When it comes to selling CBD to mass retail consumers, generating trial is critical if you are looking to tap into the vast swath of shoppers who are new to the segment. But it’s far from easy. Retailers must drive awareness of the segment, furnish a wealth of information quickly and in a format that’s easy-to-understand, have a product assortment that caters to a variety of needs and tastes, and a price-point that is not too prohibitive.  Successfully executing on this, however, can open a wealth of opportunity among the millions of mass retail shoppers that peruse the aisles each day. Betterment Retail Solutions, a wellness distributor based in West Des Moines, Iowa, has developed many such successful programs for the retailers and brands it serves (Yesway and Kwik Chek among them), and from this work has gained a ton of insights on what drives CBD success at the shelf.  In this podcast ECRM's Joseph Tarnowski speaks with Betterment President Dorsey Sparks about some best practices that retailers and brands can implement to drive the trial of CBD products and to get these new CBD consumers coming back for more. As Dorsey is a regular buyer participant at ECRM CBD sessions, she also discusses how CBD brands can best engage with buyers during our ECRM Connect programs.  ECRM connects buyers and sellers of fast-moving consumer goods in category-specific, highly curated face-to-face meetings. For more information, visit ECRM.MarketGate.com Click here to view the blog post from this podcast!

Happy New Year everyone! For most people, the start of the new year involves setting goals, and so for our first podcast of 2021 our focus is exactly that. In this episode, I speak once again with Alli Ball, a former grocery buyer and founder of Allison Ball Consulting, which works with emerging food and beverage brands to help them succeed at retail. She's also the host of the Food Biz Wiz podcast, in which she shares all kinds of helpful advice for brands on how to effectively run their businesses and get their products on the shelf and into consumers' hands.  Alli takes us through the steps and strategies brand-owners can take to set and achieve effective goals (and common mistakes to avoid in doing so). She then shows us how to reverse-engineer those goals into tactics and timelines that will deliver optimal success without overwhelming you. Alli and I also go off on a fun tangent about productivity hacks that we each do and how these can be applied to your goal-setting practices. I really enjoyed this interview, and I know you will too!  ECRM connects buyers and sellers of fast-moving consumer goods in category-specific, highly curated face-to-face meetings. For more information, visit ECRM.MarketGate.com Read an overview of these tips on ECRM's blog. Here are links to some of the books we discussed: Free to Focus, by Michael Hyatt The One Thing, by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan. Indistractable, by Nyr Eyal My column on "Boundaries: Creating Work/Life Balance in a Remote World"

One could say that Paul Adrian, Founder & CEO of U.K.-based Mojo Skin & Haircare, had a successful experience at ECRM’s recent European Personal Care Virtual Program. Not only did his company win the Buyers Choice Award for its Hair Molding Clay, but his products were picked up by the Ideal World TV shopping channel just days after his meeting with them, and his products were featured just last weekend. Plus, he’s in the midst of several follow-up conversations with buyers from the program, and is expecting a few more wins to come out of them.  Mojo is a premium men’s grooming and styling range, and currently offers four products that cover most men’s hair types and are sold in more than 3,000 stores in Europe and Australia. In this episode, I speak with Paul about the origin of the company, how he approaches retailer relationships, and his experience meeting with buyers at his recent ECRM session. He also discusses his upcoming skincare launch, and his plans to leverage ECRM's virtual platform to launch in the US next year.  ECRM connects buyers and sellers of fast-moving consumer goods in category-specific, highly curated face-to-face meetings. For more information, visit ECRM.MarketGate.com

If you're a brand looking to grow your business on third-party ecommerce platforms around the world, then Taylor Sargeant, Head Buyer for Stephensons Online, is someone you definitely want to know. Stephensons specializes in helping brands of all sizes to successfully market and sell their products on platforms like Amazon and eBay in dozens of countries, and provides an array of turnkey services and support to help them do so. The company buys and warehouses the products, and manages everything from set-up to day-to-day operations, including product listings, storefront design and management, brand registry, messaging, returns, and even language translation. It also handles global distribution to both B2B and B2C customers. And where does Taylor go to find many of these brands? ECRM, of course! He's been to more than a dozen in-person and virtual sessions, and listed more than 50 brands from this year's sessions alone. In this episode, ECRM's Joseph Tarnowski speaks with Taylor about the types of brands he works with and how they help them to succeed with third-party ecommerce sites around the world. We also touch on his ECRM virtual experience, and how virtual has helped Stephensons expand into new categories. ECRM connects buyers and sellers of fast-moving consumers goods in category-specific private, prescheduled face-to-face meetings. For more information, visit ECRM.MarketGate.com

