How to Get Your Product Into Retail Stores with Alli Ball

Want to get your product into retail stores but don’t know how to find buyers, pitch them, or prove your brand is retail-ready?

In this episode of Small Business PR, Gloria Chou sits down with Alli Ball, founder of Food Biz Wiz, who has helped more than 3,500 CPG brands get onto retail shelves and generate over $1 billion in revenue.

Alli breaks down exactly what retail buyers are looking for—and why getting the first purchase order is only the beginning.

You’ll learn:

• The 5 Ps retail buyers evaluate: product, pricing, placement, purchasing, and promotion
• How to find retail buyers without paying for outdated buyer lists
• How to use AI tools like Perplexity and Claude to research potential retailers and buyer contacts
• What to include in a retail buyer pitch (and what makes buyers ignore you)
• Why small brands should start with local and regional retailers before trying to land national chains
• The pricing mistake that can prevent your brand from scaling
• How to drive sales once your product actually hits retail shelves
• Why every buyer pitch needs a specific call to action
• How often to follow up—and why Alli recommends following up until you get a yes or no

Whether you’re a CPG founder, product-based business, or small brand trying to get into retail stores, this episode gives you a practical roadmap for finding buyers, pitching your product, getting onto shelves, and turning that first retail placement into repeat orders.

Connect with Alli Ball:
Instagram: @foodbizwiz
DM her “rebuttal” for her 100 Buyer No’s guide.

Want your business to become the one AI recommends?
In my free AI Visibility Masterclass, I'll show you how small business owners are using PR, media features, and credibility signals to increase their AI visibility, earn press without hiring a PR agency, and get discovered by customers at the exact moment they're ready to buy.

🎓 Watch the free masterclass:
👉 https://www.gloriachoupr.com/masterclass

💬 Join my Small Biz PR Facebook Group for weekly PR tips, media opportunities, and AI visibility strategies.

📩 DM "PITCH" on Instagram to get my free pitching guide:
https://www.instagram.com/gloriachoupr

🤝 Connect with me on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gloriaychou

Transcript

Speaker 0:01

What's up, small business heroes? Welcome back to Small Business PR, where we make marketing and PR super accessible for the everyday small business founder. Here's a question I get asked all the time. My people say, "Gloria, I have this amazing product. I wanna get into the hands of buyers, of retail, so that it's at Target, it's at CVS. How do I do that?" today I have the answer for you, because my dear friend, she's a gem of a human, by the way, and she also is, a breathwork teacher, Ali Ball, she has helped over 3,500 CPG brands get into shelves, and helped them make a combined over $1 billion in revenue. We're gonna talk all about what are buyers looking for, and how do you actually meet that criteria, even as a small brand, so that you can get your product into the hands of more people. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 2 0:44

Thanks for having me, Gloria. I'm so excited to be here.

Speaker 0:47

So you're an expert in this. I'm not an expert in this. I help people get PR, but the next step is how do people get into shelves? First of all, if people are pitching, a wholesaler or a buyer, just within the first 10 seconds, what are they even looking for?

Speaker 2 1:00

Yeah, so it's really important to know that the buyer is evaluating you before you even get in a sales conversation. So that is the emails that you're sending them, the subject lines that you're using, your fair profile, your Instagram profile, your sell sheet, your email signature. it's kind of nuts and a little bit intimidating. Before you're even in that convo, the buyer is scanning you and your presence to evaluate whether or not you might be the right fit for their shelves.

Speaker 1:30

So they're basically stalking.

Speaker 2 1:31

Yeah, exactly. And, they're really trying to assess two things, Gloria. One, are you professional and ready to be on shelves? And are you gonna be a high-maintenance brand to work with? And we want the yes on the professionalism and the no on the high-maintenance piece.

Speaker 1:47

Okay, let's talk about those two things. How can I meet those, and not just meet it, but I'm an overachiever, how do I meet it with flying colors so that the other person- says yes?

