Roland Frasier Interview – Digital Marketer – How to Buy and Sell Consumer Products Brands Companies for Millions with Karen Waksman, Retail MBA
Check Out Our Free Interview with Roland Frasier and Karen Waksman. He explains how to buy and sell companies to expand your brand. This Was a Powerful Interview!
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New Training on How to Sell Your Toy and Game Products to Retail Chains
Transcript for this Video:
Hey everyone. This is Karen Waksman, founder of Retail MBA. Today we’re going to be talking about how to sell your toy and game products to retail chains. So if you’ve a great product that’s a toy or a game and you’re trying to figure out what to do with that product and where to sell it, just want to give you some quick tips and strategies on how to do that and how to get started today.
Just to give you a little background about me again, I’m Karen Waksman, founder of Retail MBA Brands. I’ve personally taught over 50,000 product companies across the globe over the last 11 years on how to get your products in retail chains, online retailers, catalogs, smaller retailers, HSN, QVC and so forth. And the information that we’re going to be talking about today is just from my many, many years of selling to retail chains and ultimately started teaching my methodologies to support people, just to actualize their dreams of making money with their consumer product. So our whole goal here is just to give you ideas and to help you get started today. You can learn a little bit more about us at retailmba.com.
Anyways, let’s talk about the toy and game category and just some things to think about. First of all, since Toys “R” Us is no longer, at least as of now, even though they have been moved around a little bit, a lot of the toy industry has been suffering. And so one of the things that a lot of people have to do is they have to go to their local toy stores and sell individually and so forth because there’s a lot of toys stores that are on the individual level. But on the chain store level, they’ve kind of diminished a little bit. There’s a ton online and so forth, but just in general, it’s definitely shifted in the last several years. Again, by the time you watch this video, it might’ve changed. But as of now, and for a while, things have kind of changed a little bit for the toy industry.
What that really means is that usually distributors are involved. Why I say that is because if you’re trying to sell to a retailer and they have a lot of stores and/or you have to need a lot of feet on the street, distributors come into play where they basically have a ton of sales reps. And they’re third party company that is actually essentially buying products from you and reselling it to retailers. And there’s usually niche distributors, ones that are working in the toy and game industry and so forth. And especially when there’s a lot of major brands at play, a lot of distributors are in place.
So some product categories, you don’t deal with a lot of distributors. In terms of the toy and game category, there’s a ton of distributors. So again, part of that is just that you’re dealing with a lot of competition for the big corporations and so forth. And part of it is just the fact that the toy industry requires more feet on the street to get more products out there. And distributors are, again, companies that have a lot of reps, typically. They’re going out and doing the work and so they would represent your product in these stores and so forth. So for your particular category, you’re going to have to deal with somebody else, typically who’s going to be managing that relationship more than directly you going after stores. Again, if that happens, what will require you to do is you’re going to give a piece of your money to them. I mean, typically if you work with a distributor in the toy business, it could be anywhere between 10% and 30%, depending on the deal that you do with them in terms of what they take off the top. So just be aware of that.
Again, it’s also an incredibly competitive category, but it’s a fun category. And just be aware that a lot of times distributors are very, very common. And so that really means that you’re going to have to convince the distributor to pick up your product and ultimately get them into stores. How you do that takes a little time to explain. I have other videos explaining working with distributors and so forth, but just give you an idea of what this industry is like.
First of all, with toys and games, mostly toys, what you’re dealing with is a lot of regulations because if the kid chokes on a product, they obviously care about that, right? So there’s more at stake for them to sell toys to kids. And so you’re going to be forced to deal with regulations in terms of what they’re expecting, health codes and this type of thing, and so forth, just to make sure that the product is safe for children and so forth, depending on how old they are and what years they need to protect from and so forth. So that’s something to consider as well.
And so they do have a lot of situations where that comes into play, so you definitely need to see what’s going on with the retailer that you’re trying to sell into and what they expect from you. You also will probably have to pay a little bit more of a premium for insurance, just because of the fact that for product liability insurance in the toy industry, you’re dealing with kids and so forth. And again, it’s all the same issue in regards to regulations. So they tend to charge you a little bit more, which is okay because a lot of people are buying toys. Obviously a lot of children in the world, but it is something to consider.
