BrandBusters Ep. 24: Martin Forde, Retail Strategist & Former Dr. Squatch Retail Director
In Episode 24 of BrandBusters, James and Sean sit down with Martin Forde, a retail CPG sales expert whose career spans from PepsiCo to Dr. Squatch. Now running his own company, Martin helps brands craft winning retail strategies.
In this episode, we dive into:
-Why Martin chose to double down on retail sales over the popular DTC and Amazon-first approach
-Key considerations for brands moving from digital-first to brick-and-mortar, including retail readiness, pricing strategies, and retailer selection
-How DTC data can be leveraged to build a smart retail expansion plan
-The role of omnichannel strategies and the evolving synergy between digital and retail distribution
-The importance of execution at retail, including merchandising, marketing, and managing in-store compliance
-Lessons from the Dr. Squatch Walmart launch and navigating the challenges of retail pricing, Amazon competition, and trade promotions
Martin shares invaluable insights on retail expansion, retail media, and navigating the complexities of scaling in stores. If you're a CPG brand thinking about going into retail or looking to optimize your strategy, this is a must-listen!
Follow Martin on LinkedIn for more retail strategy insights, and don't forget to subscribe to BrandBusters on YouTube, LinkedIn, X, or wherever you get your podcasts!
Welcome to Brand Busters with your hosts, James Schwyn and Sean Lee. Together, we bust open the latest in CPG, retail media, and life, or whatever the we want. And for today's episode, we got something special cooked up for you. Extra spicy. Take it away, Sean.
Alright, everybody. Welcome back to the Brand Busters. We have an awesome guest today. We have Martin Ford with us, who's a retail CPG sales expert with experience spanning from Pepsi to doctor Squatch. He now runs his own company helping brands with their retail strategies.
And Martin's an ultra marathoner and a former d one athlete, which tends to be a common theme of people that we interview. So we're super pumped to have, Martin on the on the show today, and thanks for joining, Martin. Glad you're here. Thanks, Sean. Really, really stoked to be chatting with you both.
Yeah. It's a fun times in CPG land as always. So Yeah. Always always good. I guess the first question we have is we have a lot of people that have been on on on here that really got their start, I would say, direct to consumer first with, you know, Shopify, Meta, and Google advertising, then move to Amazon, and then retail was was generally the third step from there.
In a world that that seems to be so heavy in d two c and Amazon and and you see a lot of influencers talking about that space, you've chosen to double down on retail sales as your specialty. I think it's super smart. Obviously, you can get a lot more volume. It's it's a much different skill set, and it's pretty, it it can be pretty hard to do. But why'd you pick that path over, kind of bucking the trend of everybody focusing on d to c and advertising and Amazon?
Yeah. Great question, Sean. I wish I had a cooler story as far as why I just kinda stumbled into this. But, I've been doing retail sales really for the entirety of my career. So, again, as you mentioned in the intro, I started at big big CPG, PepsiCo, Frito Lay specifically.
And what I was doing there was fundamentally just store level execution, running a sales territory, and just seeing how product flows through from, in this case, from a DC to a a store. And so, really cool to, you know, run a sales team at the young age and and just get experience of everything from merchandising, promotions, positioning, all the all the fundamentals that big CPG tends to teach you, I've I've got to pick up. But, you know, I I really was energized, really liked CPG, really found, again, not too many people, like, really specializing in it, if you will. But, as I'm sure a lot of people can attest to, it sounds like yourself included, just found the career trajectory to be a little slower paced than what I had hoped for. So, you know, that led me into my foray into early stage CPG, which is very much my you know, I've I've doubled down on that niche now for for years and years.
But, that's what actually brought me here to LA was, yeah, stood. Came for a early stage, brand at the time called the Halo Top and, relocated to LA. Spent a few months there, went to an even earlier stage company because I just I'm a glutton for punishment, I suppose. And, all my scope was entirely focused on helping build new retail distribution. And so to your point, it's not always the easiest path.
It's definitely a a a path less trodden. And, I just got a lot of enjoyment about almost this dual edged approach of both collaborative consultative sales cycles, long enterprise driven sales cycles, as well as just the strategic element that kinda couples with that. And so you're building a strategy, executing off a strategy that, you know, might take twelve to eighteen months to actually see through. And so I think I've always enjoyed the long term nature of of retail, that kind of collaborative, consultative, long term approach. And and that led me to what I'm doing today, which again is advising, the next generation of disruptive consumer brands into, optimizing their retail strategy, taking some of the lessons from, again, companies like Doctor Squatch, which I can speak to at at length.
