BRAND SECRETS AND STRATEGIES

PODCAST #66

Hello and thank you for joining us today. This is the Brand Secrets and Strategies Podcast #66

Welcome to the Brand Secrets and Strategies podcast where the focus is on empowering brands and raising the bar.

I’m your host Dan Lohman. This weekly show is dedicated to getting your brand on the shelf and keeping it there.

Get ready to learn actionable insights and strategic solutions to grow your brand and save you valuable time and money.

LETS ROLL UP OUR SLEEVES AND GET STARTED!

Dan: Welcome. Today's show is unique. You're going to love this. I think you're really going to be impressed. Today's show is actually more of a coaching call, where fans of the show who I've been swapping emails with ask me questions, and I help them in real time. I share advice with them that's going to help you as well. These are the same problems, pitfalls, concerns, and issues that all the different brands I talk to share with me. In fact, the strategies that I'm going to share with you are the strategies that you will find in my free Turnkey Sales Story Strategies course, so a little bit of background.

I've been a retailer, I've been a manufacturer, I've been a consultant. I've worked with brands in every stage of growth. This is a strategy that I developed early on in my career. A strategy that helped me outperform all the big brands that I went up against. I'm talking Procter & Gamble, Frito-Lay, et cetera. You name it.

This strategy has worked time, after time, after time. It's helped the brands that I've supported stand out on a crowded shelf. It's helped me get incremental product placement promotions. It's because of this strategy that I was once able to build a 4,200 bag chip display in the lobby of a major retailer that Frito-Lay used to own. This while working for a small regional brand.

These same strategies also helped me push around with the larger brands in the world. In addition to that, it helped me become the category captain of several different categories, which opened up a lot of incremental doors and gave me a powerful voice in the category.

A voice that allowed me to help shape the category of the retailer. A voice that gave the brand that I was working for a sustainable competitive advantage, including incremental merchandising and product placement that I didn't have to pay extra for. In several situations the retailers actually gave me full access to their data.

Can you imagine the savings that would be for a small brand? Because of this I was the first person they called when they needed incremental product support, merchandising. I was the first person they called when they needed another promotion.

These strategies worked for me and they'll work for you, and the best part is that other brands don't even do this. Especially the big brands. If you've been listening to other episodes of this podcast you've heard leading industry experts validate these strategies. My goal with all the content that I produce, this podcast, the course, is to help you get your brand on more retailer shelves and into the hands of more shoppers.

Before we go any further, I have two questions for you. I want you to be thinking about the answer as you listen to this podcast. One; what other subjects would you like me to cover? Two; what is the most valuable tip that you've learned from this podcast or from other podcasts, that you can bake into your brand's DNA and leverage at retail?

Send me an email. I'd love to hear your thoughts, your recommendations and your comments. If you like this podcast share it with a friend, subscribe and leave a review on iTunes. Here now are Marshall and Elliott of The Gluten Free Bar.

Hello Marshall and Elliott. I want to thank you for coming on today. Can you start by telling us a little bit about yourself, and the journey to Gluten Free Bar? Marshall, do you want to start first?

Marshall: Sure. Thanks for having us on Dan. Really appreciate it. Yeah, so our journey to beginning the Gluten Free Bar started in 2010. As many of us know, gluten free has become pretty mainstream, but back then it was a gluten free stone age, and I had experienced a lot of small health problems. A lot of little things happening was a challenge for me, and so when I was diagnosed with celiac disease it was really a life changing event for me in many ways.

Mentally and physically, and so at that point I did a little bit of market research. There were only a couple of bars on the market that time that were gluten free, and really, neither met what I was looking for at the time, which was enough protein to keep me full, keep me going. Especially when I was traveling, which I was doing a ton of at that time for my job. Then also ingredients you can understand, and simple ingredients, and so that's how we got the GFB started.

With that really basic idea of making something, simple ingredients that tasted awesome and are good on protein. At the end of the day something you look forward to eating, so when you have that 2:00 PM kind of crash or you're on the road, something you can look forward to as a bright spot in your day, and so that's how we got going.

Elliott: Yeah, and just to add on to that Dan, this is Elliott. We were born and raised in Michigan, and we were living in Chicago at the time, and as Marshall was traveling for his job and we both had just corporate jobs, and he kept coming to me and talking about really how poor the choices were when it came to good gluten free protein bars.

As he found out that he was celiac, and later on when I found out that I was also celiac, and my dad is also, runs in the family. It really came became clear that there was an opportunity for something that was better for you, better tasting, better ingredients, and so he just kept pushing on the idea, and eventually convinced me that this makes sense. To try to start a company making this kind of product.

Dan: Interesting, so the whole family has celiac disease. I would think that's rare, from what I understand, with the whole family having the same problem. Let's back up. Let's talk about it, so celiac disease. Actually, why don't I let you guys describe what it is? How would you define it?

Marshall: Yeah, so the generally accepted definition of celiac disease is the severe intolerance to gluten found in wheat, barley and rye, and so any product that contains that, and when you're celiac you're highly intolerant. Meaning cross contamination's a huge issue, so if you're just trying to avoid gluten intake and you go to Domino's Pizza or something like that, makes stuff on shared surfaces, you're probably okay, but for someone like Elliott or me, we really appreciate companies doing that and making an effort to provide gluten free stuff. That's awesome, but for me, I just can't do things like that, because of how sensitive I am.

Dan: Appreciate that. Let me go one step further. The way that I help people understand what this means is that in your intestine you have what they call cilia. Cilia are little hairs and they stick up, and they're there to capture all the nutrients as they pass through your digestive tract.

If someone has gluten intolerance those hairs essentially lay flat, and so the nutrients pass over them, so your body doesn't absorb those nutrients, and as a result of that you are effectively starving yourself, despite the fact that you might be eating healthy, and the reason that's a concern is because when you are starving yourself that leads to a lot of other issues.

