Author: Bill Sipper

Becoming a CEO of your own company is a significant milestone — one that many business owners are unprepared for, despite their efforts to get there. In the food and beverage industry, the business aspect of running your own company can be challenging to deal with at first. Most entrepreneurs get into the industry because of their passion for food, not necessarily board meetings and crunching numbers.

But after you get funding, working with a board of directors will become one of your new tasks as the CEO. Knowing when to accept their input and when to push back comes with time and experience. However, if you’re having trouble now, or you are wondering how best to manage a board of directors, take a look at these tips:

Set Expectations and Define Roles

It will be up to you to set expectations, both for yourself and the board members. You should make it clear that the board of directors does not run an organization, even though their input will certainly be valued. It’s also something you should know as well — board members aren’t going to be involved in any operational or administrative issues. Their primary role is helping with the mission and strategy of the company.

Every CEO should work with their board, not against it, but that can sometimes happen if expectations aren’t set and the board members become overbearing. As the CEO, the final word is yours. While their different perspectives on the same issue should be carefully examined and assessed, all parties involved should be aware that the CEO makes the decisions.

Have a Good Strategy

Strategies will often reveal their flaws too late in the process of implementation unless they’ve been properly evaluated. No matter whether your board of directors is difficult or easy to work with, they will want to know your strategy, and it better be a good one. 

What that means is that you should make it cohesive and truly commit to a single way of doing things, rather than trying to balance between two or more. When developing a strategy to present to the board, assess your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, and start building from there.

Communicate

To nip communication problems in the bud when dealing with the board of directors, you need to be proactive. Effective communication is one of the foundations of a good working relationship with the board, so keep them informed about the things they need to know.

Those include both minuscule and significant strategy changes that influence the execution of your overall plan, product launches, and other initiatives. The board is usually aware of the fact that plans are prone to changes, but they need to know why they’re changing before you commit to it. Agree with them about your plans and back-up options ahead of time, so that it’s easier to keep their involvement optimal.

Learn when to Email and when to Set a Meeting

Generally speaking, there is no need for a board meeting unless there is a complicated issue that you wish to discuss with the board. It’s perfectly acceptable to update the board via email if things are running smoothly and there is no bad news to report. 

The frequency of the emails will depend on your preferences as those of the board. A short email once a week should be more than enough — or it can be bi-weekly or monthly. When presenting problems or opportunities to the board, make sure you’re also exploring the possible options of dealing with the issues or making the best possible use of the possibilities.

Schedule Meetings Well in Advance

CEOs lead busy lives, but so do board members. It’s a good practice for companies that are still in the early stages to have regular board meetings every few months. That way, both you and the board can prepare well in advance. Send them all materials well before the meeting, so they can have time to go through the decks and prepare their input. 

Send this material a week before the meeting is optimal. This way, the metrics you’ll be discussing won’t be outdated, and the board will have enough time to evaluate them. A couple of weeks beforehand is the right time to notify the board of the agenda, usually consisting of less than six key topics. 

Open Feedback Channels

It’s essential to open feedback channels to the board, but you should do so in a sensible way that won’t have you overwhelmed. Before or after board meetings is a good time to invite feedback from the board regarding the topics you’re discussing during the meeting. Make sure to set a time for open discussion and questions after the main agenda of the board meeting has been covered. 

You can invite them to ask you questions, or ask them whether the topics you discussed fulfilled their expectations. Make sure also to give them time to discuss things in private – board members only. They can talk about the meeting amongst themselves and appoint one person to relay their feedback.

Be Transparent

Being transparent and open with the board will go a long way in ensuring smooth sailing when it comes to your relationship with them. By sending them notices about important news and events, whether they’re positive or negative, you get them used to open discussion of all issues and enhance trust. 

That way, they’ll start letting you decide when there is a need to exchange information and opinions and trust that you’re handling yourself well. When the CEO is transparent, there’s no room for the board to become intrusive or burdensome.

Key Takeaways Managing your own company is a challenge, and adjusting to the role of the CEO takes time. When it comes to dealing with the board of directors, you need to learn quickly, set expectations, and set the tone of your cooperation as early as possible. As a food entrepreneur turned CEO, you must decide how well you’re going to follow industry insights and adjust to your new role, including working with the board of directors.

The food and beverage business isn’t only about anticipating market trends or creating great social media campaigns. These are important, but love for food and drinks is the core of the business. It has been present as the driving force of the industry since its beginning.

It’s essential for every food and beverage brand to keep this in mind and remember the long and fascinating history of the food and beverage industry. For entrepreneurs who wish to make their mark on it, understanding how it might evolve is critical. We can learn from how the industry has developed so far, and conclude how it’s going to change in the future. Let’s have a closer look at the evolution of the food and beverage industry:

Origins of the Food and Drinks Business

Even though the human race has prepared food since the earliest days, the practice didn’t take on the characteristics of business until medieval times. In the 11th century, some guilds provided goods and services, and food vendors were among them. The guilds also showed the first signs of specializations that would later become so crucial for the entire industry. As highly specialized vendors became more and more sought after in the medieval society, more distinctions started developing. For example, there were master butchers and bakers, who took on apprentices and trained them in the skills that they would need to continue the profession. We sorely lack expertise at these levels today.  Everyone wants to have a Master’s Degree, but those that work hard, like butchers and bakers, can make a nice living and live a nice life.

It is a form of learning that is still present in the culinary world, even though the system of guilds has long since been abandoned. However, the concept of apprenticeship endured and has become essential to the food and drinks businesses of a later time. Despite losing the economic battle, the old guild systems did establish a practice that is still highly relevant today.

Culinary Skills as Front and Center of Development

The culinary arts and skills were a major part of the development of the food business. However, that only happened once the profession was organized and standardized. And despite the long tradition of the practice, that didn’t happen until the early 19th century. It was then that the Frenchman Marie-Antoine Carême took the first steps towards shaping the future of the standardization of culinary art.

