Full Service Product Development Sales and Distribution

Are you looking for product development of your beverage, vitamins, food, consumer packaged goods or nutraceuticals?  We specialize in products that sell to consumers in convenience, stores, supermarkets, pharmacy, club retail stores, MLM and direct response marketing.

Our product development includes artwork, formulation, package development, research, business planning, and yes, full sales and distribution management.

Don’t just develop your product with a nice package, make sure your product development is done to sell product and is tested time and time again in retail.

ABOUT US

We’ve done more than 1,000 product development projects including tools, toys, beverage, vitamins, nutraceuticals, clothing, pet supplies, housewares, food, snacks, and much more.

We do more than product development, our team has also sold to almost every single retail chain in the country including 7-Eleven, Circle K, Valero, Wal-Mart, Walgreen’s, K-Mart, Target, Kroger, Csotco and more.

As a matter of fact some of our clients are these retail stores, we’ve worked on product development project for Rite-Aid, Walgreen’s, Target, Safeway and 7-Eleven.

What are the product development services we can provide?

Product Development Services:

• Packaging
• Formulation
• Production
• Positioning
• Business Planning
• Pricing Structure
• Marketing Collateral
• Full Sales Management
• Distribution Management
• Broker Management

Make sure you call our consulting hotline at (619) 663-4129 to start your product development project

Find more about our product development starting in our homepage

What makes the best beverage companies great?

Are you looking for beverage companies for your business plan or to learn how to start your own beverage companies?

The best beverage companies share the same traits. They focus on great sales and distribution, they have a good product and they spend most of their marketing money in grass roots programs.   If you need help with research or writing your business plan or even beverage development please contact us to explore your beverage companies project.

Did you know there are more than 3,000 beverage companies in the USA that sell less than $5 million dollars?  You have to do something special to be able to compete with those companies. After all they are calling on the same distributors and the same retailers.  What will make your beverage special?

Compare Beverage Companies

I have studied many beverage companies and I’ve done projects on beverage companies of all sizes from Monster Energy Drink, Coca Cola and other large beverage companies to very small companies and start-ups.  What makes some beverage companies great and others mediocre?  Management!  You thought I would say the product right?  Well it’s not the product.

A good management team with a mediocre product can be successful but a mediocre management with a great beverage will probably fail.  This comes from personal experience in the trenches seeing hundreds of beverage companies.

Don’t let your beverage company fail – learn as much as you can about the beverage industry, beverage sales and distribution and all the different steps of running beverage companies.  If you need help with this contact me to go over my consulting packages.

Learn more about beverage companies

Are You Starting a Beverage Company?

Learn how to start your new beverage company and save one year in time and up to $100,000 worth of mistakes

Starting your beverage company is easy if you have the correct formula. After speaking with more than 1,000 beverage companies I recognized patters of what makes a beverage company successful.  These points are the secrets to making your beverage company succeed.  Only they are not really secrets, they are easy to learn, understand and follow; only most entrepreneurs don’t follow these steps and fail in the first year.

What are the beverage company secrets?

No. 1 Beverage Company Secret = Start at the end

Yes, you read correctly. The no. 1 beverage company secret is to start at the end. What does this mean? Well, it means you don’t start at the beginning.  In other words, you have your idea for a new beverage; you start working on the formula and the artwork right?  Wrong!  That’s starting at the beginning not at the end.   

You need to start at the end, with your end consumer.  You need to ask yourself who is your perfect consumer, where do they buy product, how much are they willing to spend for product and how much will they buy.   After you answer all these questions you go back to the retailer and the distributor asking the same questions… How much will the retailer make?  How much will the distributor make?  Where do I found these beverage retailers and distributors?  How do I support these beverage companies and how much money do I need?

After you have all these questions answered correctly as well as pricing information and strategy you go back to the beginning and start with your beverage flavor, package and artwork.  Do you need help with this to build your beverage company? Contact me about my beverage consulting packages.

No. 2 Beverage Company Secret = Save Money

This could be a weird point in the beverage company and beverage development creation process but it is really not.  I’m basing my information based not only at all the companies I speak with but all the companies subscribed to my newsletters, currently more than 20,000. 

I see the same mistake over and over again.  A beverage company will spend too much money. They spend too much in artwork, in beverage development; they spend in production and in promotions.  The largest expenditures are in production and promotion.  Many companies spend money in promotions thinking public relations or advertising will bring those sales.  It will not. To get sales you have to call distributors and open retail accounts, not spend money in advertising.

