Episode 38: Tom Malengo • Brandjectory

The Month End provides emerging inventory-based brands real life knowledge in the accounting, finance, and operational world. Our guests are not only similar brand founders and owners, but key stakeholders and contributors to the industry. Each episode provides a glimpse into the vast experience and insight from its guest’s unique backgrounds in a casual, conversational tone.

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In episode thirty-eight, Accountfully's CEO and Partner, Brad Ebenhoeh, talks with Tom Malengo of  Brandjectory .  He shares common themes he sees as a CPG brand investor and mentor, and shares ways to avoid mistakes and offers tools to use for business success.  If you are curious to discover some of the many opportunities available to support your business, this episode is for you!

For more small business and CPG- focused resources, visit Accountfully's resources page, where you will find helpful articles, guides, eBooks and more.
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Transcript

Brad Ebenhoeh: 0:01

Welcome to The Month End CPG community chat, The Month End will provide emerging CPG brands real life knowledge into the accounting, finance and operational world. Our guests will be key stakeholders from those same brands as well as other key contributors in the industry. Welcome to Episode 38 of The Month End podcast today we have Tom Lango from brand Jack Dre. How're you doing today, Tom?

Tom Malengo: 0:23

Good, Brad. Thanks for having me here. Happy to happy to chat with everyone.

Brad Ebenhoeh: 0:26

Yeah, yeah, looking forward to learning more about your background and what that Brandjectory does, but also kind of discuss a lot of the experience and knowledge and foresights that you have within the CPG space for what over three, four decades here? So is that right?

Tom Malengo: 0:42

10, where we've been working in it fully and another 20 Plus, where we were very much advocates of this industry and getting to know it and learn it and be part of it.

Brad Ebenhoeh: 0:52

Awesome. Well, we'll chat about how things have changed the last several decades. But let's get started. Just go ahead. Give us your background and kind of like, you know, walk us through those kind of last several decades and kind of what what you do within the space as well as then, once you talk about that, let's talk about Brandjectory.

Tom Malengo: 1:07

Okay. Well, story, my story is very simple. I had a corporate career and banking for 30 years at a national bank. 20 of that at the C-level, I had a chance to take a buyout. My wife Susan, Bryenton said, "No more winters in Cleveland", and we moved to Scottsdale. But as we were discussing before, Brad, Susan and I were lifelong foodies. We were the type in late 80's, early 90s', were running around looking to try to figure out how to eat healthy, we were kind of doing that, hey, we're going to eat for the, for the for the, for the health of our whole full life, you know, and watch ourselves. And we kind of grew up with the industry, even though we had other careers. We kind of grew up with the industry. So we those were those early advocates of brands like Pamela's, and Barbara's and Amy's and, and Annie's, you have to be older than yourself to know that to know those, you know, but this was a time when Pirate's Booty was considered better for you. Okay, you know, because there wasn't anything like that on the market. So we, you know, we did road trips, places. And if we saw Whole Foods, because we didn't have one in Cleveland, you know, we would stop and load up the car and buy stuff. So when we had that chance for a second career, we wanted to work with young brands. And so we thought we could take our business skills and our knowledge of the industry. And we were the type that were going to trade shows in the industry. Before we were part of the industry, we're going for fun to learn products, because we just so we knew people. So we decided to invest, advise and consult with young brands. And we did that for a number of years. And then we continue to want to bring more of what emerging brands needed. In terms of the knowledge of the CPG industry. So many brands get into CPG, so many founders getting CPG. And they're not they're not CPG experts, they're they're really coming out from other industries, whether it's their first, it's their first take it being an entrepreneur, and CPG is a little bit different. Investors look at things different, there's a different way of dealing with folks. And we wanted to bring some of that to as many people as possible. And with some partners, we formed Brandjectory, which is basically an education and engagement platform for brands in CPG. That's in the whole foods you can be on in Brandjectory on Brandjectory for brands under 10 million in sales. So we want to be that seed to series A sort of lifetime accelerator for a brand so where you might get 13 weeks in an incubator and accelerator if you get accepted of intense mentoring and, and and contacts and connections. We want to be there for the life of a brand. And that's why we offer Brandjectory is sort of the accelerator is going to help you throughout those growth stages. meet the right people talk to the right people get to know the right people, and maybe really sort of speed up your overall growth by learning the CPG industry making more contacts in the CPG industry and hopefully avoiding some of the down the down the downturns that you might run into by not knowing who to turn to and who to ask the question of

