CHAPTER

Your hard work is paying off and your brand is recognizable, gaining traction to ascend to the next level. At this point, Michael’s Perfect Pickles has an impressive sales director, a couple of brand ambassadors, a few merchandisers, and a lead broker. Michael wants to build his $1.5 million in sales to $10 million in the next two years. To accomplish this ambitious growth in sales, Michael must use new capital to make the big jump from natural specialty stores to mainstream stores such as Kroger, Walgreens, and the juggernaut of stop ’n’ go commerce: 7-Eleven.

What works in your favor is demand for natural products. In the big-box retailers such as Target, Kroger, and Publix; C-stores such as 7-Eleven, Shell, and Chevron; and the natural channels such as WFM, Sprouts, and independent natural retailers, these products are booming. All the market data point to this upward trend and it’s a massive one. Working against you are major competitors. To take their place, you must sell!

Of course, the question is, Sell to whom? Naturally your thoughts turn to contacting the biggies—visiting head and regional offices. But let’s start with the obvious. They are not going to have a sustained interest in your product unless people are buying it in their stores. So, first things first: How will you make that happen?

Think Strategically but Act Logically

It’s what you do in individual stores that gets customers buying your product. Those local activities will be carried out by your brand ambassadors and merchandisers. They must be engaged in actions that boost your sales in stores. Brand ambassadors and merchandisers are the lifeblood of any brand because they interact with customers inside grocery stores and other retail locations. As your foot soldiers, they deal with all the activities involved with new store locations: customer interaction, physical labor/setup, demos, and promotions.

All of this work needs to be managed, of course, but by whom? It will not be your brokers. Brokers do manage products, including competing products. However, don’t expect them to perform this management function.

It will be your regional sales managers (RSMs). Your RSMs train the brand ambassadors and merchandisers and oversee their day-to-day activities, and together they expand the territory. This new growth will come through small chains, restaurants, hotels, casinos, gas stations, vending machines, and anywhere they can sell your product! Your RSMs must seize the moment to gain complete ownership of their territory. They can’t let the occasional “no” slow them down! They won’t stop until every possible location in their territory is selling your product. That is the mindset of winners. One must look for the opportunity anytime or anyplace. It’s there.

I once worked with a company as an RSM, and I wanted to truly show my extra effort and never-ending focus on selling. I wanted a major salary increase the minute I started the job. The only way I could show I was the best was to be undeniable. Undeniable requires thinking outside the box.

I attended a big 7-Eleven trade show in Southern California and took orders for thousands of dollars. I admit many salespeople would’ve been satisfied with those results and called it a day. However, I was still hungry. The trade show was taking place in a huge casino property. This presented a real opportunity for selling my product to the casino itself. So, I proactively sought out the procurement folks from the hotel while I was there. It ended up being a huge single-location account that drove revenue for the company. That year I made a great bonus!

What About Brokers?

Even if you have RSMs, a critical requirement when transitioning from natural specialty stores to mainstream stores such as Kroger, Walgreens, 7-Eleven, and Safeway is to build and maintain relationships with major distributors such as UNFI, Nature’s Best, Core-Mark, KeHE, and McLane. Clear and consistent communication with these distributors is key in order to land the major accounts. Distributors must have your allegiance. This will require wining, dining, and schmoozing your distributor and clients. It’s all part of the game. You need to schmooze your team from time to time too. Incorporate these strategies into managing your team.

Your team must be ready to support your broker, distributors, and retailers. There is no victory in selling 50,000 units of anything if your supply chain can’t fill those orders. All three (brokers, distributors, and retailers) want assurances and confidence that if they have a problem with an account in Los Angeles someone is close by to take care of it—fast! There is a reason why firefighters arrive within minutes at an emergency—they are in close proximity to the area they protect. This also makes for a solid bullet point in your sales pitch. For example, “We have Abigail Steinberg in Malibu, pending any issues that may come up. She is our RSM.” This is concise. This is clear communication to your business partners that support is nearby—a masterful selling point.

