i also think that sometimes startup brands try to go too fast and sort of to go that phrase of like to go slow to go slow to go fast and that's like a it's like a well-trodden word but a phrase but i think there is a time when people can just like jump in too soon to a retailer when they haven't done the background work we get that quite often in fact the last sort of three brands that reached out to us have said oh we've just got into Sainsbury's I think we're going to get delisted it was like their first listing outside of anything else that you would expect yeah so I do think that there's an element of that's going to help people people to be more successful and there's a longer conversation around making sure you've got the right people around you that advising you on that like investors want to see things super quick but actually it might be quick in quick out so I think those things like making sure that you're really solid and really sure about where you want to go and what your brand looks like um and you've got a good chance and why partnering with getting to grow this year um feels like the right platform to you to talk about dive in um and plug in uh i we talked about yourself at you it's because you thank you it is i on a serious note i think um there's some superstars in the industry and um everyone's got that that that name that they think about and i came up against you with a previous client and I was like who is this Zoe Fox like what's she doing um and there was a buyer that we both know Billy Curtis yeah who said to me um mate she came into my office she knew nothing and then in six months knew everything and knew everyone and I was like I love that so I think there's uh the per like from a from a selfish and a business perspective um great audience like of course it's our perfect audience to be speaking to um from a from a professional perspective from a personal perspective like I'm just excited to see where you go with it so there's part of me that's like I don't think we're gonna ever um we're always gonna benefit from a from a from a business perspective um I'm certain of that but to to join in on something so early and watch it grow um is like how I live my whole life I say like I want to be in the pub at 60 years old going oh I helped that yeah and and this is one but albeit it's like not my usual thing which is brands it's someone thank you I mean that's amazing and to have your backing is super exciting because what you guys can't see is the man behind the camera right now um but elliot has come on board as my videographer for this year as well and everything that will be happening in 2026 isn't possible without elliot from splinter unit films that right yeah splinter unit film i was gonna say that is right yeah um i'm just gonna say that sentence again so we can edit that um and elliot from splinter unit films i literally couldn't do any of what i'm doing this year without you so a big thank you to him as well for making all of this possible um but yeah there's so much synergy between us I think like you're right my audience is you know early stage founders to like big founders it's also so many national account managers it's so many sales execs anyone to be honest with you in FMCG and I've had like massive brands come to my events I've had like the head of marketing at Heineken be like oh I saw this Coca-Cola know who I am yeah um some of the ladies at Coca-Cola I then have the gift of the girls with Ellen so at Candy Kitten so there's so much I'm doing in the industry where I think you're and what you're doing as well in the industry is insane and like really helping those brands because it is really confusing when you're a startup and when you're early stages we take it for granted that like I know exactly what ROI is trying investment but like rate of sale is and like what that even means but so many people don't and this platform is firstly to like give such fun founder stories but also help brands and early stage founders and anyone working fmcg along the way with just understanding the industry a bit better and i feel really lucky to work in an industry that really isn't scary like i don't think we sell food like we're not saving lives out here like it's okay if we mess up and we make a mistake like it's supposed to be fun and no like this is also a fun industry because it's like everyone always needs to eat so i don't think we're going anywhere no no ai is not taking over us no you're always gonna need a munch yeah um so i'm so excited for this year and yeah charlie feels like the perfect partner for getting to grow thank you