My sister has celiac, which was misdiagnosed as various other things. At the root of this she had a lot of inflammation spurred type issues, and what the medical professionals identified, is that she was starving herself, or the body wasn't getting the nutrients that they needed.

That caused all the aches and pains that she had, among a lot of other issues, and so she was like I said, effectively starving herself from the inside out, and it's something that people can't see. If you break an arm or a leg somebody says, "You've been hurt. I feel sorry for you. How can I help? Can I open the door for you?"

This is something internal, and a lot of people, more people than you believe, struggle with this and so thank you for sharing that. I'd like to bring more awareness to this, and let people know what it's like to be in your shoes, and how the rest of us can help. Along with understanding the benefits of a gluten free diet.

Talk about that in a minute, but more importantly, shed a light on why this matters and what's unique about it, and the fact that a lot of the people that have to suffer in silence. I want to repeat that again. They suffer in silence.

The slightest bit of gluten, as Marshall was saying, can cause problems. It's not just a little bit or maybe occasionally. It's just any gluten at all, so thank you for sharing that. Can you talk about what is gluten, where do you find it, and then how do you go about avoiding products with gluten? I think that's extremely important, before we go on.

Marshall: Yeah, and real quick, to comment on your story. I think that was really well said. That's exactly the problem.. Being malnourished and having all these other things that happen in your body, because of that. That was really well said by you, so thanks.

How we really go about avoiding gluten, it's a protein that's found in wheat, barley and rye, and so there's a couple things that go with that. Of course, we source ingredients that are completely gluten free, and that's fairly simple with ingredients like almonds, or peanuts, or things like that.

It gets a little more complex when you talk about things like oats, and that's because the cross contamination issue, so not only are we concerned about is the actual ingredient gluten free, but we need to make sure that when we talk about high risk ingredients like oats, that the farm that those oats are coming from is the farm where they're actually walking through those fields, and picking up wheat stalks that blow over from the neighboring field that may contain wheat.

How are they being processed? Are they being processed on the same line, on the same facility? We receive that information from our suppliers to say product X is processed on a gluten free line, to make sure there's no chance of cross contamination, and then that triple check that we do with every production that we do here at our facility, because we make everything at our own facility.

We do a gluten test on every product, every batch, to make sure there's less than 10 parts per million gluten content. The current FDA limit is 20 parts per million, but we test to 10, and that's the limit that's required to be certified gluten free, also.

Elliott: Dan, just to add on to what Marshall said, this is the kind of stuff that people in the celiac and gluten intolerant community really look for, and they are super sensitive about what the products, the ingredient list, things like gluten free oats. If someone with celiac sees oats in the ingredients, unless it says certified gluten free oats they're going to be avoiding that, and in just all the ways that different companies claim to be gluten free.

Of course, it doesn't always equate to being certified gluten free, shared equipment, and so we get what that community, and what they're looking for was obviously something that was really important to us early on, to make sure that we made a product that people that were celiac or gluten intolerant felt really confident in eating. That was our primary goal when we first started.

Dan: Well, I'm glad you guys are doing that.

Elliott: It still is a primary goal.

Dan: Well, I appreciate you sharing that, and I don't think people really understand how difficult it is to avoid gluten, so let me explain. Any product that you find in the store you've got to read the label carefully, but you've got to go beyond the label in a lot of situations.

For example, ice cream. You would think ice cream would be pretty benign, right? It's got dairy in it. Makes sense, but the binders are typically gluten. If you want to look at pasta sauce, spaghetti sauce, tomatoes, right? Geavies? How harmless could that be? Usually there's gluten in those.

Almost everything in the market literally has some form of a gluten type binder in it, and so people that are in your situation have to really read labels carefully, and you can't necessarily trust what's on the label. Sometimes you have to look well beyond the label, and to your point, to drive that home, the certification process is really stringent.

Several years ago, I was talking to a large bread manufacturer that produced a lot of the bread for the bakeries and a lot of retailers, and they wanted to adopt a gluten free line, but the cost of doing that was prohibitive, and so they avoided doing it. Because there's no way that they could certify at the level that they needed to, because to your point, they could not produce gluten free products in the same facility where they produce normal products.

They're regular gluten products, and so really need to drive this point home before we go any further. To really shine a light on how unique this is, how challenging it is for someone that is in your situation. My sister, when they order pizza she gets to eat the toppings and that's it, and has to be really careful about that, and living around things like cereal, and there really wasn't a lot of good selections.

Nowadays, gluten free products are actually really tasty, and I've gone to a couple of different events that are specifically gluten free, and it's amazing how that area, that section has evolved, and we'll get into the merchandising and some of the other opportunities later.

Can you share some stories about some of the problems that you've had being celiac, and some of the challenges you've had in trying to feed yourself and get the diet prior to you starting this brand?

Marshall: Yeah. Now we eat 10 bars a week, so that's helped us out a little bit, but one of the challenges that I've had personally is sometimes, this might sound a little weird, but if you want to eat good and you're gluten free, you're still trying to avoid the junk food, and whether chickens are gluten free or not, or bread is gluten free or not.

Sometimes it's not always the best thing for you, and so for me one of the challenges has been, especially when on the go, is finding enough good calories. That's where the GFB has been so helpful. One of the staple things that I eat is a salad, or deli meat with a salad, or something like that.

At the end of the day you look at the calorie count of that, it's only a few hundred calories, and I'm hungry two hours later, so that's been a challenge for me, and so trying to find more ways to incorporate plant based products into the diet, whether that be other beans or things like that. To round out up the diet as a gluten free person, and I just generally feel better when I'm not eating as much refined products. Those are two things that I do, and of course, fortunately I have a lot of GFB around for me to eat and keep me full.