He was a developer of original recipes, but he was also entirely dedicated to the presentation of his food, creating fascinating centerpieces out of it. However, his most significant contribution to shaping the future food business came from his culinary texts, which contained vocabulary other cooks began to use. It formed the backbone of establishing cooking terms and providing a common language to the professionals in the same industry. From these developments, the culinary arts advanced to what we’ve come to know today — a food service industry that makes up 10% of the total U.S. workforce.

Major Turning Points for the Industry

Still, the major turning points for the industry on a large scale happened with a few breakthroughs that have changed everything. The significant years were 1810 when Nicolas Appert invented canning, and 1863, the year when Louis Pasteur developed the process of pasteurization.

It took Nicolas Appert 14 years to develop his canning process, and that despite knowing it worked, he wasn’t sure why it worked. His motivation was the prize offered by the French army during the French Revolutionary Wars to invent a way to store food safely. Appert did it, by canning food, heating it and letting it cool — but he did not know that doing so would keep out the bacteria and microorganisms that caused the food to spoil.

It was Louis Pasteur’s research that found this connection years later, and it allowed him to develop the process of pasteurization. The origins of his discovery came from a commission of an alcohol manufacturer who wanted Pasteur to discover why beet alcohol goes sour. Eventually, the discovery led to pasteurization saving France’s wine industry.

Both discoveries changed the industry forever, allowing the food to be packaged and safe to be used and sold for a prolonged time. However, developing the retail practices of today took many distribution and storage improvements. What once was a positive, may be seen today as somewhat negative and food and beverage companies work tirelessly to extend shelf life, sometimes seemingly at any cost, including health.

A new Focus on Health and Future Evolution

Today, food and beverage industry have branched into numerous segments. We have functional foods and drinks, packaged foods, baked food, baby food, animal food, groceries, alcoholic beverages, soft drinks, energy drinks, and many other categories. The competition is fierce in every single one of them. Plunkett Research estimated the worth of the global food and beverage industry in 2015 to be around $7.8 trillion. It makes it a priority for industry professionals to cater to consumer demand — and the preferences of the market are slowly changing.

Millennials make up a significant part of the entire consumer force in the economy, and catering to that market requires a shifting attitude towards healthier options. The market is asking for less sugar, fewer additives, and fewer ingredients that don’t look like real food on the ingredient lists. It might cause a slight shift towards local, more sustainable, and ethical food and drinks options in the future.

However, industry professionals also need to account for the advancement of technology in their plans for the future. Smart devices will also make the consumers’ shopping habits smarter, and it’s going to be critical to adjust to the new developments in tech. It’s still safe to say that the future of the food and drinks industry will be determined by what the consumers need most.

Key Takeaways In the fast-paced, quickly-changing business environment of today, it’s become more important than ever to stay current by following industry insights and trends. Alternatively, an aspiring food and beverage entrepreneur may attempt to set new trends by disrupting the industry. It can be done much the same way as Nicolas Appert, and Louis Pasteur once did — with a breakthrough invention or idea that has the power to make an outstanding change, even if the scale it starts at is small.

We all need a little inspiration sometimes. That’s especially true for entrepreneurs, who have to walk long, winding, and steep roads before seeing success in their chosen industry. Beverage business is not an easy one to stay afloat in, so having a reminder that it’s possible can only help.

Of course, that isn’t to say that you can’t take your path to success. However, it might help to know how others did it before you, and why they managed to do it well. To help inspire you, here are some beverage business success stories that will leave you feeling ready to conquer the world:

Boba Guys

Boba Guys is a brand with a fascinating history. They started as a pop-up shop, eventually evolving into a milk tea bar with two locations in San Francisco. The founders of Boba Guys are Andrew Chau and Bin Chen — and they’re behind the main brand idea to redefine the boba and tea experience.

They built their brand around their community and used social media to grasp the interest of the locals. That allowed them to draw in more foot traffic and ensured that people knew about their business. When the time came to open new locations, they had a lot of interested people. The local awareness ads they did, only cost $1 per new customer acquisition, which marks a superb example of using ads to increase in-store sales and find new customers.

LaCroix

The story of LaCroix is one of the social media boosted growth, although sales have been sliding recently. The brand has cleverly tapped into the Millennial market, making use of mainstream pop culture and increasing the growth of their entire category. Sparkling water category had a 16.2% growth in 2016, while LaCroix grew by 72.7%.

The surprising fact is that the brand has been around since the 80s, so this might be considered late blooming. However, it’s certainly used social media to build a fun marketing campaign that was a hit with the Millennials. More importantly, the brand focused on their target audience’s health concerns and desire to consume more natural products. LaCroix took the sugar out of a sparkling drink, but still provided fun and refreshing bubbly flavors that resonated with younger consumers.

The main point of their branding and marketing strategy was using terms like “calorie-free,” “sugar-free,” and “naturally flavored carbonated water.” By doing so, they took up the position of a healthy option on the market. Coupled with a great social media strategy that brought them a massive Instagram following, the brand took off.

Dyla

Dyla is a company selling two successful beverage brands. A coffee drink and a fruit drink, FORTO, and Stur, are present in over 25,000 retail stores. Dyla founder and CEO Neel Premkumar have managed to double the size of the company every year. The company had the honor to win the NJ Future 50 Award that declared it one of the fastest-growing companies in New Jersey.

So what is the secret? According to Premkumar, having to work in every role in the company over the years has taught him about every job’s challenges and responsibilities. That helped him understand who he needed in each position as he grew the company and searched for new talent. The main challenge for Premkumar was financing the growth of the company, which he began from his savings.

