Robert Johnson talks about... (Part 2)

Ever pitched your brand to a buyer and heard nothing but crickets. Or worse, a flat-out no? Here's what really happens during those notoriously opaque retail category reviews.

I'm Robert Johnson. I was with New Seasons Market for 15 years, in grocery retail for over 20 total. Started bagging groceries in high school, worked my way up through freight, stocking, management, then merchandising. Eventually became category manager overseeing dairy and refrigerated grocery.

Now I'm helping brands or sales reps that are working with buyers. How do you actually work with buyers efficiently and become that person that they want to work with. Not necessarily begging for a yes, but how do you get that yes that you're looking for.

Even though I'm a buyer, I'm still looking at it from the standpoint of a customer: packaging, ingredients, taste, and price. This is more of a customer framework, but it works the same way for buyers.

Packaging comes first. Does it stand out? Does it clearly communicate what the product is and its purpose? Is it appealing enough to make me pick it up? Packaging is critical. It's that first entry point and the barrier you potentially have with the customer.

Next, I look at ingredients and nutritional facts, and how it all plays together. Taste has to deliver, unless it's a supplement. In the wellness department, you're not taking fish oil for the taste, it's for the function. But in grocery, you need to know people will resonate with it and want to repeat purchase.

Finally, price and promos. How will you support the product after it gets on shelf? This separates brands when multiple similar products go into a category review. Support can come through competitive pricing for everyday value or through promotional strategy.

For chains with our store count, a big thing is logistics. How do you get it to the stores? For an indie retailer with one to three stores carrying a local product, local delivery is straightforward. But if you're a brand from Texas trying to enter Portland without distribution, there are red flags. It's a lot easier for us to pass.

This goes to a key point: don't go too wide too quick. Stay in your market and go as deep as you can. Build velocity and proof of data before moving to the next market.

For chain retailers with central headquarters, the number one way to get access is through a broker. Brokers manage multiple brands and make it easier for buyers to have one point of contact.

Brokers are very important, but they're not the only way. New Seasons had a portal you could use, and buyers get cold emails consistently. Because I'm active on LinkedIn, I would get outreach there too.

If you're a founder not working with a broker or fractional sales rep, email with the intention of understanding how to work with that buyer. Don't go in hard selling. Find the best way to get into their review process.

If you're emailing a buyer for the first time, let them know upfront: "I really want to work with you, but I need to know if it's a good fit and how to best get into your process to make it easier for you."

Don't bury your ask in the body of the email. Be direct: "This is what I'm looking for, and here are the details that support it." You'll succeed if you can be the easy rep to work with.

Go in recognizing you'll send many follow-ups before getting even one response. Or you'll get responses, but it'll be some time before you get an actual meeting or presentation. It could be months or up to a year depending on the product, the buyer, and what's happening in their world.

Mindset is huge. You're going to get ghosted. You have to be consistent and be the constant in the relationship. But that really helps build trust. When the time comes and they reach out about a review, if you've been continually reaching out respectfully, they'll know they can trust you.

What separates one buyer from another is experience level, training, and personal perspectives. You have to navigate through that buyer to buyer.

I'll repeat this forever: how you work with the buyer is so important. This varies by channel and retailer. The buyer follows whatever the culture and vision is of their company. At Kroger, Fred Meyer, or Walmart, I'd guess they're slower to adopt new items because they don't want to take the risk. They don't see the value until you reach a certain point with undeniable data.

Contrast that with indies or natural specialty stores. They have more tolerance for risk and are more open to trying new items. For natural grocery, new items are the lifeblood of the chain. If it misses, it misses and we move on.

That's good and bad for brands. Good that you get a shot, but as things have progressed, items don't have as long on shelf to prove themselves. Category reviews are driven by short timeframes. When I'm reviewing yogurt, new items from the previous year have only been on shelf eight to nine months. You don't even have a full year before I'm looking at the data and deciding if the item should stay.

Category reviews at New Seasons took five to six months from start to finish. That's from sending out the email that we're holding meetings to items hitting store shelves.