Speaker 2 1:56

So the professionalism piece. And I'm gonna weave in, let's pretend you're also in conversation, right? You're checking off the professionalism, and you're starting to get in conversation with a buyer, because we need that professionalism through and through. We have the five Ps that we teach inside of our Retail Ready framework, and I think that there's I think it would be helpful if we reviewed these. 'Cause once you have these five Ps down, that buyer sees you as professional. So the five Ps. Product, pricing, placement, purchasing, and promotion. So product. this sounds obvious, and everyone's gonna think that they're, like, green light here, but, bear with me. Do you look good on the shelf? Do you pass all of your regulatory compliance? are you legally allowed to sell in wholesale? Are you somehow standing out in your category, or are you just like everything else they have in, on their shelves? we, buyers want unique products for their shelves, so we really need to make sure that we're an expert, not a- Only in our own product line, but then the product category as well, so we can speak professionally to that buyer about why they need us rather than what they've got on the shelf already. So product, you have to be the expert. Pricing, we wanna make sure that our wholesale margins are appropriate for the accounts that we're pitching to. pricing is a whole... There's a whole psychology and of course, like math to the pricing, but we wanna make sure that you are pricing so that it's appealing to the consumer and you are making enough margin both to meet the buyer's requirements and so that you're gonna stay in business. So the pricing psychology of it, and how do you communicate that really clearly to the buyer right from that initial conversation? Placement, I think that this is probably similar to how you think about it with PR, but is this the right account for me? Are my ideal audience members, like my ideal shoppers, actually looking for products like mine in this account? If you make a super high-end, let's say, olive oil, you're probably not going to succeed on the shelves at Walmart. We wanna make sure that we are pitching and be- being placed in the right accounts. And then on the account level, literally, where are you sold in the store? Where are you merchandised? Are there cross-merchandising opportunities? Where is that buyer putting you on the shelf, and can they imagine your product in their set? We have all different ways that we can help them, paint that picture for them, but can they picture you on their shelves? Purchasing, we can get more into this later, but literally, how are they buying your product? Is it through a broker? Is it through a distributor? Is it direct from you? And again, one isn't necessarily better than the other, but they just need to know, it needs to be cl- clearly communicated to them, and it needs to work with their capacities as a buying team. And then lastly, promotion. This is the one, Gloria, like most people skip. And we can ta- again, talk about this in a bit, but how are you going to step up and take responsibility for promoting your product once it's on their shelves? Because we have to realize that it's not the retailer's job to sell your product once it's on their shelves. It's not the stocking team. It's not the buying team. The responsibility is on the brand. And so often, brands assume that once they get the yes, once they get that first purchase order, once they're on the shelf, they can take a deep breath and that things will get easier. But actually, this is where the real work begins. So that buyer, that last P, promotion, that buyer wants to know that you have a really clear promotional plan and that they're not going to be expected to do all the work for your product line. When we think about professionalism, that buyer wants to know in that very first interaction that you've thought through all those five Ps and that you are ready to support your product on their shelves.

Speaker 5:57

Ooh, that is a lot. Yeah. I think this is like a masterclass here. We're gonna need 10 hours of this. Definitely check out her Retail Ready program. We have so many amazing people who have been in both of our programs, and they get- Yeah so much success. So I know you talked about the five Ps. My next question, so how do I prove all the five Ps in an email? That's like a 10-page email. So what is like- Yeah the first right way, or how do people even find these people? Is there like a list that I go to? Is there LinkedIn? 'Cause I have no idea about this.

Speaker 2 6:22

I'm so glad that you asked, because, you and I are really similar here. we like to call out BS in our industry. Here's the biggest thing. People will try to sell you buyer contact lists. Do not pay for this. And I'm sure this happens in PR as well, people wanna sell you lead lists. They're outdated the moment that you purchase them. Buyers are always changing categories and, where they work and stuff. do not do this. So we've got a couple ways that we can do it, There are wholesale platforms, like I mentioned, RangeMe and Faire, that literally connect wholesale buyers with brands. But also, we can use AI for this. I know that you're a big, advocate of this as well, but what one of the things I love teaching is we take our ideal client, our ideal shoppers, we translate that into our ideal retailers inside of Retail Ready. We call this the right people, right channel philosophy. We can create a skill or an agent that is, that knows these things and then does a deep dive, basically like Claude Deep Research, that can pull buyer contact information, what the stores typically look for, if what values are in alignment with your product line as well, and then we can help it to craft those pitch emails that are really concise, I love bullet points, and a clear call to action on what you want to happen next in that wholesale relationship. You're right, Gloria. First step is finding the information. If you're not an AI user, okay, you pick up the phone, like Google on the phone is your best friend. And then we craft those very brief sales emails that are all about what your product is going to do to help the buyer's category. bullet point, to action

