Independent Retailers: the Most Powerful Product Revenue Channel

Billy Jones: 0:00

The industry is enormous. I mean it’s enormous. You’re talking about close to $300 billion of revenue just domestically a year. I mean it’s incredible the opportunity. You who just start signing things out, you’re going to be in for an interesting cost storm at some point.

Tina Smith: 0:27

Welcome to the Natural Products Marketer podcast. I’m Tina and.

Amanda Ballard: 0:31

I’m Amanda and we’re here to make marketing easier for natural products businesses, so you can reach more people and change more lives. Hey guys, welcome back to the Natural Products Marketer podcast. Today we’re joined by Billy Jones. He’s the co-founder of Save Naturally, so thanks for being on the show, billy.

Billy Jones: 0:51

Thank you for having me.

Amanda Ballard: 0:51

Appreciate it. So one thing that we like to ask all of our guests because most people grow up thinking, you know, I want to be a doctor, a teacher or something like that Most people don’t think that they’re going to end up in natural products. So can you kind of just tell us a little bit about your journey into this industry and what you currently do with Save Naturally?

Billy Jones: 1:13

I for one did not think I was in the Natural Products Marketer Not in the slightest. I’m originally from Michigan. Natural growing up wasn’t necessarily part of our grow up plan, if you will. Vitamins were, yes, of course, but yeah, how I actually stumbled upon it was I’ve always been an entrepreneur. That’s been what. I started my own lawn maintenance business when I was nine years old, cutting my neighbors lawns and things that nature. So that’s just kind of been ingrained in me. And then 2008 came and I’m showing a bit of my age there. Yes, I’m 42. But 2008 came and a friend of mine and I started a men’s clothing line and investors pulled out and you know, as we know, the whole market crash. So that put me in a situation where I needed to reevaluate some things Direction what am I going to do next, that sort of stuff. And so I went back to college in Florida for a little bit and it didn’t take me very long to be like this is not my path personally. If anybody that wants to go to college, please do so. But for me in particular, I was able to get some skills and things that nature going back, but quickly realized, hey, there’s something else that I want to be doing here. And then a friend of mine who founded a company posted something on Facebook and founded a multivitamin effervescent and I ended up saying, hey, I’ll come work, would you hire me? I’ll be a salesman, sure, whatever you need. And so yeah, $15 an hour she’s like. Will you move to California? I was like sure I’ll be on the next flight. I rid of my car got on the flight had no money in my pocket and I was like I don’t know where I’m going to sleep, I don’t know what I’m going to do, but she ended up giving me a couch for a little while as well. That’s how my natural product story began.

Tina Smith: 3:15

And that was at the age of 27.

Billy Jones: 3:18

And then from there I fell in love with the industry. I ended up breaking. After about eight months working there I broke away and started a product demonstration company out of LA and then started growing that nationally. Between those two things of working on the product manufacturing side and doing the in-store product demos, so I’ve been in the industry for about 14 years now 15 years. I saw a lot of the pain points. Obviously, I saw the product manufacturing side of the pain points and then working closely to the product demonstrations and working in the retail locations and then talking to customers, gave me a really full scope of it all. Granted, demonstration company isn’t necessarily a scalable business. Whoever is doing demonstrations, those businesses bless you, because it is difficult. It is difficult managing their schedules, and the people and all of it. But from there, at that point, I conceptualized how do we streamline the coupon process effectively?

Tina Smith: 4:18

And so that’s how we got here is saved, naturally.

Billy Jones: 4:23

How do? we get savings and the customer stands and drive customers into either trying new products, becoming new brand loyalists to brands by being able to pick that up without them needing to do much of a lift at all and then being able to then eliminate that process for the retailing, because paper coupons is a nightmare to start with. So us being saved. Naturally, instant cost savings platform we’re limiting product manufacture of paper coupons. But then on the product manufacturing side, the digital coupon aspect of it is being charged an impression to the product manufacturer. So if someone doesn’t actually pick up the product and purchase it after they digitally click the coupon, the product manufacturer is now having an issue with. I don’t even know how this is even working well for me right now. So we set out to solve both those problems.

Tina Smith: 5:13

That’s amazing. I am so interested in hearing more about how you’re working with smaller retailers. I know that’s a passion for you. Your supporter of this.

