Episode Transcript
Nina, Hello everyone, and welcome to the Makers Business Tribe podcast. My name is Nina, and I am super excited and stoked
to finally do a recording on the naturally good Expo. Now, if you are a health conscious, product based business, and you didn't get a chance to go, you didn't get a chance to exhibit your product and connect with hundreds of really high quality buyers at that event in Sydney, then you won't listen to this, because this might be a really great event for you to consider in 2026 and ultimately, during this next period to negotiate a good deal for booth.
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Or you might have gone to it and you
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loved it. You had really, really great conversations. You collected lots of business cards, but you don't really feel like that you maximised. That you maximise in terms of sales and that you're like, wow, okay, this was all really good. It was really exhausting. It was a great high. But well, sales, where they at, because it's a big investment, right? So what I would like to take you guys through in this episode to, first of all, number one, reflect on what I've seen, what I've noticed, because I've gone there and really cheered for one of my clients, Manzi, from earthy souls, who, by the way, crushed it. So I want to reflect on that. And number two, share with you the top three things that manzie did to just on the spot, walk away with five huge orders and now pulling through another 30 that she has in the pipeline, and for just to do the last conversations and get that in, which, to me, is freaking fantastic, yeah. Because if you think about it, two days, five big bulk orders in which we're talking kilos, which is 1000s of orders, that's how you do it now. First things first. Okay, it's Delphin, the naturally good Expo 2025 in Sydney. So I went there. I think I kind of got there at like, 12:30pm and it was heaving. I couldn't talk to any of the stores, yeah, and they were because the organisers were very, very selective and who they would let in. And I was officially there to just support Menz, because I wasn't sure if she needed to take breaks, and she had a non sales person there. But it's like, cool. I come. I cheer for you. Yeah, we, we'll see what's happening. So it was, I was trying to see what products are there who's in, kind of have a bit of conversations. But I had a really hard time no matter where I went. So to me, every single spot in the inside the ICC in Darling Harbour was a great position, right? Because that's the first question you want to ask yourself for 2026 where should I have my store? I felt there was more energy to the right hand side versus to the left, but everybody seemed busy. Yeah, the bias. You could clearly see them. Everybody had a shirt on. Yeah, everybody could. You could see, these are COVID, these are easy. So whoever, yeah, everybody had very visible who
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they were, which is great.
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Did not see any people from the public just walking in and grabbing snacks, which is good, because that's important thing. Because I think the price per booth, depending on how you negotiate, I think sits, sits five grand up. Yeah, don't know what the prices are for 2026 but that's kind of like what I was seeing. So there's a price ticket to it. Now, what products were exhibited? It's not about the brands, but kind of like the products, because you want to see. Well, would my product be there too? It would literally be, it was
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we had supplements,
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but more like the proteins, the collagens.
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We had some cover. But
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that was interesting, because they were from to me, they couldn't really, when I spoke to them, I couldn't really differentiate why I would get cover from Fiji versus cover from a different country that was there. We had a couple mushroom tincture companies there. We had loads of different snacks. Local love was there to exhibit that chocolate. Manzi was there with her nutrient dense snacks for busy parents. And she really killed it. And there were health conscious sunscreens, skin care. There were a few people with packaging solutions, three PL,
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yeah, so food, skin care, supplements. That's really what was, what was going this month. There was also one lady who was selling copper drink bottles. Her store wasn't going well, I have to say, because I think that's more that is not the core range of things. And also, was it retail ready? I'm not 100% sure, but everybody else like if you're fitting in in one of those categories, and there might be more, but those are the ones that were really memorable,
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that was working now,
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some people went all out and had some really beautiful looking stalls. And some also went all out and had big stalls. They were very wide, yeah, like four or five metres wide. But here's what I noticed,
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if you didn't
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approach people whilst
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they were walking past. They would likely just walk past, so the layout and how it was looking didn't matter. Your approach mattered to make people stop and having conversation with you, and if the conversation wasn't leading anywhere. Also doesn't matter how good your store looks, if you didn't have an offer, also meant you didn't make any sales. Which leads me to what did Manzi do to ultimately crush it? Because her store was very simple. Yeah, we had, I think three or four catch ups in the lead up. I was always like, Manzi, how are you going to make this look? Yeah, we want the first thing we want to create an eye catcher. I was very much behind that. I think she was kind of like, yeah, yeah. I'll set it up when I'm ready. Okay, so at the end of the day, we only ended up with one big banner at the back that literally just had her logo and said nutrients, then snacks for busy families. And her key use piece that was it, nothing else. There was nothing fancy about it. And then she had her product, products nicely presented. We had people be able to walk into a store, so she didn't just have the table at the walkway, but you could kind of walk in, which was great. So people could, kind of like, stop. But here's three things that we had prepared and she ultimately, she did exceptionally well. Number one, she had a hook. So when people were walking past, she wasn't just standing there waiting, which the majority did. Yeah, I like I've seen so many buyers walking past a store, and nobody would stop that buyer, because a buyer, of course, is just walking around, orienting themselves. Yeah, they are probably coming with a list of key things that they might want to bring into the store. Or they have a set budget, and they want to see, Okay, what else can I bring in? But they're also coming in with this, like, Okay, I have some key gaps in my shelves, and I can see demand for it. Let's see what's happening. But they're open for business. They're so open for business. But if there are, I don't know how many boosts there were in total, let's say 100 I'm not going to talk to 100 people. I'm selected, so
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we're going to stop them.
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Here's the simple hook that Menzie implemented, and if you have not done it, or if you sign up for an expo, or if you're going to do next year, have a hook to get people to stop. Yeah, and her hope was simply she had some of her beautiful snacks on little tray, and she would just ask people, excuse me, if you can guess what's inside this cookie, I'm going to give you a whole basket of that for you and
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your family for free.
