Espresso: Revealing PerfectTed's One Top Secret to Drive an INSANE Rate of Sale

0:06So how are you tracking, because I always find how do you drive a rate sale, it's panacea. it's a million dollar question yeah yeah it's a million dollar question how are you tracking that how are you being able to know what how that's moving the needle do you know well shout out to north star which is basically a great service for challenger brands that can get access to data that was previously too expensive so we invest in data so we can see on a weekly basis how our tesco sales are tracking but also tesco provide that for you and we can also see how we're tracking against competitors and what's really interesting the data that we want to see is how has that impact of sales of hoys and duck wrap and kitkat chunkey is because we've you know the the inbound that we get from people sending in their photos or picking up the hardest fees of mildew is frightening yeah so creative as well and i also think for challenger brands as well it's and we were speaking i mean you walked in on us having a meeting with holland and barrett is what is the value that you can bring to the retailer beyond rate of sale and i think what we've done super well is build a platform that allows us to be ambassadors for different retailers for different things so for example tesco is really championing innovation and we're super grateful to have such an amazing partner in them and to be able to provide a platform for showcasing the innovation that they're supporting specifically within energy holland and barrett as well have been you know they were the first retailer to take the brand and so we feel a lot of loyalty to them in showcasing how amazing they've been for supporting us and other challenger brands and they maybe haven't had the best reputation in the past, but I can promise you, um, they have invested a ton into our brand and the people that are amazing to work with.

1:43So that's fascinating as well as how you, again, when you get so many listings so quick is how you spread the unique love by customer and how you target, um, I'll need to introduce you to this guy. He actually lived in America. Um, um, who I interviewed the other week and he does, he does a lot of work with a brand called fern and rosie yeah which is a yeah she's amazing and he was talking about specifically in america actually he lived in 34 states and how the retailer he was working for um unilever okay and how the the each retailer has a different agenda a different type of consumer and it's like how your brand needs to to walk up to that retailer and as you said do the stuff beyond rate of sale which i love yeah and what we were the analogy we were basically saying is it's like you don't change who you are yeah it's a bit like if your grandma asked you how your trip was to ibiza right the way you talk about that trip to your grandma versus your co-workers versus your mates at the pub versus your girlfriends five different responses but you're still the same person and as a brand you may have five different retailers but they each get you know you need these one different things well i think it's got to be genuine a great example is uh shout out fifi i won't say her last name so you guys don't inbound her but um i'll just say she works at matthew clark which is a distributor mostly does like wine spurs yeah yeah yeah yeah and she's awesome i reached out to her for advice because food service isn't something we've done particularly well and i think there's a great opportunity there for us and i got on a call with her and i was just asking her advice and she's the buyer there and we got to the end of the call and she was like anything else i was like nope that's it thank you so much anyway call ended we then met up again when she was in London we've developed a friendship since and when we were last together she said can I tell you something and said sure what she said I really thought you were shit at your job I said what do you mean she said well you're kind of the sales function of perfect head I said yeah she said you never asked me for a listing I said but we weren't ready for a listing like we weren't we didn't have accounts lined up I couldn't really bring much to the table from that front I just wanted your advice she goes you know I walked away from that meeting thinking you just weren't good at your job because you hadn't asked to send me samples you hadn't asked for a listing you hadn't asked for introductions but i actually think there's a lot of value in building relationships and not asking for something if you take a celebrity for example they probably spend their whole life being being surrounded by people that want something from them and buyers are the same thing they are constantly getting amounted by brands that want listings existing brands that want more distribution uh their managers that want them to put to the managers that want them to perform better from like a um a p &l perspective and so there's a lot of value in just having honest conversations and not asking for anything that is i think a very powerful sentiment yeah i think the less yeah i again it's kind of like the opposite of a good idea is a good idea rory sutherland you know he talks about that do the opposite whenever everyone's asking the buyer for more distribution here's my jvp can i have 20 minutes like just ask her advice i think amelia at bold bean did that really well she asked waitress for advice before she was even ready to launch and then when went back to the how you spread the perfect head energy or love whatever you want to kind of define it as versus different retailers so what we can pick a retailer as an example but how do you get the ideas in this office and then okay this is how the retailers we're going to show the love to this retailer or spread the energy of this video tell you that how do you actually bring that from manifestation into execution do you know what i mean like what's the steps quick one guys espresso's got a brand new sponsor unleashed unleashes inventory management software that talks directly to your finance and econ software we use unleashed daily islands i bloody love it we've got our admin time in half saving approximately 30k a year why use it save money save headaches save stress get granular clarity on your margins know where your stock is don't miss availability look your favorite brands literally use unleashed as their backbone candy kittens tiny rebel trip always religiously look there's a link in the show notes please feel free to book a call with josh and his wonderful sales team at unleashed they're amazing even nothing comes of it and even better news you'll get your first month free if you reference hungry thank you yeah that's an interesting question um firstly to go back a second just about splitting the love between retailers and i think that this could be potentially helpful for anyone who's pitching a retailer i think it's so important to look at um any kind of public information available about that retailer and what their annual plans are um before going into a meeting with them so understand what their objectives are right if for instance holland barrett is putting um focus on this food transformation think about how your product could potentially add to that range and how you can be bringing them value and you can be bringing incremental sales and you can be bringing them a new customer so think about that perspective and i think that's what we try to do in in showing buyers that we're actually not cannibalizing sales of red bull we're bringing in a totally new customer who's never previously shopped energy um or tea actually as well um you know what i find so disappointing is when we'll interview a potential candidate for a role and they'll be like uh i'll ask them why do you like the brand they're like xyz and i actually can't wait to try the product and i'm like can't wait to try the product we're on most high streets in the uk like you you could have made the effort to try the product that's the same way i think about buyers when I go into a meeting, I know everything about that buyer.