So one of the things that I tell people to do is since the toy industry is a little bit more complicated in terms of distributors and this and that and the fact that you have to go to more individually owned stores and all sorts of things, something to consider is to go to retailers that can buy your product who are on a corporate level, massive retailers like Walmart or Target or whatever it is. There’s so many retailers out there who sell toy products, department stores, and so forth. And so maybe expand beyond just going after that particular industry. If you have a games product, obviously you could sell to GameStop and so forth. But again, there’s a lot of competition and so forth. So maybe going beyond your comfort zone and into other types of retailers will reduce your competitive issue a little bit as well. So that’s something to consider.
If you’re going to have a toy product, it’s very, very important that you connect and associate with like-minded individuals. There’s toy industry associations out there. Do a Google search. Find them, connect with them. They probably can help you speed up the process of getting to know your industry and your category very well. It’s always good to know what’s going on in the world in terms of the industry that you’re in, especially in toys. It’s so competitive. A lot of times they’ll give you ideas and strategies and support you along the way because they know the industry really, really well. So join your local association.
Also, if you wanted to go to trade shows, the Toy Fair in New York is really, really popular. It’s a great place to go check out your competition, see what’s going on in the world and so forth. So that’s something to consider.
So if I was to give you any quick tips and strategies, it’s really just to think about the fact that if you’re going to go after retailers and you’re going to deal with the toy industry, you definitely want to go beyond just the local toy store in your local area. There’s a lot of money to be had to be selling these chain stores that no one’s even considering. You can even sell your toy product to retailers like ACE Hardware and Michael’s stores. There’s a lot of retailers that could conceivably buy your product beyond just the toy store industry and so forth.
So anyways, there’s so much more to say about toys and games, but if you want to learn exactly how to approach, pitch and sell to retailers, take a look at what we’re up to. We actually have a free training at retailmba.com/free. And we actually have a 90 minute training that we walk through what buyers care about and so forth. And then we kind of discuss the ways that we can work with you if you’re interested in getting additional support. We have live events. We have coaching. We have Done-For-You programs. We have do it yourself programs, all related to generating revenue with consumer product brands. And we have worked with so many toy companies and so forth, and game companies.
So if you are interested in learning more, take a look at what we’re up to a retailmba.com or check out our free webinar. It’s listed on every single page on our site. And we are always creating new content, so please subscribe to this, keep in touch with us. We’re always providing new information and I hope this helps. And we would love the opportunity to support you with retail chains. This is Karen Waksman, Retail MBA, and I appreciate you. Thank you.
Forbes Riley Interview – HSN QVC – How to Sell Your Consumer Products Brands to HSN QVC and More with Karen Waksman, Retail MBA
Check Out Our Free Interview on selling on HSN/ QVC and branding yourself and What You Need to Know! With Forces Riley and Karen Waksman. This Was a Powerful Interview!
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New Training on How to Sell Your Food and Specialty Food Product to Retail Chains. No Experience Required!
Hey everyone. This is Karen Waksman, founder of Retail MBA. Today, we’re going to be talking about selling your food and specialty food product to retail chains. If you want some quick tips and strategies, just wanted to give you some ideas and things to think about and how to get started today. So this means selling to supermarkets and/or anywhere else that sells food and specialty food products.
So before we begin, I just want to give you a quick background about who I am and why I know what I’m talking about. Again, I’m Karen Waksman, founder of Retail MBA. I’ve personally sold millions of units of products to the world’s largest retailers as a manufacturer’s rep, which is a sales rep that sells product to retailers. Started my career out back in early 2000’s, and for the last 11 years have actually taught close to 50,000 or more companies across the globe on selling to retail chains, online retailers, catalog, small retailers, HSN, QVC, and so forth.
Basically what we do is we help people actualize their dreams of getting into stores. And so part of the reason we create these trainings is to give some people some food for thought and understanding their industry as a whole. So anyways, let’s talk about the food and specialty food industry and some things to think about for retailers.