Dan: That's handy. I talk about if you are what you eat then what you eat matters, and the whole idea behind that is the nutrients you put into your body, and to your point, you've got to have products that you're putting into your system that nourish you fully. That you can trust and they're traceable back to the origin, et cetera, but more importantly, get enough nutrients in your body, so thank you for sharing that.

I think that's another one of the big problems that a lot of people have that are gluten intolerant. My sister has the same problem. Where does she get enough calories, quality calories to fill herself up, without eating just a bunch of junk? Again, the preponderance of gluten products out there, or gluten contaminated products out there. It's really difficult for people like you to find healthy products, healthy alternatives. Any other thoughts or ideas before we get into why we're talking today, and about your brand, and about your mission?

Marshall: I think we'll probably get into this more, but when we talk about being gluten free, that's one of the reasons that we are a self manufacturer. We make stuff in our own facility, and the reason we do that is because of all the things you've been talking about. Making sure that we're gluten free, making sure that we're certified gluten free.

At the end of the day, it was very hard to find a co manufacturer that would allow us to meet the standards we're looking for, and so that's one of the big reasons we went into manufacturing. To make sure we could deliver the best product we could, and have the most trust.

Dan: That's the key thing. Being able to have a product that people can trust and rely on, so thank you for sharing that, so let's talk a little bit about why you're here. I received an email, one of the first pieces of fan mail that I received after just launching this podcast, saying that you guys love the show. Suzie Miller, and I want to reach out to her and say thanks, or shout out to her and say thank you for reaching out.

Then someone, and I don't remember who it was, sent me an email saying that you guys have your entire staff sit and listen to the podcast episodes. I was thrilled, so I had to stop by and visit you guys at Expo West, so that I meet you guys and get to know you a little bit better.

We've been swapping emails, and so I wanted to reach out and say, first of all, thank you for listening to the show and for being fans, and more importantly, what have you gotten from it? What have you learned? Can you share some of the insights? How has this helped you, and what would you like to see different? What more would you like to see the show do for you as a young brand?

Elliott: Sure Dan. Well, this is Elliott, so it's definitely been great getting to know you, and definitely appreciate the opportunity to come on your podcast. I think that what you're doing on your show is just certainly unique. I listen to a lot of podcasts, and it's the one podcast that really talks to our industry, brands like us. Small brands that are trying to compete with the large brands, and all the different challenges that we face every day. Literally, all the things you talk about in your show are things that we can all relate to, so congrats on producing something that is actually super helpful.

Dan: Thank you.

Elliott: We always get a lot out of it. I think that if I was going to say one other thing that we talk about a lot, and certainly things we think about that we'd like to hear more about, would be how are brands really talking to their customers? It comes up in many of your episodes. Talking to customers at demos, and the good and the bad things of doing things like focus groups, and surveys.

Maybe one thing I'm looking forward to is a whole show dedicated to different brands and how they find out, because it's one thing that we are always thinking about. How do we better connect and learn who our customers are and what they want, and that kind of thing, so that's the one thing that I'm so looking forward to hearing more on.

Dan: Appreciate you saying that, and on that note, that's why I launched that free course, Turnkey Sales Story Strategies. The whole idea behind that was to help educate you, and help you go through this process, so let's talk a little bit about this.

One; you've heard me say this a lot of times. You need to be an expert in everything about your product. Everything about your consumer, who buys it, why they buy it, why they choose your product over someone else's product, and what makes you unique in the marketplace. More importantly, when someone chooses your gluten free bar, why did they choose it over any of the other products in the category?

You play in one of the most competitive, one of the most difficult, one of the most convoluted categories in the market, and the reason for that, the reason I say that is because the competitive landscape is unbelievably changing. It's not like ... I would say the next most competitive landscape would be salty snacks, but in your category, there's so much noise.

This is the category where a lot of people, especially in the natural industry, tend to try to get into first, because it's pretty easy to make a bar at home, put it in a package and then put it out there on the shelf, but you've got products that are commoditize-ing, meaning it's the same every day low price no matter where you buy it.

You've got products that are meat snacks, that are vegan, that are microbiotic. That are all sorts of different claims being made on the label, and everyone's trying to stand out, and trying to attract the attention of the same consumer. Really, the same consumer, and the reason I say that is your consumer is anyone that potentially, or anyone that goes to that category, so you're not just competing against just the most popular natural brands.

You're competing against literally every product within that space, mainstream and natural, so one; become an expert in your brand. Who buys it, how they buy it, when they buy it, and when they buy your bar, what else do they buy? What's in their market basket? Someone who buys a gluten free bar most likely buys other gluten free products in other departments in the store.

The point is this. The gluten free bar shopper is more valuable to the retailer, because that consumer spends more money on gluten free products within their store, as opposed to traditional customer that may come in and not buy anything gluten free. In other words, the relationship between gluten free bars in the energy bar section is very strong between other gluten free products in other categories.

If you could build your selling story around this, and leverage these insights with any retailer, it's going to give you a significant competitive advantage across any category, across any channel, and in any economy. This is why it's so vitally important for you to understand exactly who your consumer is.

What that consumer looks like, and what do they look like as they check out of the store? One, understand how the consumer uses products after they take them home. Is it everyone in the family that eats it, do they just eat it occasionally?

Anyhow, so the point is once you become an expert in your consumer, how they shop, how they buy their products. Number two. You need to become an expert in how your competitor shops a product. Why do consumers shop your competitor's products? Why do they choose the competitor over you? What's unique about your competitor, and then what are the stories that they have around that?

You take those insights, and then you start building a story. You never want to badmouth your competition. You always want to highlight why you're unique, why you're better, why you're different, and you build a story around that, and you want to have a unified voice when you have that story.

