Sticky Learning Lunch 48: Increase Your Category Opportunities

Today's topic, Increase the Number of Category Opportunities Landed Part 5.

73% of your Category Opportunities Never Make it to Store.

You will learn: - Each of the 7 parts of the MBM Category Management Funnel. - How each part is essential to creating an effective Category Management approach. - Various tools and techniques to support each stage of the process.

You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Welcome to day five. Is day five of the yeah, of the category management funnel. It is Wednesday. Welcome to today's Sticky Learning with me, Nathan Simmons and Andy Palmer, resident expert on category management. As always, we're just gonna give it about 30 seconds to wait for the last people to arrive in the room, and then we are gonna crack on. Good afternoon, Colin. Good afternoon, Fabian. Good afternoon again, Mikayla, good to see you.

Improve your category management opportunities

Nathan Simmonds:

Thank you very much everyone for being here. Good afternoon, Gemma. Just joining the room. We are just gonna give it a few more seconds and then we are going to get on with today. But while we're sway for those last people, on a scale of one to 10, one being terrible, 10 being phenomenal, how are you? How is your day? Let me know. Let's see how people are feeling on this. Fine Wednesday with the Gloria Sunshine and ISS A 10. That's good.

Nathan Simmonds:

We've got an eight coming in from Colin. Thanks very much. Right. I think it's time to get this show started. Mr. Palmer, welcome to today's Sticky Learning lunch with me, Nathan Simmons and Andy Palmer idea with these sessions is to help you be the best version of you in the work that you do. Coming from MBM making business matter, the provider of leadership development and soft skills to the grocery and manufacturing industry, and we couldn't be more pinpoint and more niche when it comes to category management in this space, we are hitting day number five of the funnel.

Nathan Simmonds:

And this funnel lovingly known as the 73% funnel. Because the reason why is why it's helping you to highlight why 73% of your opportunities, your category management opportunities, never make it to store. And we've been breaking this down for the last five day or four days, sorry, day five today. Andy, what are we covering today?

Andy Palmer:

Today, Nathan? Good afternoon. No, today we're covering selling those opportunities. So building on everything we've done back end of last week, beginning of this week, got our targets. We understand our shopper, we've got a good handle on the channel that we're, uh, presenting to, analyzed all our data and we pulled together our very succinct presentation. So today's about making that stuff land with the buyer, the person, that office, that buyer.

Andy Palmer:

So we've got a few things to share with you today that hopefully increases or hopefully will increase your chances of success when you've got that opportunity to be out there pushing the recommendations that you are suggesting. So without further ado, um, I'm gonna share one thing straight away with you. Um, cool. About four years ago, the IGD ran a, an industry survey and part of this capability and partnership survey, it said that too often trust is the single biggest barrier to getting proposals into action.

Andy Palmer:

It comes back to trust. I've mentioned it a little bit, you know, the last few days we've certainly talked about credibility. So today I wanna really bring to life what trust is about for you then to consider. How trustworthy am I, how trustworthy is my team? Could this be one of the reasons why when not getting our recommendations across the line, were not as influential as we could be? So we're gonna talk about trust. Um, in true blue left brain style, I'm gonna bring this to life, uh, using the medium of a formula.

Andy Palmer:

So bear with me as I lovingly create it up here and then hopefully explain it in a way that really resonates with you. So let's talk about trust. Trust is what you need with the buyer. It's what you need with colleagues that you work with. It's what you need with your partners, your friends, your family.

Andy Palmer:

Because if you're trustworthy, you are far more likely to get what you want when you want it in an appropriate way. So in order for you to have trust, there are three component parts to this. The first one, credibility. Credibility. Stick to the kind of world of category management at the moment. So credibility, this is going to come from the knowledge that you've got, the experience that you've got, the things that you say and do, and the way in which you communicate.

Andy Palmer:

Tthe understanding you've got of the category. So if you've got credibility, you are far, likely, far more likely to have a high level of trust. So first one's credibility, making sense, thumbs up, Nathan. Good, two thumbs up, loving it, credibility. Second one, reliability. Reliability is about the commitments that you give and how you follow up on them.

