An Insider’s Tips on Food & Beverage Distribution in Grocery with Sandra Velasquez

Real Food Brands Strategy Podcast: Tips to Help Food Entrepreneurs Build a Strong Brand That Stands Out

Sales is an important channel to bring your Brand Strategy to life and set you apart in a crowded market. But how do you put on your sales hat and adapt your Brand Strategy specifically to a conversation with buyers? And what goes into a successful sales pitch?

This week on the Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast, host and Food & Bev Brand Strategist Katie Mleziva talks to Sandra Velasquez, the New York City area Sales Manager for Van Leeuwen Ice Cream, National Sales Rep for HiBAR and founder of DistroTalk, where she offers a course on how to talk to chain stores and distributors. In this episode, we discuss how to talk to buyers, and when the time is right to approach distributors.

In This Episode:

• Why Sandra started DistroTalk and what she has learned from her years of experience working in a variety of categories.
• How to talk to buyers in a language they care about (hint: it’s not the same thing consumers care about).
• How to get stats for your product to build a compelling story.
• How to find buyer names for stores you’ve identified as a good fit.
• Exactly what Sandra puts in her emails to buyers.
• When it’s time to work with a distributor, and which chains work with which distributors.

Resources:

• DistroTalk
• Follow Sandra on Instagram
• Real Food Brands Marketing Roundtable Facebook Group
• Real Food Brands website
• The Real Food Brands WorkshopTM – NEW!