Brad Ebenhoeh: 4:06

love it. Great background there. That's really going to set the stage for this conversation today. So initially, we're talking like zero to $10 million companies, you know, as you're mentioning here, how do you from your kind of experience, like how do you typically segment that zero to 10? Right? Because there's different phases with in that, like, do you guys segment that or? Or how would you do that? It's like zero to one one to five, five to 10? Or like, is there a kind of a template that you guys use?

Tom Malengo: 4:34

Not really a template, but you know, we do want to make sure that when we're trying to help people connect or when we're counseling them or working with them? Yeah, there's a difference when you're talking to a brand under a million in sales. Okay, there's a difference in what angel investors are gonna look at as opposed to a growth investor. If you're at 3 million, you know, two to 4 million in sales, you're gonna get a growth investor who's gonna want a different is going to take a different perspective on your brand and certain When you get into that six, seven $8 million range, and you're starting to say, hey, maybe it is time for a series a or a real priced offering, you know, then you're really saying it's more about just the product, it's more about how you get on and off the shelf. It's more than just how you're managing your cost, it starts becoming, what's your business structured? Like? Do you have the right people in place? Do you have the right tasks and priorities lined up for your business. So there's different stages of growth, and there's different, you know, perspectives of what an angel investor is going to think about you versus what that growth investor is going to think about you, or that bridge round investor, that's gonna get you to the series, definitely,

Brad Ebenhoeh: 5:39

definitely kind of very, very similar to how I visualize and kind of walk through it. So from a brand that's starting out zero to 1 million, you know, maybe on a 250k to 500k annual run rate, what a couple of the kind of key things that are KPIs or just key factors or key initiatives that they should be focused on at that level.

Tom Malengo: 6:01

So number one is is is product, and knowing that that product is connecting with the clients, you don't have a lot of consumers yet, I mean, you really don't you may be, you know, 30 Regional stores, and they may not be Whole Foods, they may be a couple of independence, they may be some small cafes, who knows, okay, but you need to know, and you need to understand and be able to say, people are finding me for this reason, and they're coming back and selecting my product for this reason. And here's how often that's happening. To me, that's number one. And when I talk to brands that size, I want to make sure they understand why that consumer is selecting them. And what it is it's happening, when the suit comes when the consumer connects with that product, you need to make sure that product fits what all investors are looking for right now, which is quality, value functionality, okay, because that's what consumers want. Consumers want to know that if they're fine, if they're paying $8.99, and making a number for a product that fits all of that, because it fits their lifestyle, okay, but they don't want to be paying that for a product that doesn't have the proper qualities of proper functionality, or delivering the value that it's intended to deliver. So if I'm buying a functional drink, that is going to give me energy, I want to feel like that's happening. So to me, that's number one. For those small brands, the second part of that is, know what it's costing you. Now, this matters at all stages. But at this stage, you're going to be trying to convince somebody to invest in you, because you're gonna get better. And if you're gonna get better, you need to know how those costs are going to change. As you add stores, as you add production, your every every founder wants to say, hey, you know, my costs are gonna improve as I get volume, why what's going to change what's going to change in your supply line, what's going to change in your production line, what's going to change in terms of the cost that it gets to what it takes to get you on the shelf, what's going to change in the cost that it takes to get you off the shelf? All these things, you have to be understanding to be able to convince somebody, especially a larger private Angel, okay, who understands it, we're not just investing as making the word here, charity, okay, because we liked the product, and we really want to see the product succeed, they're starting to think of you as a business, you need to be able to explain those things. So to me, those are the two things that matter, the quality of product could be the efficacy of the product, and the you know, your costs and understand what that means as you grow your business. Nobody, as much as we tell everybody, everybody's focused on profitability, investors are focused on profitability. At this stage, they're focused on when you're going to be profitable, not necessarily, if you aren't, they understand that. So those are the two things that are going to tell start to tell them, you know, the product can get so big. And if it gets that big, do you have a path to profitability?