The other large expenditure is beverage production.  A beverage company will produce more than the minimum quantity just to save a few dimes. The problem is that they assume they will be able to sell that entire new inventory in the first year and they can’t.  This is a matter of the suppliers selling the beverage company much more than what they need to get started.  Now they have 10,000 cases in the warehouse and they will expire soon.    I’ve seen up to 50,000 cases expire!  That’s half a million dollars down the drain.

No. 3 Beverage Company Secret = Don’t rely on the distributor

This is the easiest secret to understand but the hardest one to accept.  Almost every beverage company thinks once they open a distributor their job is over in that territory.  That is wrong.  Once you open a distributor your job now is to go into that territory and open accounts for your distributor. The distributor will not go on their own and open accounts for you, you have to do it for them.

Remember, it is your job to open distributors, to open retail accounts and to make sure the retailer sells out of product using sampling events or other sales activities. 

If you need help starting and running your beverage company fill out the contact form and ask for my consulting packages.

Find out more about how to start your beverage company

Beverage Manufacturing

Itjust takes three easy steps – Positioning, Beverage Development and Bottling

The most important point in beverage manufacturing is beverage positioning. Yes, I know most people spend their time in beverage formulation or beverage development.  That’s a shame because in positioning is the most difficult and crucial point of the whole beverage manufacturing process.

Why is Beverage Positioning so important in beverage manufacturing?

It shows you who will drink your product and how much they will pay for it. It also shows you how your perfect consumer wants to buy and how they want to be sold.  That’s not all.  You will also know where to sell your product and what types of distributors to use to get your product there.  Imagine having a roadmap that tells you everything you need to know about beverage manufacturing, sales and distribution. That’ ’hat you need to get from your beverage positioning.

If you miss your positioning you will not have a good product even if you have a fantastic package and a great tasting product. 

Do you want help with beverage manufacturing? Contact me to talk about your project: (619) 663-4129

The 3 Steps for Beverage Manufacturing

Positioning

Positioning is the most important part of beverage manufacturing. It is the guide, the roadmap that you need to take to go from idea to a great product selling on the shelve.  To develop your positioning strategy always start with the consumer, not with your product.  This is what I call “Marketing Reverse Engineering”.   Always start with your consumer and move backwards to backing up all the way down to the beverage.

Here are the steps for marketing reverse engineering:

• Who are your perfect consumers?
• List everything about your consumers
• How much will they pay for the beverage?
• Where do they shop?
• Who distributes to those stores?
• How do you market to those consumers?
• What are their tastes, their likes and dislikes for package and flavor?
• Start with development and beverage manufacturing

Beverage Development

Beverage development is an important part of beverage manufacturing once you have your positioning done.   A great beverage has a good package and flavor; but it also has the correct size and profile that identifies with that perfect consumer we talked about before.  This is not just what you like or what your friends or colleagues like. This is what your perfect consumer would like.

Even if you think you have a good beverage development strategy always reach out to your perfect consumer and ask them what they think.  

The main points of beverage development are:

• Package – Can, bottle, etc.
• Formula – Flavor, color, texture.
• Size – 8 oz, 12, oz, 16 oz, etc.
• Feel – How does the product make you feel

All of the points in the beverage development process are clear except for the last one; feel!  I know: how do you account for feel?  It’s not an easy thing and it requires both knowledge and experience.  Feel is what you have to get right and it all depends on the exercise you did in beverage positioning.   If you’re targeting a teenage crowd with your energy drink the Feel is different than if you’re targeting a working class consumer like you would do with an energy shot.  You don’t what to alienate your consumer with the wrong feel so pay special attention to this in your beverage manufacturing process.

If you need my help to go over your Feel simple call my beverage consulting hotline at: (619) 663-4129

Beverage Bottling

Beverage bottling is the easiest and most automatic part of beverage manufacturing.  In beverage bottling you just need to look for a co-packer that is close to you and has line space to cover your order.  It can take as little as 20 minutes after they push the button to fill your complete order.  Yes, I said 20 minutes!

Well, if you’re bottling water it will take 20 minutes. If you have a formula they have to prepare the batch, bring the bottle or can and then push the button.  It still just takes a couple of hours for the whole process. 