Billy Jones: 5:25

I’m very passionate about. The independent channel is who we work with, whether you’re independent retailer or co-op, you could even be. There’s pretty sizable independent regional retailers as well, and so we feel that product manufacturers right now are leaving money on the table and independence are the bedrock of the whole industry. They’re the ones who get the word out to the customers that they’re the ones who, at the end of the day, have built these conglomerate product manufacturer companies and, at the end of the day, what’s currently happening with food, drug and mass and others is people are chasing money, that’s just kind of reality and when that happens, as they’re chasing food, drug and mass, now they’re alienated. independent channel. And once the independent channel gets alienated the way that it tends to do once those companies get big enough. Now the independent channel has a choice to make. Do we stick with this brand, Do we stick with this product, or do we try and replace it? It generates a lot of revenue for us, so I understand. It’s a very hard decision for an independent retailer to make on that side of things, and so for us we’re like a missed product manufacturer, while this group and I know it’s business and I understand business and all that other stuff. It’s not that you owe the independent channel anything. You are not leaving money on the table because your shopper shops at these locations and you think they shop everywhere but in all actuality they don’t. They’re loyal to their stores, they’re loyal to the people that they get educated by on products. And for us we’re like hey, we’re only gonna focus on this channel If a bigger player comes and asks us hey, will you wipe label or will you do something similar that you’re doing for the independent channel? No, we won’t Done correctly and us we’re not chasing money. Money will make itself at the end of the day. So, doing it correctly and doing it with the independent channel, doing it with the co-ops, that is our goal and we’re not gonna move from that sales at all and it’s on video. So now we can go back and you guys can say remember when you said this. And we want the product manufacturers to understand hey, you can actually spend money in this channel and you can actually now see, with our platform in particular, you can see the sales. You can see, while a campaign is running on our platform what your sales look like, which currently isn’t happening. They know their orders, but they don’t know the sales, and so that’s one issue that they have as well, and, in regard to more Omni-Channel, we want to help the product manufacturers see this that there is you are leaving money on the table, especially with the one store retailer, and that while you guys are adding one new location, I think it’s bringing you guys to either six or seven locations at this point. Congratulations on the new store, by the way, I know Chase is working super hard on that and all you guys are. So in any event, congratulations to you all on that. But you have these one stores in the middle of nowhere America that just kind of gets left to figure it out for themselves because they don’t do enough volume for a product manufacturer. So it’s kind of ripe to help disrupt how marketing dollars are allocated, how product manufacturers allocate marketing dollars. And we see that as well, because we’re like, hey, that one store, though you may not see a ton of volume, it does need support and you may not be able to give a ton of money upfront. But how we’re structuring things on a city or regional basis allows that product manufacturer now to look at it a wider lens, but still being able to micro target it if you will in a certain city, so they don’t leave money on the table, and that’s what we really want to help do. So that’s what we’re finding and that’s why we’re passionate about that on the channel, because if the independent channel goes away, the product manufacturers what they don’t realize you’re going to lose a revenue generator, and what’s going to happen is now you’re going to cannibalize yourself almost Now you’re going to make things way more competitive in your category at the end of the day, or even in whatever you’re siloing out at the end of the day. So whether you’re going to be competing for shelf space, if you’re doing a mess, you’re going to be competing for eyes on Amazon you’re going to be competing for. So if independents start going away one by one, one by one, you guys are in trouble and you’re not seeing that. Then the brokers are in trouble, and the distributors are in trouble, and the point of sale systems are in trouble, and so it’s a domino effect at the end of the day. So, to make sure that we keep the independent channel stable, that’s what we’re setting out to do. We want to keep it stable not only for the independent retailers, but everybody that’s at play here.

Amanda Ballard: 10:24

Yeah, I think you’re spot on that. 1,000% is a domino effect and I think in the short run, maybe these brands that are kind of more or less abandoning the independents they might not feel it right now but they will probably a lot sooner than they think they will.