Brad Ebenhoeh: 8:47

Love it. So then as you grow to the kind of the next phase of the, let's say, million to 3 million ish range, what are the additional things that then you would be looking for that company to be handling,

Tom Malengo: 9:00

Then I really think you have to, you know, besides those two things, you have to really start understanding, you know, what you're delivering, and what you're what you're actually making. From that you have to start thinking about ROI of all your investments. So you have to start think because at this point in time, you're maybe you're starting to contract with people to do your sales, maybe you're actually starting to use a distributor, maybe you're starting to do something, do something with a broker, maybe you're you know, maybe you starting to figure out that there's, you know, you can offer a different flavor. You know, oh, you have the opportunity to go into a store this size, how much is it going to cost you, you have to understand these additional parameters that are really starting to show the investor that you know how to grow this business. Still a big difference between 1 million and 3 million. Okay. You know, there's a huge gap there. You know, and you need to be careful in terms of you know, I've seen a lot of brands are 2 million sales. Hey, Costco took us were 4 million in sales this year. Next year, they're back to two million because Costco bandages everything. I mean, if they can get three more pennies out of every every square inch of space on that shelf, they're gonna get those three pennies and you're out. So you have to be thinking you have to start thinking long term, about your business, and about how each and everything you invest in every hire you make every every advertising plan you take on put on place every all your trade spent, you have to start thinking wisely about what's that getting you because you got to have that growth continue, you can't just you know, Spike and stay spiking stay, you want to show you can continue to grow deep, is always better than why everybody will say that. But it really is true. Your bang from your buck will come when you're across Southern California because guess what, you can show the investor that every number in every store is moving together, you can start to show them that you understand the differences between Erawan and Whole Foods that you understand the difference between Gelson and and Bristol Farms, you know, I'm using Southern Cal as a as an example. But once you can start showing the investor that you understand those things, they know you can go into Boulder and Denver, they know you can go into Northern California, they understand you can start to move out. But you have to show that the supply chain your production chain, your inventory management skills, which you're going to help us talk to the grand jakhary crowd about next week, and everybody's welcome to join that, you know, these are things you have to at this stage start to show that you can manage and that you can drive yourself more closer near, you know, on target or some level of profitability

Brad Ebenhoeh: 11:45

Two kind of fall offs from that, number one, deep versus wide. So again, just to even go through the different tranches zero to 1, 1to3, whatever, like, we have some brands that come to us that are like "hey, can you guys do my accounting, bookkeeping, all that type of stuff", they're$250,000 run rate, but yet they're in they sell a mable faire shopify on their website, Amazon, trying to get to distribution and then direct wholesale, maybe even some folks in foodservice, so there are like 58 sales channels, and just the pure time and spends on accounting and bookkeeping is like it's a lot of money to, to kind of manage that. So like, what do you typically tell people when they start out to kind of go through it and, you know, recommend to them as they move forward their business?

Tom Malengo: 12:27

You know, I guess it's always, you know, concentrate, you know, concentrate on the, you know, on the areas where, you know, and I'm making up numbers here, but you know, if you know, you can get the 10 stores, the four stores, the 12, stores, the 24 stores, you know, in an area, you start to really build something that becomes very solid, and very thorough you are you're covering an area, you know, I am different, you know, even in one area, consumers are different, you can talk to different consumers, you learn how different stores, you know, react to you on the shelf, you start to manage the things you say about reorders from this store versus versus reorders from that store, you know, you know, you start to really get that feel for I'm growing at a substantial pace, and I know it because then if somebody comes to you and say say we're going to add 50 stores, you know, we're Whole Foods, they're going to add 50 stores, you're already in 50, it's not that big a leap, to go from five stores to 50 stores or five stores to 75 stores. That's a big leap, you don't know how to manage that you don't know how to care for it, you don't know how to watch it, you don't know how to measure it. So my my goal with folks is usually to say, start working on those small, regional, local, you know, local, regional stores build it that like that's different. If you're in New York City, you can do that all through independence, you know, you know, maybe they have one, maybe they have two, maybe they have three, but there's a lot of different ways to do that. You have to look at your market and say, what's that way that I can get to that number of maybe 50 or 75 stores. So you really start to feel like you're managing a business.