First of all, you’re dealing with food, so you have more complications than other product categories. We work with people in every product category and certain categories have certain things that they have to deal with. And for you guys, food and specialty food, you’re dealing with FDA labeling requirements. Obviously if it’s organic, this and that, there’s just specific things that you’re going to have to look into to ensure that you’re not going to get yourself in trouble, because obviously you’re in sending products out of the world that people are ingesting. And so the retailers really, really care about that. Basically all retailers that want to work with their suppliers will list what they need from you in advance. So if you want to do Google search and say, you want to sell to Safeway grocery store or something like that, just do a Google search, type in Safeway vendor. And what you’ll see is they usually have a website for vendors, and usually there’ll be some compliance information and so forth.
So you definitely want to take a look at that. What they’re looking for. They list it out a lot of times because there’s just so many companies coming at them. So they just like to share the data in advance. So definitely take a look at their vendor portals and see what’s going on in terms of their interests and regulation. So definitely need to be careful about the words you use. Definitely need to comply with federal and local regulations when it comes to food.
You also need to think about things like the nutritional statements and so forth. Obviously you’re going to have to do your homework and understanding the industry as a whole before you launch. Definitely want to walk stores, take a look at different products, similar to yours, see what they’re putting on their packaging. What they’re saying, the words they’re using. Obviously they’re on store shelves, so if somebody told them something about what to place there and so forth, so you definitely want to do your market research to ensure that you’re not going to cause yourself problems.
And also go online, do your research on the regulations and stuff for products. Obviously, they’re going to make sure that you’re warehousing whatever you’re doing is to store the products is clean and safe and sanitary, and all those things that really matter. Obviously, companies who are buying from you. So again, there is a opportunity to do a little bit of homework and research before you go after stores.
By the way, there is a great book that is out in the world that you should definitely take a look at. It is Specialty Food Retailers. Just do a Google search for that book. There are companies that have written books in the past on how to sell specialty food products to retailers. And so there’s a variety of different ones online, and you can just purchase them on Amazon or whatever, but they’ll usually have endless books out there online about products and specialty foods, and what needs to happen and so forth. A lot of people have written books about this. So you definitely want to take a look at that and do some homework.
But the basic data is that there are companies out there who’ve already talked about specialty foods and generating revenue with them, and they list all that stuff and you can buy those books out online and so forth. Anyways, things to consider when you’re selling a food product. You’re dealing with distributors. It’s very, very common distributors or third parties who generally have the relationship with the retailers and they buy your product, and then they resell it to retailers typically. The problem with working with distributors is they take a nice hefty fee for their efforts, and so you’re going to have to account for that if you’re dealing with a distributor. You’re dealing with perishable foods, you’re dealing with lots of things going on and the retailers like working with distributors in certain product categories, because they don’t have to deal with the mess of the whole thing.
So a lot of times distributors handle the shipping and/or the deliverability and/or the organizing of things and so forth. And some categories you don’t really need to worry about distributors and so forth. Other categories, it’s a big deal. Unfortunately, with food, you’re going to have to deal with that. Now, one thing to consider is that grocery chains deal with perishable foods constantly, so they have a lot of opportunity in their local regions and regional regions and stuff to buy products and so forth.
There’s more to say on that and we do have other trainings on this, but something to consider is just that you’re dealing with a local. If you’re going to sell to a chain store, they do have the ability to get perishable foods quickly in their local area and so forth, which is going to require you to just do a little bit more work, just because you got to rush to make sure that the product is obviously going to do well for stores and so forth. It’s not going to go bad and these types of things.
So again, the retailers will walk you through what they need and where you are going to ship products to and so forth. It’s definitely something to explore further before you launch your food product and that requires you to learn some stuff about the food industry. And again, there’s a lot of resources out there online that talks about this. Packaging is essential to your success. Obviously with specialty foods, if you’re selling a barbecue sauce, there’s a lot of barbecue sauces for instance, you just want to make sure that you’re doing a good job. Differentiate yourself from the competition.
We do a whole training on packaging and stuff, but be on the lookout for the different videos we created on that. But the essence is, is that in terms of competitive nature of certain categories, packaging, you could have a mediocre product with magical packaging and you could probably convert better in very hectic markets. And so food is one of those markets. So something to consider. Basically, all I’m really saying is spend a little bit more money on your packaging for this product category.