Both Dyla brands, Stur and FORTO, are doing great in their respective categories. Interestingly, each has answered to at least one of the leading trends in the beverage industry. Stur is a drink mix that only contains natural and organic ingredients, while FORTO is a coffee energy shot that offers more caffeine to help those that live hectic lives to get more things done.

Innocent Drinks

This brand started with an exciting story that was in the heart of its success. The three founders of Innocent Drinks, Richard Reed, Adam Balon, and Jon Wright, took to a London festival in 1998 with £500 worth of fruit. They had a “yes” and “no” bin, and asked the people who bought smoothies from them to vote on whether they should quit their day jobs to make smoothies.

The answer they got was a resounding (well, overflowing) “yes,” so they ended up founding Innocent Drinks and securing an investment of £250,000 after 15 months of looking for investors. The company donated a lot of its profits to charity, and the founders set up their foundation to support farming NGOs in developing countries.

The 2008 recession shook the company after they’d already expanded further into Europe, but they ended up being purchased by Coca-Cola for a reported £320 million in 2013. At the time, they dominated the chilled drinks market in Austria, Germany, and Denmark.

The main appeal of the brand was in their dedication to their community and remembered where they started. Innocent even went on to organize their unplugged festival yearly, to tell the story of their brand and encourage people to reconnect with the people around them. Storytelling was a significant factor contributing to their success, as they managed to convey their brand values visually. They did it first through packaging, and later through videos and social media campaigns.

Another important focus was on nature and health, which is an essential topic for consumers nowadays. The brand also gave back through charity, donating close to €4 million, and organizing events such as The Big Knit, which let people trade in their knitted hats for Innocent smoothies. Innocent Drinks is truly a unique brand with a fascinating story that many up and coming beverage entrepreneurs could learn from.

Key Takeaways

Beverage businesses gain an edge by staying on top of industry insights and anticipating market trends. But it’s possible even for the small beverage entrepreneur to begin making their mark on the business.

What’s important is to commit to it, not lose hope and let yourself be inspired by those that are already successful. After all, every business has to start somewhere.

Breaking into any industry is no easy endeavor, no matter the budget or expertise you have behind you. It still takes an immense amount of work, research, and effort to be able to even break even as a beverage entrepreneur. However, with that in mind, it’s also important to mention that it is possible to break into the beverage industry.

Yes, it is a lot of work, but there are many resources and information to work with. With that wealth of knowledge, any aspiring entrepreneur can find their path to success. With enough determination and a generous helping of blood, sweat, and tears, anything is possible. To help you out, here are eight tips for breaking into the beverage industry:

• Find What Problem You Can Solve

No successful business can begin without extensive market research. The reason for that is simple: the market itself is what you’re aiming to conquer. You might have an eccentric beverage idea that’s cool and appealing to you, but how will consumers react to it? Liking an idea doesn’t mean that enough people will want to buy the product to keep your business afloat.

One of the most effective approaches is to focus your market research on finding a problem that your product might be able to solve. For example, there might be people who need a dose of caffeine in the morning, yet they can’t stand coffee and want something healthier than an energy drink. How would you give them what they need?

Alternatively, you can start with more general ideas, focusing them on specific target audiences. For example, students might need an energy fix to help them study. More often than not, as you identify these problems, you’ll also be identifying potential target audiences where you might be able to market the finished product.

• Transform General Ideas into Product Ideas

The next step after finding your general direction is brainstorming what kind of product may solve the problem at hand. After you think of an idea, evaluate its merit by asking a few critical questions.

How might you produce, pack and distribute this beverage in a way that would best serve your general ideas and the intended target audience? If you can come up with some answers right away, continue the process. If an idea doesn’t yield possible solutions, look for a different one.

• Evaluate Your Potential Expenses

Before you even start, you need to know how much this business undertaking will cost you — at least in estimates. If you’re thinking of taking out a loan or investing the funds you have already saved, it’s best to be sure what you’re getting yourself into.

One way of ensuring that there will be no unpleasant surprises is taking your general estimation of the budget and then doubling it. Sometimes things go wrong, deadlines are broken, or the testing and development process takes longer than expected and ends up costing more than estimated. Always overestimate to keep yourself safe financially.

• Get Funding

It is very little you can do without funding, as breaking into the beverage industry can be an expensive endeavor. Many entrepreneurs today try to do it via crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter and Gofundme, so with luck and some without.

With crowdfunding, their success depends on whether they’ve been able to target their audience well enough to get backers. There are other ways of getting funding, through sponsors, investors or taking out loans. Keep in mind that some paths to funding are riskier than others and that you need to weigh your options well.

• Do a Lot of Testing

Testing is a crucial part of the product development process. Even if your product is in the final stages of development, you’ll still have to do a lot of testing.

First, your ideas need to be put to the test. After you select one or two, you need to come up with beverage recipe drafts. Testing them will give you a few promising candidates to develop further. Once that part of the process is done, you’ll have to go through the final testing stages of different versions of the recipe. You won’t only be testing the contents and taste of the product, but also its appearance – design and packaging. Settling on the final version of the product will take effort going through many different options.

• Make a Business Plan

A business plan is immensely powerful as it gives you a sense of direction and a framework to work in. Take your business goals and break them into bite-sized chunks that you can accomplish within a short time frame. Those tasks will be the bare bones of your business plan.

Use SMART goal setting for every part of your product development, marketing and distributing processes, and figure out what you need to get done by what date. This roadmap will stay with you and ensure you’re on the right track.

If you don’t know how to write a business plan, at least develop a PowerPoint that shows a path you will take. At Cascadia, we see and write many business plans. 

• Find the Right Connections

After you’ve determined your business plan, you’ll also know whose assistance you need to make it happen. You may be gifted in multiple areas and think you can avoid hiring professionals to save some money.

