Suzi Wynne, Wynne Business: Delivering the perfect retail pitch

Suzi Wynne from Wynne Business explains the importance of preparing the perfect pitch for scaleup businesses looking to impress buyers and gain a route into retail.

Pitching to buyers is the ‘Dragon’s Den’ element of working with retailers. But with the right preparation and approach it really doesn’t need to be daunting or too challenging.

At Wynne Business we work with business owners to launch and develop their food and drink products into the retail market. For most of our clients we approach buyers on their behalf, but for other clients we support them to make their own pitch.

It’s one of the topics that I will be covering during Two Zero’s new Route Into Retail programme, which is designed to help Lancashire’s thriving food and drink businesses to launch onto supermarket shelves.

The Perfect Pitch session provides delegates with practical tips and advice for approaching and pitching to buyers.

Preparing the perfect pitch includes how to present your brand and products in the best possible way to secure meetings, engage with buyers and the how deliver that perfect pitch.

It includes our five tips for preparing for the pitch meeting:

• USP’s – outline the key selling points you need to communicate.
• Know your numbers – and make sure you include all the extra costs of working with retailers.
• Category research – looking at competitors, market data, market trends etc
• Retailer strategies – find out how are they positioned to work with your brand.
• Retailer product range – how would your product fit within your target retailer’s category.

Pitching successfully is then all in the delivery. This includes learning about:

• Building a story
• Trade presenters
• Virtual pitching

The Route Into Retail workshop also covers techniques for researching a market and marketing your product. It also includes learning more about working with retailers. This is covered in my next blog post - Working with retailers: Scaling up and account managing a retailer listing after you have won it.