In general, you should always do that, because one chain store order can mean millions of dollars to your business and your bottom line. But it’s something to think about. If you want to learn more about your industry, definitely take a look at the Fancy Food Show. It’s a trade show that a lot of people go to, and I think they have an East coast and West coast and so forth as of now. So definitely when you can, go take a look at what’s going on with your industry, your competition, and so forth. And the reason for that is just because it helps you understand as a whole who’s doing well, who’s not, what they’re doing.
It’s very, very important for you to get involved in your industry and your category to understand the world as a whole. So if I can give you any quick tips and strategies, it’s just that you do need to do your market research and understand what you need to do and utilize before you reach out to stores in terms of regulations, in terms of compliance and so forth. That’s something that you do not want to reach out to retailers until you have figured it all out, because they just can’t buy from you. So you definitely need to remember that retailers are looking to purchase things on the spot. They are purchasing agents. They don’t have time for you to go figure this out after you reach out to them. So you want to do that stuff in advance.
With that said, if you want to learn more and spend some time with us, we actually have a webinar coming up. If you go to retailmba.com/free, all you got to do is sign up. It’s a free training and they’re typically 90 minutes, and we really go into a lot more detail on how buyers operate, what makes them more inclined to buy and so forth. And the reason we do this is because we love educating and supporting people across the globe on generating revenue with their products. We work with a ton of food products, and we just love to support you.
If you are looking for more information on how to approach, pitch and sell to retail chains, you can take a look at our live events. We do virtual events as well as events in physical form. We do masterclasses quarterly. We have a year long coaching training system and so forth. We’ve had tremendous success with all of our systems. We have a done for you programs and so forth, all listed on retailmba.com.
And ultimately we just help people with their pitch and their pricing and packaging, the words to use. And most of the people that come to us have zero buyer relationships and so forth. They’re just trying to scale and grow. And if you want to take a look at our testimonials page on retailmba.com, you can see how many successes and how great things have happened for people. We love to do that for you.
Anyways, otherwise please subscribe to this channel. Like this, share with your friends. We’re always creating new content. Transcripts for This Video:
We’d love to support you with stores. So keep in touch with us and thanks again. The Retail MBA, Karen Waksman. I hope this helped. And we look forward to continuing the conversation with you. Thanks so much.
Ryan Deiss Interview – Digital Marketer – How He Sold Millions of Dollars Worth of Consumer Products Online with Karen Waksman, Retail MBA
Check Out Our Free Interview on Selling Massive Quantities of Your Consumer Products Online with Ryan Deiss, Digital Marketer, and Karen Waksman. This Was a Powerful Interview!
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https://youtu.be/Aof8Yf5B4ak
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New Training on How to Sell Your Personal and Health Care Product to Retail Chains
Transcript for this video listed below…
Hey everyone. This is Karen Waksman, Founder of Retail MBA. And today I want to talk about the five reasons to consider trade shows as a marketing strategy for your retail product business. So the reason I decided to create this particular training is because I’ve taught tens of thousands of product companies across the globe on how to make money with their physical products. And one of the things that comes up a lot is trade shows.
People always ask me, “Karen, I’m thinking about going to a trade show. Do you think I should do it? Is it worth my time? Like, is it a good strategy? Is that the right strategy for me and my business?” So I just want to walk you through that so that you can think through that for your business. So let’s talk about the five reasons to consider actually going to one.
So the first reason is that you will actually meet retail buyers there. So retail buyers go to trade shows. And so if you want to get into the big chain stores and so forth, a lot of times they are at these live events. And so you can find out in advance from the exhibitor company and learn about what retailers are planning to attend, because that is definitely important for these guys who put on these shows. So knowing which retailers are going to be there will help you ultimately, and there are so many strategies around how to make sure that they actually come to your booth and stuff like that. But the basic strategy is you’ll meet buyers at chain stores.
I’ve had one customer of mine learned some strategies, went to a trade show and he got a 500,000 unit order at a trade show. Now, this is not common. This is not typical. Don’t assume that, that’s going to happen to you. But I will say that, that’s pretty darn cool. It was a fairly new product. Started growing as business, learning about retail, getting into stores and so forth, went to a trade show and boom! It just shifted his entire business. So again, it’s not so common but it can happen to you. And I just, I love those stories. I mean, how fun is that?