Letting Go

As your company grows you will be faced with a significant challenge, one every small-business owner must confront. You will no longer have time to put your hands on everything that goes on in your organization. Your role will be to work out the long-term strategy and ensure that results being produced match that plan. Upper management has specific roles that I’ll outline later in the chapter. But the key task you will face is letting go of the day-to-day activities taking place around you.

Organizing for Sales

Now that I have hammered away at the need for effective local activities, let’s have a look at the organization chart in Figure 10-1. It contains the strategic focus: getting business from the biggies. Note that the focus is geographic. These sales efforts must be directed at the targets in their geographic locations: their head and regional offices. Note that other parts of your growing company may be organized around functions such as accounting. But your sales efforts must be geographic.

Figure 10-1. Example of a national sales team.

Along with the Advice Comes a Warning

Your sales team needs motivation. People are assets. Develop them to accomplish a specific mission. By development I refer to detailed, on-the-job training. You have seen how specific the detail is in this book, such as when describing the demands of a company like Whole Foods. Ambiguity has no place in your operation. And that is particularly true in sales. Asking your sales staff to “sell a lot” is setting an unreachable goal. Selling five case stacks is specific, definitive, and attainable.

The kind of salespeople you’re looking for are interesting kinds of people. They have a desire for a piece of the pie for their efforts. So you could offer a bonus program, which is typical in this industry. But be very clear how the bonus structure works. As I said, make the goals obtainable, and establish in advance what the related bonus payoff will be for reaching goals. Rewarding a combination of solid sales performance and new business relationships is important.

On more than one occasion in one company I was congratulated all year round for high sales and new business development. I was the company’s champion, and it seemed like every day management would praise my performance. When it was time for the bonus, though, somehow, someway, I just fell short. No bonus. So I encourage you to understand that if all year you promise your sales team a major bonus, you’d better deliver. If you don’t, your insulted sales team’s enthusiasm will deflate like an old birthday balloon. You don’t want your Kobe Bryant of sales to leave your team to sell with your competitor. You want to be tight with costs but you don’t want to lose your top salesperson to another team either.

Below I have defined some of the key positions of a national sales team. Please note that all companies are different and responsibilities often overlap. Often these positions are combined due to budgetary reasons.

Senior VP of Sales

The senior VP of sales works in broad strokes. The senior VP lays the foundation of specific strategies. The senior VP also is the one to close national chains, decide on brokers, oversee budgets, forecast sales, create and analyze sales data, and make final decisions about distributors. This warrior of sales is the individual who oversees the entire sales team. This individual should inspire everyone in the company.

VP West Coast Sales/VP East Coast Sales

The VP of West Coast Sales oversees the South/West united sales. The VP of East Coast Sales oversees the North/East. These VPs close major regional chains, choose local brokers, report to the Senior VP of Sales and CEO, create regional strategies, analyze and create sales data reports from distributors, and oversee their RSM team. Their job is to educate, motivate, and inspire their RSM team to constantly close sales at chains and service their accounts.

Sales Director

Sales directors are the mentors of the entire sales team. I worked with a sales director who focused on the Midwest and mentored the regional sales managers. Not only did he perform spectacularly in Midwest sales, but he was the glue that kept the entire team together. Sales directors send out sales updates and communicate with operations to ensure stock levels. Sales directors deal with POs to ensure they are filled and sent out in time. They work closely with operations, HR, and the CEO. They are often the voice of the CEO and VP of Sales and in charge of choosing the new hires.

Regional Sales Manager

RSMs are the territory builders in your sales organization. They are your boots on the ground closing the mom-and-pop stores, hospitals, and small chains; manning the trade shows; and training, inspiring, and overseeing their brand ambassadors, merchandisers, brokers, and distributors.

Who Do You Want in Those Boxes?

It’s one thing to construct an organizational chart and figure out the duties for each box. It’s another thing to get the right people for each box. Building a brand that is a household name requires extraordinary effort by all members of your team. As you look at people to bring on board, focus on their talents in building sales. What can they bring to the table? The masters of sales you want will be persons of established connections inside the mainstream market that you are trying to break into. Who do your salespeople know? Who at ___________ do they know? Who at __________________ have they done business with before? You fill in the blanks.