But, you know, really, really just grateful for the the opportunity to, you know, be at a point in the industry to just be able to jam with you guys. So it's been a lot of fun. Yeah. You had a really interesting post, yesterday on LinkedIn. If you don't follow or or not connected with Martin, make sure to do that.
But on the defensibility of retail's distribution versus the barrier to entry with, like, d two c, talk about expanding into retail because I think everyone thinks they wanna get into brick and mortar, but they don't realize, retailer selection, like geo selection, working with the buyer. Like, what's the assortment? Like, what's the plan again? Because it doesn't matter. You might be in 10,000 doors, but if the execution is proper, it's not on brand, that's actually gonna be worse, and erode any velocity that you had prior.
So, like, talk to us about, how to approach that, and there's a lot of angles there. So go on any and all tangents. Oh, you went on a you gave me a lot to chew on there, Gabe. So I'll try to answer that as succinctly as possible. But this is what I always advise folks with as they enter retail, before they enter retail, particularly, let's say, a direct to consumer brand who has an established at scale channel that's maybe considering retail for the first time, you need to have a strategy.
You need to understand why they're even fundamentally approaching retail from the get go. Is it more to, capture more revenue? Are you just trying to grow top line? Are you trying to acquire a net new consumer that you're not getting on d to c? Are you tapped out on growth?
You need to you're hitting investor pressure to to just simply grow more. So these are all reasons I've seen why brands are approaching retail. And so if you don't have a strategy, if you simply just react, which a lot of brands do, it's like, oh my gosh. The Target buyer came calling. I it looks like I'm launching a nationwide in Target.
You see so many examples of brands letting the, you know, letting the tail wag the dog, so to speak, and launching in such a way that doesn't align with their long term interest. And so that's that's fundamentally what I've done a lot of, work with brands is helping them get to retail readiness. And retail readiness is, like, such a wide spectrum. I can't even answer, like, everything that goes into that. But it's everything that you listed out, James.
It's everything from, like, what's your retailer selection? What's your channel strategy? What's your price point going to be? What is your marketing gonna look like? How is your supply chain set up?
All of these things that brands don't think about doing, especially if they are digitally native, they've only done ecom. There's so many elements that retail forces you to consider, and and it's just a lot it's a different world entirely. And so it's been, you know, a lot of what I feel like I do is just kind of what we're doing right here is education. It's here's how retail operates. Here's the the the cycles that they operate on.
Here's what is different from selling to a retailer versus selling on direct to consumer. Here's what's similar maybe. And so it's it's an entirely different process that brands need to to be able to wrap their heads around. And and, again, that's that's what I love to do is just be in that be in that position and and add value to to brands on that journey, and it's been it's been really fun, you know, just getting to getting to, share share what I've learned with, with a lot of, with a wide base of of brands and categories. Yeah.
No. That makes a ton of sense. And I think a lot of people on d two c don't don't think about everything that goes into it. Right? Like, they may be they may not have the right case counts, the right inner counts that are required to be in retail.
Their packaging may not be retail ready, or it may look great when it when it shows up in the mail, but not not stand out on the shelf. I think the whole, like, you know, the fundamentals you probably learned at Pepsi and I learned at P and G, like the product price placement promotion plan, like, you really need to think through that. And then resources are limited too. Right? You you probably can't go into every retailer like a P and G or PepsiCo can.
Like, with your launch, you might wanna pick one strategic retailer, make sure you really get it right. And then maybe year two, you go to another strategic retailer. I see a lot of especially early stage brands and founders just get excited when CVS reach out reaches out or Target reaches out, and they just try to do everything and end up, you know, a year, eighteen months later, not being in any of those retailers and have have lost a lot of money or kinda taken a bath on it. I think I think I think it's really great. What what's, what's, like, the one metric that's your north star when you're measuring retail success?
I've always used units per store per week or units per store per SKU per week or dollars per store per week. What do you coach people on, or or what should people be thinking about? Which is a lot different than, you know, selling a unit online. You just getting into the retailer, people celebrate that, but then you gotta get it to actually move off the shelf and have some velocity. What what do you measure, and what do you coach people on?
I I am not gonna have a unique answer to what you just listed, John, is like you. I think the golden north star metric in the context of retail is units or dollars per store per week, your velocity in essence. And the reason for such is that's, again, just aligning your, your KPIs with the retailer's KPIs. The the number one thing that well, not one of the top things that a a buyer is going to evaluate a brand on is how are you performing in relative to my hurdle rate and my category average. And so if you are not hitting that hurdle rate, you're not gonna be in distribution.