Brad Ebenhoeh: 14:03

Great, great insight there. My other follow up question is regarding forecasting, modeling, knowing your numbers, knowing the ROI of when you hit a specific kind of aspect of your business because this is always an interesting one right? Like, hey, I created this forecast. Again, I'm a 500k runner. I can't compare these forecasts next three to five years the whole Shark Tank thing like what does it mean we have no idea right in how do you make really decisions often so I guess my question with with this is number one is clearly people need to know their numbers from a unit economic standpoint that you know the numbers can just basic financials, p&l, you know what's in my bank account, the whole nine yards as a basic small business. At what point does a forecast over 12 months really matter and really can yield good strategic decision making for a brand?

Tom Malengo: 14:56

In terms of revenue size, to me that that starts to happen when you're over a million in sales, I think any any brand that's under a million in sales, you, you know that that next, you're always just looking for that next opportunity the next quote place to get on the shelf, the next place to start showing some increase those kinds of things. When you get over a million in sales, and you've had, you know, a year or a year and a half with some retailers, you understand those reorder rates, you know, who's potete, you really understand who's potentially coming in the coming year. This is when that forecast at least that 12 month forecast starts to really make sense. I mean, if you're under a million in sales, the chances are you have very, you still have very few retailers who have been on there for six months, a year, a year, and that you really can tell the the run rate and the reorder rate, once you're over a million your brands been around maybe two years, a year and a half, two years, you start to get a feel for what's consistent. What's at risk. Okay, how do you expand that consistency to the next to the next retailer? How do you start to grow that who's the potential target, because the consumers alike, the company behaves the same way, they have the same necessity for the product on the shelf, they want you in the same kind of space. I mean, how many people have been excited, they've been excited, they got into Sprouts, they're at the end of the aisle and there is a hanger covering them up. Okay, and you know, they're new, and they're not going to be found. And you know, this is where you have to understand these things. And you have to be in a position to be able to say yourself, hey, to say that to that buyer, hey, we were in Gelson's and we were here and the shelf against these brands, okay, and we sold this, you don't want us there, you want us here, this is where you want us. Because we have that proven success. You need those things not just to be able to get that sick to get that that buyer to buy you. But to be able to forecast properly to know, I'm going to see some similar kinds of results that I can live to, that I can manage to I can monitor and I can figure out what's going wrong. If it doesn't work.

Brad Ebenhoeh: 17:14

Is there any specific things that you look at from an aspect of type of entity structure, LLC, C Corp, different things like that, from a legal or tax standpoint that impacts any of your like, in Brandjectory's like investment decisions, or? Or even just across the you know, the landscape from an angel investor to, you know, more of a institutionalized investor?

Tom Malengo: 17:40

My answer is that it's not really an it's not a common thing. You know, I've seen investors who, you know, still want you to be an LLC, when they get involved at a higher level that they're not they, they don't want a corporate structure, they don't want to deal with that. I've seen, you know, other's brands whose attorneys and and tax accountants have recommended they go to become an S corp or a C Corp. For a variety of reasons that makes sense. Certainly, there are brands that go to become a B Corp for those reasons. So I don't, I'm gonna say I don't really think it matters, okay. Because it really depends on the situation for each brand. And the kind of investors you're dealing with. If you're under three, 4 million in sales, most of the investors you're going to be dealing with are going to be thinking you're an LLC, okay, it's just not it's just not a big deal. Yeah, when you get up there to six or 7 million, there are reasons you may want to be an S corp or a C Corp, there are reasons that you may want to do that, then but I think a lot of it comes down to what you're thinking about in terms of your series, a round a priced offering, how that's going to work, who are going to be your targets. So to me, that's and I'm not the tax expert, or the legal expert, but to me when you're when I'm talking to a brand, and they asked me that question, kind of the answer I give them is, you know, who's going to be that next level investor and what they're going to expect? And who are you targeting? Because I think that is what matters most in that situation?