Okay. The next reason you want to consider going to a trade show and doing that for your business is that, basically you can take a look at the marketplace and see what’s going on there. So what does that mean? Your competitors are there. People who have different products are there, all in the same kind of industry. So if you have a houseware product, if you went to the houseware show, you’ll see what’s, the trending is going on, what your competitors are doing, what things to consider. Maybe there’s some add-on that you forgot to add for your product business and so forth. You’ll learn a lot at these shows.
Very, very helpful to learn when you’re there. And so that’s one of the benefits of going to a show. You’re spending days with these people. You’re getting to know what they’re up to. Maybe you guys help each other out. Give each other advice and so forth. So it’s pretty cool at trade shows. It can be awesome.
Another reason you want to check out trade shows is because you can meet distributors. Distributors or third parties who have actually already built out their sales funnels essentially. So they’ve already built relationships with the retailers or companies, or whatever it is that they focus on. They’re essentially a company with a lot of sales reps, most of the time. And so for a percentage of sales they’ll actually plug you into their system, and then ultimately, that means that if they represent you, you can make lots of money with them.
The cool thing about distributors is that they will ultimately purchase the products from you and then resell it to their existing customers. So they are actually going to be your customers. So that is another opportunity for you to meet them at shows. So how cool is that? A distributor likes your product. They’ll buy the product directly from you. Then they deal with all the headache in terms of going out to the world. So that’s kind of fun.
Another reason you want to consider trade shows as a marketing strategy is reps. Sales reps go to these events. They’re scouring, they’re looking. And some of the best reps who are investing their time and their effort to be at shows, because it’s costly to go to these shows, these reps will walk these floors. And those are serious reps. I’ve met a lot of reps over the years. I used to be a manufacturer’s rep for many years. So I know the industry well. And I’ll tell you that not all reps are created equal.
The ones that are going to shows who are really digging around to see what’s hot and what’s next, are usually the ones who are a little bit more keen on making money, which means they’re looking for new products, which means that they could be interesting for you. So that’s another reason to go. And the last reason you want to consider trade shows as a marketing strategy is, well, you can actually sell your products on the spot.
So there’s so many strategies I can teach you about how to make sure that you convert at the live event, but you literally can have people write an order from you at the live event. People can buy it from you one-off or they can buy bulk, or maybe they’re from another country and they need to ship it somewhere, or whatever it is. They can buy from you on the spot. And that can be very cool.
So you definitely want to set up your booth in a way that’ll make people more enticed to buy from you on the spot. There’s things that you have to set up and so forth. But just think about that. I mean, you can literally make money at the live event and offset the cost of being there. So that’s another reason to consider trade shows as a marketing strategy.
So if you want to learn the advanced tips, tricks and strategies on how to actually execute an Epic marketing plan for trade shows, I actually created a very cool program called The Advanced Trade Show Marketing Secrets. And this little program is powerful. It’ll walk you through exactly how I help my clients get into the retail chains through trade shows. And also get all sorts of other deals and so forth through these shows.
These are tricks and strategies that sales reps and professionals know, if they were ever to go to a show and actually present products and so forth. The things that they would do to ensure success. So just very powerful and lots of information there about what you need to do in order to succeed at a trade show. So I highly recommend learning more. Otherwise, you go to a show and you could be one of those people who are sitting at the booth, waiting for people to come by. Things are not really happening. Things are converting not very well. I’ve seen this lots.
I speak at all the major shows. I’ve seen this time and time again. You don’t spend a little time on education, learning about your industry and what you need to do to succeed, to make money. You end up taking a lot longer with you and your business. So it’s always worth the investment, I think. Anyways, I hope that provided value for you. This is Karen Waksman with Retail MBA. The link to this Epic training program is listed below. Otherwise, please be on the lookout for the additional videos I create on how to make money with physical products. Thanks so much.
Kevin Harrington Interview – Shark Tank – How to Scale Your Consumer Product Brand with Karen Waksman, Retail MBA
Check Out Our Free Interview on How Kevin Sold Billions of Dollars worth of Consumer Products Brands and How You Can, Too! With Kevin Harrington (Shark Tank) and Karen Waksman. This Was a Powerful Interview!
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https://youtu.be/AGvEbW2hqBs
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Beauty Retail Products Category – How to Sell Beauty Products and Cosmetics to Retail Chains – Free Training!