That's just a fact. And so, like, you know, let's use some some simple numbers here. You have a two units per store per week for your particular category and you're selling it one unit per store per week, you're you're done. You're toast. You're cooked.
So you're you're, you need to to understand how to your point, Sean, how to drive productive unit velocities at shelf. And a lot of that work, I actually think, comes on the front end through having an at scale, digital presence and digital channel. And so, again, I've talked and and had some click, click baity, posts about the death of d two c. Direct to consumer is not dead, but I think the old model of direct to consumer is dead. You can't launch a brand and be exclusively due to d two c for, you know, ten plus years like a Doctor.
Squatch maybe was. I think the timelines from when you get to scale on digital and then transition to retail have have shortened. And, again, to your point, I think the the metrics and the the language barriers that that shift around when you make that transition is rather than focusing on, like, you know, AOV and, like, CPAs and, these these very, again, digital specific metrics. You're now speaking a retail language of units per store per week, which has zero correlation essentially to what you were doing on on ecomm. And so Yep.
It's it's again, the things that influence that are stuff like awareness, stuff like positioning on shelf, your feature support, any trade marketing that you put together. So it's, like, all of these different levers that you you can pull need to understand intimately all of them and and which ones make sense for the brand to pull and at what time. And so, again, this is what I love to help brands do, and it's it's been, it's been my pleasure to to get to see and learn just some best practices as far as, you know, what works, what doesn't, wins, losses, all all the above. You know? So You brought up a a great point.
I and I I've seen some of those those clickbaity headlines, but I think what people don't realize is d D2C can actually be such a springboard for retail expansion. Like, think about how much, like, data it it almost informs your retail launch strategy. Right? It can look at which geos, across the country are you picking up velocity in, which you can then leverage to those, like, specific or regional, retailers. Think about, like, the assortment strategy around that.
And then even think about, like, your CRM and email list. Like, you have a whole customer base that you can kind of get this campaign out to drive that early velocity. So these things don't have to cannibalize one another. They can work harmoniously, and we can drive new acquisition and growth in these other channels. Yep.
I couldn't agree more, James. I think, like, d to c is gonna remain a really critical channel for brands in the future. I think it's just very, very hard to cold start a brand on d to c today. And that's what I talk about a lot is is, again, like, if I'm a new brand, I would almost be parallel pathing retail, d to c, Amazon, every single channel that you can possibly be distributed on because you don't know which one is going to be most resonant until you actually get placement in it. But your point, James, I think it's it's interesting to see this this, maybe, this old gen this this, this old playbook of, you know, you start d to c, you build initial scale, you use the data from d to c to be able to drive your retail strategy, and then use that, retail strategy to fuel growth, etcetera.
I think that playbook still is in a lot of ways, quite resonant, but it doesn't, it's just been compressed, I think, for for a lot of, brands which are which are maybe earlier in their their life cycles today. And so, again, I'm I'm a, I was every single brand I've I've worked with in the early stage capacity has had a direct to consumer channel. And so I'm I'm nothing but a a believer in the the value of of that channel and the the first party data that you can collect from it. But, times have changed. I think ever since the iOS what iOS 17 or, back what yeah.
Did I get the the update right? Whichever one it was. Yeah. When iOS messed up meta meta, basically. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Once once you couldn't attribute, where your sales were coming from and couldn't target people to the same degree of granularity, DDC economics and CPA specifically just skyrocketed. You're just not able to understand who you're you're targeting on these these paid media channels. And I think it's led to quite a bit of a reckoning for a lot of digital brands is brands that maybe didn't have any meaningful point of differentiation or any real, lifetime value, like, strategy of of how do we not only acquire a customer profitably, but how do we nurture them and get them to purchase more across our product portfolio.
I think that's there's there's absolutely a a a tiering of of digitally native brands that I think you see today that have just absolutely crushed yet and are now taking that scale, taking that success on direct to consumer, and are successfully, again, applying that, those concepts to, to retail. Yeah. I think one interesting point there too is, like, a lot of direct to consumer marketers or Amazon marketers are so used to, like, I'd spend this and I get this kind of return or ROAS or I I do this activity and I see the immediate result from it. I think what people fail to realize too is, like, all these channels, like, interact together. Right?