The same passion that we hear from both of you today as the founders, that needs to resonate across your entire sales funnel, whether it be your website, your salespeople, your broker, your distributor. Everyone that is going to speak or talk on your behalf. You want your consumers to become loyal evangelists, so you want that to resonate with them as well.

Then you want to help the retailer understand why your products are different. So instead of going to the retailer and saying we're a couple of nice guys with a great product and cool logo so please put us on the shelf, and then hope that they don't put you in the backroom, or on the bottom shelf, or some place else.

You need to have a strategy to help them drive traffic to their store, to help them drive sales within their category, but more importantly, help them understand your relationship to the rest of the store, in terms of the products you sell.

More specifically, how does the gluten free buyer shop the rest of the store? What do they buy when they buy your product? What is the relationship with the other categories? What's unique about your shopper, and why your shopper is more valuable to them at the end of the day, so to answer your question and thank you for asking that. The story that you want to tell, in terms of how you develop the strategy, is all based upon the customer, and so you mentioned a couple other things.

A focus group is typically a group of consumers that are brought into a room, that are asked their opinion on a product. They're paid. The challenge is that they're usually going to give you answers that they think the survey person wants them to hear. They're not, in my opinion, the best way to do this.

The best kind of research is to physically go out and talk to your customers, where they're at. If you were able to physically have a conversation with every customer that buys your product that would be perfect, but that's unrealistic, so by doing surveys on Facebook, social media, other social media platforms, et cetera, that's one way to start gathering that information.

By reaching out to your consumers through social media sources, et cetera, and asking them how do they use the product? How do they eat the product, etc cetera. Get to know your consumer. Really develop a one on one intimate relationship, and this is what's really great about natural. This is where natural outperforms mainstream, so being able to take that message and distill it down into your story, and then bake that into how you communicate, again, across your entire sales funnel.

The answer to your question is the brands that can do that are the brands that are going to win and succeed, and differentiate themselves at retail and with their consumer. Does that help?

Elliott: Definitely. Yeah. Very loud and clear.

Marshall: I think some of the things you mentioned Dan, in your description there. Some interesting things that we've gone through over the years. I think one of the unique things about our products in GFB is when we started selling the Gluten Free Bar, I had to explain to people just the first few conversations. What is gluten? Why do you want it in your store?

No one really knew what it was. One things you mentioned. Hey, I'm a nice guy. Can you put our products on the shelf? That works when you're brand new, but it stops working once you've got a couple thousand stores and the retailers expect a lot more of you, so one of the things that we've evolved most recently listening to your podcast. In terms of having the data available, how we're performing in store X, and what's the potential of us performing in store Y if we're selected or brought in?

That's evolved, and I think now we're at the point of trying to really understand the consumer better. Just like you said. What's their decision point? Why are they picking a GVB over other, bar X or vice versa? What's super important to them? What I find most interesting when talking to people, especially in the bar category, because I think most of us understand the bar category. A lot of us have bought those products, so people are a lot of times trying to disqualify that product, versus qualify it. They pick it up to find a reason not to buy it.

Dan: Well said.

Marshall: It's got a lot of sugar, or it's not enough protein for me, and they put it down. If it's got enough protein then they might look at the ingredient list for example, so that's been interesting, and so one of the things that you said that we're really trying to figure out. Our consumers whoe are buying GFB, what else are they buying, and what kind of value are we delivering to Whole Foods, Kroger, in terms of our consumers? We're trying to find a way to quantify that, or describe that better in future sales calls.

Dan: Well, that's good that you're starting down that path and starting to understand that, because if you do nothing any brand can do this. This doesn't take a billion dollars. You don't need to buy the most sophisticated data sets, and you don't have to spend billions of dollars on strategic plans.

This is you having a relationship same as you would with anyone else. If you invited me over to dinner one night and were talking about your product, how would you describe it? What passion? What emphasis would you be behind? What attributes around your product, and how would you get me excited about it?

On one ofmy podcast episodes I talked with Jon Sebastiani, where we talked about the story behind it, and his comment that he made was his background was one. Is what's the difference between a consumer that buys a $2 bottle of wine, versus a $2,000 bottle of wine? Your story is so very, very important, and that can take precedence over any datasets.

The reality is this. Every savvy retailer already knows how well your bar is performing in their store. They don't need a ranking report that says you're number five and you grew 2% or whatever. What they want are insights. They want actual actionable insights. They want information that they don't have access to.

The podcast where we talked to Mathis Martines, the former national natural products category captain for Kroger, we drill into this. Where we talk about how that consumer is unique, and how the retailer needs insights into that consumer, and one of the struggles that they face is that they're looking at historical information. Historical meaning what's already happened, and so they're taking a look at what is the purchase history of a person?

They're trying to commoditize people, put everyone in a similar bucket and say well, all consumers do X, and all consumers when the price is this they do Y, and so on. No. That's not what retailers need. What they need is that selling story, and they need your help on a regular basis, so good for you for doing that.

The next thing is that as you're developing your strategy when you go to market, you need to be thinking very strategically, and I talk about this in the course, and I'll talk about this in future courses later. You don't want to just take any offer to get into any retailer that comes along. I'll give you an example.

I've heard this several times. A brand may start out on the east coast, and then all of a sudden someone in Oregon, and California, and Texas reach out to him and say, "I love your product. I want to get it on the shelf," and so now they have products in three different states, but yet they're based back east, so there's no way for them to go to the stores and maintain the stores, and take care of them.

What happens is because they're not able to maintain the relationship with those retailers, and make sure that their products are merchandised correctly, et cetera, they lose that distribution and that hurts them overall, so you need to have a strategy to understand which retailers do you want to go after? Where do your consumers shop? If you can go after those stores, and build your sales funnel slowly and deliberately, so that you're getting in the right stores where you can get the most momentum.

I shared an example where I was working with a peanut butter company that was absolutely thrilled when a large retailer asked them to put their product in a bunch of different stores. The problem was that they didn't stop to think about did those stores make sense.