Transcript for this video listed below…
Hey everyone, this is Karen Waksman, founder of Retail MBA. Today I want to talk about selling your beauty product to chain stores. If you have a great consumer product such as cosmetics or beauty products in general this will train and will give you some quick tips and strategies on how to do that and how to get started today. A little background about me, my name is Karen. I’ve sold millions of units of products to the world’s largest retailers as a manufacturer’s rep. I started my career out in New York back in early 2000s. And for the last 11 years or so I’ve taught 50,000 or more companies across the globe on how to approach, pitch and sell to retail chains, online retailers catalogs, and so forth. This information is for people across the globe with various products, teaching people the strategies to success with stores.
With that said, let’s talk about the beauty category for retailers and some strategies that will help you get started today. There are a lot of product types within this category. Obviously, if you have a cosmetic product it’s a little bit different than an eyeliner and this type of thing, but generally speaking a lot of retailers tend to combine these products into one area of the store. And the reason why that’s important is because buyers purchase for different product categories in general and so if you have a beauty product look for the beauty buyer and so forth that could support you. As I mentioned, it depends on retailer and so forth but ultimately they have buyers for every product category and they’re looking to purchase new things.
It’s a very competitive market, I’m sorry to say this to you guys. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t go after stores it just means that there’s a lot of people creating beauty products in all those different categories and you’re going to have to differentiate yourself. One of the problems people have is that there’s just these major brands and they’re out there and they are dealing with the retailers consistently whereas other categories you’re not dealing with as much competition with big corporations and so forth. So all the L’Oreals and the Elemis, they’re all coming up with variety of different products as well as their higher-end stuff and so forth.
Whatever it is for you just be aware that if you’re going to come up with products that are for the cosmetic and beauty industry you’re just going to have to really reach out to retailers, very strategically come up with your best story and your best foot forward so that you can support yourself. There are people out in the world who can help you come up with your pitch and your story. We do stuff like that but just because of the nature of this audience you’re just going to have to deal with the fact that you’re going to have to come up with a really, really attractive story for the buyers to be interested in your product.
Sephora is an example of that. Every person who has a cosmetic or beauty product really wants to sell to Sephora. It’s a great store, it’s a lot of fun and it’s always a dream retailer. The problem with retailers like that in niche markets is that all people who are reaching out to them so all of your competition is contacting them and so forth. I’m not trying to be negative here I just want to give you some things to consider and then help you kind of think this through in a positive way as well.
But anyway, Sephora is a retailer that every single beauty company is reaching out to. So if I had a beauty or cosmetic company, yes, I would reach out to Sephora, however I would probably lean toward anybody else initially, because if Sephora says no to you, most people get rejected, they feel awful, they don’t want to continue on, they think there’s something wrong with their product. It’s really not true. Imagine every single major company, small company, everybody’s contacting that same retailer and so Sephora gets a little snobby about that.
If I were you I would diversify, if you had a cheaper product maybe consider going out for the Walmart’s or Targets of the world or the CVSs or Walgreens of the world versus the department stores, there’s so many different ways to sell them, but don’t forget supermarkets and drug stores and stuff for your product. There’s a lot of ways to sell a product into retailers and so it doesn’t have to be the one that everybody wants to sell into. Again, you should go after Sephora but just be aware that they might reject you a little bit more and they’re looking for sales and more revenue from you a lot of times just because the nature of their business. There’s nothing wrong with going after other retailers and maybe coming back to them once you’ve got some more sales and stuff if they do say no to you.
With beauty products, packaging is key to your success because as you’ve seen they’ve come up with outlandish packaging for the beauty industry. And there’s a reason for it. There’s just a lot of noise so how are you going to come up with something that’s really going to be spicy and exciting? And it doesn’t have to be complicated but I would put definitely some more effort into packaging and making it more pop off store shelves so that the retailers would be more inclined to work with you. Again, it’s hard to share all this stuff based on categories if I haven’t seen your particular product but it’s just trying to give you some ideas, things to think about.
Brand is obviously important. If you’re going to try to sell to Macy’s or something like that, they’re definitely going to want to have a variety of different products that they buy at the same time and a whole assortment, whereas you can sell to Walgreens and just sell one unique product. So also if you have an entire product line versus a product it does depend on which retailer you want to go after, and the higher ticket retailers, the more they expect really well-known brands and stuff to be in their stores so definitely you need to do your market research to figure out which direction to go.
