When selling any CPG in traditional retail, your success is based on 3 key elements: customer building, vigilance, and timely remedial action. You must start with the understanding and respect for the retailers’ predicament: Will the expensive space they gave you, at...

As CPG brand builders, when we enter a new year, it should be with the application of the lessons we learned in the past year. By applying those lessons, we can have the advantage in the marketplace and be the leaders in our categories. Underdog Advantage We have...

“Don’t tell me. Show me!” pretty much sums up why we spent the last year putting together our latest initiative to get our story out to the largest number of consumer brand builders. We took our New York Times bestseller, The Barefoot Spirit, and turned it into an...

When we started Barefoot Wines, we had just two SKUs. They were Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc in 1.5L magnums. The buyers told us this larger size had the least competition, so they were the ones we entered the market with. Within a few years and those two...

So, you’ve got a CPG product. You are selling at retail. You have a distributor and you are getting into retail stores. Congratulations! However, your sales could be better and you are worried that you may be discontinued for poor sales. You decide to go to the...

We did it the wrong way! We bought into too many popularly held misconceptions! It cost us plenty of time, money, and anxiety. We did not want to believe that we had to go out into the neighborhoods surrounding every store where we had our products for sale and...

Once again, the UN has released its climate report card and the grades are below passing. As a planet, we are not only failing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but we are actually increasing them. Meanwhile, the weather news is starting to use terms like “historic”...

Ever had a great idea for a product? Wonder why nobody has thought of it yet? The products that compete with your idea seem like they are off the mark, mediocre, and missing something yours provides. In fact, you haven’t seen anything like your brainchild on the...