You're just giving the consumer more places to shop to buy your product where they're already shopping. So I I always see, like, if you're on d two c and you're on Amazon, someone might see your d two c ad, but then buy on Amazon. If you're you have Walmart distribution, they might see your d two c ad and go and buy it at Walmart. They might see your Amazon ad, and then they're they happen to be at Walmart and buy it there. They might be at the retail shelf and then not wanna buy it right then.
They might do some more research and buy it on Amazon. So I think it's hard for marketers that wanna be able to trace back. I did this activity, and it resulted in this purchase. Once you start getting multiple channels and you become omnichannel, it's a lot harder to make those attributions, but you know that they all work together. And and I think that's that's one thing that d two c marketers struggle with when they initially go to retail or initially expand to Amazon.
Yeah. Couldn't agree more, John. I think it's it's this again, this this, you're spoiled on on, the digital channels. I think it's, you're you're used to this to your point, this instant correlation that you can really draw of, oh, when I pull when I do x, y occurs. And and I can scale that really linearly and predictably.
The same does not exist within retail. And so when you're investing, a lot of those investments and those decisions happen on the front end, and you're not gonna necessarily know the impact of those decisions from three, six, nine months in the future, which I think is a really, really hard just, paradigm shift for a lot of brands to to to reckon with. And, and, again, that's that's the that's, I think, the the value of of retail fundamentally is because it's a diverse channel, a disparate channel that's not correlated with your direct to consumer channel. I believe there's a huge, huge, halo effect when you have retail distribution. It is in effect a way to acquire a brand a consumer who's already maybe aware of your brand for much cheaper, much lower of a CPA than say on your, your, your DTC channels.
And so I think this was a a reshift we used, when I was during my time at Doctor. Squatch was, okay, we need to stop thinking of retail as just a revenue channel. It is a customer acquisition channel akin to a a meta or a YouTube that just happens to drive revenue. And that's, I think, thesis really informed a lot of the merchandising strategy, a lot of the placements. A lot of these elements were, I think kinda laid the let laid the groundwork for that brand to be as successful as it was came from that thesis of retail is just is is another way to activate a consumer who has maybe not ever tried the brand.
Because, like, they never will try the brand because they don't buy things on direct to consumer, for example. So, again, I think that's that synergy, that that overlap between digital channels and retail channels is only becoming more and more apparent. So So for brands that are trying to break into retail, are there they're probably dependent on the vertical per se, but are there certain retailers that you've got are more friendly to emergent emerging or challenger brands? And, like, even getting that to the table with this, are the retailers finding them? Are they having to go through as a sales guy for the last twelve years, is there a line on them kind of prospecting the retailer and kind of courting them?
Like, what does that process entail? Then who's kind of the friendliest with, these these brands trying to break in? Yeah. It it's it's a tough question to answer directly, James, because, again, it's really dependent on the brand, on the category, on the retailer. There's so many different variables, but I'll try to just kinda, you know, speak in generalities, and and I'll, I'll talk about a retailer I'm super bullish on that that, that most people are are, steer away from, I think, in the in in the context of early stage, initial launches into retail.
But let's make some assumptions. I think a brand that has achieved some sort of meaningful scale on direct to consumer and so for for me, I think an arbitrary, like, revenue framework, or or or hurdle rate, if you will, is about 5,000,000, maybe 10,000,000 in top line per year. If you've hit that, you have a meaningful amount of consumer awareness. You obviously have a cheap product market fit. You, ideally are profitable, and so you you have an ability to invest in some of these retailer programs.
If you're at that scale, you are in effect retail ready. You've proven out this this, that there is consumer demand for your product. I think where brands need to put a lot of, rigorous thought process in is, like, what are the retailers where my consumers shop? And so that depends on the brand entirely. And so it's, like, that's where it's, again, hard to answer your question, James, of, like, what's the best retailer to start with?
There there it really it it's it's dependent on the brand is is my answer to that. So, back to your point, Sean, is, like, as far as first party data that can be really valuable to validate what retailers to launch in, do you see accessing your consumers having a direct literally the emails of your consumers, you can ask them. And so you can do some meaningful consumer insights research, validating, hey. Like, if if, we have this brand, where would you prefer to purchase it in stores? And you can get that consumer and then the get that data from the consumer, and you can use that data to then sell it to the exact retailer that you're approaching.