In this episode, ECRM's Joseph Tarnowski speaks with Kara Goldin, the Founder & CEO of Hint, which is best known for its beverages, but also has a line of personal care products too. She's a groundbreaking entrepreneur who has received a ton of accolades during her career, including EY Entrepreneur of the year for Northern California, InStyle's Badass 50, Fast Company's Most Creative People in Business, and Fortune's Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs. The Huffington Post listed her as one of six disruptors in business, alongside Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg.  And now she can add Wall Street Journal bestselling author to her accomplishments as well, having just made the list with her newly-released book, Undaunted: Overcoming Doubts & Doubters. In this interview, we cover several key learnings she wrote about in the book from throughout her varied career, which spanned Time Inc., CNN, and AOL before launching Hint.  They discuss the value of creating your own opportunities and just getting started without overthinking things, the concept of building the airplane while flying it, and how to transform setbacks into opportunities.  SHOW NOTES What 'Undaunted' means to Kara (02:55) Creating your own opportunities (08:18) New York City & Time Inc. (10:33) Just show up every day and try to learn something (15:20) If I just go try, I can ultimately do these things (17:54) Entrepreneurship is really solving a new problem (18:44) The cold call that led to AOL (22:35) Just get started! (26:40) Own your mistakes and learn from them (30:17) Launching Hint at Whole Foods, having child No. 4 and selling out every case -- all on the same day (36:09) Expanding to New York (41:04) Building the airplane while flying it (41:55) Making time for everything (49:09) The Starbucks de-listing and transforming setbacks into opportunities (50:38) Taking a chance on direct-to-consumer (55:43) Nobody can solve your problems for you (61:01) Failure as a part of success (1:04:32) Be okay with not having all of the answers (1:07:49) Lots of great anecdotes and insights from the book, which I highly recommend you pick up if you haven't already read it!  Click here to order Undaunted: http://www.drinkhint.com/ECRM

If you want to CRUSH IT in your next virtual buyer meeting, well then this podcast is for you. Alli Ball, Founder & Principal of Allison Ball consulting lays out five steps to creating a perfect virtual buyer pitch. And Alli knows a thing or two about pitching buyers. She's a former buyer turned wholesale consultant who has helped hundreds of emerging brands understand what it takes to get their products on the retail shelf.  She's the creator of Retail Ready, an online course for producers of packaged food products seeking to succeed at retail, and the host of the Food Biz Wiz podcast, where she shares behind-the-scenes secrets and thought processes of buyers as they asses new products for their retail operations.  Prior to launching her consulting business, Alli was essential in the development of the Bi-Rite family of businesses in San Francisco, sourcing products and consulting with hundreds of up-and-coming food businesses for years.  Lots of great information here for all emerging brands, particularly those participating in ECRM Virtual Programs.  ECRM holds more than 80 category-specific virtual sessions in which brands can have private, prescheduled face-to-face virtual meetings with buyers in food and beverage, health and beauty care, general merchandise and pharmacy and medical markets. For more information, visit ECRM.MarketGate.com  Allison Ball's Website Check out Alli's Retail Roadmap, 9 steps to building a brand that flies off the shelf: www.alliball.com/roadmap  Food Biz Wiz Podcast Alli Ball's Retail Ready Online Course