However, no solopreneur would be able to create their product from start to finish, unless they’re product development, marketing, design and science professionals. To get your beverage on the shelves for consumers to notice, you’ll need to work with all of these people, so start making those essential connections early.

• Make a Marketing Plan

An in-depth marketing plan is a huge piece of the budget puzzle, although new business owners tend to leave it for last. Instead of planning, they use whatever’s left of their initial budget. However, this approach makes it difficult to succeed. The beverage industry is highly competitive, and you need to be able to break through the noise. Without a huge marketing effort, that is almost impossible to accomplish.

However, your marketing doesn’t have to be expensive to be a success. The first step is to think through the strategy of your marketing plan. Who are you trying to appeal to, and have you chosen the right channels to reach them? How can you reach them more efficiently and for less money? That’s the kind of approach any good marketer will take, as the point of it is to get results while not overspending.

Key Takeaways

To break into the beverage industry and be well-informed about the current trends of it, you should follow fresh industry insights. Who knows, it might give you a disruptive idea that will change the business.

By William Sipper, Cascadia Managing Brands

You don’t meet many people who don’t have a social media profile. Even those that dislike them tend to recognize their importance, especially if they’re entrepreneurs who depend on being popular with the consumers.

The situation is the same for food and beverage businesses which can’t afford not to have a strong social media presence. It’s essential for building awareness of your business and staying in touch with the consumers. However, how you do it, is up to you. Let’s have a look at a few ways to leverage social media to build a more successful beverage business:

Be Active

To obtain any benefit from social media; your brand needs to be reasonably active on it. However, you still need to study the algorithms of different social media networks well, as they have various definitions of timely posting. Have a look at the recommended post frequency for different social media networks before you decide:

• for Facebook posts: 3-7 times per week;
• for Twitter posts: 3-30 times per day;
• for Instagram posts: once a day;
• for Youtube uploads: 2-3 times per month.

Choose the Right Network

The networks you choose will depend on your target audience. For example, if you’re targeting older consumers, you’ll sooner find them on Facebook than on Instagram or Snapchat which are reserved for younger generations in a more considerable measure. Study the demographics of each social media network and figure out a couple of them where your target audience is likely to be.

Once you’re on the right social networks, you can narrow down your audience even further. Social media allows you to narrow down the audience to particular types. Studying the audiences helps you learn the ins and outs of all your potential buyer personas. That makes for more effective marketing strategies since you will know exactly how to target consumers, and what kind of a campaign to craft to get them to buy.

Bring Social Media into Your Marketing Strategy

Social media marketing isn’t optional anymore — it plays a significant part in any food or beverage company’s marketing strategy. It is mostly because social media networks are where potential customers spend their free time.

With the number of members they have and the quality of ad platforms they possess, social media networks are rapidly becoming the powerhouses of marketing. Using them enhances and supports any other traditional marketing strategy you may employ, such as TV advertising, radio, and print. Social media are the best place to launch a digital marketing campaign, too. They’re convenient, fast, and let you track the metrics in real time and adjust your campaigns and strategies accordingly. The biggest challenge is getting noticed in the sea of competitors who are trying to do the same thing.

Use the Strengths of Social Media

Social media networks have made their name on real-time communication, which has become an essential part of doing business today. Brands nowadays use social media for customer support and instantly answering any questions or inquiries that the customers may have.

Building rapport this way is invaluable, and it certainly works well to raise consumers’ awareness of your beverage business. Another way of fostering rapport with the customers is through reviews. You’ll inevitably be getting reviews on social media, which might be an excellent opportunity to do some reputation management and word-of-mouth marketing to get the ball rolling.

Target Existing and Future Distributors

Take a look at what the big food and beverage beverage companies are doing on their social media profiles. Many of them don’t only target the consumers, but also the distributors. Social media can be a great tool to show distributors that your brand has grown big enough for them to consider working with you.

It’s also an excellent avenue to educate the distributors on what they get from partnering with you. Present the problem that your products solve, as well as how exactly they do it. Doing this can open doors to new and more profitable partnerships, so make sure not to miss on the opportunity to collaborate with a new distributor.

Master Hashtags

Hashtags are the lifeblood of social networks like Instagram, Twitter, and even Snapchat. Users utilize hashtags to search for content, but also to see what’s trending. Even Facebook has recently started benefiting from hashtagged content, although it’s not to the extent that Instagram and Twitter need and use it.

If you are looking to build a strong presence on hashtag-centric social media, using them is a must. Work with your marketing team to find an exceptional, unique hashtag for your business. Additionally, you’ll need to find the “regular” but popular hashtags that your brand would naturally pair well with. Use a combination of unique and standard hashtags to stand out and gain brand awareness.

Find Influencers to Promote You

Many brands nowadays work with influencers on social media — and that’s because this type of collaboration is advantageous. Most influencer marketing consists of giving them a unique promotional affiliate code that they can share with their followers and receive a percentage of the profits off every purchase.

It is the right way of marketing your business and increasing awareness, mainly if you target micro-influencers. They still have a nice following but aren’t too swamped in offers from brands. More often than not, influencers want brands to approach them, so find a few people in your industry who would make a good match with what your brand represents.

Tell Stories

Social media networks can help you to convey your brand story through different types of content correctly. And having a strong brand isn’t just a nifty bonus anymore. You need to get the consumers to relate to your brand if you want them to buy. With so much competition in the industry, success has become reserved for those who can reach the audience.

Fortunately, the audience likes nothing better than a story they can relate to. As an additional benefit, telling stories is one of the main strategies of brand building. With one activity, you’re both raising awareness of your business and introducing the customers to your brand.

Key Takeaways

Having a strong social media presence is extremely helpful in business today, as this is where you’ll find your customers. However, there’s more to building a successful beverage business. By studying fresh industry insights, you’ll stay on track with the trends and be able to implement some of them to your business.