Billy Jones: 10:46

You made another point or made me realize. Another point that I wanted to say as well is how product manufacturers treat the independent industry is by individual retailer, instead of looking at the independent landscape and say, hey, we’re in 500, 1,000, 2,000 independent stores and looking at it from that lens of things, instead of each individual store is its own thing, and so now we’re comparing food, drug and mass or target or to one individual store. Well, yeah, of course, but if you look at the whole landscape of the independent channel, that is heavy. That is a lot of money on the table. So sorry, I just want to say that because that’s how it’s being looked at. In regard to how marketing dollars are being allocated, whole Foods does this and Amazon does this and Costco does this, but if you look at the whole independent landscape, the whole thing that you’re talking about, billions of dollars behind the table, a lot of these small stores.

Amanda Ballard: 11:55

They kind of feel like maybe they’ve been burned by some of these larger brands that have gone into FDM and they’re like where’d you go? I don’t see my reps anymore and I feel like I’m kind of just on an island and it sounds like the service that you’re offering is almost a way for these manufacturers to kind of bridge that gap that maybe was damaged a little bit with some of their business decisions. So I’m not to say that going into FDM is necessarily a bad thing, but don’t forget about these brands, these independents that are loyal to you and do good business for you. Maybe it’s not at the same scale as Target, but in their local community of 5,000 people they’re the only place to go and so you don’t want to alienate that community. So I think that’s really neat. What have you seen kind of the response from the independents? that have started to utilize Saviour actually in their stores, kind of how has that helped them mend those bridges that might have been kind of damaged by a lot of these companies that maybe they felt like abandoned them?

Billy Jones: 13:08

I’ll speak frankly. Some of these brands that abandoned the retailers, that bridges burned. From what I know From my conversations with retailers, they’re looking for other product manufacturers to replace those. They’re starting to get put on the bottom of the show. They’re starting to get UPCs. Take on one. It’s slowly shrinking and they’re all talking to each other. That’s the other thing. These independents are all talking to each other and they’re all saying and griping about the same exact thing, same exact brands. Is there a way to save it? I think it’s gonna take time. I do. They need to show the loyalty again, they need to show the promise again and if they don’t, there are some beautiful brands that focus on independent, and I’ll speak of one right now Blue Bonnet. Blue Bonnet does an amazing job focusing on the independent channel and they have never once they play in all the channels right. They do it very well and I’ll use them as this and people should look at them honestly. Other brands should look at them, no matter the size of them, and say hey okay, let’s look at them and see how they’re doing things, and especially new, up and coming brands. I do think that Blue Bonnet is a staple, honestly. So, that being said, in regard to our platform and what we’re seeing, I mean, the retailers love our platform and what we’re able to do. At the end of the day, and that’s biased, right, I mean it’s it’s, but there are some that do want to because of the revenue that some of these brands generate. They wanna know, hey, how can we hang on to this brand? Because it generates a ton of revenue for us, and so with that we’re working our way into some of those bigger brands. There’s a lot of senior levels and a lot of those companies that have to make those decisions, so that takes a little bit of time. But yeah, in regard to that, there are some that there’s no turning back right now. They may in four, five years, but some of them are starting to knock on their door and they’re like no, I remember what you did and we have you know. Now you’re gonna have to fight for your shelf space back. What are you gonna do for me? You better give me an extremely big discount or you better support me in an enormous way, because that’s the only way you’re gonna get your shelf space back. And that’s the things that they’re fighting back. And the product manufacturers are like, wait, what are you guys doing? Like you’re fighting back with us now, like we generate. How much money for you guys when you don’t care. You’re just like it doesn’t matter to us and like you cannot be sold in all these areas and then sold for a lot less and violate your own met policy and doing all these sorts of things, and then say, hey, we’re back. It didn’t work out over there. Sorry, it’s too late. You broke up with me.

Tina Smith: 16:14

It’s over sorry this brings so much to mind for me as you’re talking about these things, but one of the key pieces I’d love to go through is why is it attractive for someone like a blue bonnet to put so much behind this independent retail channel? I’m thinking things like okay, your customers don’t be buying this product, that are being educated in the store by these salespeople aren’t gonna buy it. The Costco’s or the Amazon’s that’s not their channel for their health and wellness products. Or maybe there’s pricing pressure over there. So trying to get into Walmart, the pricing pressure is crazy. But at the independence there’s margin you can get. That you’re probably leaving on the table. Testing different messages or use cases for your products can happen. These independent retailers can turn on a dime. So these are a few thoughts that come to my head about why it would be more attractive to stay in this independent retail lane or to give it a lot of attention. Is there anything I can leave it off of that list or that you wanna highlight?