In this episode, I speak with Alina Morse, Founder and CEO of Zolli Candy, which makes sugar-free candy that is actually good for your teeth, including Zolli Pops, Zolli Drops, Zaffi Taffy and Zolli Caramels (the last two being my personal favorites, as I'm a chewy candy kinda guy). And while Alina is only 15 years old, she's the real deal. I've seen her at our Candy Planning sessions every year since she was 10, meeting with buyers, networking with other partcipants and getting business done. She's actually closed a lot of business with retailers she's met at our sessions. In this discussion, we talk about how she has both literally and figuratively grown in the business with ECRM. We cover how she came up with the idea for the candy, how she approaches her buyer meetings, and how she develops custom solutions based on buyers' specific needs. We also chat about life as a teenage entrepreneur, and how she finds a balance between work, school and recreational activities. Great insights here from a rising star in the industry, and entrepreneurs both young and old will enjoy this one! ECRM connects buyers and sellers of fast-moving consumers goods in category-specific private, prescheduled face-to-face meetings. For more information, visit ECRM.MarketGate.com

In this episode, I speak with Michele Deeves, Retail & Marketing Lead for South African pharmacy chain Medicare Pharmacy Group. Michele is a veteran ECRM session participant, attending in her first in-person session more than a dozen years ago, and has recently participated in both our Euro and U.S.-focused Virtual Sessions. In her role as retail lead, Michele heads up the front-end buying across all categories, and takes us through how the pandemic has impacted shopper behavior in the South African market. She also discusses how the retailer has been sourcing and merchandsing various categories as country-wide restrictions and consumer demands have varied widely over the past few months. She wraps up with details of her experience with ECRM's Virtual Sessions, and how they have enabled her to find trending products from suppliers around the world -- all from the comfort of her home office. Lots of great South African market insights in this one.  ECRM hosts category-specific face-to-face virtual meetings for retailers and brands around the world. For more information, visit ECRM.MarketGate.com. View the blog post of this interview on the ECRM Blog. View the video interview on YouTube.

For our 100th podcast, I wanted to do something a little special, a little different. So we're going to teach you how to sell without selling by building a powerful personal brand. My guest on this podcast is personal branding expert Lorena Acosta, the Founder of Be Busy Being Awesome Agency, who coaches business leaders on how to develop and engage an audience of followers who share their values and beliefs, and to create content that builds trust and creates meaningful, long-lasting relationships.  We discuss what personal branding is (and what it's not), how to build your tribe of engaged followers, and how to leverage social media -- and LinkedIn in particular -- to make this happen. And Lorena knows a thing or two about LinkedIn, as she recently surpassed 1 million followers on the platform. Lots of great insights in this one, and I certainly learned a few things to apply to my own personal brand building efforts, and I'm sure you will too. Click here to view the blog post. Click here for the YouTube video interview. Click here to see ECRM's full list of category-specific virtual sessions.

In this episode, ECRM's Wayne Bennett Speaks with Barb Stuckey, President & Chief Innovation Officer at Mattson, a Silicon Valley-based insights, strategy, and development firm that helps clients develop food and beverages for the retail and chain restaurant industries. Barb is known as a taste, food trend, innovation, consumer insights, and product development expert. As part of Barb’s role in the innovation projects that make up her daily job, she is required to taste food and figure out how to make it better. After more than 2 decades doing this, she’s honed her tasting skills and ability to help others make food taste better. She shared this insight with the world in 2012 when her book TASTE WHAT YOU’RE MISSING was published (the paperback edition was released under the simplified title TASTE). Barb was instrumental in helping The San Francisco Cooking School integrate the science of taste into their curriculum. She now teaches the Fundamentals of Taste to each entering class. Barb is a regular contributor to Forbes.com where she writes about the food industry. She serves on the Advisory Board of the Plant Based Foods Association, and was previously on the boards of the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, as well as La Cocina, the San Francisco-based food incubator for low income women of color. During the episode, Wayne and Barb discuss what it means to innovate and create a product that truly represents a point of difference from what's on the market. They review what factors are important in achieving this, and what segments of the food and beverage industry are ripe for innovation. And speaking of food and beverage innovation, ECRM has several virtual sessions coming this November where you'll find tons of it, including three foodservice sessions, as well as sessions on plant-based food and beverages, keto food and beverages, meat and seafood. For more information, visit ECRM.MarketGate.com