And so that's where I think is the power of d two c is you can really, really hone in on exactly what it is the retailer that would make most sense for your brand, and you can demonstrate that with meaningful, data. And you can even you know, you can get really, really sophisticated with this and say, oh, you know, we we over index, our brand over indexes as Costco shoppers two x versus the, versus, the general population, let's say. And so you can use that data as as part of this narrative as far as when you approach those retailers, how to sell into them, how to engage with them. And that's that's, again, kinda gets your foot in the door, so to speak, as far as, like, how to, again, initially engage with them. But as far as retailers, again, I remain bullish on, and, again, I'm gonna go against the green here, is I think if you are the right brands, if you are at an appropriate scale, and if you're very sober about what it means to go into this partnership, Walmart is truly one of the best best partners for the right brands.
And so that's not all brands. Please don't misconstrue. Anyone who's listening to this, you know, not all brands, early stage brands are ready for for retail. But if you have a mass market brand and you are looking to get as wide of a base of distribution to validate the rest of the retail strategy No. Walmart is Walmart's king.
And and I think it's been really interesting to work with Walmart over the years and to see their their focus and investments in these emerging brands as they call them. It's been very, very clear. And it's like it goes well beyond even just Doctor. Squatch or very close to the heart example, but, like, you look at some more recent examples even within personal care. You know, Curie is a cool one.
I think w is a is a great one. There's there's a ton of brand even just, like, within that specific subcategory, natural personal care, that are absolutely just booming within the Walmart ecosystem. And that strategy of finding these these, really disruptive brands driving a net new consumer to Walmart. There's advantages to Walmart for that and using that initial new customer to to surprise and delight them as they they find these these brands they wouldn't expect in the Walmart box. There is all these synergistic effects that you have both on the brand side, obviously, from Walmart, obviously, for kind of the overall health of the consumer ecosystem.
So, again, if you if you can check all these boxes, Walmart's a phenomenal partner, and I have nothing but good things in my years of working with them. And, but, again, they don't always they don't always work. I'm happy to speak to speak to that. So Yeah. And, James, I think I think one of the things that, I I think one of the things that I learned early on so I launched, Martin, I launched a brand called Civo out of P and G's, like, venture capital group Of course.
Before I left there. I think it's doing about 200,000,000 in in annual revenue now. We we made it to about 5,000,000 on Shopify, so we weren't quite at that 10,000,000 mark, but we wanted to go to retail. We surveyed our customers. We looked at the profile.
We looked at at kind of ZIP codes of where they're shopping. And Inset's unique. Right? This is like, goes to your example. It really depends on the category and the product.
So Walmart would be number one. Target's number two by, like, market share, then Home Depot, then Lowe's. We didn't wanna go Walmart Target because we weren't confident in our supply chain. We weren't ready yet. So we went with Home Depot for exclusive for a year, which they loved because they don't get a ton of innovation.
And but we use the data from our d two c to be like, hey. Here's our shopper. Here's their income. Here's the ZIP codes where where we, like, heat map, where where they've been buying. And as opposed to going into every Home Depot, we picked, like, I think, like, 70% of their stores that overlapped with their, like they called them, like, a, b, c, and d stores.
We were in, like, all the a a and b's and maybe part of the c's. And we avoided the d's because we're like, you know what? Our shopper just doesn't overlap there. We're probably not gonna move units per store per week there. The buyer loved it because we were hitting all the thresholds, in the stores that we were in.
And then we were able to use that data and our d to c data to go to Target the next year. And then ultimately, Walmart year three. Just again, we probably would have done both more quickly. We just weren't confident in our supply chain to be able to to deliver. But I think that's excellent advice to really tailor use your data, ask your customers, and then and then tailor it to to the retailer.
But kind of dovetailing off of that, you were around for the Doctor. Squatch Walmart launch. I know you posted about that quite a bit. You you led a lot of their retail strategy. What obviously, it's a a great success story.
What what are some stories or or lessons from the early days there? Were there any any things that you did that you wouldn't have done early on, or are there things that you you did that worked great and you would recommend others do and kinda double down on? Yeah. Great great question, Sean. I'm gonna speak in generalities here.
Yeah. But, some some good, again, for for context for the group, was the first sales hire, Doctor Squatch, and helped lead their retail expansion culminating in the national rollout at Walmart. So through that experience, you know, made a lot again, I think a really, really great example of an at scale digital business successfully transitioning to brick and mortar in a very large impactful way, I e via via Walmart distribution. Some things I would maybe watch out and do differently, be aware of, in in the context of launching a brand at that scale, into Walmart is the first is really relates to your pricing and specifically your direct to consumer pricing, your d to c, your d to c pricing, your retail pricing, and your Amazon pricing. And avoiding channel conflicts throughout those is something I would advise everybody to do a lot of thought very, very, rigorous thought on how to avoid conflicts between those three channels.