Billy Jones: 17:22

I think you nailed it. To be honest. Yeah, because it’s grassroots. You’re always at the grassroots, no matter how big you are, because at the end of the day, there’s another generation coming right behind you, and so when that next generation comes and you pulled out of your grassroots effort, how do they now adopt your product? How do they start taking your product when mom and dad are no longer buying it, or your friends or your cousins, or whoever is no longer buying it cause it’s no longer available at that independent store, or you could sure you could buy it online, and that’s another thing too, right? One of the things that we set out to do in particular is when someone walks into a store, for example, they look it up on Amazon to see if it’s cheaper. That’s where our platform in particular comes into play. We want people to be able to. When they look it up and, let’s say, it’s 50 cents less on Amazon, or whatever the case may be, we want somebody to go into that store and when they grab it they walk up, they walk out of the store with that product, versus going into their phone looking for a cheaper price and then ordering it from Amazon. Because for supplements in particular, right Impulse buys or impulse buys people are still gonna buy it for the most part and Amazon should be exactly what it’s intended to be and it’s convenience at the end of the day, it’s for oh. I don’t have time to actually get into the store right now. I gotta order this really fast, and that’s where the whole Omni channel comes into play.

Amanda Ballard: 18:49

It’s of course, you can play on Amazon too.

Billy Jones: 18:52

but don’t just play on Amazon. Don’t just play in food, drug and mass, don’t just play in the independent channel. Either right, like that’s new heavy marketing, well-rounded in the Omni channel, and you are going to crush your expectations. So, you’re gonna crush what your assumptions and projections ultimately are and, quite frankly, the investors, at the end of the day, are going to look at your product and be like how are you doing this? What like oh, wow, okay, oh, you’re focusing on every, oh. You’re doing Omni channel, god. You’re doing GTC, you’re doing everything.

Amanda Ballard: 19:26

And.

Billy Jones: 19:26

I understand the GTC piece too, because of the sheer information that you get on the customer right. So that is a possible channel, but don’t violate your math policy, though, just to do that. That’s the thing that I’m always gonna come into play. So for us, right is being able to now allow that customer to go into the store and leave with that product for the store especially at the Omni channel.

Amanda Ballard: 19:51

So yeah, my question what does this look like, tannably in a retail space, to implement your product, just for people that are having a hard time kind of visualizing it? can you kind of? just explain what this looks like in a store.

Billy Jones: 20:06

Now how it looks in a store is actually we go into the store and we opt for the stores with our shell tags, and so there are these blue tags right here that oops, sorry that we put up. So you’ll see that’s like $3 off, $1 off, $2 off, whatever the case may be and this is actually part of this is free. Our platform is free to every retail, and so instead of having books of coupons on the shelf or paper coupons, whatever the case may be, now a customer can walk in, a loyalty customer in particular, can just pick up the product, go to checkout, enter their phone number, credit card terminal and they’ll see the savings instantly on their receipt and check out. So it’s just streamlining that whole process. And then what we do with the retailers we set up ACH with the retailer so we eliminate the chlorine house completely. Set up ACH with the retailer, so now you’re being reimbursed fast for all the product to be purchased. And then we have a reporting right Because we plug right into the point of sale system where we’re integrated with ECRS in particular, which I know Deplot always uses, and so for us.

Amanda Ballard: 21:23

That’s a big deal for a lot of independent retailers, that point of sale.

Billy Jones: 21:29

Yeah, exactly, they’re an amazing point of sale system. And of course I recommended it because we’re integrated with that. Our platform works very well with their platform. So from there we plug in nicely and we get everything set up on our end and it literally takes us, depending on how many stores your stores you know big, six to seven locations. It would probably take us, maps, 30 minutes to get all the stores configured in. And then we set up the ACH and then a way that store goes to be honest with you. And then what we do is we talk to the product manufacturers. We say here’s a new retailer in this region. When you run in this region, this store will be a part of that campaign. And then we go into the stores. Like I said, we put the shop tags up. And so that way customers get used to the new tags. Right, we may change it at some point, but right now we like being the new tags.

Amanda Ballard: 22:31

If a retailer had an existing loyalty program, would this be something that they could add on top of that? It stacks.

