Rid here- Again, I apologize for not posting more often. Michael A. and I have been super busy moving this soon to be famous food company forward. It's a LOT of friggin work, thats for sure. We've been hustling our simmer sauces like mad. Demos in stores. Calling on reps and distributors. Even talking to exporters. Gee, Lizbeth Lane in Japan.
Some things however haven't changed. For one, everyone is soooooooo slooooooww to get back to us. We get requests for samples and our super slick sales kits all the time from stores, reps and distibutors. They all seem so excited when they ask us for our samples. So we bust our butts to ship them the goods.....then nothing. No response. No followup. Nothing. We call. They aren't in. We email. No reply.
If you're going into this business, be prepared for little if any response from all these folks who seem so interested in you. They will make you crazy. Sometimes I think they just want free food...
But once in a blue moon, we get through to them and ask if they've tried our sauces. "No, not yet" they reply. Oh right, it's only been 6 friggin weeks since we've sent the samples!
The good news however, is that a lot of good stores are ordering. We also have reps who are covering territories in MN, ND, MI, WI and others who are coming on board soon. We are also working with online wholesale portals, where stores can order through them--we pay a commission to the portal for sales.
We also just lined up our first distributor who will be covering PA, NJ, DE and MD. We want to establish distribution in order to expand our brand into larger stores while selling to the smaller stores as well. Our pricing is geared to compliment both markets.
Bottom line is this.... patience is a real virtue in the food biz. I have always dealt with deadlines in my advertising career-- gotta have it done by X date-- so this slow pace is killing me! When you combine the slow pace with the "Whack-a-mole" type of trying to find distributors-- there's one! Nope, he's gone--look another--where'd he go?--it can be torture....and costly. You oughta see our UPS bill!! Now I understand why it takes so long to turn a profit in this business-- you spend all your friggin money on shipping samples! Maybe we should charge them for the samples. Naaaahh.
(Gee, wonder how they like our sauces?--we may NEVER know.)