That's something I again, a big mistake I think I made in in, and and we really over underestimated in that launch was what's the degree that again, there's competitive dynamics that are outside of of, your purview as a as a brand even at at Doctor. Squatch's scale, but Walmart Walmart and Amazon are competitors. And so, again, how do you balance this maybe disparate pricing strategy you have across those channels and not, penalize any of those channels simultaneously. And so that's a really meaty question to answer, and it takes a lot of, you know, I I I could we could spend the rest of the time just talking about how that And that's and that's hard too. Right?
Because a lot of D and C brands or a lot of Amazon brands may sell at a higher price point than would actually appeal to the the Walmart or Target shopper at the shelf. So you immediately have many people have some challenges to try solve, of price point and making sure there's not conflict. Well, and conversely, I said, the last five years, I've been either, agency or ad tech side, more skewed towards Amazon, and Amazon is, you know, notorious for price matching. So if you have a lower price, I see they they got a lot of fees. Right?
The FBA fee, referral fee, and that like, there's a lot of costs there. So their bots are gonna scrape, and they're gonna match that. So you while you might have had a certain, like, margin point or threshold, that now is gonna be irrelevant, if you have consistent budget strategy across the board. So, saw that come up a lot. I we we've been paying on data, quite a bit, and, obviously, super data rich, for d two c.
I think Amazon, especially, has made some leaps and bounds recently with, like, Amazon Marketing Cloud and being able to target, like, cart abandoners and other different, like, lifestyle audiences, what have you. What type of data are brands able to really glean from retail? Is that still a little bit of a gap? And I I think what what, I guess, breakthroughs, if any, are you seeing in that space? Yeah.
Great question. I think, like, let's talk again, I'll I'll speak high level, and I'm I'm no data expert knowing enough to be dangerous, obviously. But, like, I think a big trend I've noticed across retail data specifically is you see every single retailer essentially monetizing their own one p data. And so you see this at, like obviously, Walmart just launched Luminate. And so you have Kroger.
They've got eighty four fifty one. And then, of course, you have all the syndicated data platforms, your Nielsen's, your IRIs, where you have to, again, pay to pay to play, so to speak. And so I think you're gonna continue to see that trend across the board of this monetization and, I e, an increased cost for for brands to be able to access that data. You have nowhere near the level of granularity, visibility, and access that you do on, say, in your example, Amazon, James. It's just in in the context of retail, and that's that's I think one of the the big cons of retail is it's just an expensive channel.
You have to invest a lot in it to get any of the the data you need to be able to make the decisions that move the needle for the brand. And so, again, that's that's a, a little soapbox I'll maybe step down from. But it's, it's it's interesting to see this, this trend unfold within retailers is they're realizing how much brands are willing to pay for this data. And I think more than anything underscores the significance that retail data can actually influence and how much richness and insight it can add more so even beyond, like, you know, basic supply chain planning and and demand forecasting and things like that. But just how does you know, what are the category, dynamics of your particular, again, of your particular category.
What, you know, how are we performing in this category and this channel relative to another channel? There's so many different ways you can layer this and slice this. And so I think, again, that's why you see such a a, I think, demand for that retailer data specifically. But, yeah, it's it's it's interesting to, interesting to see, interesting to to watch unfold. But, yeah, that's just a a high level trend I've I've seen, and I'm I definitely don't see it going away anytime soon.
So Yeah. That makes sense. From a from an execution standpoint, once you're in retail, obviously, there's a lot of stores, a lot of different store managers. Let's say you're running a an end cap promotion or you've you've sent a floor stand in. What advice do you have for people that that pay for those programs to make sure they actually get executed.
Right? Because oftentimes, you could send a floor stand in. It sits in the back room. The manager or the the clerk never actually puts it out on the floor. And then you're wondering why, you know, you had some underperformance across the variety stores for this, you know, initiative you paid for or promotion that you paid for.
Yep. What how do you how do you think about that? I'm sure you dealt with that a lot at your, Frito Lay days as well. Oh, boy. Yeah.
Don't it's it's some shared trauma maybe, Sean, is, execution in in the in the box, for for these features. So let's, again, I'll I'll I'll I'll cite some data here. I believe and it depends on the retailer, but, like, you know, take Walmart, for example. I think 60 to 70% execution of a feature is really good. Kroger, you know, maybe it's 70 to 80% execution of a feature or an end cap, really, really solid.