Billy Jones: 22:38

And so it just makes for that end customer right. They’ll get there. However, the rewards work, and whether they’re getting no cash back or no way to purchase, or whenever the case may be. It stacks right on top of that. So it ends up being a marketing tool, an additional marketing tool for a retailer as well to say hey, you also get savings on any blue tag when you sign up for a loyalty program. So that’s another side of it too. Is being able to get more loyalty members on a retailer?

Amanda Ballard: 23:10

Yeah, and I think that that’s something that a lot of these smaller independent retailers struggle with. A lot of them don’t have very large marketing budgets, and so I think something like this can be very advantageous to implement, especially if it’s free, like that sounds like a no brainer for a lot of them to be like hey, we can pass along these savings to you and however you want to spin it into your customers to make it sound appealing to them. But again, going back to, maybe they’re not getting these huge discounts directly from the manufacturer, or maybe their co-op budget is next to nothing, or they don’t do any co-op, which that’s a whole nother thing of leaving money on the table from the retailers perspective. But this is kind of a way to make up for some of those dollars that might be left elsewhere underutilized.

Billy Jones: 24:09

And that’s what we set out to do. The product manufacturer, they pay our. We don’t even charge until the product gets purchased. So we have skin and skin. And so then they’re responsible the product manufacturer responsible for the subsidy amount, and then our fee, which is an extremely low fee, but it’s based on the product being purchased. So, and then, yeah, we just plug again. Right, our platform is free to the retailer. So, it’s an all. It’s supposed to be an all party platform because it’s as we work with other retailers and things that enter. And then we have a phase two and phase three and phase four, which just only makes it even more sticky and makes the retailer like want to use our platform even more. The phase two there will be a paid version of it for the retailer, but now we’re going to get into a better way to market to your own customer. We are willing to estimate.

Tina Smith: 25:05

So, we’ll.

Billy Jones: 25:06

We could dive into that at some point. Don’t give away too much, because it’s still. We still got to get it. We’re still getting all the things that nature, but the target as well.

Tina Smith: 25:17

So yeah, phase one it’s just free.

Billy Jones: 25:20

Just get more savings into the customer’s hand and see how that goes. And it’s going pretty well You’re bringing on. The retailers are now just it’s like okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, pump the brakes for a second. But then product manufacturers are now seeing oh, this makes a lot of sense, this is logical and it’s, but it’s very disruptive at the end of the day. But it’s logical, so that’s we like that company.

Amanda Ballard: 25:50

I think something that I found that is appealing to this whole concept, to me as a retailer, is you, you’re in the industry like you’re, you’re all in. It’s not like you’re just some random software developer that has no experience in the industry, that is like looking to make a quick buck. It’s like this is what you’re passionate about, and so I think that that speaks volumes to both the manufacturers and the retailers. To know it’s like this is for everyone’s mutual benefit, and I love that. I think that if I’m able to pick up on that within just a few minutes of talking to you, I think that the sky’s the limit for you. So best of luck.

Billy Jones: 26:35

Thank you, hey, I’m glad you picked up on it because yeah it’s. I’ve been all in since I got into the industry and honestly, I was like me more people need to experience this. And if I had a choice between a conventional product and it comes down to price a lot of times, right Between natural and conventional at the end of the day and if I had these two side by side? and I saw one at $3.50 and I saw one at $2.50, but then I saw that I could save an additional 50 cents or a dollar on the natural one, and I and it’s coming down to price for me I’m grabbing that natural, and it was more time For me. I’m grabbing the natural and the carcass just because, you know, just being in the industry, right, so it’s just like I’m going to spend a little more for my long-term health. That’s just me, though, right, but there people tend to not shop that way, the vast majority of individuals, and so and there are, and everybody’s on the budget at the moment today. We all know that, and so that’s what we wanted to do Want people to say I’m going to go grab this product because I know it’s better for me I haven’t tried it, and it’s going to make more sense. So how do we now start making people more loyal to the industry of the natural product industry and start picking it up when it isn’t just on sale as well? So that’s what we really want to do, is help people live in the same healthy lifestyle of the other benefits that we can give to the retailer and product industry and then the in-customer too.