Brad Ebenhoeh: 19:08

What do you what do you expect from from a financial reporting accounting standpoint, for a small emerging brand, what would you expect just like the deliverables service things like that, that you know, as you're looking at from a investment or just the overall success of a company,

Tom Malengo: 19:26

I want to make sure again, I want to standard information, you know, p&l an income state, you know, the the income statement, the balance sheet, you know, the the cap table, a three year for at least the three year forecast, or whatever for whatever value it serves. I want to see those things I want to know they're doing it on a regular basis. I want to know that they're they're using an accountant that you know, is giving them the the accurate information about how to present that stuff. I want to make sure they've worked through the details oo they're trade spend, then I want to make sure they've worked through the details of how they're paying people. And when they're paying people. I want to know what they're leaving on the table, when it comes to losses, I want to look at all those things, but I want to know, they can produce those things every 90 days, you know, and that they can close their books. And there's a monthly statement behind each of them, I want to make sure they know how to do those things, and that they're doing those things. And the biggest thing a brand can do is at any level is treat all investors the same. You know, whether it's an investor that's, you know, 5000 bucks into you, or 500 bucks into you, or when you have an investor, that's a million or 2 million into, you want to make sure you're treating their investors treat them like investors, treat them with the with the audit, they need to know these things about your business, about how you're taking care of their their investment, and make sure you're doing these things on a regular basis. When those things start to fail, investors start to get worried. And they start to show and indicate that you may not have a handle on everything that's happening. And you know, whether it's chargebacks that you can't count for, or its account, it's it's how payables you're not getting whatever it is, you've got to be on top of all that manage it on

Brad Ebenhoeh: 21:10

What would you say is we kind of go back in the a regular basis. landscape over the last couple of decades, there are several decades that you kind of get involved in this space. What are the just in general, the two biggest two to three biggest kind of differences today, not specifically related to like, how the, you know, economic times the last kind of 12, 18 months, but just in general, the last five or six years, how's the last five or six years even before COVID to now comparative, you know, late 90s, early 2000s, or whatever, just from the within the CPG kind of landscape?

Tom Malengo: 21:42

You know, I think the I think what's the I think there's two pin two big changes. Okay. The first is product quality, the product itself. You know, if you think back to the differential between some of the products I measured and everything else that was on the market, you know, those early meet those early products, I discussed Barbara's and Pamela's and Annie's and Amy's they were better than the other things on

Brad Ebenhoeh: 22:04

And then separately, what about the last the on the market. Okay. You know, I'm a, I'm a 1960s 1970s. Kid, I have no idea. What was that in that instant pudding my mother made Okay. It was probably the same thing as the metal bottle you're drinking? You know, I'm so I have no idea. So, you know, there was a big differential and gap between that but I think then up until a few years ago, product, cleanliness product, you know, simplicity, really, really matter. Okay. I think what's happened, and maybe this is more opinion than anything else, Brad, I think what's happened to try to push growth? Okay, I think there's a lot of products that tend to slip a little bit on cleanliness, slip a little bit on organic slip a little bit on some of the things simplicity, in order to be more accessible to mainstream conventional stores, price it right, get on the shelf, get the turnover. And I think that's one of the things that's happened, you know, so, you know, when I would say, you know, 10 years ago, it was really about, is it clean? Does it have any emulsifiers? Does it you know, is it carrying any, you know, chemicals, things like that, you know, there's still a lot of that, but I think it's changed a little because people want growth, and growth isn't necessarily going to happen through the natural channel is going to happen outside of that. And you know, with players like Costco, and Amazon, and Walmart picking up so much of the grocery channel, you have to understand what that means in terms of your growth and your ability to attract capital. So to me, that's a big part of things to change. And I think the other one is, you know, the, it's probably a outcome of social media, okay. It may be an outcome of products like liquid death, okay, where it's become more about the brand than the differential or the the cleanliness of that brand, or that product compared to others. It's become more about, you know, is it a story? Is it a lifestyle fit? Is it a, you know, is it is it a marketing opportunity? You know, how does it fit and play in that social media world? I mean, we've seen the products that have gotten funding, because of a great tick tock campaign. And that's fine. That's great. You know, car companies have done this 100 years, right. They know how to sell a car. They know how to make a shiny and glitzy to get in front of people and so nothing wrong with that. But I think the emphasis has come to if you can't tell that story the right way. And if you can't, if kind of 12,18 months with, you know, from the funding, the you can't put your brand in sort of that it has to be part of my life feeling more so than just a health perspective or a goodness perspective to me. If you can't put it in that perspective of capital markets? How these zero to $10 million, kind of CPG this is important. I feel good holding it in my hand. I feel brands have been impacted? What is your take on kind of the good when my friends see it with me with an eye. They know I'm doing something good for myself because they know the brand. That starts I think become very important. So I think those are the two big changes that I've seen that have really taken place over maybe the last five years. what's changed then? And then as well as like, kind of moving forward? How, how are brands, you know, maybe managing their business differently than they were two years ago?