By William Sipper, Cascadia Managing Brands
#williamsipper #cascadiabrands #cascadiamanagingbrands

Being an entrepreneur in any industry is a challenging path full of obstacles and uncertainty. As entrepreneurs are expected to rely on themselves to get their business off the ground, being a success depends heavily on our ability to manage our time and motivation. It is one of the difficulties of self-employment in general, and one of the main reasons why so many people fail to make their business as successful as they’d want it to be.

Some entrepreneurs learn valuable time management skills early in life, but even they need help sometimes. When the tasks begin to pile up, and the rising stress deletes all thoughts except those relating to the job, it’s good to have a system to guide you. There are many theories about the best practices of time management to try out. Let’s have a closer look at one of them, called the Covey Quadrants, that classifies tasks by importance and urgency:

Stephen Covey’s Work

Stephen Covey was the author of two well-known books: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and First Things First, both dealing with topics of time management and attention. Seven Habits is his most famous work. It first published in 1989 and became the first non-fiction audio-book that sold over a million copies in U.S. publishing history.

Covey was a devout follower of the values of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and it is said that this influenced his work. However, Covey’s books are easily understandable, relatable and helpful, especially when it comes to figuring out how to set priorities and manage time. That’s also a skill that can be quite useful to entrepreneurs, especially in the food and beverage industry.

Prioritization of Work — How Do People Usually Do It?

Prioritization is a common problem for people, both in business and in everyday life. The problem can become exacerbated when you’re the boss of your own time and have more liberty to decide which tasks you’re going to tackle first. If you don’t prioritize properly in those situations, you might fall behind on essential projects because of devoting all your available energy on something that isn’t as crucial.

But how does one determine what is crucial and what isn’t, especially in a situation where it looks like every single task should be prioritized? Busy people often face this difficulty and struggle in solving it, but it’s precisely where Covey’s work can help the most.

Eisenhower’s Urgent-Important Principle or Covey’s Quadrants

In order to figure out which tasks to prioritize, one of your first steps will be to classify them all by urgency and importance. Eisenhower used this principle and adapted by Covey into the Covey time management matrix that has since helped countless people learn how to prioritize. Distinguishing between importance and urgency is relatively straightforward, even though people don’t tend to classify tasks like this consciously.

Important responsibilities or tasks are the ones that contribute to achieving your ultimate goal. For a food entrepreneur who wants to make it big, all the obligations that result in the creation or improvement of the business could be considered necessary.

On the other hand, urgent responsibilities are the ones that require you to act immediately and usually are connected to someone else’s goal. These tend to be deadlines since not getting them done has immediate consequences.

The quadrants divide all tasks into four categories that can help you determine which ones you need to tackle first and keep your workload adequately managed. These four categories are:

• Urgent and important;
• Not urgent and important;
• Urgent and not important;
• Not urgent and not important;

Quadrant I — Very Urgent Deadlines

The first quadrant and the one that contains top priority tasks deals with responsibilities that require immediate attention, which is usually urgent deadlines. Some of them will be unforeseen situations, too, such as unexpected emergencies and significant crises. Even though this is the top priority quadrant where tasks will take precedence over others, it’s not to be overused. If you find yourself spending most of your time doing Quadrant I chores, it might be a sign that not everything is in order.

For example, if your deadlines are regularly very urgent, that might be showing you that you tend to procrastinate until the last moment. And if there are always unforeseen situations cropping up and throwing you off from your plans, you might not be planning efficiently or in enough detail.

Quadrant II — Important Long-Term Development

In Quadrant II, some tasks are essential, but not pressing or urgent. They usually have something to do with long-term achievements or goals, and the development of strategies to get there. Since these are the tasks that play an important role in the future, they’re also often connected to health, exercise and general wellness, as well as education.

Successful entrepreneurs spend most of their time doing tasks in Quadrant II, as opposed to letting them get to Quadrant I. In order to keep most of your tasks there, you need to plan efficiently and make sure you are allocating enough time for each job.

Quadrant III — Very Urgent Distractions

When it comes to Quadrant III, it’s not an easy one to manage as it is full of tasks that are urgent, but not significant. All the interruptions of your workflow that you encounter during the day fall into this category, from calls to meetings and emails. The tasks in Quadrant III might seem important, but their identifying trait is that they really aren’t.

In most cases, you can delegate or skip them, and if you can’t, you can designate a time slot to complete them and not worry about them for the rest of the day. For example, checking and responding to emails in the morning for an hour is an excellent way not to let Quadrant III tasks constantly interrupt your concentration, while still getting the job done.

Quadrant IV — Activities with Little to No Value

The fourth quadrant contains activities that should be avoided, as they offer little to no value, especially in the long term. These are the things you could live without — hours of TV, hours of pointless surfing on the internet, and generally wasting time doing nothing useful or productive.

Quadrant IV is mostly a tool to help you recognize where you waste your time. Few people would plan to watch TV for hours, but it can sometimes happen when you procrastinate or only want some time for yourself. However, most of the time you don’t need the Quadrant IV activities as they are not important and not urgent either.

Increasing Productivity by Prioritizing Tasks

Task prioritization is one of the most useful tools to increase productivity by improving your time management skills. The quadrants help you understand which tasks you should do first, and which ones you can delegate or skip altogether. That is supposed to ensure that you’re never overwhelmed with work, eliminate or reduce procrastination and create better habits.

The healthiest quadrant to be in is Quadrant II, with its tasks that affect your long-term achievements. It’s also where most of your personal development is done, and it plays a huge role in the lives of entrepreneurs who have to rely on their capabilities to start a business and make it successful.

Using the Quadrants and Classifying Tasks

When you think about what one day in the life of an entrepreneur looks like, especially in the food and beverage industry, you might come to the conclusion that entrepreneurs are people that wear several hats. They come up with their own marketing strategy; they’re in charge of their outreach, they develop the products, and in many cases produce them on their own as well. Their work is always with them, and if tasks start to pile up, that can create a lot of pressure.