Tina Smith: 28:05

You talked about data and I’m so curious about getting some of that data. It sounds like you’re definitely providing it for different manufacturers so that they can understand the buyers, what’s happening in that retail store. Do you also give that to the independent retailers? Tell me more. Tell me. I’m a data nerd and I want to know, like, what can I understand about my customer journey so that I can market more effectively and we can feel more like I know them, just like when they walk into my store. So I want to know how are you helping me do that?

Billy Jones: 28:41

I can’t get too far into it. I want to right now, I really do, but I can’t get too far into it because we are currently developing a tool for the retailer to be able to communicate directly to the market and that’s how we’re doing it. Right, Like, so, it’s how we do it.

Tina Smith: 29:05

can’t get too far into that, but being able to say but it’s around like consumers buying actions, right, I’m guessing that you’re getting some insight there and then you can market appropriately.

Billy Jones: 29:20

Yeah, and that’s the thing being able to have retailers market specifically being able to think I’m a customer and I have someone talking to me directly about what they know. I like Are you kidding me? You have my eyes and ears without questioning. Like wait, you have to know this, you care about me, that’s cool. All right, all right, cool, Like I want to get more of this. I want to hop into this and that’s just me speaking for myself, without it being all creepy and big brothery and things that nature and feeling like, hey, this is like oh man, you know that about me. Like that’s gross. But yeah, it’s more, make it. We want to make it thoughtful. We want to make the customer experience thoughtful and feel good, Is not still all big brothery, or yeah? You know this and that about me. But I do want to talk on one of the questions you’ve had earlier too about that company. If you guys have one moment in regards to Costco, it is a marketing channel Like it is one of the best ways you can get into Costco. Great, do it, because what it does at the end of the day, it helps support your independent customers as well. It helps support everything else, because you may have a ton of skews right, and there’s a lot of products out there that have a ton of skews and you have to do something massive at the end of the day too, and most of the time you aren’t a means there on the floor. You are. You may be in a region, you may be region to region every once in a while. But it’s a great opportunity to get eyes on your product. But what that can actually do and we’ve seen it is when customers now because, they’re not gonna get some products, but it’s a great marketing opportunity. When they go into the stores now and they’re like, oh, I saw that at Costco. Oh, they don’t have an Costco, I’m gonna grab a few. So it is, it’s an opportunity. People should treat it as a treat it as the marketing opportunity that it actually is, because that’s what it is and take advantage of that marketing opportunity. You don’t know how long it’s going to last Jumping all your eggs in that basket and saying, okay, we’re gonna dump this amount of money and then, all of a sudden, you no longer being sold in that Costco and you’ve dumped all that effort there. you still gotta support the other channels. Maybe you have to. You see all the time you’ll see. You’ll go to Costco. You’ll see the K-Stack one month and other than that, the cheez-its and the goldfish and there’s certain things that are always there. But in regards to the natural channel, there’s a couple of products that stay forever in the natural channel as well, but in large part not so much, and they’ll move them out.

Amanda Ballard: 32:02

It’ll be temporary.

Billy Jones: 32:03

Oh yeah, we’ll do this with you for six months, or however long or till we sell it for you, but it’s a great marketing option.

Tina Smith: 32:11

Excellent. I love hearing that For a couple of reasons. First, it’s a multi-pronged approach to, especially when you’re trying to get new products out there but understanding that you’re unlikely to stay. There’s such a small percentage of those types of health and wellness products that end up staying in that Costco market. So I love hearing they say don’t put all your eggs in those baskets. It’s a marketing opportunity to drive to these independent retailers. So it’s product recognition, right Branding.

Billy Jones: 32:42

Yeah, at the end of the day it is, and so someone may get educated at the independent store and they shop at Costco as well, and so then they grab something similar or they don’t at the end of the day, and so you’ve got to keep every single thing. It’s just like us. We’re each vertical right here, right, amanda’s vertical, tina’s vertical, I’m vertical, and that’s exactly how easy we thought of it Independent vertical, costco vertical, dtc vertical, and that’s what rounds out here on the channel there is, the industry is enormous. I mean it’s enormous. You’re talking about close to $300 billion in revenue Just domestically in here. I mean it’s incredible, the opportunity, and you who just start signing things out and you just live in that silo you’re gonna be in for an interesting store at some point.

Amanda Ballard: 33:38

All right, so let’s do some rapid fire. Who do you kind of keep up with in the industry to kind of stay on top of your game with latest trends and kind of what’s going on in the industry?