We typically held meetings in one day, maybe two if there were excessive requests. Some days you have lots of new items, brokers, and individual reps coming in. If you're lucky, you get a 15-minute break in a full day of meetings. It's just go, go, go.

Those meetings are crucial. Stand out, be quick with your presentation, and hit the points the buyer needs to know.

After the meeting, if I like it, there's still a lot that happens, usually takes about four months. But the brand might not understand, you know, it's been three months. Like what's going on?

Here’s what happens: After meetings, the brand or broker submits all product information into our portal for another review. We look at everything: what did we like, what stood out, what items currently in the set aren't performing and need to come out.

At this level of chain retail, you partner with your schematics person. You give them the list of deleted items and new items, then work together on how it all fits. Even if you're deleting 20 items, it might not be the right 20 to make space for your new items because of space or location. That process takes three to six weeks.

Once we know what we want, we push those items to our distributor partners. That's when it gets communicated to brands or brokers that they'll get on shelf. Then there's another milestone of getting the PO in stock at the distribution center before it goes to stores. There's more to it, but that's the high level.

Honestly, there's not a lot you can do. It requires faith. Go into those meetings knowing you put your best foot forward. It's either a fit for them or it's not. If you don't get accepted, the best thing is to try getting feedback afterwards.

Buyers aren't always forthcoming with feedback, and it's nothing personal. We get a hundred new items submitted and only bring in 20. We can't communicate to every vendor why we couldn't bring them in.

Think about how to build the relationship strong enough that you have a balance in your bank, so you can ask and get an answer. It doesn't guarantee it, but you set yourself up better when you're making deposits into your account with the buyer.

I use this term a lot: operational friction. If you're causing friction between you and the buyer in any way, it deteriorates trust and relationship. It doesn't give you the opportunities that somebody with a strong relationship will have. Figure out what's causing friction. Those things that slow us down, even just minutes, really do play into how we work together.

Take a moment before you hit send on an email or submit paperwork. Ask yourself: am I making it easier for them or harder for them?

Everybody talks about velocity. Yes, you have to build velocity. But you want it to be smart in a way that aligns with the retailer.

It can be hard to get this information, but any good founder or sales rep will also ask: what is your threshold for high-end performance? Where do I need to be to stay on shelf? What can I help you achieve?"

Because you don't just want to stay on shelf. You want to grow on the shelf and add new items in the future. At the end of the day, it comes down to sales and profit. If you can tie it back to how you help the category perform better, it helps the buyer look good. We're going to feel good about you and the product, and it will build momentum.

You could also ask: "I want to make sure this is a right fit. In a certain market, I'm doing X units per week or dollars per week. What's your threshold? Am I even going to be close?"

If you're not, maybe it's not a right fit for this time. If you're not going to hit it, why spend the money to onboard, do your free fill, pay ad fees, and all these things if you're not even close to the threshold? Honestly, as a buyer, I'd respect that more than just trying to get on my shelf to say you're in at New Seasons.

I'll give a shout out to Elizabeth St. Clair. She was with Danone when I started. The person I took over from gave me a rundown of people I'd be meeting with. He said, "Elizabeth, she's always on target. She knows our math, knows how to do this, always on time." That was true our entire relationship.

What I really appreciate about her is the ability to ask questions with humility. We'd be in a meeting going over a category review and she'd ask questions she didn't know the answer to. Maybe it seemed like basic knowledge, but she'd say, "Well, I don't know what this is. We should all be on the same page." I give her a lot of props for being an overall good person and she was fun to be with.

This is more just a general thing, not just for sales reps or founders, for everybody. Whatever you're doing, you have the opportunity to get better. Part of it is recognizing that and taking time to reflect. If you're not getting good results, what can you do differently?

Commit to it. If you're always looking to improve just a little bit at a time, 1% every day,it really holds true. Find ways to optimize and improve your life, whether that's in sales or relationships. It'll serve you well as a human, not just as a sales rep.

Robert Johnson spent years on the buyer side of the table, evaluating new brands as the former Category Manager at New Seasons Market. Today, he runs Astra CPG, helping brands and sales teams understand how buyers actually make decisions, and how not to waste each other’s time.