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Yeah. And then people were, oh, let me try. Let me try. Okay,
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nobody could
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guess. Sometimes they didn't even give this, this, this,
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this thing away. But that was the pause to stop the try moment. Okay, very simple and easy. And of course, people will ask, Oh, what's in this? This tastes nice, and that would lead into the sales conversation. Now, which brings me to the second point, because you cannot, just then have a chit chat about, yeah, there's some millets in it. And, you know, have this manufacturing going, and how you doing? What's happening? Like no you now want to lead the conversation the same as if you were to walk into a store and pitch your product, right? So you need to have a framework in your mind, because me, as a buyer, all I'm doing here is I'm curious, and I want to be lit, I want to be late, and I want to understand what is a key use piece of your product. How's your product different? You need to help me see how this product can can solve or close a gap in my shelf. You need to help me see how this product could either increase the basket size of my consumers, how this product could help get consumers back into my store on a regular basis, or how I could potentially get new customers into my store. You need to help me see that there's already demand for the product. So talk to me about sales results from other stores. Maybe create a little bit of FOMO for me, because if you drop some big names of stores and what sales success they recently had. Hi, Jen. Said, I'm like, oh shit, I need to jump onto this. Like, there must to it, yeah, and then make me an offer, because I'm clearly here to buy. Otherwise, why would I? Why else would I be here? Yeah, better things to do. I'm here to buy. So make me an offer that, and not just an offer that I can say yes to in two, three months time, but I have to say yes to now, because I'm here to do a deal for us. This was end of May, right? So end of financial year is coming up. These guys probably want to spend now. So what is the deal you can make? Two people. Menzie did it very well. We had an expo offer with plenty more value, free shipping and more tasting and whole bunch of other stuff. Yeah, that expired by the end of Day of the second day. We had that offer printed in a two pager, very simple catalogue, yeah, where we just went straight to the point and we put a paper order form in that people could literally take away. And then would probably do another round, think about what Mandy had said. Then they would sit down, have lunch and fill in the order form, yeah. And that's how people would keep coming back throughout the day and hand her in the order form. Now, has Menzie been in retail forever, and does she have the biggest sales reps? Heck no. She started in February getting into retail. Manzie works four days a week, so she hasn't she doesn't have this big Emporium, so she didn't even have the biggest sales results to present. But she had a hook. She knew how she was leading someone from maybe being a little bit curious to actually say, give me that order form. And she had a banger offer that put pressure on and for those who didn't place an offer, now we have a very tight nurture sequence in place to follow up with people. So every single person that she was talking to, she put into a digital database that was provided by naturally good export that would be exported. She sent everyone a follow up email first, and then two days later, she jumped on the on the phones to be like, hey, where you at with that order, I'm gonna extend it for you for another 24 hours, if you place it now, otherwise it's gone. So she was ringing Ring, ring there. She completely cleared her schedule to make these follow up conversations, to make them count. Okay, so return on investment for her massive Yeah, because two days invested, and I think she spent about five grand to get in. Now, I think she is like, if she's walking away with like 20 grand worth of orders, plus all of these new stockers, and those are single orders, excellent, right? For Menzie, that means fast tracking her stock is growth.
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However, as I always
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talk about, it isn't about once off orders, right? And I think that's also another thing that loads of people at expos get stuck, because they might have a great conversation, they might have a single order come through, but if you're then too busy to make sure you onboard those stockers, to make sure you set a sales goal, to make sure you train the staff, to make sure there's ample customer education at point of sale, and we get demos organised very easily. Those those orders could turn into once off orders, which, of course, we're not doing with Mandy. It's not the plan, because even though the stock is list is small. We want re orders. Because even though, let's say she till the end of the year, she only has 20 stocks. But every stock is places one or two orders each month, which some of the bigger ones already doing, and that order is like $700 each. There's not much that she needs to do, and she has a really nice cash flow coming in while she's still working in her full time job. So to me, it's not about just chasing those once off orders and killing yourself at the expo, but having those three fundamentals, really good hook, really good sales script. And whoever you're bringing needs to be top notch in the sales conversations and have an offer. And after the expo, have a way to really tightly follow up, pull through those offers, and after that, implementing a really tight, non seasonal nurture sequence, meaning a nurture sequence that you always do to onboard and pull through new orders, as well as than having a seasonal nurture sequence in place, because the offer that we're making end of financial year versus the offer that we're making for Father's Day versus for Christmas is different, right? So even if Manzi decided after this, I'm not going to onboard any more sockets because we're implementing and refining her nurture sequences, she'll be having cash flow keep coming in. And that's the beauty about retail right expos, if you choose the right one where your buyers come. Can really fast track your onboarding stockists, but that will only happen if you got a plan in place. Only having a beautiful store, I can tell you, this much will not going to help you, because there was some really. I was like, Oh my gosh. They must have spent like 1520 grand on that store. It looked amazing, but if you're just standing there and don't know what to say and don't know how to actually lead the conversation, it's not going to make you sales. So with that, my friends, I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope you got heaps out of it. If not, message me and be like. Nina, Whoa, that was crap. Hopefully not. Um, I would really love to see you at this expo, if you fit into one of those categories in 2026 I would also recommend jump onto the pitch stage, because other people will hear you speak and really help you to refine how you're positioning your product. If you need any help with that, reach out to me. Because what we do, of course, we help health comes product based businesses, not just get into retail, but maximise sales in retail. Yeah, because just getting in once of sales too expensive, maximising sales, nurturing deals, building long term relationships, that's where it's at, baby when it comes to retail, right? And you don't need any ads for that cool. So with that, I love you and leave you if you want to reach out to me, reach out. Otherwise, just run with what I've given you, because I can tell you this much, it is bang on.