Speaker 8:06

I love it. It all starts with a pitch, right? I always say- everything you want is on the other side of the send button. So I love- what you said about that. What about a tool like Perplexity, 'cause I'm big on Perplexity? Can we use a tool like Perplexity?

Speaker 2 8:16

100%, and it's actually very similar. So the, folks who are in your program, you can use the same skills that Gloria's already teaching you to find those retail buyers. And, there is like, AI makes it easier. Perplexity is great. I love it for research and finding, deep dive contact information. But at the same time, it does require some work. if there were just lists of buyers around that were accurate and appropriate for, the stores that you wanna pitch to, pitching would be easy. We can make it easier- Yeah with AI, but there's still some work that has to be done to get that buyer contact information.

Speaker 9:17

How much does a relationship help, like an intro, or anyone has a shot as long as they have those five Ps?

Speaker 2 9:22

So this is where the role of brokers can be really helpful. So a broker, if folks aren't familiar, when we sell into wholesale, there are essentially three ways you can do it. You can either go direct, and that would literally be, like, me, Alli Ball, selling my protein bars directly to a retailer. No middleman there. I'm the one taking the order, driving my protein bars, and dropping them off to a retailer. That's direct. You can go through a broker. A broker is someone who literally brokers the sale. So they are the one pitching your products for you. When that buyer wants to place a reorder, they're placing it through the broker, and then that broker is coming back to you, the founder, and saying, "Hey, Bob's Corner Store needs 12 cases of protein bars." And then in that scenario, that broker, when you're using a broker, you are still responsible for delivering the product to the store. And then you can use a distributor. The distributor literally distributes your product from point A to point B. So why is all this important when we think about relationships? That buyer needs to trust, like I said, they need to trust that your product is going to help them hit their category goals. And when there is an established relationship, like a broker, they know that broker understands their goals and their needs and their style of working with brands, their preferences. So having a broker to represent your brand can certainly help build trust with that buyer 'cause the relationship is already there, but it comes at a big cost. brokers often start, retainer, you're looking at 4,000 bucks a month, and then you're paying, between 5 and 12% commission on every sale. So if you're a small brand who doesn't have $5,000 plus every month to pay to your broker, you typically wanna do that relationship building yourself.

Speaker 11:20

So how do we do that? So let's get started. Like I have something, I wanna sell it. So the first thing is I can either look up on Google or a tool like Perplexity- to find out the buyer information. Maybe I come up- Yep with a list of five, 10. Do you have any tricks here about like what is the right number? What is the right prompt maybe?

Speaker 2 11:36

Yeah. Yeah. We'll talk about the actual pitch itself, and I'll tell you a bad one, and then what you should do instead. But first, just thinking about the number of stores, I always say that I want a founder, especially when they're first starting out, especially if they're self-funded, they're bootstrapping this business. You are going to learn so much from the first few dozen accounts that you're in. And I think there's this belief that we gotta go national. I gotta get into Whole Foods. If I get into Whole Foods, it means I've made it. And this can't be further from the truth. So I always say start in your own backyard, and we want to ensure that once we get on the shelf, we can actually hit our sales goals. And that takes some practice, and we can talk about how to do that in a moment. But we have to make sure that we know, again, that yes, that first purchase order is only the first step, and we have to have a strategy for meeting our sales goals. So that is so much easier to do, Gloria, in your own backyard than it is across the country. So a mistake that I see young brands make is essentially saying yes to any account who wants them, who sa- you know, says yes because it's really flattering that I live in San Francisco, but that account in New York wants to stock my product. But it's really hard to maintain the account from afar. So I always say penetrate your own region first, five accounts, 10 accounts, 30 accounts, 100 accounts, before you start going bigger and bigger in like geographic regions. Start small. Ooh.