Andy Palmer:

So if you say, yes, I'm gonna get you that report by five o'clock on Tuesday afternoon, and they don't get it until 11 o'clock on Friday evening, they will see you as less reliable. So it's about the commitments that you give, the deadlines that you commit to. Um, and it's really about helping them to see that if you say and you are gonna commit to do something, that you are reliable enough to ensure that it absolutely happens. You've got credibility, reliability, and the third part, just gonna fit it in next to where my head's gonna be, intimacy, appropriate intimacy.

Andy Palmer:

This is how well you know the person, how well the person knows you. So if you take those um, times at the appropriate moment to discuss something you may have in common that could be going, running or swimming or an interest in a certain sport or activity that you do, you have those connections, you have intimacy, appropriate intimacy, you get to know people, you consider those people in your world, either professionally or personally who you trust and those who you don't trust, I can pretty much guarantee that you will typically put it back to one of these three factors as to whether you've got high trust or you'd like more trust.

Andy Palmer:

Making sense so far, Nathan? Readability, reliability and intimacy. Okay, there are numerators are below the line are something called self-orientation. Um, I'm gonna simply sum this up as ego. It's how much you talk about yourself versus how much you're prepared to listen to others. Um, so for example, if I came into these webinar and I was only talking about all the experience I've got, how great the company, uh, how great a company we are, how marvelous I'm, how nice my shirt is, and I talk about only about me, I could come across potentially as being rather egotistical.

Andy Palmer:

If I take time to interact with my audience, ask them how they are, how they're feeling, what they're up to, what's on their mind at the moment, I can balance that ego off and make it less about me, more about them getting that balance. So no matter how good you are at the credibility, reliability, and intimacy part, um, that can be diluted if you have a big ego and your self-orientation is very, very, um, only about you.

Andy Palmer:

So for you, my challenge back today is to consider those four areas both for yourself initially. Um, I know rank them out of 10. Am I personally, am I a nine out 10 here, or four outta 10 here? A six out of 10 here, zero outta 10 here. Start to figure out where you could potentially increase your trust by dialing up or dialing down certain parts of this formula. Um, I said credibility is about, uh, the experience and the knowledge you've got.

Andy Palmer:

Reliability about commitments that you give to timescales and intimacy, how well, uh, that person knows you and how much you're prepared to get to know them. Lemme pause for a second there, Nathan. Um, cum, is that working for you? It's working for you. I'm hoping it's working for our audience today.

Nathan Simmonds:

And do you know what, for me it's working absolutely fine, but, and I'm gonna put this question out to everybody who's here now, rate yourself one to 10, CRI. So in each of those areas, rate yourself on a one to 10 right now in the questions box so you can start to really bring this to life in your own eyes and make it visible. Okay, how credible are you? One terrible 10, phenomenal. How reliable, how, how much, what level of intimacy do you have with your main buyers?

Nathan Simmonds:

Think about one of the buyers you're working with, one of the supermarkets and answer those questions now. And while you're doing that, you know, it's the way that we create sales is through know, like, and trust. So when someone knows you personally, your content, when they like what they're seeing, you're creating that trust. But then that trust, as you say, comes from that credibility, reliability and intimacy.

Nathan Simmonds:

And depending on where you are, scoring yourself in each of those three areas comes out of knowing your supermarket, understanding your shopper, and being able to turn that stuff into opportunities. It works in all three of those, you know, credibility, knowing your shop and knowing your supermarket reliability, turning that into opportunities that actually that hit the mark in those spaces. And having the intimacy with the people that you are connecting with to actually go and reflect on those things to make sure it's working and and working to build each other up, including yourself and the the buyer them as well.

Andy Palmer:

Agree Nathan. And on that, um, point I made on uh, back on day one last week when we talked about the pie chart. Account managers taking care of slice of the pie category managers taking care of the whole pile,