Why Foodservice Buyers Don’t Care About Your Product

Nick: 00:00:02

There are a million ways to make money in the food service industry. You just have to find one. On the Titans of Food Service podcast.

I interview real life movers and shakers in the food game who cut through all the noise to get to the top. My name is Nick Portillo and welcome to the Titans of Food Service podcast. Let's jump right into it. The harsh truth about food service.

Buyers don't care about your product. Sorry. They care about one thing. Will it make them money?

Today I'm going to break down why passion just isn't enough and what really drives food service sales. Welcome back to the Titans of Food Service podcast. My name is Nick Portillo. Thank you again for joining me. I'm your host.

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Sadly, I've watched countless passionate sales professionals in the food food service industry pitch their products with excitement and love for their products, only to get a polite nod from a buyer or a decision maker, but no orders. Why? Because they're selling the wrong thing. And we're going to talk about that here today. In today's episode.

I'm going to talk about why food service buyers, they don't care about your product. I'm sorry. But let's talk about what they actually care about.

In working with a lot of food service manufacturers, there's different things that I hear kind of as trends that they want me as their broker to talk about. You know, things about when the company was founded. You know, a little about the story of the company. They talk about the quality of the products.

They've got a passion for it. You know, they're getting all excited talking about it. You know, we are a B certified corporation. We are SQF certified.

We've got all of these different great, amazing things. We only use the highest quality ingredients.

If you look at our ingredient deck, it's cleaner than our competitors, whatever it may be we have no sugar added. It's a stevia product. I. I've heard it all. It's the best tasting product. Oh, I love this one. We never lose a cutting, ever. We never lose a cutting.

We always win. Yet when my team goes out there, every time I hear that, and our team goes out there and show the product, we lose cuttings or.

It's not that we're preparing it any worse or any different than how we were trained to prepare it. It's just there's taste preferences. We're humans, we're all different.

Some people want something a little spicier, some people want things a little more mild. It just depends. Some people want sweet, some people want savory. To each their own. You know, it's. It's not for me to decide.

It's not for you to decide as the listener. It's for the decision maker at the customer that you're trying to sell. It's for them decide. It's their decision.

So those are some of the things that I hear all the time from the manufacturer. And they are. Let me state this, okay, Because I don't want to get it confused. Those are important.

You have to have passion, you have to have love for your product.

The company culture and the story, all of that, the history, you know, the having a cleaner ingredient deck, having the SQS certified, being a B certified corporation, all of these types of things do matter and they add up in the overall equation. But I think sometimes I see food service sellers or food service sales professionals, they get really caught up in these types of details.

And it's not necessarily a benefit to a buyer or to an owner of a restaurant, or to a food and beverage director, or to a chef. Now, again, they do mean something. They do add up, they do matter. But it's not the end all, be all.

And this is why a lot of times we can get stuck talking about these kind of the features of your products or the features of your company, what makes you special. But when you get, you know how many times when you're in a sales presentation, you're like, wow, this person.

Like, they're engaged, they're gonna buy, they're nodding like, yes, this sounds great. All of these types of things, yet it doesn't produce an order. I mean, there's so much that can be lost in a sales presentation.

There is in food service. I mean, we're in an industry. You hear there's a common adage, you have to get food into their mouth, you have to get it into their mouth.

You have to figure out logistics, you have to figure out pricing, all of these types of things. There's many different obstacles to overcome, but too many times we're kind of stuck on first base. Build that enthusiasm, that excitement.

They're nodding, you're nodding, you think you've got the order in the bag and then it all falls through because maybe you weren't talking about the right things. And you know what? Passion, it's great, we all feel good about it, but it doesn't pay the bills.

So let's talk about the three key factors that do pay the bills.

So these are the kind of, the three main things that I would really focus on when talking to a decision maker, when talking to a buyer, again, wide range of things you can talk about. Hone in and be an expert on these three topics. Topic number one is profit. Sell profit.

What you are offering, what your company is offering, whether it's a sauce or maybe it's a, some sort of seafood or maybe it's a beautiful steak or maybe it's a grab and go item or whatever it may be. You're selling a money making machine. That's right. You're selling a money making machine.

And the decision maker has to know that they're going to put it in their mouth. We know you're not going to lose the cutting. They're going to love it. It's going to go great. You'll figure out logistics, all will be fine.

You've got all the rights, certifications and backups and everything. You've got the best production team. Your, your fill rates are 99% plus. They are above industry average. You got it all.

But we're going to start with selling profit.

I've seen some sellers when they're selling profit is they might have a sheet that say, hey, maybe it's, maybe it's a, I don't know if you ever heard of a can cutting. Let's say you're selling peppers out of a can and there's some sort of liquid in there, maybe it's water or whatever it may be.

And we're gonna do a yield test. Okay? So we're gonna drain out the water.

I'm gonna show you the quality of my product by doing a yield test and by using my product, maybe my competition. You're draining a lot of water. It makes the product really dry.

And you know what, every time when you're pouring water down the drain, those are dollars that the operator is losing. But my product, yes, the case is more expensive. I'm not denying that. I'm selling you, Mrs. Operator, I'm selling you a Rolls Royce here.

But let me show you how you can make more profit and I can make more profit.

And this is just an example is let's do a drain weight and you'll see that my weight is actually heavier or it's a greater, is a greater volume than what you're currently buying. And so that, that takes out maybe case costs. I mean you're going to pay more.

