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Business & Economics Podcasts

Who is it For? Founders of CPG start-ups. What is It? Zero B.S. perspective on running your start-up well, understanding the biases of industry stakeholders and getting the industry to work for you, not the other way around. When? Every month. Your Host: Dr. James F. Richardson of Premium Growth Solutions, LLC www.premiumgrowthsolutions.com If you want to take my founder's Quiz to see if you are ready for exponential growth, please visit : www.premiumgrowthsolutions.com/founder-resources and sign up for my e-mail list to download it. Transcripts and an entire episode library are on my podcast site. https://www.premiumgrowthsolutions.com/podcast

Who is it For? Founders of CPG start-ups. What is It? Zero B.S. perspective on running your start-up well, understanding the biases of industry stakeholders and getting the industry to work for you, not the other way around. When? Every month. Your Host: Dr. James F. Richardson of Premium Growth Solutions, LLC www.premiumgrowthsolutions.com If you want to take my founder's Quiz to see if you are ready for exponential growth, please visit : www.premiumgrowthsolutions.com/founder-resources and sign up for my e-mail list to download it. Transcripts and an entire episode library are on my podcast site. https://www.premiumgrowthsolutions.com/podcast

Location:

United States

Description:

Who is it For? Founders of CPG start-ups. What is It? Zero B.S. perspective on running your start-up well, understanding the biases of industry stakeholders and getting the industry to work for you, not the other way around. When? Every month. Your Host: Dr. James F. Richardson of Premium Growth Solutions, LLC www.premiumgrowthsolutions.com If you want to take my founder's Quiz to see if you are ready for exponential growth, please visit : www.premiumgrowthsolutions.com/founder-resources and sign up for my e-mail list to download it. Transcripts and an entire episode library are on my podcast site. https://www.premiumgrowthsolutions.com/podcast

Language:

English

Contact:

206-909-6129

Episodes

Episode 48 - Why Startups Fail - with Tom Eisenmann Part 2

6/15/2021
99% of business media stories on startups are essentially PR for the startup itself. This makes these stories a one-sided source of information on what it's like to operate and grow a startup. While there are more and more discussions of mistakes, basically no one at Inc or Entrepreneur or anywhere else really will ever green light a debate on this or that failed startup unless, like Theranos, it ended in some massive ethical scandal. Failure is depressing, they say. Not me. This month, I'm...

Duration:00:18:04

Episode 47 - Why Startups Fail - with Tom Eisenmann Part 1

6/1/2021
99% of business media stories on startups are essentially PR for the startup itself. This makes these stories a one-sided source of information on what it’s like to operate and grow a startup. While there are more and more discussions of mistakes, basically no one at Inc or Entrepreneur or anywhere else really will ever greenlight a debate on this or that failed startup unless, like Theranos, it ended in some massive ethical scandal. Failure is depressing, they say. Not me. This month, I’m...

Duration:00:13:02

Episode 46 – Advertising ROAS and Repeat Purchase

5/15/2021
In the world of consumer brands, it’s common for investors to look down on paid advertising. Why? Because they often don’t see the same kind of trial surge that a temporary price reduction or change in attribute-outcome signaling can deliver. So, they generally see no real return on the expense. However, ROAS has to be calculated on the basis of a longer-term view of how repeat purchasers contribute to the brand.

Duration:00:12:49

Episode 45 – Competitive Strategy Formulation for Exponential Growth

5/1/2021
This episode teases you with the contents of my quarterly Riding the Ramp online training event. If you want more detail than you found in my book on how to create a compelling strategy and a competitively advantaged 4P playbook, than this training is for you. It’s so important that you attack the market and not just serve the whims of merchandisers. www.premiumgrowthsolutions.com/webinars

Duration:00:06:59

Episode 44 – The Future of Trade Shows

4/15/2021
Trade shows need to get blown up, from a design perspective. Enough with the booth-cages. The pandemic has shown what we really can’t get done face-to-face. And it’s those zones of human persuasion that industry events should re-design themselves to facilitate and monetize. Let’s kill the trade show, and make events for ALL stakeholders work much better.

Duration:00:16:24

Episode 43 – Your Product Isn’t Done…Sorry

4/1/2021
In this episode, I explore WHY exactly the initial product line you launch, across all touchpoints, is unlikely to be really a finished line. Not only will you need to iterate, but you’ll need to learn from your fan to do it. In-market learning is really the only way for many premium CPG brands to fine tune the nuances of their product symbolism, package design and marketing communications efforts. In some cases, though, it has huge relevance to which channels and banners you sell in and how...

Duration:00:07:50

Episode 42 – Don’t Hire Friends as Service Providers

3/15/2021
Hey, know anyone who hired their buddy to do pack design or social media marketing? Yeah, of course, you do. In my latest podcast episode, I share some sociological reasons founders of early-stage brands don't want to hire 'friends' as service providers. If you're an investor, take note as you advise your portfolio brands. This selection behavior is super common in the U.S. because, as a culture, we seem to place irrational levels of trust in our thin friendships. It would take a whole book...

Duration:00:06:16

Ep. 41 – The “Death Funnel” - Revisited

3/1/2021
80% of CPG brands never make it past $500K trailing annual sales. It's a cruel reality. Often, the end of the business is self-inflicted due to business inexperience. Too often, though, it's based on overly ambitious timelines to scale fed by reading anecdotal cases that trade media love to cover. The unicorns distract too many starting out. This episodes revisits the brutal process of turning the engine on for a CPG business when you are under-capitalized and under-staffed.