Speaker 13:09

So good. And the riches are in the niches. Yeah. Is that kind of like placement? 'Cause I wanna talk about- the nuances of the five Ps, right? I guess my- Yeah main question for that is, out of the five, are there like two or three that you find weigh more, that if you get those three right, the rest will follow? where do people get tripped up with those five Ps? What are the hardest ones?

Speaker 2 13:26

Yeah. Pricing is really hard, and I think this is because of two reasons. One, we think that we have to be as low cost as possible so that people will purchase it. This isn't true. Like we have people inside of Retail Ready who sell jars of spices for $50 and olive oil for $70. And if you can Convey the value of your product, through your branding, through your marketing, through your packaging, through your placement choices, and help your consumer really understand why the price tag is the price tag that it's, it is, people will pay whatever for it. So pricing, oftentimes founders price way too low, and then they realize three years into their business they just have a really expensive hobby and they're not actually making money. And it's heartbreaking. So pricing, you gotta get the pricing nailed down. We wanna make sure we're not underpricing so that we don't have any room to reinvest in the business and to grow. And then the second pricing piece that's really tricky is oftentimes founders won't account for future expense of broker or distributor. And so then, again, they're like screwed. They're at a point where, yeah, okay, like I am ready to expand beyond my region. I am ready to land those bigger chain accounts, but I don't have any margin available to pay for the resources that I need to be in those accounts. So that gets into the really tricky situation around pricing. I think people just kinda wing it at the beginning with pricing, not realizing that it has such a ripple effect and really impacts your ability to grow longterm with your business. Yeah. So pricing is the hard one. I think the other hard one that gets really tricky is that promotion piece. How the heck am I going to sell in the accounts that I'm working so hard to get?

Speaker 15:16

That's where PR comes in And,

Speaker 2 15:18

yeah, exactly. There's 1,000 ways to skin a cat. We have two tools that we use. One is called the coordinated kickoff, and one is called reorder magic. So this is the understanding. First, we just need to understand that it's our responsibility to sell once we're in those accounts. It's not, again, not the buyer, not the broker, not the stocker. It's on us. So what's our plan to do it? So the coordinated kickoff, this is all about, what am I going to do in the first 30 days to ensure that my product sells? We teach this through the lens of the store, the stocker, and the shopper. So like at the store level, what am I doing? Maybe I'm doing demos. Maybe I'm providing signage, those little shelf talkers. Maybe I am running a promotion, a sale, a coupon. when I think about it through the stocker, like the people literally stocking your products on the shelf, how do they know about your product? How can they speak to your product when a shopper is looking at the shelf? So again, maybe you're providing samples, you're doing staff education. When I worked at Buy Rite, we had this really incredible ice cream brand that they gave my stocking team these really great branded freezer gloves, 'cause it's really cold when you work in the freezer. Yeah. And these are like really great. They were so fun. They were like cow printed 'cause, it was ice cream. Had, hot pink cow printed gloves. And my team loved them because, they were just a helpful tool in working in the freezer, and they were really fun and, well-branded and everything. And literally, Gloria, I was in Buy Rite, I don't know, couple months ago. This is literally like 15 years later after we got these gloves, and there was still a grocery stocker using these, these- Wow branded ice cream gloves. And I was like, "This is so perfect," right? so do the staff know who you are, and do they wanna be an advocate for your brand? And then we think about it from the shopper perspective. Again, like how are the shoppers finding out about your product? Maybe it's PR, maybe it's digital marketing, maybe you're doing geo-targeted Instacart ads that are directing traffic to the store. But we have to have a plan in place. Whatever that plan is, we have to have a plan to ensure that we're actually selling off the shelf. So that's the coordinated kickoff. We do that in the first 30 days, and then we move into reorder magic, which is essentially what are we doing quarterly to hit those same three touch points. And here's where we really make sure that we're not reinventing the wheel with every account. Our people are busy. We're in this like, you and I could do a whole other episode on hustle culture and like the BS behind it. But how do we create simplicity in our businesses where we are testing and tracking what works to sell off the shelf, and then we are literally like rinsing and repeating that quarterly

Speaker 18:07

So good. it's all about testing and getting more. And I feel like the businesses that don't ask their customer feedback, any feedback, even when it doesn't go well, they're losing out on so much. So the more difficult or awkward conversations you have, the better your business will grow.

