If you are a startup or small company, it's common wisdom to not compete on price. If price is all that differentiates products in the same category, then customers will buy from the lowest-priced competitor. This means that competitors will constantly be pricing their products lower and lower to win business to where eventually, no [...]
This is a Quora question I was asked to answer. The full question is as follows: What do distributor contracts look like, and do they ever allow companies to sell products themselves? If so, how is the margin controlled so that the company doesn't undercut the distributor? We are looking to begin selling a consumer [...]
The end of the calendar year always precipitates a series of year-end todos and reviews that the wife and I do, both for the businesses and on a personal level. They include: 1. Accounting: wrapping up any final expenses for the year for tax purposes. 2. Budget: setting next year's budget by month for each [...]
A few weeks ago, I talked to two different companies. Both were lamenting at how difficult it was in growing their company. I delved a bit into each one's respective operations. I could not find anything major that they were doing wrong. In fact, both businesses were growing. One had just landed a major customer, although only [...]
I read an article recently about instead of selling just try to make it easier to buy. It got me thinking of a few ways this plays out in my work: Messaging vs. product: do I focus on more messaging/advertising or do I focus on improving and making a better product that drives word-of-mouth marketing and [...]
I read The Pumpkin Plan by Mike Michalowicz. I enjoyed the book and learned a few things. It was an easy and quick read, as the author's writing style is more conversational with humor mixed in. This book is specifically geared towards existing small business owners who are in the B2B service segment; that is, they sell [...]
Romeo and I hiked a part of segment 1 of the Colorado Trail. We left from the trailhead at South Platte River and CO. 96. The Google Earth KMZ file of our route is here, which includes images placed on the map where they were taken. The images are also in the slideshow below. I [...]
I like Seth Godin's blog. He put up a recent post about how he broke his nose walking into a glass door. While I have yet to do that (break my nose, that is), I can certainly sympathize because I seem to always find many ways to hurt myself. My problem is that I tend to rush [...]
The available methods that I know of for in-store advertising methods and strategies for a CPG company, which vary by retailer, are as follows: Packaging (see here for all about packaging); Point-of-purchase: shelf tags, posters, flyers; Shippers, displays, stand-alone end-caps, and shelf displays; In-store looping videos; Price promotions: coupons displayed at shelf, in a retailer’s [...]
The importance of packaging for a CPG product is significant. Here's why: A study done by Proctor and Gamble 25 years ago indicated that consumers pushing a shopping cart down the aisle of a supermarket look at packaging for 1/6th of a second before they decide to stop and look. According to the Food Marketing [...]