Even the entrepreneurs who generally do a good job of managing their workload can benefit from using the quadrants and classifying tasks to prioritize them better. For example, an entrepreneur certainly has a lot of calls to make and emails to write, but their productivity would improve if they designated a time slot for it during the day and not let it distract them at other times. Other tasks that need classification might include marketing-related activities, such as managing ad campaigns or contacting influencers, business-related activities like planning budgets and creating content, etc. Designing a new advertising campaign could easily fall under Quadrant I, if it hasn’t been carried out on time as a Quadrant II task.

All of these tasks have to be done at some point, and some of them are daily recurring tasks that can’t be skipped. However, some will be less urgent or less important than others. In the day of an entrepreneur when there are so many things to do, this kind of prioritization ensures that everything is managed correctly.

Time Management Tips and Tricks

For those who aspire to become better at time management, but feel like they’ll never possess those skills, it’s important not to despair. The quadrants are one of the countless methods you can try out and adjust to your needs. Keeping it up and carrying on is the best thing you can do because good habits won’t form by themselves.

Another reason why Covey Quadrants can help even the procrastinators or the unmotivated is that they provide a clear visualization of which tasks matter. And you cannot classify a task without being clear on why it’s necessary or unimportant or urgent, which can do wonders for motivation. However, you need to hold yourself accountable for what you plan, which is why it’s good to track your activities.

Weekly and Daily Evaluation with Quadrants

If you wish to track your progress at learning how to manage your time more efficiently, it’s essential not to skip the weekly and daily evaluation. Use the time management matrix to plan your day, and track whether you’ve completed the tasks in their allocated time. Do the same for the entire week, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of how you spend your time during a typical day or week.

It might even help you realize which parts of the day are typically riddled with distractions, as well as to come up with some options of solving that problem. Also if the problem is merely a loss of concentration or focus, it might signal at your need to replenish some mental energy at a certain point in the day, which is where a good break would help.

Key Takeaways

Learning proper time management is a process, but you can find the right method for you with some experimentation. However, it’s vital to remember that there will be difficulties without proper task prioritization, and Covey’s time management matrix can help you determine which tasks are the most important and most urgent ones.

For busy entrepreneurs who have multiple roles to play in the success of their business, it’s imperative to avoid getting overwhelmed. With the amount of work an entrepreneur does and takes home every day, this is a realistic possibility. However, this can be countered if you remember not to set your expectations too high or make unrealistic demands of yourself. Allow yourself some time to recharge, so you’d be able to do better work and keep up managing your time correctly.

Being a successful entrepreneur in the food and beverage industry is not an easy feat to accomplish. It takes character and determination, as well as vast knowledge of the industry and the ability to follow new trends and capitalize on changing market conditions. Fresh industry insights can help a lot in many aspects of that mission, as they help you assess your business and determine whether there are any changes you need to make. If time management is one of the skills you think you need to improve, Covey’s time matrix might bring you one step closer to your goals.

Trade shows frustrate me.  So much money being spent and such poor execution. They can be a waste of time if you do not pay attention to detail.

What all marketing activities have in common is striving to get a business in front of the customers, but there are different ways of accomplishing that. With traditional methods like ads or digital marketing, you’re focusing on marketing to a buyer persona, but it’s also possible to be closer to the action.

Trade shows can present an excellent opportunity for a business to promote their new product and catch the eyes of customers. However, in order to make the best out of the trade show, you should come prepared. Let’s have a look at some do’s and don’ts at trade shows you should keep in mind:

DO: Get a Good Spot

It’s easy to underestimate the importance of having a good spot at a trade show, but it’s definitely among the things you should make sure to get right. A good place is the one where there’s naturally the most foot traffic. Ensuring that you’ve snatched a favorable spot means that you’ll have more visitors to your booth than you would someplace else.

If you wish to get a beneficial spot, scouting the exhibit hall way before the trade show will be helpful. Make sure to register for the event on time, so you don’t have to worry about your location.

DON’T: Overspend

Not allocating your budget correctly will lead you into overspending, which is one of the main things you want to avoid. Like any other marketing activity, participating in a trade show is supposed to bring you a return on your investment. It is why failing to come up with a budget or stick to it can seriously jeopardize the profitability of the trade show for you.

The same goes for your marketing budget before the event. Of course, you have to let your target audience know that you will be attending. Still, it would be unwise to spend too much of your resources on a marketing strategy that isn’t going to be efficient. Always consider your potential ROI and act accordingly.

DO: Know What Your Goal Is

You should focus on a few priority goals to avoid being overwhelmed. You might be promoting a new product and looking for sales, attracting new customers, or scoping out the competition. Whatever your primary goal is, you should determine it in advance and plan how you are going to carry it out.

Knowing what you want will give you a few ideas on what you should focus on at the trade show is the starting point. Without having prior experience at a trade show will make it a much more difficult mission. Come up with a couple of priority tasks and write down a plan to see them completed no matter what.

DON’T: Come Unprepared

Even though it’s not the best practice to overwhelm attendees with promotional material, you still need to prepare it. It could be a booklet, brochure or something as simple as a flier. It’s going to be an essential part of your marketing at the trade show. However, you need to be prepared to make the best of it. It should be used only as a means to ensure your booth and your products stay in the attendees’ memory. Unless you establish a connection with them, promotional material likely isn’t going to be enough to get their attention.

Your staff should be aware of this too if you’re hiring help to service your booths. You also have to train them and prepare them, which includes filling them into your marketing ways and preferred ways of communicating with prospects. They may not need basic training, depending on who you are hiring, but you should still make sure they’ll be on the same page as you.