Again, you can go after the department stores, you can go after the online retailers, you can go after supermarkets, you can go after the drug stores, it really depends on your product and your category and your pricing, how popular you are. If you’re just getting started maybe try not to go after the retailers, they’re just going to want a whole series of products versus individual stores. These are the things to consider.
By the way, a lot of these retailers love diversity so if you are a diverse supplier and so forth definitely you want to explore getting a certification to be a diverse supplier. This basically means you’re a minority-owned company, they love stuff like that. There are organizations and I have separate trainings on certifications and so forth in other recordings of mine so you can always take a look at our free 90-minute training that we have listed on retailmba.com. We have it on every page so if you want to just opt in to get access to a full training on everything there is to know about selling to retailers we talk about certifications and so forth if you want to learn more.
But generally they love diverse suppliers and so forth because a lot of times in certain industries, certain retailers, diversity is common with their audience and so they care about their audience. Places you could conceivably sell to are Groupon or HauteLook, depends on if Groupon is still selling stuff. Currently they are, they do change and so forth, but there are retailers that you can sell to but then there’s also websites that you can sell to and so forth.
The bottom line is, if I can give you any quick tips and strategies, it’s just to really think about which direction you want to go based on your price, based on how many products you have and so forth, and then create a plan to go after them and choose accordingly because it’s really going to matter because of the fact there’s a lot of competition. There’s so much more to say about the beauty industry. If you want to learn exactly how to approach, pitch, and sell the retail chains, we actually have, as I mentioned, a free training on retailmba.com/free. Just sign in and you’ll get access to a webinar that we do to teach people how to get products into stores and we get into much more details if this is of interest to you.
If you want to go to one of our upcoming live events virtually or in physical sense, we have events. We do masterclasses quarterly, we have a year-long coaching training system do-it-yourself programs, done-for-you services, all sorts of things listed on retailmba.com. Feel free to reach out to us, we’re happy to communicate with you and we work with so many different brands. Definitely take a look at our testimonials and see how much success people have had with our information and courses and services and so forth. And please subscribe to our channel and like this and support us. We appreciate you, share with your friends, and thank you so much for your time. Karen Waksman, Retail MBA Brands, I appreciate you.
Dave Asprey Interview – How He Sold Millions of Units of His Bulletproof Coffee with Karen Waksman, Retail MBA
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Auto Aftermarket Category – How to Sell Your Auto Aftermarket Category Product to Retail Chains – Free Training!
Transcript for this video listed below…
Hey everyone. This is Karen Waksman, Founder of Retail MBA. And today I want to talk about the five reasons to consider trade shows as a marketing strategy for your retail product business. So the reason I decided to create this particular training is because I’ve taught tens of thousands of product companies across the globe on how to make money with their physical products. And one of the things that comes up a lot is trade shows.
People always ask me, “Karen, I’m thinking about going to a trade show. Do you think I should do it? Is it worth my time? Like, is it a good strategy? Is that the right strategy for me and my business?” So I just want to walk you through that so that you can think through that for your business. So let’s talk about the five reasons to consider actually going to one.
So the first reason is that you will actually meet retail buyers there. So retail buyers go to trade shows. And so if you want to get into the big chain stores and so forth, a lot of times they are at these live events. And so you can find out in advance from the exhibitor company and learn about what retailers are planning to attend, because that is definitely important for these guys who put on these shows. So knowing which retailers are going to be there will help you ultimately, and there are so many strategies around how to make sure that they actually come to your booth and stuff like that. But the basic strategy is you’ll meet buyers at chain stores.
I’ve had one customer of mine learned some strategies, went to a trade show and he got a 500,000 unit order at a trade show. Now, this is not common. This is not typical. Don’t assume that, that’s going to happen to you. But I will say that, that’s pretty darn cool. It was a fairly new product. Started growing as business, learning about retail, getting into stores and so forth, went to a trade show and boom! It just shifted his entire business. So again, it’s not so common but it can happen to you. And I just, I love those stories. I mean, how fun is that?
