Episode Description
Dan Lohman spent more than a decade at Kimberly-Clark and Unilever as a category and space management analyst, deciding which products earned space on grocery shelves and why. In one recent project, he rebuilt a retailer's category around a single shopper and grew it 9% while every other retailer was flat or declining. Today he runs Retail Solved and hosts the Bulletproof Your CPG Brand podcast, helping smaller brands use the same playbook the big brands do.
His core message for founders is simple. Getting a retailer to say yes is the easy part. Staying on the shelf is where brands win or lose. That means being in stores where your shopper actually shops, knowing the full cost of free fill, slotting, freight and promotions before you sign, and building distribution that is productive rather than just present. A brand with 15 SKUs can lose facings fast if the flavors that drive velocity aren't on every shelf.
Dan also opens up about the hardest lesson of his career: investing his savings and his consulting business into a CPG company, then watching his stake drop from 47% to under 2% in a matter of days. In this episode, he and Nate get into category management, the real cost of a retail placement, why the shelf is rented space, and how to raise prices without losing your shopper.
Key Takeaways
- Getting on the shelf is the easy part. The real work starts after the buyer says yes: keeping product in stock, getting the price and promotions right, and making sure shoppers can find you. Being on the shelf one day doesn't mean you were there the other six.
- The right door beats more doors. One California brand let a distributor place it in a handful of stores in Florida, Louisiana and Indiana. Thousands of miles away, it couldn't support any of them. Start where your shopper shops and where you can actually service the account.
- Know your full trade spend, not just the promotion. Dan defines trade spend as everything it costs to get your product into a shopper's hands: free fill, slotting, freight, brokers, displays and promotions. Two free cases at $20 each across 1,300 stores adds up fast. Work out your real number before you sign.
- Build productive distribution, not just distribution. A bar brand with 15 SKUs kept losing facings because retailers chased novelty flavors over the core sellers. Dan made the five main flavors non-negotiable in every store, with unique flavors added on top. That protected their shelf space and spread their trade dollars further.
- The shelf is rented space. A retailer can replace you any time a bigger brand pays for your spot. Diversify your channels, and use your own customers as an R&D team. Let them vote on new products so you can pre-sell before you ever pitch a retailer.
- Protect yourself before you raise money. Dan's co-founder took an investor deal he opposed, and within a week his ownership fell from 47% to 8%, then under 2%. His lesson: get strong decision rights written into your agreements, because a good lawyer's job is to find the loophole in someone else's contract.
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