They sold an $11 jar of peanut butter, which is great for the affluent neighborhood, but the problem was that the retailer actually put them in other stores that were more blue collar and less affluent. Those consumers could not afford to buy an expensive super premium product like this, and so obviously that product failed within those stores.

Well, that hurt them overall. Instead, if that brand had been smart and gone to the retailer, and said here are the stores where I think our customers shop. Here's where we're going to perform best for you, because remember, the retailers don't want you to fail. They don't want to put a product on the shelf that they eventually have to take off, so if you can help guide that retailer, in terms of where your customers are, that helps too, so back to what we were talking about.

It's not only having a solid selling store, but it's also having a solid selling strategy to help guide the retailer, to make the best decisions to help them drive sales within their category, and help them make a reasonable profit along the way. Does that help?

Elliott: For sure.

Dan: What additional thoughts do you have?

Marshall: For us, we've had some of those same experiences, and it's worked out sometimes, it has not other times. I think one of the things that we learned early on, haven't really stuck to it, is to go deep and not wide. Know where you're going to play well and work on that, and I think the challenge that probably every business has, especially one that's growing quickly or working to grow quickly, is you have this confidence that you have a good team and you'll figure it out.

Many times that works. Okay. We put together a plan. Is it reasonable, do we have the resources to make this work? This happened to us in the northeast part of the country where we hadn't really planned to go there, but we had a big opportunity and ended up moving forward, and built a business around that major retailer that brought us in without much structure, and so we made that work.

Other times we've had things happen, where we went for it and it didn't quite pan out, because of the reason that you said. The resources to execute it well, and so we've gotten a little better at that. It's just really so hard when someone's saying, "We'd love to buy your product," and you're saying, "No, thank you."

That's really difficult. Sometimes it's super clear, it's something that you know does not fit your demographic at all, but that is still a challenge when someone, when you're working so hard to sell your product, and share a message, and get it out to people. You say no to certain opportunities, but saying no to things is one of the most important things to do.

Dan: Sometimes people forget. I have to remind them of this all the time. No is an answer. No is a very reasonable answer, and the people that say no usually succeed. I appreciate you sharing that. In fact, one of the things, unfortunately going back to the old way of doing things, a lot of retailers are looking for any product that they can bring in, where they think that they can get a lot of margin out of the product.

Unfortunately, small natural organic brands are where a lot of retailers believe, old school retailers believe that they can squeeze a lot of margin out of your product. The reality is your costs are a lot higher than most brands, and because you're small that makes it even more difficult, and so you've got to be very strategic. You've got to be very smart about how you invest and how you advance your product, so thank you for sharing that. What other topics or things would you like to explore while we're together today?

Marshall: I think that one other thing that you bring up a lot in your podcasts, and I think it applies to us to, is the authenticity around a brand, and we've already talked a little bit about that storytelling component. It's something that we're constantly trying to do better at.

I don't think that we are necessarily that great at self promoting. We're probably better at getting things done and trying to make the brand as good as possible, but when it comes to telling our own story and getting ourselves out of the comfort zone, that's an area that I think a lot of brands, small brands struggle with, because it isn't necessarily getting things done that has to happen that day.

It's building a story over time that becomes more important when you're talking to retailers, you're talking to customers, you're talking to end consumers.

Dan: Okay. We already mentioned, so let me go back, and by the way, thank you for pointing it out, because you're right. Most entrepreneurs are good at one or two things. You can't be good at everything. There's no way that you should be expected to be an expert at absolutely everything you do. No entrepreneur is.

They support smart entrepreneurs, or surround themselves with very capable people, so the difference between someone who succeeds, if you look at them, they usually have a good army or good staff of people to help support them, so to your point, self promoting is hard. Being able to communicate the value of what you're doing, not sounding overly braggadocios, but being authentic, that's something that's got to come across in all of your messaging, so how do you do that? Great question. Here's how you do it.

Going back to the course, going back to what we talked about earlier. Have your consumers chime in and share their thoughts. Learn how to speak their language. Be able to communicate in a way that sounds like it's from the customer. The best storytellers are the brands that are able to tell a story from the perspective of the audience.

The person who's going to listen, so if you can communicate the value of what you're doing, what's unique about your product, in the words of your consumer. Remember, you're going to ask them all these questions, and if you can turn that around and use their words, then at that point the consumers are going to say you know what? You're speaking to me. You're speaking to my language. You're speaking in a way, in a manner that resonates with my values and what's important to me.

The greatest compliment you can have is a consumer that says it sounds like you're in my head, so try that. I highly recommend that, and you're talking about it's difficult to get out the marketing message, and doing everything else. If you focus, that's why I built the course. If every brand focuses on developing a solid selling story you're going to solve a lot of those problems along the way. That's why I built the course, that's why I put it out there, that's why I do the podcast, and that's exactly why I wanted to have you on the show today, so thank you for sharing that.

You need to have a message that resonates with your core consumer that extends beyond the four corners of your package, because like you said, there's not a lot of real estate on your package to communicate everything of value, so here's what I mean by that.

Consumers today are different. They shop differently than they did before. When they go to the shelf and they look at your product they're going to do research, probably online. They're going to get product reviews, and they're going to start trying to understand who buys it, how they buy it, what they think about it, so they're going to get customer input, or input from their family and their friends, and that's where you want to stand out.

I see Elliott, your background is strong in Google, so I'm sure you probably understand a lot of the Google world and the analytics, and how to really go after that mind share, in terms of how do you communicate, or how do you align your message with that?

I would resonate with that, and then Marshall, I see your background has a lot of sales, and again, it's the same thing. How would you communicate to a potential customer? Why would they buy your product over someone else's product, but yet in an authentic way? Again, the best messaging that you can get comes from your loyal customers.