Now, some of you have more sophisticated formulas or beverage manufacturing process. That means you could require a special line or production equipment.  If that’s the case you should probably call me to talk about your project as this article is not large enough to go over all the intricacies of custom beverage manufacturing processes.  Maybe you have a special bottle, or special formulation or you have to export to another country; in any case contact me and we’ll go over your beverage manufacturing needs and talk about my beverage consulting packages.

If you need more information about beverage manufacturing, strategy or positioning start at the home page

We need the best beverages to plug into our beverage distribution network

Here is some great news of how you can sell your beverages into the best and largest distributors. I’m not talking about contacting one of them; I’m talking about contacting thousands of them!  Did you know there are more than 17,000 distributors in the USA that sell more than $1 million per year?  Are you contacting them?

I just got back from San Francisco to meet with my partners up there. We have a new company with offices up there with the sole purpose of selling beverages into beverage distributors and retail accounts all over the USA.

Imagine getting your beverages in front of one thousand or two thousand beverage distributors and retailer each month!

WAIT!  Before you run and get on the phone to call me you should know we already got more than 200 beverages that want to work with us.  The problem is most of these brands have little support and no traction.  We can only work with the best beverages companies and the best entrepreneurs.

For the next 10 days we’re looking for beverages with $1 million in sales or more because we have distributors looking for these products.  If you are in this category please give us your information so we can give you a call. Call (619) 663-4129.

If you don’t have $1 million in sales for your beverages don’t worry you’ll get there. We’ll have some programs for you too in the future.

Call (619) 663-4129.

Call my hotline and we’ll return your call in the order we receive them. You’ll get a call within 24 hours and we’ll go over our incredible beverages sales program with you.

For now this program is for companies with at least $1 million in sales of beverages products per year.

How to Sell Your Beverages Nationally Using Every Single Type of Wholesalers and Beverage Distributors

These Are All the Types of Wholesalers and Beverage Distributors That You Need To Know About

Learn how to use every single type of wholesalers and beverage distributors in the country and reach convenience stores, supermarkets, pharmacies and every type of retail chain like 7-Eleven, Circle K, Kroger, Wal-Mart, Supervalu, Arco AM/PM, Valero, Target, Costco, Chevron, Shell and more.

Call us today to talk about selling your products to wholesalers (619) 663-4129

Learn how work with all of the channels of beverage distribution wholesalers and beverage distributors use to get your energy drinks, sodas, beer, vitamin water, shots, tea’s into retail account. Work with distributors that handle everything from 50 stores all the way to 10,000 stores.

Not all wholesale beverage distributors are the same and they are not all looking for the same types of products. Wholesalers and Beverage Distributors look for snacks, food, beverages, novelties, housewares, tools, energy drinks, tea’s, sodas, beer, spirits, vitamins, energy shots and many other types of beverages and other products.  Wholesalers and Distributors want different types of support, different profit margins and call on very different types of accounts.

You will learn not only how to contact and sell to Wholesalers and Beverage Distributors. You will also learn how to prepare for them, what they need, how much they want to make and how to support them so they don’t return your product and ask for their money back. You will learn how distributors can list your products in mass retail chains and how they can catapult your product to the national arena.

The Top 2 Learning Objectives for this Audio Seminar are:

1. How to Find Beverage Distributors
2. How to Sell, Manage and Support Wholesalers and Beverage Distributors

The Supporting 12 Knowledge Points for Beverage Distributors:

1. List all categories and types of wholesale distributors
2. Find out what they want to buy
3. What do you need before calling wholesalers and distributors?
4. Learn how to find new accounts
5. Levels of sales and marketing support
6. Do you need to open accounts for them?
7. How can you handle shipping?
8. How much will they buy per month?
9. Do you need contracts?
10. 10.  How to keep accounts forever
11. 11.  How to up-sell new products
12. 12.  Joint Ventures with wholesalers & distributors

Make sure you call in early. We only have 100 spots available they fill on every single call. Remember the live event calls are free –The recordings are not!

If you need help or project management with beverage development, sales, distribution or broker management call me right now at: (619) 663-4129 to get started on your project.

Make sure to visit and read our blog packed with information on Beverage Distributors

Beverage development can be easy, quick and a lot of fun

Beverage development can also be very difficult and painful. Costing you years and at least $50,000 in only 6 months without

Over the years I’ve seen many companies wasting $10,000, $25,000, $50,000 and up to $100,000 in Beverage Development without having a good product we can sell…

Mistakes in formulation, in production, in artwork. How many companies have I seen? Many. I see at least 5 companies every single month that already spent too much time and too much money

Here are some examples of mistake made on an everyday basis...

