The game is still dominated by brands over investing in field merchandising. It's boring, and it's undefeated. Partnering with agencies that can drop 1,000x 1099 reps into your top banners, ensure your product is merchandised properly with tags, build secondary placements, and keep your product in stock. Your competitor will go out of stock and nobody touches that set for a week until a store employee gets to it. Meanwhile your field merch team is in store getting reorders placed and putting your product in front of more consumers. your brand will always win. the better field teams today run through execution portals, so you get visibility into: before pics after pics shelf compliance (are the right SKUs in the right places) Out of Stock alerts reorders placed secondary placements built No amount of Meta spend will ever do that. Rule of thumb: ~$25 per store visit. For the best groups, expect at least a 90 day commitment with a few hundred doors commitment a month. I've seen a few brands try to build field merchandising teams in house, but they just can't compete with the scale of some of the incumbent agencies. If I’m running a $10M food/bev brand trying to get to $50M, or a $50M brand trying to get to $100M... field merchandising gets more budget, you’re influencing the shopper within feet of purchase.

Brokers are one of the most misunderstood pieces of CPG. First question is usually “do I need one.” Yes. you absolutely do. When do you need them? as soon as you can afford them. For a national broker: Retainers typically range from $7k-$15k per month, Until 3-5% commission exceeds that retainer. Roughly once you are doing $200k+ per month in wholesale, you flip to all commission. Costco, Target, Walmart specific brokers are different vs traditional "grocery" brokers: commissions are large enough day 1 at those accounts that you usually skip retainers. So why use a broker if you have a sales team or the founder is handling sales? because a big part of a broker’s job is blocking and tackling. At least 50% of retail is just not fucking up the basics. They make sure you never miss a review window. You are not going to cold email every banner, find the buyer contact info, and get clean direction on when to submit for your category. - brokers ensure items are set up on time. - delivery windows are hit. - POs are managed correctly. - promos are submitted properly. Retail is a dialect. If you do not speak fluent Target, Walmart, Costco, Kroger, it shows and you get penalized. The right broker also brings credibility. (some) only work with brands they believe can truly scale or run by people they know from past brands. Getting under that umbrella matters. brands should still own strategy: - "Where" and "When" to roll out at certain banners - At what price - How the brand shows up and is supported on shelf. brokers should support that vision, not lead it. They have pattern recognition across many categories. they help you avoid wasting trade dollars on things that do not work. Having a broker does not mean you stop selling or communicating directly with the banner. brand presence still increases your odds in every room. I have scaled brands doing millions on millions in sales with brokers. they earned every dollar of their commission and I was glad to write those checks. anyone shitting on brokers usually hasn’t operated at real scale yet. Brokers are only as good as they are managed. The right ones are a force multiplier. If you have never operated at that level, it is hard to know what to ask for or how to push them. There are a lot out there and only a handful that actually drive outcomes. expect to have 4-6 brokers on a brand that is truly scaling.

Sunday Consumer World Thoughts. Cold as fuck outside edition: Founders of brands that make tangible goods have to fight their gut vs the outside world more than almost any other industry. If you run a SaaS company, your friends, in-laws, and uncles are not giving you unsolicited feedback on how to code (yet). Or telling you where to distribute and why. For CPG founders, vibe navigating has to become a core skill. Because you can eat, drink, wear, or touch a consumer brand, everyone thinks they are qualified to weigh in. Taste experts, packaging experts, style experts, and go to market experts are EVERY WHERE. Unsolicited opinion creep is real and relentless. “WhAt dO yOu MeAn YoUr NoT sOlD at ScHnUcKs in St. LoUiS?!” I once watched a founder spend $100k on a rebrand, only to scrap the entire thing because their spouse hated it. It does not stop externally. Internally, ops, marketing, and sales all pull the founder in different directions with full conviction. The most successful founders I know running nine figure brands almost always retain control over anything creative…the vibe. Packaging, Ads, Influencer partnerships and I’ll include product here as well. They gave birth to the brand and they do not let anyone dilute it. Where founders get burned is using vibes where actual discipline is required. Retail and e-com are typically the biggest offenders. Going too big with a retailer because they personally shop there and do not understand the true cost to go to market. Or going too small when they should be leaning in because they lack the knowledge to size the opportunity correctly. And nothing more painful than a founder without an e-com pedigree stifling growth or throwing good money after bad w/ meta. Its the vibe internal compass above all. hire for discipline/specific knowledge. and just smile and nod for anything else.