Oh, and by the way, the best part about this is as you get better at telling your story, as you get better at communicating the value of your product, then that message is going to become more clear, and as you deliver that message in a more clear, concise, consistent way, that's going to help fuel your brand. Build more loyalty, because loyalty is not something that you can buy. Loyalty is not something that you see in a card, where you go to a grocery store and I've got a loyalty card.

Loyalty is something that is derived from your ability to meet and exceed the needs of your consumers, and, by then way, the reason that we like your product. Not only because you've given us some snacks and give us a chance to try it, but because when we've had a chance to look at it and really understand what is behind it, behind the label and beyond the label. That's where the product resonated with us, because we read the labels religiously. We get very deep into not only what's in the product, but how the product was made. How authentic the product was made. The story behind the product, so does that help?

Marshall: Yeah. I think that's something we are always working on. I think the biggest challenge is finding a way to concisely tell that story as we mentioned, and really, that's improving packaging and obviously messaging, whether it's social or other advertising mediums that we work through.

One of the things that we talk about is we make good for you food in good for you ways, and so what that means is we take really simple ingredients, create great taste with products that make you feel good, and the good for you ways part of this is we are a certified B corp, which means we care about people and the planet, as well as profits. We've got a couple of big things that we do in that area that are really important to us.

Elliott leads our B corp team, and is looking towards becoming a zero waste facility. A big part of that program is we're hiring returning citizens, or those that are formerly incarcerated, so we have a lot of folks here that really just deserve a second chance in life, and so one of the things that we are always trying to figure out is these are really good things about what we're doing. What is the best way to share that with our consumers?

Knowing that we are all on our phones all the time. A lot of things competing for our attention, so I think we have a good authentic story to share, and finding the right way to do that is I think always an evolving project that we're working on. Along with just trying to do things better for our team and our community, which has always been our number one focus, and goes back to when we decided to self manufacture versus co pack.

It was not only can we control the quality and have the best possible product, and ensure that there's no contamination, but there's also a component of we're actually going to facility and hiring folks, and then we can much better impact our community and our team. Just trying to always find a better way to tell that story and share that with our current fans, and hopefully attract some new fans.

Dan: I appreciate you sharing that. That is so very important. Again, it goes back to letting your customers sing your praises. Ask them what they want to see, what they want to hear, just like you just asked me. Ask them what they think of your product, and then listen carefully. Eventually, you're going to find a commonality, in terms of the way they communicate with you.

You've shared a lot of things today that I didn't know about before I started doing research into your brand. I'm on your website right now, and I was going to talk about certified B, so thanks for bringing that up, so understanding a little bit about your company. Who you are, how you resonate, how you give back to the community.

Consumers want to feel good about their purchase, and they can't necessarily go out and do some of the things that you and some of the other brands do, so highlight that. Celebrate that. Let customers know that you are going out of your way to make a difference in the community that they live in, so how do you do that?

Make sure the messaging is on the website, make sure you're communicating it on social media. Not saying hey, wait. Look at me, aren't I great? Having a conversation, a two way conversation with that community. Saying we're doing our best to help out with people. If you see an opportunity let us, whatever. You fill in the blanks, but have your loyal consumers help you with that messaging.

You'd think it'd be the easiest thing for brands to do, but a lot of times we get blinders on, and we get so busy that we forget to really think about how would the consumer look at the product? Think of it this way.

You want to be able to walk and talk, in other words, have your lips and your feet move in the same direction. If you can have your consumer speak on your behalf, what would you like to hear them say?

I remember the old tombstone test. What would you like written on your tombstone? How would you like to be remembered? While that's pretty poignant, think about as a brand how would you like consumers to describe or talk about you in your absence? Then take that message and learn how to use it within all of your communication in a powerful unified voice…one of the chapters in the course.

The whole idea behind it is everyone in the company, everyone along your entire sales funnel needs to speak with the same unified voice, so that, to your point, everyone is hearing the same authentic story told as if you were telling it yourself.

In a perfect world, if the two of you could go out and make every sales call, and the retailer could see your passion, and understand your story. If they had an hour to sit down and get to know you and talk to you things would be different, because they would get to appreciate and really understand what you're doing, so how do you distill that down into a short, few minutes?

Again, that's having that unified voice, and that's being able to arm your sales force with that unified story, so that as they go out and speak on your behalf they're communicating in the same voice as you would. Does that help?

Marshall: For sure.

Dan: Cool. Well, tell us a little bit about certified B corp, because that's something that I think is a wonderful program. How did you get interested in it, how did you learn about it, and why did you decide to go down that path?

Elliott: Yeah. This is Elliott talking, so I think when we look back at the reasons that we started the GFB, it was about making customers happy and giving them something, a product they could trust. As we struggled through the first couple years and just trying to figure out how to make it, and where to make it, and we were trying to make it in a small little bakery outside Chicago. Eventually moved the operation and started a little operation back in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where we're both from, and that has grown over the years, certainly.

We're really interested and motivated by trying to do the right thing. I think we're a little bit, have enough experience, the both of us, in business world and with different products, and seeing the way different companies worked. Just a little discouraged by some of the ways that companies operated, so before we even knew about what a B corp was we were just interested in trying to do the right things.

At the time it felt like let's pay people a living wage, let's recycle, and let's try to create a good culture where people feel valued, and so we did that for a while, and then eventually learnt from a friend of mine in Grand Rapids here, about ... We had moved into a new facility and I was trying to think about making that facility a certified B facility, which was an insanely terrible idea, but she did say you know what?

There's a thing called B corp, which is basically the lead, what lead is to buildings. B corp is for business practices, and it's about creating a sustainable business, triple bottom line. People plan the profits, and she just recommended that I look into it, and so the more I read about it the more I realized what B corp is about.