This mistake can be thought of as choosing outsourcing versus in-sourcing. Are you going to take charge of your product’s development process, or let someone else make the decisions for you.

First let’s talk about outsourcing. Outsourcing is the practice of contracting out work to a third party. This practice is most commonly used today by big companies for telephone customer service. However, many people who are seeking to develop a new product, and lack experience, will also use third party beverage development firms.

There are several problems with using these types of companies:

• Lack of decision making power
• Expensive start up costs
• Expensive long term contracts that require more money at the beginning of each new step in the beverage development process
• You are kept out of the loop, and gain no knowledge of beverage development from the process.
• You will lack an understanding of the beverage development process
• You don’t get the information, contacts, or direct relationship with suppliers

Many third party beverage development companies take your idea and handle the development process to create a product. The problem however, is that they make many of the decisions for you in their best interest. These types of beverage industry companies take full control of the beverage development and handle most of the development process on their own. They have in-house flavor labs, formulators, and bottling design departments and therefore can bring your product from idea to reality without much input from you.  The sad part is the formulas can’t be used with beverage bottlers and you have to start all over again.

The problem with this is that you want to be able to understand the beverage development process and every step in it. Once your product is developed, you are still responsible for running your business and selling your product. Don’t you want the confidence in your product that comes from being fully involved in every step of the production process? Of course you do! In order for that to happen, you need to have control over your product and be able to work directly with formula/flavor houses and bottling companies.

Instead of outsourcing your beverage development, you need to in-source. As the manufacturer, you need to be in charge of finding flavor houses, bottling companies, marketing firms, and distributors. Or at least understand how it is done and do it together with your consultant, employee or project manager.  You need to work with these companies directly so that the vision you have for your product is achieved. You need to take the time to learn as much as you can about developing your product so that you can have control and confidence around your new product. Learn everything you can about the different business involved in the development process so that you can rely on yourself instead of relying on another to company to make decisions.

If you feel that finding and working with all the different types of companies involved in the development process to be too daunting, there are other companies out there that can help. Companies such as Wholesalefund can help you make connections with development companies while also giving you control over your beverage. Look for companies that offer consulting and help with managing different aspects of your beverage development process. These companies will give you assistance without taking any power away.

Remember don’t hand over your beverage development, your beverage project or your beverage company to someone else.

#2 Mistake: Out of the loop -No beverage development know-how

When a manufacturer is seeking beverage development, they look for businesses that can help: flavor houses, bottling companies, etc. However, a common mistake they make is that they do not do enough research to find the right company for them or the company wants them “out of the loop.  Most of the time, they settle for a company, instead of getting exactly what they want. What should you want? Service, Knowledge, Mentoring, Project Management.  Not to mention sales and distribution; even in the beverage development process.

Maybe a formulator you find will work just fine, just OK, but they do not specialize in what you need. Why settle for that? Why not do your homework and search for companies that specialize in exactly what you need and will be the best for your beverage? Manufacturers often don’t do due diligence; investigating the company they find to develop their product. Don’t be lazy and settle on the first company that you can find; be discriminating. In the end, it is your product that you want to sell, wouldn’t rather get exactly what you want?

Finding resources can be tough, but remember to do your research. Ask each company what types of beverages they develop, what they specialize in. If you want to develop an energy drink, why would you work with a formula house that specializes in soda? There are so many different companies out there and you want to give your business to the right company for your beverage development.
 

I have a rule when doing business. Don’t do business whith someone you would not invite to your house to have dinner and meet your family.
 

#3 Mistake: Failing to do research on the beverage industry market

The beverage market dictates what sells and what doesn’t. As with any market, there is a demand for products. If your product meets the demand, it will naturally sell and if you product does not meet the demand, you will not get sales. It doesn’t matter if you think your beverage is the best drink that has ever existed, if the market is not willing to accept it, it will not sell.

In order to safe guard yourself against putting time and money into a product, only to have it not make you any money, you must take the time to do your research on the market. Identify your beverage’s ideal customers; who are you trying to sell to and what do they want? Which beverages are selling and which aren’t? What is in demand? Is the market over-saturated with the type of drink you want to develop? Is there a new category of beverages emerging that you can develop a product for? These are questions you need to answer in order to be successful.