And so you're always gonna have this delta of anywhere from 20 to 40% of stores that are not Wow. Just straight do not set your feature. And and then, again, when you to to use your example, Sean, of, you know, understanding why that occurs at store level, Stores are inundated with displays and just stuff that goes on in a store. And if they just get this huge freaking pallet display of, like, just product and they have a space for it just somewhere else, they're gonna break that thing down. They're just gonna cram it on some crappy location and and just deal with it in that way rather than execute this beautiful, you know, corrugate display that you spent a ton of money in Yeah.
Capital and logistical efforts in in executing. So it's it's absolutely a a really hard thing for, for brands, an expensive thing for brands to, have to manage. One thing that I've again, it's so painful to recommend this, and and and for anyone who's actually going through this, please reach out because I'm I'm working on on trying to find a solution for this. But, actually paying some of the third party companies to go out and execute or at least audit your execution is literally the only way you can you can close that gap a little bit. And and to do so, you know, you're talking about an extra anywhere from depends on the stores.
They're usually $15.20 bucks a visit. And so if you're doing 4,000 stores, you just spent another, you know, 50 to a hundred k on execution alone. And so I think there's some really interesting new companies that are coming out that are specifically trying to solve for that that execution gap. And, again, I'm gonna make that plug as anyone who's listening to this who has a, an execution challenge. I'm I'm, I'm working on some side projects of, just trying to find and validate ways and find ways that to to be able to execute cheaper than the Acosta's and and other, like, major giant, preferred service providers as Walmart calls them.
Because, again, they're just, like again, I'm not gonna gonna, gonna bad mouth anybody here, but they're just big and slow and expensive. And that's that's hard. You know? It's hard for an early stage brand to be able to swallow that. And so and, unfortunately, that's kind of the reality is, like, that's how you close that execution gap.
So it's, you know, it's just a cost benefit analysis. I think brands have to to run. It's like, you know, what's the incremental 10% of execution going to be? What does that lift in sales, that extra execution get me in terms of, is that worth the investment in hiring one of these third party companies to go out and and audit execution? So, again, it's not easy.
It's a it's a it's a tough pill to swallow, but, executing features is a very, very, painful, yeah, very painful approach. But it's it's just kinda part of the course, I think, in in retail land. So And I can't I can't remember the name of the specific company we used, but when I was launching Xevo in the early days, we did a lot of floor stands and things like that. There was a company that crowd that crowdsourced it where, you know, it it wasn't that expensive, but people would Yeah. Feel almost like an Uber Eats would get prompted to go and take a picture of the the floor stand and then post it back so we could at least collect the data and see where the outages were.
We were fortunate that the buyer, and category manager were were very big on, like, making sure the launch was successful. So we would do that Mhmm. Work with them and be like, here are the list of stores where they couldn't find it. Can you go, you know, do what you can? Like, send a send an email to the general manager that those stores and try get it out.
We had some moderate success with that, but, again, it's it it is the wild west, and every every store is different, and every every way that you execute is gonna be different. Completely agree. So I know you work with a lot of emerging, brands. I would say at what juncture because the retailers are so different. Right?
And you see the real incumbents, established brands. Like, they have retailer specific, like, headcount. So, like, at what point do you go from, one, working with a consultant to hiring someone to own retail distribution to then specializing by retail. I know there's probably some broad brushstrokes here, but some general rules of thumb based on your experience. Yeah.
It's again, depends on the brand. Again, that's that's gonna be my answer to a lot of this. Is it a lot of variables, depends on the scale, depends on, you know, if you wanna in house things from the get go and kinda keep keep gain those learnings, or do you wanna kinda shortcut some of the process and, just just go faster, essentially? I think it's a speed cost equation that brands have to analyze. But, you know, I think for a lot I'll speak in generalities once more.
I think for a lot of early stage brands, I think a lot of them can get all the way through retail execution on their first few partnerships, maybe like a Walmart or a Target or a Whole Foods or a, Kroger launch even. They can do that launch using nobody but consultants and like myself and, external resources and some dedicated owner internally who's just kinda shepherding things along. And I think, like, that's kind of a new wave of of, I think this approach of just hiring an in house salesperson who then goes down and knocks down as much distribution as they can and tries to open as many doors as they can. I think that approach is is a bit dated, honestly. It's it's not very strategic, and and usually it's it's hard to find to as what kinda catalyzes conversation, Sean, of of it's hard to find people who specialize in retail specifically.
It's just a fact. And so And even then that specialize in all the retailers. Right? Like, because people are usually really good at Walmart or really good at Target or a couple of them, but not 20 of them. Exactly.
