Setting up and executing a sales strategy is a necessary part of specialty food business survival and growth. Felice Thorpe, a consulting sales director with expertise in the food and beverage industry, explained everything brands need to know to get ready to sell, during last week’s SFA Maker Prep Webinar, “Specialty Food Sales Fundamentals.”
She explained how to set goals through SWOT analysis and KPIs, how to build and understand a sales funnel, ways to leverage sales channels, and more.
“Your products have a story behind them. None of the big brands have the mission, vision, and values that specialty food brands do,” said Thorpe. “This sets you apart.”
The concrete vision and objectives of a company are crucial to tracking its success. Specialty food businesses, much like corporations, often find it useful to perform a SWOT analysis and elucidate clear key performance indicators. The rudiments of a SWOT analysis include understanding the following:
• Strengths – What does your product do that others don’t?
• Weaknesses – What does your brand need to improve upon?
• Opportunities – What voids can you fill?
• Threats – Who is your competition and what are they doing differently?
Using this method, a food business can begin to set realistic expectations for what it wants to achieve and eventually develop KPIs, which act more as time-sensitive objectives.
“The difference between a KPI and a goal is a KPI is quantifiable,” she explained. “So, this is something that you will assign a number or specific value to. A KPI is a sum of parts that you need to look at when you set your objectives and goals, and some of these parts are demand, production, procurement, and cashflow.”
Additionally, a good KPI is often realistic but stretches the expectation slightly, helping to push a company further. For example, if a sales department in a company believes a realistic goal would be to get into a certain number of locations by the end of a year, but also feels that five or ten more stores are still manageable, the team may choose to settle on a higher, still achievable, number.
After a company’s goals and KPIs are set, a sales funnel should be crafted. A sales funnel is a way to connect and convert a prospective consumer audience by piquing awareness, garnering interest, and facilitating consumer product consideration until the consumer then converts into a customer. Product considerations include anything that a consumer may examine when confronted with a product, like packaging, taste, and price.
“A sales funnel starts with brand awareness. That is not a sales function, it’s a marketing function,” said Thorpe, highlighting the fact that a food business cannot make money without marketing its product in some way. This is why a marketing budget is so important. “I know trade promotions can be a bitter pill to swallow, but if you look at it with the mindset of hyping your brand, you can change the way you feel about it. It’s our job as a brand to sell our product, not a retailer’s job. How do we do that? That’s the trade promotion piece I find exciting because we can offer a buy-one-get-one deal or send a box of samples for the employee breakroom.”
To learn more about how to best build a go-to-market strategy, watch the webinar on demand in the Learning Center.
Related: Specialty Food Sales Basics: Q&A With Thorpe; Strategist Shares How to Succeed as a DTC Food Brand