These beverage development mistakes can cost you months of time and thousands of dollars. Be sure to avoid these mistakes when developing a beverage and you can be successful.  Give me a call so we can talk about your beverage development project.

So remember:

• Be the primary decision maker in your beverage product development
• Do your homework on development companies
• Research the market

What will you get when you work with me?

• Expert Strategy and Consultation Sessions
• I will handle your project personally
• You will be a beverage development expert!
• Mentoring, not just task execution
• Unlimited phone calls and emails 7 days per week
• My personal cell phone number
• Beverage Development, Sales and Distribution
• Access to my personal sales and distribution network

Contact me for beverage development, sales and distribution: (619) 663-4129

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Contact me today so we can work together on your beverage development

Learn how increase your Mass Retail sales to accounts including supermarkets, club stores, pharmacies, and department store chains.

Lean how increase your retail sales and sell you wholesale consumer goods products to Kroger, Supervalu, Walgreens, CVS, Wal-Mart, COSTCO, Target and Kmart as well as all other chains in the USA.

 Supermarkets and other Mass Retail sales accounts sell $1 Trillion dollars every year

 Supercharge your retail sales with the Mass Retail channel. You will learn hot these mass retail chains want from you and your products as well as the different ways they can buy your products.  Discover the chains that can buy at a store level, the stores that want slotting fees or scanned deals and hot to sell and support this incredible Trillion dollar industry. Don’t miss this great retail sales audio seminar.

If you sell any type of food, beverage, clotting, toys, novelties, housewares or any other consumer good this is a must. If you sell or would like to sell to supermarkets and other mass retail accounts this audio has to be part of your education and of all of your salespeople.

Audio Seminar Information

Date: Friday February 11

Time: 2 PM PST

Dial-In Phone:  (949) 266-6725

Are you looking for full project retail sales management to sell into top retail accounts? Make sure you call us today at (619) 663-4129 or contact us for retail sales on our web form

Sell to Convenience Stores & Distributors

Learn the 8 top secrets of selling to convenience stores and distributors. Without these trade secrets you will not make it in the business.

Find out how to work with convenience store distributors, brokers, wholesalers and independent sales reps

You will learn how to sell your products to all kinds of convenience stores in the USA including independent accounts and chains like 7-Eleven, Valero, Circle K and AM/PM. You will also learn all of the ways you can sell the product to the stores including drop shipping, wholesalers, distributors, distribution centers and more.

This audio seminar is part of the Wholesale MBA series. It is for consumer packaged good companies, brand managers, executives and distributors that want to sell products to all kinds of convenience stores in the USA. We will cover snacks, beverages, novelties, food, toys, housewares, apparel, sunglasses and more.

Learn the Top 10 Convenience Store sales Knowledge Points

1. What are convenience stores?

2. Who sells to convenience stores?

3. Who owns convenience store?

4. How to sell to chained c-stores

5. How to sell to independent c-stores

6. How to keep you product from getting unlisted

7. Support convenience stores with marketing

8. Merchandising in convenience stores

The Top 2 Knowledge Objectives

• How to sell to Convenience Stores

• How to sell to consumer sin convenience stores

Listen to this Wholesale MBA Series Audio Seminar:

Date: Friday January 28th 2011

Time: 2 PM PST

Call-in Number: (949) 266-6725

To find out about our convenience stores and our distributor sales services call our office at (619) 663-4129

Teleseminar: Use Sales Brokers to double your beverage sales every month

How many sales brokers do you have? Where do you find them? How do you manage them?

Learn how to use sales brokers around the country to double your retail sales every single month. There are thousands of retail brokers around the country selling to wholesalers, distributors and retailers.

In this presentation from the Wholesale MBA series you will learn how to find, approach, sign and manage not one or two, but hundreds of sales brokers expanding from wholesale distributors to convenience store chains, supermarkets, pharmacies, export, import and more.

After you listen to this live call you will know the types of contracts you need for brokers, what type of commission they expect, how to find wholesale sales brokers and how to keep them. Join Jorge Olson for this live call and get started growing your wholesale distribution and retail share.

Topic: Using sales brokers for your beverage business

Date: Friday January 21st (next Friday)

Time: 2 PM PST

Call in number: (949) 266-6725

To find out about our broker management services call our office at (619) 663 – 4129