And so it's hard to find those generalists. And so that's where I guess I've, just being able to carve out a niche for myself is I've I've worked with every single retailer, every single class of trade, everything from, yeah, the the the home improvements of the world to deep discount chains to Walmart, to mass, to drug, to club, to grocery. And so that breadth has really been rewarding for for me and and really impactful. It's it's awesome being a generalist and having called on so many different retailers, but I don't think a brand needs to in house that function until they actually have validated that retail itself is a viable channel. And then, again, to your question, James, is, like, when do they go channel specific?
That comes even later. That comes when you're literally in every single class of trade and your retail business is, you know, 9 figures or above and you need to start, you know, more hiring account managers to run the day to day operations of that business, maybe moving some business away from, brokers and things like that. And that comes at a a pretty meaningful amount of scale, and you only see that with, again, brands that are scale, are doing, again, 9 figures or more, in retail sales alone before there's that degree of of specialization. So, again, to, anyone listening, happy to be a resource, happy to to, to to add value in the the retail journey and expansion. Because, again, I think that's that's kind of the the new wave is is having an expert who's seen a lot of brands, seen a lot of categories that can allow you to shortcut some of the the mistakes you might make and things you might not necessarily know as you enter retail.
That's one of the, I think, advantages of working with, you know, somebody like myself or some of the a million other service providers who are out there who, who specialize in retail. So yeah. Nothing, nothing with good things to say about my peers. So No. That's that's great.
And I think one thing we always I think it's been a great conversation, but one thing we always like to ask at the end is outside of work, a lot of people have different hobbies, things that help keep them grounded, things that help keep them focused. It seems like you run a lot. You're an ultra marathoner or former athlete. How does, training and and kind of doing some of these extreme extreme events help you, with with what you're trying to do, helping clients and and stay grounded at work? Yeah.
No. Great question, Sean. Like, yeah, to anyone listening, I am a ultra endurance athlete. I love just, you know, going out and and doing you know, putting 20 miles in in a random weekend on trails. And so I'm I describe myself as just a a mountain athlete, and so I'll do everything from, you know, hiking ultralight backpacking to trail running to hiking to ski touring to rock climbing.
So really just anything outside in the mountains is really what really just to your point, Sean, grounds me. It it kind of shakes me out of that, you know, the the day to day, if you will. I think, like, nature has an immense way of being able to reset folks and kinda put things into perspective, give you a sense of scale of what matters, what doesn't maybe. And so I think that's been really helpful for me as I've I've kind of embraced this this entrepreneurial journey of of, you know, focusing on bigger picture, focusing on consistent daily actions which move the ball forward. And so, you know, there's so many lessons which, which which endurance sport teaches you.
And and I'm just really grateful to live in such a place that has, like LA, that has such a a, access to just incredible, incredible, nature. Unfortunately, some of it's on fire right now, and so, hopefully, by the time this goes live, those those are extinguished. But, yeah, it's, it's it's to anyone, you know, kinda deep in the trenches, maybe a little lost as far as, you know, how to get some better balance. I've I I could not preach more the the grounding and resetting nature that, that the outdoors can have on people. And so that can just be anything from a woods walk to, yeah, ultra a hundred mile ultra marathon.
So it's to each their own and and just get outside and disconnect and be contemplative and present and aware and that, yeah, pays dividends, I think, in terms of, mental, physical, spiritual health, across the board. So all for it. All for it. Anyone wants to come, do some care runs in LA, hit me up. So Yeah.
No. That's fantastic. Well, Martin, thanks for thanks for joining. I think we really enjoyed the conversation. I think people will get a lot out of it.
So anybody, what what's the best way to to reach you or connect with you if you wanna Yeah. Best way to reach me is, you gave an earlier shout, but follow me on LinkedIn, Martin Ford, f o r d e. There's an e at the end. I talk a lot about, you know, DSC to retail strategy, just trends within consumer, news, things like that. Send me a message, book some time on my calendar.
Happy to talk with anyone anytime about in any scope and capacity. I I just truly love, giving back to to brands, at early stages and just adding value on this, this pivotal, journey to to retail. So it's it's my privilege, my my pleasure. And so, yeah, get in touch on LinkedIn. Awesome.
And if you found this this conversation helpful, please share it with a friend, family member, colleague, anybody else that you think will get value out of it, and follow us on LinkedIn and x, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. Just search Brandbusters ecommerce podcast, and you should be able to find it. So thanks again, Martin, and we appreciate your time today. Yeah. Appreciate it, Sean.
Thanks, James. Talk soon, guys.