Duration:00:06:19

Ep. 40 – Stakeholders – Distributors

2/15/2021
I’ll probably lose some LinkedIn Connections once again with this content. Don’t care. The reality is that new founders to retail CPG need to get super real about 3P distributors, especially the national players specializing in natural and organic products. Listen up and learn the one stunning oversight most new founders make when starting to work with UNFI, KEHE, and others.

Duration:00:07:21

Ep. 39 – The Skate Ramp – An Excerpt from Ramping Your Brand

2/1/2021
Goldilocks was right. The middle path is the way forward when you are trying to scale quickly and actually get to scale in good enough shape to keep growing in the double digits. Listen in to a ‘dramatic’ reading from my forthcoming audiobook edition of Ramping Your Brand. I think you’ll enjoy it!

Duration:00:09:21

Ep. 38 - Pressure Testing Your Topline

1/15/2021
The more years in the market and, regardless of your actual topline growth rate or scale, the more likely you will no longer be able to notice the subtle signs of underperformance in your business. This is most pronounced when growth is strong. But that's when it's most important to look underneath the topline hood and pressure-test for solid, healthy $ growth. In this episode I share some initial tips straight from the toolkit I use with my clients every month at PGS.

Duration:00:07:32

Ep. 37 - Behavior-Based Brand-Building

1/1/2021
Unfortunately, the folks who talk loudest about brand-building are either a) branding agencies, b) venture capitalists or c) overly enthusiastic founders. Curb your enthusiasm. You can design a brand identity, a symbolic system. But, 'brand' is an outcome. It is an outcome based on influencing real human behavior, entering social networks with memorable consumer experiences, potent symbolism, and grassroots 'influence,' not social media puffery. Learn the rules of behavior-based...

Duration:00:10:12

Ep. 36 - Conversion vs. Trade Techniques to Drive Velocity Growth

12/15/2020
It's no secret that Placement is the "P" that dominates strategy among most early-stage consumer brands, selling into retail primarily. And there's no shortage of brokers, fractional sales VPs and consultants ready to focus you on manipulating the trade to win narrowly. The problem with this 'normative' viewpoint is that brands don't grow via TPR programs. There is NO marketing science to prove this common myth. Brands grow by adding households and growing velocity inside those households...

Duration:00:07:25

Ep. 35 - Stakeholder Classes - The Buyer

12/1/2020
Retail buyers. Either right now or eventually, you will need to convince buyers you are a key new addition to their sets. In this episode, I share some pros and cons of developing relationships with these important stakeholders. I also discuss why the Skate Ramp is just not on their radar, even though one of your key KPIs - velocity - absolutely is.

Duration:00:12:32

Ep. 34- Why Your One-Page Strategic Plan is Lame

11/15/2020
Well...Well..Well, I never...I mean, what a rude title! Then stop writing plans not based on market and consumer data. Then I'll take this episode down right away. It's a plague among early-stage startups in ALL industries. Dataless plans based on wholesale case projections. Your review mirror of case sales to the distributor is not sufficient to make a smart plan for exponential growth. In fact, it sentences you to repeat the growth rate in the mirror itself. If you're growing at 10% and...

Duration:00:12:59

Ep. 33 - Why Saying No is the Essential Skill as a Founder

11/1/2020
You might think saying 'no' is simply the luxury of an established business who has the privilege to turn down an opportunity that isn't dead-on perfect. But you'd be wrong. Dead wrong. In this episode, I introduce the perfect training ground for saying no: the onslaught of service providers who 'prey' on the ocean of startups, most of whom will fail or stagnate as hobby businesses. A small % are actually really good. But they never come to you... If this episode intrigues you, you might...

Duration:00:13:04

Ep. 32- Stakeholder Classes - The Investor

10/15/2020
It's time to share thoughts on one of the more important stakeholder classes for your fast growing early stage brand. I focus on the pros and cons of angels, venture capitalists and private equity firms. I'm very keen on angels for reasons you'll want to listen in and discover. The big challenge for most entrepreneurs is their de-leveraged situation early on up the Ramp. Maximizing your leverage is a sociological challenge, not a financial one in the face of very, very rich people.

Duration:00:16:41

Ep 31- Founder Archetypes - The Brand Worshipper

10/1/2020
Grab onto your handrails, folks. You may hear the thunderous retort of the entire global branding industry in the middle of this one. Branding is one of the most over-rated arts in the early years on the Ramp. Without a data-refined strategy in place, you just can't finalize your brand's symbolic system. Yes, you can try to research it in advance and over-determine everything like a Big Company. But since that rarely works out well for them either, I advise patience. Don't launch a product...

Duration:00:15:25

Ep. 30 - An Interview with Jake Huber - Negotiating with Buyers Part Two

9/15/2020
He's back! Jake Huber riffing with me on more advanced topics in retail buyer negotiation. The big one in this final part of the interview is : how to say no...obviously, without ever using this word. :) If you liked Part 1, then you're going to luv, luv, luv this part. Again, I apologize for the horrendous audio on my end. Won't happen again. You have my promise.

Duration:00:13:00

Ep. 29 - An Interview with Jake Huber - Negotiating with Buyers Part One

9/1/2020
Pardon the horrendous audio. This was recorded in a chaotic apartment during the early months of the pandemic. Nevertheless, Jake Huber and I riffed on some very important topics. In Part One we address the #1 thing founders screw up when approaching buyers, how pitching investors and buyers is similar/different and the challenges posed for introverted founders. Hope you like it!

Duration:00:10:52

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