Really was starting to line up with where we're trying to take this business, and so I don't know, about a year after that discussion I was able to get all the data in place, because it is pretty rigorous in terms of getting that certification, and the data that they ask for, and the audit that you have to go through. You have to renew every couple years. We were doing well enough and had enough programs in place, and certainly going through and understanding more about what was required made us put more structure in place, to at least get that initial B corp certification, which was over three years ago now, so it's certainly a big part of our culture here.

We feel like we are trying to do things that leave the world a little bit better place. Our recycling program has become really strong, and we're trying to become actually a true zero waste certified facility, which is a 90% diversion rate of all your waste.

Dan: Congratulations.

Elliott: 90% does not go, so we're very close to getting to that point and everybody's on board, and just the things that we do, in terms of making sure that our team members are valued, and the benefits and programs that we've tried to provide for them, certainly we're proud of. It's just really become something we always talk about, and I think it's a source of pride for the people that work here. The people that ...

We have quite a few team members, because like Marshall was saying, we are doing our own manufacturing, and that requires a lot of people. A lot of hard work, but when you can build that into a bigger goal that everyone's working towards, and everybody sees that we're trying to do recycling, and everybody sees that we're all for healthcare, and everybody sees over time as the company's success grows, so does that, is invested back in them.

Certainly, I think it's been such a huge positive thing, in terms of trying to create a business that we're proud of and is sustainable, and that other people that are already here, that is proud of working here.

Dan: Well, congratulation on your efforts. I'm impressed. Again, I would not have known this had we not had this conversation, so I know you've got a little bit of information on your website, but nothing like what you've just shared with me, so let's unpack that a little bit. Certified B corp.

One of the things, in fact, you're going to love this. Kyle Garner, I talked to him. He's the CEO of Organic India. We had a really great conversation about this on our podcast. We we're talking about what he's doing. He's so competitive. I love his passion.

What was great about our conversation around this, as he's talking about the fact that you have to publish the results, and he was talking a little bit about what you have to do, and what's required, and the percentage scale, and how they measure it.

More importantly, he said that they give you the resources to help you along, and so why I wanted to shine a light on this, is they provide a resource gap, or a resource map, or a roadmap to what's possible, or what other companies are doing, and then you compete against yourself.

You try to do better and to be better year, after year, after year, and it's very transparent, very authentic, and again, I think it's a great resource. A great tool, a great strategy to be able to leverage this and put this on your product, et cetera, but more importantly, this helps you make a lasting difference.

This helps you not only understand what's possible, but stay within those boundaries, and help you identify what are the opportunities? It's not just you out there trying to figure this out alone. It's all the other companies within that certified B corp arena, and you get to see what everyone else is doing.

Kyle was sharing with me how competitive he is, and his goal is to become the number one brand, in terms of the most certified ... I forget the exact term he used, but the most certified brand in the B corp universe. Number one, and he's got some pretty lofty goals, but he talks about how he's going after them and what he's done, so the fact that you guys are going down that path, kudos to you, and I think you need to do a better job of celebrating that.

The other thing is sustainability. You've got on your website some information about that. That goes back to you being a certified B corp. Making a healthy place to live for your employees, providing living wage, but you also talk about on this page that you give back in donations, and some of the community things that you do.

Can you talk a little bit about that? Why that's important, and how do you benefit from that? When I say benefit from that, I'm talking about not dollars and cents, but how does that build a community around you? Do you, for example, have employees that champion different events? Encourage them to go out, and sponsor and get involved, or how does that work?

Elliott: Yeah, that's a great point that I glossed over really, but the part of being a B corp is involved in being a positive impact on your community, so for us it's those things you mentioned. We do quite a bit of donations. We have a donation form on our website, and every month we're figuring out where we can impact and make positive donations around the community.

That's certainly a big part of what we do, and I think that we have to, when it comes to employee engagement in the community, we do offer two hours of paid employee volunteer time every month, so every month everyone here can get paid to go out and spend time volunteering in the community, and-

Dan: Love that.

Elliott: We are working ... Around bigger, larger group volunteer commitments. We've done some things like fixing up some homes for homeless people that are in the community, so that they can ... Gives a home for people to move into, and we've done some work there. We have done some community cleanup work. Looking at some more things like that this year, and as you can imagine, trying to get, it's a lot of organizational work too.

Getting everybody, lining up those kinds of volunteer commitments can be tough, so we have done, we're a little bit of a mixture of both. Letting people go out on their own for projects that they're passionate about, and then trying to do these larger team activities and volunteer activities, that gets the big group together. There's a little bit of mixture, but you're right. Community involvement and ...

Marshall: This is Marshall. One of the things we did, we've done, one of the questions that Dan had was other folks on the team latch onto this idea, and so our director of marketing last year, was special to her. Building bikes for underprivileged children, and so she recruited a team from GFB to go and volunteer at that event, and build bikes for kids for the weekend.

That's one of the things that's become one of the core values, central to our culture, and it's great to see somebody just come up with an idea and say hey, this is important to me. I think this is cool. We should be a part of this, and then four or five us, maybe more, go and do that. It becomes not an administrative thing. It is a little bit, but it becomes led by the team, versus this edict that comes down that we've got to do certain things. The team really buys into it and makes these things happen that are important to them.

Dan: That's so important, and the leadership comes from the top, and obviously you guys are doing a phenomenal job around building a community at the Gluten Free Bar for your employees, to help encourage them to give back, so I think you need to be celebrated for that.

Again, this is part of your messaging that goes beyond the four corners of your package. You've got this on your website. Love the idea about bikes. I've always been a passionate bike reader, and the fact that you're helping to put quality products, quality bikes in the hands of people that need them, that's fantastic.

I think you guys are doing an amazing job. Again, it was a thrill meeting you at Expo West. It's been fun swapping notes with you and getting to know you guys, and again, Hi Suzie, because we've been swapping a lot of notes too.