DO: Draw Attention to Your Display

Giveaways are a helpful way to draw attention to your display, but you can also do it in many different ways. Food and beverage businesses at a trade show have the opportunity to offer samples to interested attendees, which can be a great way of drawing attention. What’s more, the giveaway could include things that pair well with your products, which would be something different enough from the rest to stand out.

Including some nice branded swag into your trade show exhibit is another great way to ensure you’ll catch the eye of attendees. If you want your booth to be visited and popular at the trade show, you have to be prepared to give stuff out for free.

DON’T: Act Bored or Unapproachable

Trade shows can be challenging to work, but that doesn’t mean you should let your energy levels drop. Even though everyone at the trade show knows it’s not advisable to act bored or unprofessional in any way; at times people aren’t aware of their body language. Unfortunately, sometimes it can reveal you’re really feeling tired or not up for talking with trade show attendees.

In order to avoid this, make sure you’re not crossing your arms, sitting down, or turning your back to the people walking past your booth. Being friendly and open is what you want to do instead. Make every moment count and interact with as many people as you can — but don’t focus on quantity over quality. If you want to eat or use your cell phone, leave the booth area. No one wants to see a potential supplier busy talking on their cell phone or eating.

DO: Give Out Samples

Make sure you are engaging trade show attendees by giving out samples of your products.  Just because you know what your product looks like and/or tastes like or what it does, does not mean potential customers will know. I see this a lot in the international pavilion at food and beverage trade shows.  People are sitting at their booth, talking to each other, and not engaging potential customers with samples.  And there is always one thing missing from the aisle:  show attendees.  I always think, what a waste of money.

Key Takeaways

Entrepreneurs in the food and beverage industry can use trade shows as a great marketing tool to get closer to customers, raise awareness of their brand or promote new products. However, to be successful in their mission, they must first determine what it is, come up with a plan to make it happen, and then act on it during the trade show. While the event is underway, it’s also important to stick to the best practices of exhibiting at trade shows.

Trade shows are like theater. You are always on stage and you want to be the center of attention. Trade shows only become a tool to sell your product after you have determined how you are going to get awareness at the show and attendees to stop at your booth.

This list of the dos and don’ts has hopefully helped you gain sufficient insight into the industry and inspired you to make the best out of your next trade show.

The Approach Liquid Death Took Developing a Bottled Water

Developing a product is usually a painstaking, long process that often sparks from a single great idea. Nowadays, it’s the marketing that makes or breaks a product, so many brands opt to create their products to stand out right from the start. This approach helps the marketing department and makes it much easier to capture the attention of consumers.

Creating a product this way has plenty of upsides, although it might present some challenges as well. However, brands that aim to disrupt the industry seem to think the risks are worth it. Recently the beverage industry has had the perfect example of this unusual approach: a brand that created bottled water with a sense of humor and an edge to it. Let’s have a closer look at the approach Liquid Death took developing bottled water:

The Idea of Liquid Death

The minds behind the brand, namely Mike Cessario, a former ad agency creative director, had a simple idea: disrupt the bottled water market. Current marketing clichés in the industry all revolve around being healthy, happy, and almost zen-like. To glean this trend, it’s enough to take a look at bottled water ads full of flowers and wholesomeness.

Cessario, on the other hand, doesn’t think that consumers need reminding that water is right for them. Once this staple of the bottled water industry is taken off the table, what remains is the freedom to experiment, as Liquid Death can exemplify.

Humorous Approach

The idea of offering something different and perhaps polarizing was the first step towards developing Liquid Death. Between different options, the brand chose a humorous approach that consumers are either going to love or just do not understand. However, Cessario and the rest of the team behind Liquid Death were alright with this, as long as a sufficient part of the consumer base understood their brand message.

Liquid Death was targeted from the start, at the audiences who enjoy a tongue-in-cheek approach and some edginess — so the brand adjusted its copy, packaging, and visuals to stay consistent with their vision for the product.

Unconventional Branding Choices

To follow through with the idea, they made everything about Liquid Death eccentric, starting with the packaging. Even though it is bottled water, Liquid Death comes in a 16.9 oz. Tallboy can that makes it feel like a craft beer or an energy drink. It was done on purpose, to fit with the type of unhealthy brand marketing which is more similar to energy drinks and soda. However, the can packaging has another significant upside: it’s much more sustainable than plastic, which is undoubtedly going to attract more ecologically-aware consumers.

The water’s tagline is “Murder Your Thirst,” and this edgy call to action couples with a gothic-looking font for Liquid Death,  as well as a depiction of a skull on the can. Appearance-wise, it shares no similarities with bottled water — which is why many consumers who are tired of the “water is a girly drink for yoga moms” cliché notice and appreciates Liquid Death.

Making It Happen

The fundraising campaign for Liquid Death started on Indiegogo in 2017 and went mostly unnoticed until it got its satirical announcement video that drove the point home with the audience. The video announced water as the “most deadly drink on earth,” and not what marketing executives have been turning it into. It created a lot of buzz online — enough to get the project off the ground despite an ultimately unsuccessful campaign.

The main thing the brand took away from their video announcement effort is that they were successful in causing polarizing reactions. There had been initial disbelief of the audiences who doubted the product was real. Cessario saw it as a good sign, and eventually, the viewers started to appreciate the brand’s unusual approach to the bottled water market.

This initial success helped the company find a partner in Science Inc., an early stage CPG investor, as well as attract notable advisors and investors, like Alex Bogusky and Gary Vaynerchuck.

Retail Launch Strategy

In preparation for its launch, the brand honed its approach and embraced its target audience — mainly fans of heavy metal, and younger generations who traditionally respond well to anything out of the ordinary and unique. To start with, they made the product available as a 12-pack on their website and also on Amazon. It priced at $19.99 for a one-time purchase or $17.99 with a subscription. They also partnered with bars, venues, and tattoo parlors in Philadelphia and Los Angeles to distribute single 16.9 oz. Tallboy cans with a price tag of $1.80.

