Brokaw-ing

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=110 BGCOLOR="#666699" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="04900840erlcjm.png"> <div> <B> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="600" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" ALIGN="LEFT" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 103 ><NOBR><div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Hoytnet Home"><U><B><IMG SRC="063775a0.jpg" border=0 width="119" height="90" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></U></A></div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=TOP><NOBR><div> <B>Hoyt & Company</B></div> <div> <A HREF="services.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="What We Do"><U>What We Do</U></A> | <A HREF="who.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Who We Are"><U>Who We Are</U></A> | <A HREF="articles.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="How We Think"><U>How We Think</U></A> |<A HREF="contact.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Contact Us"><U> Contact Us</U></A></div> </NOBR></tD> </tR> </TABLE></B></div> <bR> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=165 BGCOLOR="#CCCCFF" TEXT="#080000" background="04311c00egdysm.png"> <div> <A HREF="articles69.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Chris Hoyt Articles"><U><B>Back to:  Articles</B></U></A></div> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=370 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <I><B>www.reveries.com - 12/02</B></I></div> <div> <B>Brokaw-ing your Way into the C-Suite</B></div> <bR> <div> BY<B>: Chris Hoyt</B></div> <bR> <div> When Gorbachev became Premiere of the U.S.S.R. in 1985, the only U.S. reporter to whom he granted an interview was Tom Brokaw - much to the intense frustration of NBC's competitors.  Years later, when David Frost asked Gorbachev “Why Brokaw?,” Gorbachev answered:  “Because there were 35 pink slips on my desk saying that Brokaw wanted to see me and that was 10 times the number of calls I got from his competitors.”</div> <bR> <div> Accessing the top executives of any organization has never been easy.  All CEO's have a short list and even the people on this list have sometimes got to wait.  CEO's and other top executives count their time in seconds:  accessing Jack Welch in the office was all but impossible except for his direct reports.  The best way for an outsider to get to Welch was to learn how to play golf - and play it better than Welch could.</div> <bR> <div> Top execs of U.S. mass volume retailers are no different from Gorbachev and Welch in safeguarding their time and being judicious about whom they see - a situation that consolidation has only exacerbated.  Harried and overscheduled before, one can only imagine the plight of a Larry Johnston trying to pull Albertson's/American Stores together or a Joseph Pichler and his team trying to make sense of Kroger's hydra-headed loosely knit menagerie.</div> <bR> <div> Now let us assume that you are one of the 1500 or so suppliers to the U.S. CPG industry and that one of your most important objectives in 2003 is to secure an audience with the top decision makers in <I>each</I> of the accounts that comprise 80% of your business.  What you want is an opportunity to express your point of view openly and freely and/or provide insights that will help build top-of-mind awareness of you as a supplier worth listening to.  Consider the odds of achieving this:</div> <bR> <div> 1500 suppliers, each determined to get a meeting</div> <bR> <div> For most all suppliers, the targets are identical - 5 Food, 5 Drug, 3 Mass, 3 Club, 7 C&P and 5 Dollar Stores.</div> <bR> <div> The retailer top execs who run these companies have already committed all available “supplier days” to meetings with “short list” suppliers - e.g., P&G, Unilever, Nestle, Kraft, Conagra, General Mills, Coke, Pepsi and Kimberly, etc., etc. - all those most important to their business and who are perceived to have the resources to bring new cross-category ideas to the table</div> <bR> <div> If you are not one of these suppliers -- not only will it be difficult to schedule a meeting with your accounts' top execs but you will have to do it on a day when all of the execs pertinent to your business are in town.</div> <bR> <div> Daunting?  You bet.  Yet getting known by the top execs of your top retailers has got to be a top priority for any company doing business in the current CPG environment.  Because so few accounts now control so much of the typical CPG supplier's business, to continue to be dependent on the whims of a sometimes paranoid and always rule-bound buyer is equivalent to playing Russian Roulette.  </div> <bR> <div> In most of today's top retailers, the protocol for securing a meeting with their top execs is not to make 35 phone calls but to submit an agenda.  It is precisely in this step that most all non-short list suppliers immediately strike out.  Typically, here's the scenario.</div> <bR> <div> You secure your buyer's agreement to request a meeting with his/her company's top execs.</div> <bR> <div> Thrilled at getting over this hurdle, you now catalog all of the pent-up subjects/points of difference/growth opportunities that you have been waiting to discuss during the previous years of repressed silence.</div> <bR> <div> Alternately, you do a big category analysis in which you factually and unarguably demonstrate that if the account accepts your recommendations, the category will explode.</div> <bR> <div> Being cognizant of the time, you narrow down the list to the top 3 most important subjects, clear it with your buyer and send it.</div> <bR> <div> The almost inevitable result of this approach is that in a month or so, you get a brief note rejecting your request without explanation.</div> <bR> <div> Why?  Because the people with whom you want to meet regard your agenda as fundamentally <I>parochial</I>.  This is not to say that they are not interested in your subject matter - only that because of time pressures, they simply cannot afford to agree to meetings with every supplier who wants to advance a company-specific point of view or present a new or different category analysis.  Besides, retailer top execs think they already get most of these insights from their short list of preferred suppliers.</div> <bR> <div> So how does one develop an agenda or proposal that will enable one to “Brokaw” one's way into an executive meeting?</div> <bR> <div> Based on having worked with both large and small companies on projects having precisely this objective since 1997, we have yet to meet a major retailer who will turn down a meeting with a supplier who takes the time to research and think through how a particular retailer might address any subject of global importance to his company in total.  Examples of subject matter in this category that have proven to be successful door-openers:</div> <bR> <div> Competitive channel encroachment or competitive encroachment within channels</div> <div>  </div> <div> Wal-Mart</div> <bR> <div> How to differentiate in meaningful ways on a non-price basis</div> <bR> <div> Overall pricing and promotion strategies and tactics - how to make better use of supplier trade promotion investment</div> <bR> <div> Labor, energy costs and local economic conditions</div> <bR> <div> Current consumer and population trends - overall, not category-specific - and provided these are coupled with insights upon which the retailer can act</div> <bR> <div> Food Service/Eat-away-from-home competition</div> <bR> <div> It is within the <I>framework</I> of these types of subjects that suppliers are best able to work-in their points about the own objectives or categories.  Retailer top execs invariably get the point.  The <I>quid pro quo</I> goes something like this:  “We recognize that you (unselfishly) invested the time and trouble to help us get a better understanding of this particular aspect of our business, so where is the pea under your mattress that we might be able to help you with?”</div> <bR> <div> While this might seem counter-intuitive, think for a moment:  Doesn't an agenda that puts <I>your</I> resources and brain power behind <I>their</I> issues rather than <I>your</I> issues have a significantly better chance of getting you in the door to achieve <I>your</I> objectives and stand out as a supplier that can make a difference?</div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>