Tom Malengo: 25:30

You know, and again, probably this, this could probably be a whole podcast in itself. So I'll try to try to keep it short. I'm an economic nerd, I was a math and econ major. So economic nerd. You know, I think, of course, with everything that's gone on money has sat on the sidelines, there is no doubt that there's a lot of money sitting waiting to be invested, interest rates have been high. And investors, especially the private angels have seen, you know, see better return, safer return, let's say it that way, in instruments that are at a nice high interest rate. I think a lot of people felt this year would be one where that money would free up as interest rates have fallen, we've seen what's happened just in the first two months, you know, the March interest rate drop is out of out of the out of the picture. Inflation starting to climb back up after January, the Fed starting to talk about maybe not June, fed starting to say no soft landing. So I think this year is still going to be a very cautious year for what I will call, you know, Young Money. Okay, the the investors who invest in young and young brands emerging brands, I think it's going to be still a tough year. Okay. I think that's why it's important for every brand to focus on the essential business building blocks that we talked about the kind you offer, the kind Brandjectory offers, you know, to make sure they have that strong business. Because I think it's just going to be that tight environment, I think that could change. If we see a little bit of difference in in how money's being deployed out there becomes a little scary when you see days like this in the stock market, if you're old enough to have lived through the 90s and early 2000s, that had money invested, and see what happens when they're small, short term bubbles. So I think that's why it's great, there's a little bit scary. So I think, you know, it's still a time to be cautious and work on business fundamentals, the end of the year may show us something different. There's a risk out there, you know, inflation started to curb late last year, a little bit started to come down on a monthly basis. But over the last 60, 70 years of history, a high bout of inflation over mid teens or higher always results in another spike after it comes down within within 12 months. So it's not surprising that we may see a little bit of creeping of inflation over the next six, eight months. And then you know, maybe that's when it starts to straighten out. But if those rates keep going up, if those inflation rates keep going up, the Feds not going to be cutting interest rates and investor money isn't going to free up. That's sort of my take on what the situation is now build a strong business. Now. You're smiling. So I think you kind of agree with me.

Brad Ebenhoeh: 28:11

And I'm just waiting for the set of the hour long lecture here next week as back. Professor Tom right here. That was great. One last question, to get into kind of our final kind of sign off kind of questions here. So just do you have a Brandjectory like alumni like success story and have a brand or somebody that you guys helped and kind of what why. Success? Yeah, sure.

Tom Malengo: 28:38

There's been a lot of them. But one person I'll point out is Jason Bauer from Original Crumbs. Bake Shop. New Yorkers will remember that this was a very they were they were around the city is as a bake shop. Brand, his wife sold Jason's wife sold, sold the brand, the who they sold it to close it up. Eventually they re bought the brand back and they started as a retail brand. He came to a couple of our founder investor meetups, I think it was August of 22. And the investor invited him to a couple of angel group meetings and he raised about 50,000 from each of them. And then just recently, in January here he used he used our Warp Drive service, where we do a little bit of a more intense introduction for him. And he raised another 100,000. So you know this, this is what we're looking for. We are a very low priced option for brands to get access to us into our materials. We are an education and engagement platform. We do that through a series of meetings and ways in which they connect with industry experts. They get our counseling, our guidance, but we do that at a very low price. We're a subscription service. We're not a broker dealer. We take no equity we take no success fee. e's are simply an option for them to learn the CPG business actually meet and engage with people learn directly from investors and from industry experts. You know, we have meetups where we have folks from answer, we'd love to have you in there. And investors, we talk about, you know, things like cost, cost, cost maintenance and contribution margin. And we take it from an investor perspective. And from an accounting perspective, we did the same this this month with Nutter with folks from Nutter Jeremy Halpern. And Will Barnett. And we did that and talking about term sheets and how to navigate term sheets, we had a couple of investors talk about it too. This is kind of thing we do. This is why we've asked you to come next week and talk about inventory management. Because these are all the things that help a brand, build a good business, okay, and put them in a position to win. And the you know, and that's how we price our services, so that people have access to that and get success.