The strategy is to expand in ways that make sense for the brand and find places where it will be easier for it to reach the people that will respond well to the brand’s unique approach to bottled water.

Just a Marketing Gimmick?

The critics of this approach state that a marketing gimmick is driving Liquid Death water, and that it will be difficult to scale a brand after its novelty wears off. While there may be a risk of decreased consumer attention after a while, it’s still possible for the brand to thrive if they take it slowly.

According to Mike Cessario, everything is a marketing gimmick nowadays — but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a good product underneath all the clever marketing. And Liquid Death also boasts quality that can rival any other premium water on the market, as naturally alkaline mountain water that one can efficiently murder their thirst with.

Key Takeaways

Taking a different approach to developing a product might be enough to disrupt the entire industry and subvert the expectations of consumers in a very satisfying way. As marketing evolves, staying on top of fresh industry insights is more important than ever for successful food and beverage entrepreneurship. The people behind Liquid Death took their knowledge of the industry and turned it into a product that creates its place in the market, proving that an unconventional approach may pay off.

Everyone knows that big food and big drink are losing market share to small, local, and craft brands. And big brands have been appropriating the small/craft look and feel for years now trying to fit in. But when McDonalds has “artisan sandwiches” and uses the tired farmers market design clichés, it means the traditional small/craft approach is no longer effective at communicating “small”. Nowadays you never know which brand is really local/small and which are made in giant factories. So in 2019, to instantly communicate that you are small, you need to do and say things that big brands would never do.

Entrepreneurs, mostly, are thought of as unusually persistent and bright, no matter which industry they end up working in. Naturally, it’s not wrong to perceive entrepreneurs this way, as they’re the ones responsible for their success, and there’s usually no charted path before them that they could follow. Everyone has their path to pursue, and there’s no guarantee that someone else would have the same success even if they did the same things.

It is especially true in the food industry, where there are so many different niches to specialize in that it would take hours to name them all. And then there are also many different ways of doing business in each one of those narrower fields of specialty. If you’re asking yourself the question of whether food entrepreneurship is the right choice for you, choosing your field or approach won’t be the best questions, to begin with. Instead, you need to determine whether you have what it takes to be successful as an entrepreneur. Here are some of the traits of successful food entrepreneurs:

Building Connections with the Right People

Even though entrepreneurs often have to rely on their strengths to get them started in the business, that doesn’t mean that they have to do everything alone. The first essential thing to have is a good support system. One may find it in their family, or among the people who are trying to do the same thing that they are. It’s much easier to focus on the business and getting every aspect of it right when you surround yourself with people who motivate you and cheer you on.

In addition to that, entrepreneurs who have the right connections have a much easier time succeeding in the food industry. Getting to know others who are hustling just as hard can be a motivational factor in and of itself. Consider paying it forward, helping someone overcome a hurdle if you can, without expecting them to do the same for you. They might have a chance to help you sometime in the future and act on it.

Quick Thinking and Quick Execution

One defining trait of most successful entrepreneurs is their ability to think fast and get into action as soon as they have an idea. It’s a skill that can be learned, even though you might believe that some people are born with an entrepreneurial way of thinking. In the food business, you don’t have to be selling lemonade at a neighborhood stand as a kid to have any shot of making a successful food enterprise in the future. The experience might help you, but it’s much more important to be a person of action.

Some people fall into the trap of planning for too long and waiting for the ideal conditions to start their business. After a certain amount of time, they realize that the setting won’t ever be as perfect as they want them — and they’ll sometimes regret not starting their business earlier. If you’re the type of person who wants to act quickly on their ideas, then food entrepreneurship might be the right choice for you.

Ability to Predict and Act on Trends

Trends are a big part of any industry, and the food business is no exception. Let us look at the successful food entrepreneurs. You might see that many of them have predicted a trend and acted on it before their competition.  Conversely, they led the way themselves to facilitate change. For example, Justin Woolverton and Douglas Bouton have changed the ice-cream business with Halo Top, their low-cal ice-cream that has America going crazy over it. Healthy ice-cream wasn’t such a significant trend before they started it and shown the world that it’s possible.

When in the food business, an entrepreneur has to make peace with the fact that there is no product which can cater to 100% of the market. The beauty of food is that there’s a flavor out there for everyone, even with vastly different tastes that we all have. However, sometimes certain trends stand out, and it’s crucial to realize ahead of time what those things may be. For example, the food industry is moving towards healthier, more eco-friendly options, since they’re becoming increasingly attractive to more people.

Having Big Goals and Determination to See Them Accomplished

Entrepreneurs also tend to think big — but not in a non-committal daydreaming type of way. They have learned to see the potential for grand things in what they want to do, or this kind of thinking comes naturally to them. When you set an entrepreneurship goal, you may or may not know exactly how to get there, but you will throw ideas at it and try out different approaches to see what will work.

Of course, not every approach will work. You may run into walls at every step you take. It’s important to be able to learn from the mistakes you’ll inevitably make without getting so discouraged that you end up quitting. If you have a dream, a big goal that you want to see accomplished, you need to have the determination to carry you through the hardships you’ll encounter. It is among the life advice we receive most often, regardless of what it is we want to do — but it’s exceptionally accurate for food entrepreneurs. If you’re not the type to give up easily, then your odds of making it in the food business indeed grow.

Key Takeaways While food entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone, there are some traits that successful entrepreneurs have which might help you determine if you should try to make it in the food business on your own. Being able to predict and act on trends, follow fresh industry insights and put your spin on them, come up with original ideas and act on them quickly, as well as staying determined in the face of hardship are all traits that will help you on the way to becoming a successful food entreprene