Okay. The next reason you want to consider going to a trade show and doing that for your business is that, basically you can take a look at the marketplace and see what’s going on there. So what does that mean? Your competitors are there. People who have different products are there, all in the same kind of industry. So if you have a houseware product, if you went to the houseware show, you’ll see what’s, the trending is going on, what your competitors are doing, what things to consider. Maybe there’s some add-on that you forgot to add for your product business and so forth. You’ll learn a lot at these shows.
Very, very helpful to learn when you’re there. And so that’s one of the benefits of going to a show. You’re spending days with these people. You’re getting to know what they’re up to. Maybe you guys help each other out. Give each other advice and so forth. So it’s pretty cool at trade shows. It can be awesome.
Another reason you want to check out trade shows is because you can meet distributors. Distributors or third parties who have actually already built out their sales funnels essentially. So they’ve already built relationships with the retailers or companies, or whatever it is that they focus on. They’re essentially a company with a lot of sales reps, most of the time. And so for a percentage of sales they’ll actually plug you into their system, and then ultimately, that means that if they represent you, you can make lots of money with them.
The cool thing about distributors is that they will ultimately purchase the products from you and then resell it to their existing customers. So they are actually going to be your customers. So that is another opportunity for you to meet them at shows. So how cool is that? A distributor likes your product. They’ll buy the product directly from you. Then they deal with all the headache in terms of going out to the world. So that’s kind of fun.
Another reason you want to consider trade shows as a marketing strategy is reps. Sales reps go to these events. They’re scouring, they’re looking. And some of the best reps who are investing their time and their effort to be at shows, because it’s costly to go to these shows, these reps will walk these floors. And those are serious reps. I’ve met a lot of reps over the years. I used to be a manufacturer’s rep for many years. So I know the industry well. And I’ll tell you that not all reps are created equal.
The ones that are going to shows who are really digging around to see what’s hot and what’s next, are usually the ones who are a little bit more keen on making money, which means they’re looking for new products, which means that they could be interesting for you. So that’s another reason to go. And the last reason you want to consider trade shows as a marketing strategy is, well, you can actually sell your products on the spot.
So there’s so many strategies I can teach you about how to make sure that you convert at the live event, but you literally can have people write an order from you at the live event. People can buy it from you one-off or they can buy bulk, or maybe they’re from another country and they need to ship it somewhere, or whatever it is. They can buy from you on the spot. And that can be very cool.
So you definitely want to set up your booth in a way that’ll make people more enticed to buy from you on the spot. There’s things that you have to set up and so forth. But just think about that. I mean, you can literally make money at the live event and offset the cost of being there. So that’s another reason to consider trade shows as a marketing strategy.
So if you want to learn the advanced tips, tricks and strategies on how to actually execute an Epic marketing plan for trade shows, I actually created a very cool program called The Advanced Trade Show Marketing Secrets. And this little program is powerful. It’ll walk you through exactly how I help my clients get into the retail chains through trade shows. And also get all sorts of other deals and so forth through these shows.
These are tricks and strategies that sales reps and professionals know, if they were ever to go to a show and actually present products and so forth. The things that they would do to ensure success. So just very powerful and lots of information there about what you need to do in order to succeed at a trade show. So I highly recommend learning more. Otherwise, you go to a show and you could be one of those people who are sitting at the booth, waiting for people to come by. Things are not really happening. Things are converting not very well. I’ve seen this lots.
I speak at all the major shows. I’ve seen this time and time again. You don’t spend a little time on education, learning about your industry and what you need to do to succeed, to make money. You end up taking a lot longer with you and your business. So it’s always worth the investment, I think. Anyways, I hope that provided value for you. This is Karen Waksman with Retail MBA. The link to this Epic training program is listed below. Otherwise, please be on the lookout for the additional videos I create on how to make money with physical products. Thanks so much.
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How To Get Your Product/Invention Past Idea Stage & Into Retail Stores
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Retail MBA | Karen Waksman – Learn how to get your product or invention past idea stage and into retail stores! Watch my latest training video!
BJs Wholesale Vendor- How to Sell to BJ’s Wholesale Club
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Retail MBA | Karen Waksman – Check out my new training and learn how to be a BJs Wholesale Vendor – How to sell to BJs Wholesale Club