7:31I know if it's public, I know what music they like. I know what posts they've posted. I know what interests they have. We know what their mom was doing two years ago on this exact date. Not in a creepy way, but I think there's a level of respect. And if you don't do your diligence, how can you know how to support a retailer without knowing what their plans or goals are? And so whenever we go into a meeting, before we give the pitch and sit down and show our deck, which we often don't even show decks, is we ask them, so what are your plans for the category? What are you trying to work on? Where are areas that you maybe have an opportunity?

8:05And then, you know what, there are actually times where we're like, and this happened with Fifi and Matthew Clark. I don't think we can support, you know, right now. But that conversation may open up down the line. So I think it's about being honest. and if you just try and sell the same thing to the same person sorry try and sell the same thing in the same way to different people it won't land have you heard of infinite versus finite games? no Simon Sinek super interesting it's like finite games it's like a game of soccer you play it for one person to win and one person to lose yeah whereas infinite games the game is just to keep playing so you're writing five days a week that's an infinite game it's like it could one post may do well one may do not so well you're playing the infinite game I'm a shit one today Yeah, you just keep showing up.

8:49And you can apply that with buyers as well. And that was a big reframe for me. It's like, instead of constantly sending, like, can we have a meeting? We just used to send little newsletters, very personalized, to a buyer. No ask, no ask. You're playing the long game. You're playing, instead of, how can I get this listing in two years? What does this relationship look like in 20 years? It's a much different conversation. I think it's just fascinating seeing how you guys have kind of played with that. i want to talk about steven bartlett um can i mention one one last thing on the point about um rate of sale i think another another kind of tactic that we try to employ is engaging store staff um and obviously that's easier said than done when you when you're in 1200 tesco stores alone um but you know if it means going into a store and maybe you come with product or you buy a can and you gift it to one of the store staff and you explain a little bit about the brand one that person will be so grateful that you've thought about them and they'll probably go out of their way if a customer approaches them and asks for some recommendation to suggest your brand and so i think that it's such a small thing but it's so overlooked by my brand sometimes because they think it's impossible to do on like a macro level but even doing it on a micro level is so effective and then you'll see the gains in that store because then they'll be suggesting it and and maybe they'll give you a few more placements and you're also i read a post by the guy who did jubel today you know jubel yeah and he said um walk the floor which is a quote by sam walton who's the walmart guy yeah founder and he was and i think um jesse's post was all about how they'd been in this store in in tesco's but the rate of sale was zero because basically the stock was in the store but it's out the back yeah i think you can never under look if you're not on shelf.

10:44Oh yeah, of course. Your rate of sales is getting pillaged. I think the Waitrose CEO said it's like, availability is like scoring an own goal. I think it's the best way of tracking it. So yeah, let's go on to Stephen Bartlett. Obviously off the back of Dragon's Den, he's a super, I mean, his podcast and his learning, he's got a whole ocean of wild learnings. What are some of the principles he's taught you that you didn't expect to learn from him? That's a good question. I think there are some things from a marketing perspective that he's taught us in the sense of we record everything. So right now we have a full-time videographer that comes to every single meeting, cameras on right now.

11:33And part of that is because we're moving into the age of entrepreneurship in the sense of entertainment. it's the reason why shows like selling sunset on netflix if you've seen them or buying beverly i'm obsessed with them i love them people love reality tv and i think we're almost moving away from love island style things into value add content like like um sort of showcasing the entertainment around entrepreneurship things that people can really learn from and so the one thing that he's taught us i think has been super valuable is as a brand in terms of content and marketing think about what the value is that you're bringing to your community because it's really hard to you know when i was first posting on linkedin i was posting about a new listing we got or things that weren't that were relatable but weren't necessarily driving value and now my strategy on linkedin very much is about if the post is shouty about us or comes across or doesn't add value to our community in any way then i wouldn't put it out there thank you so so much for listening it honestly means the world to me i hope you enjoyed your morning coffee and go and have an amazing day let's be having yeah if you want the full episode it will be in the show notes i think will be in the show notes the full episode thank you so much please leave friends as well means the world to me