Billy Jones: 33:53

I’m on LinkedIn a lot. I’m not on any other social media. The founder of IQ Bar, also the founder of I1, those guys say some really interesting stuff and so yeah, in regards to the pulse, a lot of church shows and, just yeah, a lot of communication with retailers and product manufacturers. That’s how I really stay in.

Tina Smith: 34:20

How are you communicating to the retailers and the manufacturers? Is it a one to one kind of situation? Are you finding some gathering spots for them?

Billy Jones: 34:32

It’s one on one. At the end of the day, we learn a ton just by the initial conversation with a retailer to sales conversation to start onboarding a retailer or to start onboarding a product manufacturer. That’s where we get a ton of insights. From that We’ll have a lot of insights that we obviously we’re quiet on most of them because it’s just we’re glue at the end of the day and it’s like keep on making us better. At the end of the day, you gotta listen to your customers.

Amanda Ballard: 35:11

Yeah, so what do you think that most people in the natural products industry would like to change about marketing?

Billy Jones: 35:20

Depends on if you’re a retailer or a product manufacturer. Let’s do both. I’ll speak for the independent channel. Right now. They wanna be able to bring more money right Like how can we like from product manufacturers? At the end of the day? And that’s what we really want it set up to do. Is we wanna get power back to the independent retailer and sell? There’s a channel here where independent retailers can generate revenue right from the product manufacturers honestly, and being able to do that, being able to tap that, is going to be extremely valuable for the for the existence of industry as well. To be quite honest with you, it’s not just some of the products and so being able to generate revenue, marketing dollars or where it’s like hey, here’s how many loyalty numbers we got. This many loyalty numbers. And so we can reach 18, 20,000, 30,000, 50,000, 100,000 people. There’s one retailer that we have. They have 350,000 loyalty numbers. It’s incredible, right. And so in 110,000 are active or opted in right, I mean to email. So there’s opportunity, right, everywhere, to generate revenue for the retailers, just being able to do we have the right people in place. And is that the next thing? Do we have to outsource? Is that the third? And how much does that? How much does it cost us? So, for the product manufacturer, you need to stop marketing. You need to stop delegating how you delegate your marketing dollars. Stop going store by store, stop siloing, and you will see your gross revenue and your bottom line increase, because what it really comes down to, too right, is our platform. Is our platform in particular, how do we lower the customer acquisition costs for the retailer and the product manufacturer? Our platform has the ability to keep, which right now almost cannot happen with a paper coupon. Keep a product manufacturer in the block. That’s what our platform can ultimately do For a individual purchased cliff buck at $1.69. So that’s and that’s what a product manufacturer ultimately wants to see. Can you do that for me? Can you convert a new customer and lower my customer acquisition cost. Can you do that? And if you can, great, have my ear Now show me. And so that’s where we’re at right now. And so yeah, it’s those two things, I think we can help in both those, in both those remits as well. So that’s what we’re going to do.

Amanda Ballard: 38:03

Very interesting answers. I love it. What do you think is the biggest challenge that this industry is going to be in the next three or five years?

Billy Jones: 38:15

Survival. It is really the bottom line is where it really comes down to. And it comes down to are the product manufacturers actually going to wake up and see, as you get bigger that you now are? We can look at this historically, by the way. We can look at these brands that got acquired by big companies and and not only did they turn their back on the independence, but when they chased the dollar, it didn’t work and some of these brands had to box. The sellers of these companies had to buy their brand back. That’s mind-blowing. That’s how big of a fail these big conglomerate companies. When they got into the market, they had to sell it back, probably at a discount to the original owner. Talk about a fail. Talk about not for the owners. The owners walked away, making their money the founders and then they bought it back, and probably a pretty decent discount, because the conglomerate did not know what to do with it and they thought it was just going to work, because they thought the shopper was just going to buy it because, hey, we now have control of this. That part is mind-blowing too. This is historical. We’ve seen it. We’ve seen this play out. We see what’s happening. Don’t make the same mistake If you keep chasing the dollar, the survival of the independence is at stake. Stop chasing the dollar. Understand that you will make more money.

Tina Smith: 39:47

Far more money.

Billy Jones: 39:48

That’s what this is about for you.

Tina Smith: 39:50

And it’s not actually about it because, it is.