You guys are a fun company to get to know, and I look forward to you guys having tremendous success. Anything else I can help you with while we're talking today, anything else you want to share that we haven't covered already?

Marshall: I think one thing that we talked a little bit about, but just to recap in terms of who we are and what we're trying to accomplish, is really caught up in our tagline of making good for you food in good for you ways. We started with bars. We implemented bites, which are a really interesting product, and that really pioneered that cluster concept, and so it's interesting.

We started selling. One very interesting thing about our history is we started selling bars that were gluten free when people didn't know what gluten free was, and then we started selling bites, which now has become this category that some people have referred to as clustered.

When I first started going to retailers to sell bites the response I got was tastes great. It's cool. I just don't really have a set for it in my store, and now that's completely changed. Then in the past year we rolled out our Power Breakfast, which is our ... Cereal higher than category average protein. Super clean ingredient deck. Low to no added sugars.

The really cool thing about this product is it's been like a flat envelope, so not only is it super efficient from a merchandising standpoint, a shipping standpoint, but it's recyclable and if you're a consumer and you buy, you can fit it in your purse, your backpack, your computer bag and take it to work. It's awesome for camping, and so now selling this product we kicked off the Whole Foods in the Midwest, but now we take that to consumers and they're like, "What is this?"

The good news is I think we're on the leading edge again of this trend with a great new package. We won a NEXTY for that, the packaging, at the last Expo West.

Dan: I remember, congratulations.

Marshall: We're trying to be as innovative as possible, bring the best possible products to our consumers. At the end of the day our consumers have to happy. We want the GFB, whether bars, bites or power breakfast to be a bright spot in their day and something that they look forward to, and we think if we do that well, then we've got a bright future.

Dan: Absolutely.

Marshall: Certainly a lot of work to come.

Dan: Well, and that's true with every brand, but look at all the stuff that you shared with me today. You need to be celebrated for that. Again, the fact that you got a NEXTY award. I remember when you guys got it. You were so thrilled. It was fun seeing you again and talking to you about what you're doing, and sharing this, and so hopefully you've gotten something out of this podcast.

I appreciate the fact you're sharing your insights, your thoughts around it, around the course, and communicating what you have going on within the company, because I do appreciate the brand. We love the brand, and by the way, I appreciate the snacks too, so thank you for sending me some samples.

You guys have a great message. You really do, and I look forward to seeing you on more retailer shelves. Where can people find you, where can people learn more about you?

Marshall: Sure. Well, we're in about 10,000, 11,000 stores in US and Canada, so depending on where you are in the country you can always go to theglutenfreebar.com or thegfb.com, and look at our store locator. Major retailers that carry us are Whole Foods, Myers, Stop & Shop, Giant, Publix, Kroger, Sprouts and many other great retailers throughout the country. [inaudible 00:58:10] and a lot of the independent natural stores throughout the country, so that's always updated.

That's always updated at thegfb.com, and of course, our website. We offer a couple great things. Like if you're not sure what flavors you want you can order whatever case you want. If you want three flavors of chocolate peanut butter, three bars of peanut butter and two cranberry almond, we pack those custom cases here, and of course, Amazon is always a good place to find us too.

Dan: Thanks for sharing. My wife loves your peanut butter bars. She's addicted now, so it's your fault. Just kidding. No, she thinks they're great.

Marshall: That's what we like to hear. Addiction is good, as long as we're talking GFB.

Dan: Oh yeah, she is. No, she's definitely a huge fan. I remember when I brought them, when you first got the package and I shared them with her, she goes another bar? No big deal, but she stole them from me. She's absolutely addicted. She's a huge peanut butter fan. If I could figure out a way to inject it then I'm sure we'd do that. Mainline it.

Just kidding, but she's a huge fan of your brand, and she loves the ingredient label, the ingredient panel. The fact that you've got protein. I did share some products with my sister and niece that are gluten intolerant. They love the product too, and again, it's about building that word of mouth. It's that authenticity. It's your ability to communicate beyond the four corners of your package.

Going back to what you said, the question you asked earlier Elliott. This is how you do it. By having a conversation with your consumer. Same as we're having a conversation today, and listening to them, and then to some degree, parroting back what they're telling you, and then finding a way to distill that into your message. That's how you're going to succeed. That's how you're going to be relevant on retailer shelves.

Thank you for everything you've shared. I really appreciate it, and thank you for being fans of the show, and thank you for making time for me today. I really appreciate it.

Marshall: We do too Dan. Thank you.

Elliott: Yeah, thanks Dan. It was great.

Dan: I want to thank Marshall and Elliott for coming on the show today, and for being fans of the podcast. I'll be sure to include a link to Gluten Free Bars in the show notes and on this podcast webpage. Okay, so now your homework. Do you remember the two questions I asked at the beginning of this?

What additional topics or subjects do you want me to cover, and more importantly, what was the most important thing you learned from this podcast? What is the one single most important nugget of information or insight that you got from this episode, that you can bake into your product's DNA, into your brand's DNA? What idea or suggestion can you leverage at retail to help your brand succeed, to help you get your product on more retailer shelves and into the hands of more shoppers? After all, that's what this is all about.

The freebie today is the free course. Check it out. It's what we talked about a lot on this podcast. It's going to help you out. It's going to help answer these questions, and it's going to give you a significant competitive advantage. It's a simple easy to follow recipe. A roadmap if you will. These are things that brands simply don't do today. It's helped me. These strategies have helped me outperform and out-compete every brand I've gone up against. It'll work for you as well.

You can learn more about the course and Gluten Free Bar at brandsecretsandstrategies.com/session66. Thank you for listening. If you like the podcast share it with a friend. Subscribe and leave a review on iTunes. I look forward to seeing you on the next show.

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