You're going to pay the Rolls Royce, Rolls Royce price for me because I'm, I'm a premium product and you have to understand that. But if you do a drain weight test now, we're looking at profitability. My product is also, it's better tasting, it's a better quality.

Maybe the ingredients, maybe it's a, maybe it's a tuna in a can or maybe whatever it is, it's less ingredients and sauces that you have to incorporate into your overall recipe. Okay, again, starting to think profit. Start to think profit also too.

Your customers, when they have a better eating experience, they want to come back for more. If you continue using ingredients that are not, that are not of quality or what the, what their end user or consumer is not looking for.

Maybe in food service people don't always complain on Yelp. They complain by never coming back and tell her, telling their friends and family, don't ever go there. So we're selling profit.

Okay, I'm going to show you, I'm going to demonstrate to you how you're going to make more money using my pro, my product. It doesn't have to be a yield analysis. It could be whatever it is.

But be ready to talk about the, how someone can make money using their product using your product. Maybe it's a, it's a novel idea that's that they've never seen before. Or maybe, maybe you have a really strong brand.

There's some strong brands out there. You know, you think of like Tillamook, the cheese company or Impossible, the plant based burger company.

You put impossible on a menu versus just saying plant based burger. There's a huge difference. If you put impossible on there, there's a higher perceived value towards the operator.

And you need to educate the operator that hey, you need to put my brand name on the menu or some other feature of my company because then you can charge more. Again, you're selling at the, at the end of the day you're selling a plant based burger.

But by selling an impossible burger, now you can make more money. So that's kind of that, that, that's point number one, sell profit. Number two is product functionality. How it's going to work in their kitchen.

Sometimes kitchens, they're low on freezer space or cooler space. But my product is ambient, it doesn't need to go in there. Boom, there you go. A nice feature of the, of the product.

Other product functionality is maybe it is, maybe it's a loaf of cheese and it's already pre sliced. So you're saving labor there.

So you're starting to, you're pitching different ideas to the decision maker that can cut down on time, that it's better, have better ease of use or whatever it may be.

Even things like storing the product in the back of the house or maybe has to sit on a line, maybe it's like a buffet and the product has to sit there for longer periods of time.

So maybe your product has a certain special ingredient in there that has better hold over two hours sitting in a, in a, in a chafing dish or whatever it may be, selling those types of things, you know, getting the operator to wrap their mind around why your product is superior to what else is out there on the market or what they're currently using right now. And then the third thing would be availability.

Too many times I've seen people, maybe they hit on the profit, maybe they hit on the product functionality and the operator is like, yes, I love it, I want to move forward with it, but there's no way to buy it. Your minimums are too high. Or the freight, maybe you're shipping from the west coast to the east coast or vice versa.

It's not stocked in distribution. You know, it's not at your local Cisco or US Foods or PFG or whatever the distributor may be.

So you have to focus on those things, getting logistics and available availability in place. Crucially important on selling your products, if you don't have those things, you need to get them.

I always like to give the example, like when you watch shark tanks sometimes there are certain industries that the sharks know that hey, if you don't have distribution, you got a long road to go. And that plays in as a factor as if they want to invest in that company or not do this. Does this brand have distribution? Food service is the same.

Now distribution just one part.

But you looking at, you know, your fob cost, your freight on board cost, maybe your minimum order quantities is the product warehouse here in the US I mean sometimes I've seen brands like, hey, I make this Great product out of, let's say, France. But I have to take it has to go on a ship and come all the way over here.

I'm not, I don't know anything about shipping, you know, driving a ship or cargo, Cargo ship. Like how long does that take? What's the cost on that? Where is it going to end up? Is the product all going to come in good?

All of these types of things you have to think about when you're talking to your potential customer. So answer some of these questions in your pitch. Will this product make my customer money? Not just top line revenue, I'm talking about profit.

And profit is revenue minus your expenses in the most simple basic form.

So if I take how much I make in a day on this one item and I minus out the labor and the ingredients and all the other little costs that go into it, do I have, what do I have left over and how can I make what's left over as big and chunky and juicy as possible? Next thing to think about is why should they choose you over others? You know, asking those types of questions around product functionality, right?

If I'm going to buy your product, why should I be buying your product? You know, how is it going to make my life easier? Or how is it going to make my team lives easier?

Or how can it, whatever it may be, product functionality, right? You're starting to think of those types of things. And ask about what distributors do you buy from.

Let's figure that out first when you're in the presentation, okay? You buy from Cisco. Great. Who's your Cisco rep? Get their first name, get their last name, get their phone number, get their email.

Because when you're done with your call with that operator, you need to link up with them, say, hey, I got a live one here, I got a warm lead, I'm ready to close in business. Let's go. You need to get them involved. Asking those types of questions are super, super important. So kind of a recap.

The buyers, they don't need another great product. They're there, they're hired on to work at this potential customer because they're really good at what they do. All of their products are fantastic.

They don't need another great product. They need a product that makes them money. But you needed to show them and display exactly how to do that.

And next time before you go in to make a presentation, have that passion, have that, that bravado, bring that energy. But don't ask yourself, is that, you know, did I bring it enough to be able to sell it. You should be asking, am I selling a business result?

Am I selling something that can lead to a benefit or to a profitable outcome for my customers? So again, if you enjoy the podcast, if you leave me a five star review, that would be fantastic. And thank you for listening again.

I'll see you again next week.