Billy Jones: 39:52

We raise money, you have different stakeholders at play. You have different voices, your board might be weighted in a direction that isn’t favorable and you could be housed as a CEO. There’s a lot of things that founders ultimately do to raise money to get to the next step. That ultimately puts them in a compromised situation, and for one, you need to do a better job with your board. So I’ll say that when you’re raising money and make sure that it’s weighted in your favor to maintain your vision and your direction, so I will say that. And then the next thing I’ll say is yeah, when you’re chasing the dollar, just know that the heavy industry, the gotcha where you’re at, at the end of the day, you’re going to lose a ton of money at some point.

Tina Smith: 40:38

You’re going to lose Once you turn your back on them.

Billy Jones: 40:40

It’s going to be hard to get back.

Amanda Ballard: 40:44

Yeah, because, like you said earlier, they talk.

Billy Jones: 40:46

Yeah, they all talk, they all talk and they all go to the same thing Go to Soho, they go to Maho, they go to positively natural trade show, they go to the Infra trade show, they all talk to each other, and there’s other cohorts that are being developed right now for independence to go communicate even more with each other. But we all should be working together right now. It doesn’t matter who you are, whether you’re an Infra, whether you’re an NCG, whether you’re an ECRS, whether you are a SPIN, whether you’re. The same, naturally, is finding people that you can, like-minded individuals, roles that are going after the same goal. Don’t do them as a competitor, though you may be able to in some instances, but being able to now, instead of working independently, start working closer together, not only will you save the independent industry, the independent industry will hit a gas pedal and people will start wanting to jump from the industry. They really will. And so bringing all those key pieces, players in the industry right now that have their, you know, that do their own thing very, very well, bringing all those you know kind of together to to tighten it up a little bit right, and doing it at the sake of what is what could be less.

Amanda Ballard: 42:07

What do you think is some low hanging fruit that natural products businesses can kind of grab a hold of to get some quick wins in their businesses today?

Billy Jones: 42:18

The independent channel. I mean, honestly, I have this conversation a lot with my team as well and I was like you know, what’s crazy is the independent channel is the low hanging fruit and it’s it’s like one of the biggest money generators, if you like. If you look at the whole landscape, it’s one of the biggest generators. I’m like I and I want to go play with them because at the end of the day, the owners of these stores are the owners and the founders, or it’s being handed down to a second or third generation and I want to see that survive, like. So so for me, right, you’re, you’re missing out on the low hanging fruit, which is the independent channel, honestly, and so that’s the lawyer I mean, I talk about it all the time. So I’m glad you said that what’s the low hanging fruit is really basic, it really is. It’s an independent channel and it’s not loading. Everybody thinks it is, but it’s not. And it’s like, well, if you go one store by one store by one store, sure, if you look at the whole landscape, oh smoke, that is not loading fruit at all. How do you think everybody got to, got to where they’re at or was able to sell to a bigger conglomerate?

Amanda Ballard: 43:35

Yeah, they’re the boots on the ground doing, doing all the selling for you.

Billy Jones: 43:41

But they do it is. It is the easiest marketing possible. It truly is getting your product on independent shows. And then just give them some support. Are you kidding me? You will. You will see a very, very nice business.

Amanda Ballard: 43:58

So if people want to get in touch with you, billy, you know, pick your brain or, you know, learn more about your products how can they get in touch with you?

Billy Jones: 44:06

Yeah, email the dot Jones at save naturallycom. Website is save naturallycom. That, yeah, that’s my direct way to get in touch with you.

Tina Smith: 44:21

And we’ll have more for all of that in the show.

Amanda Ballard: 44:25

Yeah well, thank you so much for your time, Billy. Just pleasure speaking with you. I think our audience is really going to enjoy this, and best of luck to you as you continue to grow your business.

Billy Jones: 44:36

Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

Amanda Ballard: 44:39

Thank you. Thanks so much for listening to the natural products marketer podcast. We hope you found this episode to be super helpful. Make sure you check out the show notes for any of those valuable resources that we mentioned on today’s episode.

Tina Smith: 44:51

And, before you go, we would love for you to give us a review. Follow, like and subscribe on Apple podcast, spotify, youtube or wherever you’re listening today, and make sure you join us for our next episode, where we give you more marketing tips so that you can reach more people and change more lives.