Brad Ebenhoeh: 30:59

Love it. Love it. So as we sign off here, kind of a two questions we always ask. So the first one, what is one CPG business do?

Tom Malengo: 31:12

Can you repeat the question please?

Brad Ebenhoeh: 31:13

Yeah, what is one CPG? Business do? So the two questions are? What does one do? And what does one don't?

Tom Malengo: 31:19

Oh, I get it, okay. You know, when it comes to do, it may be too broad an answer. But what a CPG brand needs to do always is is understand their business, and figure out the people who are going to engage with their business and believe in the mission of their business. Okay. So whether it's Brandjectory, or Accountfully, you know, as a service provider, whether it's a partner you bringing on whether it's an investor, you want to know people are behind your mission, that they see your vision. And in some ways, they're in love with your vision, okay, they want you want people that want to be a part of that success that see it that way. And I think as any brand grows, as any brands thinks about those kinds of things, they want to make sure they're meeting and dealing and working with people who understand that mission just aren't providing a service, that they really understand their mission. And when they think about providing a service, they're thinking about it in terms of you know, this is, you know, this, this, this person believes in me, and it's going to give me answers, and opportunities and suggestions that reflect my business, that's what we do at Brandjectory for a brand brand comes in and does the work that they need to do, you know, comes to the meetings, you know, pre fills out their profile, we try to make sure we're guiding them based on their mission, and where they want to go and what they want to succeed. And I think brands need to do that, when it comes to the what they don't what they shouldn't do. I think there's a couple of things here. But I think the big one is, you know, that they really need to understand and I go back to something I said before, they need to understand who their customer is who they're talking to. Okay, and if they don't do that, you know, if they just go out there and continue to build, grow, you know, get retailers, you know, say okay, I got an opportunity for a bunch of independence, I think they run the risk, they run the risk of I think it was about you, you know, they end up in too many sales channels. Okay. You know, I've seen brands that, you know, they wanted to say, hey, we've got, you know, we've got 30 SKUs different skews, and we're on 10,000 stores. And I you know, and I asked the question, well, can you show me the cost margin on each one of them? Okay, well, no, they couldn't. Okay, so you don't know which ones are selling and which ones are getting, you know, you need to understand your growth and most brands are so focused on revenue and on growth, that they stop thinking about it as a business and they start thinking about how do I make this a solid business so don't grow for the sake of growth grow because it makes sense for your business.

Brad Ebenhoeh: 33:59

Yeah, and even within that, I would also add and when you're growing your business understanding that you need to segment your business by sales channel to understand like the the profitability, the success of each brand, leads sales channel, as well as skew and if you don't have that level of segmentation data, segmented data, then it's a really hard process to decide how to move forward and in the most efficient manner, so Well, this was great. Tom Malengo from Brandjectory episode 38 of The Month End podcast Tom before we leave where can we find you in branch accurate?

Tom Malengo: 34:35

www.brandjectorynow.com If you have any questions, it's Tom@ brandjectory.com. And certainly you can connect with me on LinkedIn you can connect with me with Brandjectory on Twitter. My wife and partner is Susan Bryenton and she Susan@brandjectory.com But you can go to www.brandjectorynow.com and read all about it Everything I've talked about, you can see our event calendar. We have some great events coming up. One with Brad right there. And, you know, we try to bring the best of everything we can to the brands that are on Brandjectory. So look us up and if you have questions, please reach out.

Brad Ebenhoeh: 35:18

Awesome, Tom, thanks for your time and hope the audience enjoys all the information we chatted about today. Take care.

Tom Malengo: 35:23

Thank you so much. I hope this hope this was like you and your folks that are listening to this needed to hear. Thanks a lot for having us.