Speaker 2 18:20

Let me just say one thing to that, or I guess two things here. One, I think people are so intimidated by wholesale buyers. We feel like they're gatekeepers to our success, and "I can't come across as a newbie or a rookie," or "I can't let them know that I don't know what I'm doing." And so we don't ask them questions. We don't ask them, "Hey, Gloria, what does success look like on your shelves? What price do you want me to sell at? Do you think that I would be better merchandised by the crackers or in the gluten-free section?" So ask the buyer because they are the expert, and then that buyer sees you as someone who wants to be in relationship and really wants to succeed together. Because at the end of the, the day, we all have, in retail, we all have the same goals. The goal is to have- Yeah higher sales. And like the buyer wants that, and the brand wants that. Like we, we both want that, so how can we work together to make that happen? Yeah. It's just relationship building. And I think some people get down on that 'cause they're like, "I don't have relationships. I don't know how to do it." We can all just be like warm, curious people, and how do we solve problems together? And then the last thing. I promised that I would say an example of a sh- like crappy pitch and a good pitch, so I wanna say this before our podcast wraps up. So here's what's not to do. Picking up the phone, being in the sales conversation, and that opening line that's something like this: "Hi, my name's Barb and I make Barb's Perfect Puffs. They're so good and people love them, and I think that they would be a great fit for your store." I can't tell you how many times I would get pitches like that, and I'm like, "Okay, Barb, I don't know what a Perfect Puff is." is it a dog treat? Is it a loofah? Is it like a extruded snack? what is it? And I don't care that people love your products. What I actually care about is category goals. So instead, I would wanna hear something like, I always use this fake brand, so I would say something, "I'm Ally. I'm the founder of Up the Ante. We make the first ever protein bar made from ants, and we're a really great fit for natural retailers just like you because we hit the protein, fiber, and snacking trends in the world's most sustainable protein bar." That's it. really I want your listeners to go back and listen to the difference between those two.

Speaker 20:39

Yeah.

Speaker 2 20:39

Confusing about Barb's Perfect Puffs and, crystal clear on what Up the Ante is.

Speaker 20:45

Totally. And there's so many connections with PR too with how we pitch because I always say you don't wanna pitch the editor like you're pitching a customer, and your first bad pitch was just marketing speak, Yeah. So we wanna be specific. And so when we're pitching, trying to get the five Ps obviously in an email concisely, that takes skill, that takes practice. But are there any, insider tips of like what not to do or something that maybe 99% of people don't do that if you do that one thing it'll really get radar?

Speaker 2 21:09

I think the most important thing is realizing that every pitch email, the goal of that is to move the relationship forward. And th- whether this is a pitch conversation, a phone conversation, in person, email, so often Barb will talk all about her product, sign off, "So I hope you'll consider us for your shelves. Have a great day." And what I actually want you to do instead is to come out and ask for what you want in moving the relationship forward. So maybe that is, "I want to come by next Wednesday at 11:00 AM and put samples in your hands." Great. Ask for it. "I want to ship you samples. What's your best receiving address? I want to be on your shelves by September 15th. What would it take to get an opening order from you?" And so here as we're shifting our pitch, we really want to have a clear call to action and make that pitch do its job of moving the relationship forward every single time.

Speaker 22:11

It's so good. it's like people naturally wanna close a loop, so don't end an email of "Let me know." It's like, if you did the job and the email properly, you would have wanted me to be incentivized to, to respond.

Speaker 2 22:21

So I love that idea of framing it with an open loop. We want to come out and say what we want to happen next. Just ask for it, see what happens. Yeah. I guarantee it'll increase response rate.

Speaker 22:34

And it's not gonna turn them off like, "Oh, this person's being demanding. How dare they?"

Speaker 2 22:38

No. 'Cause it's a clear 'Cause otherwise it's just "Thanks for considering," and then that email- just floats off into the ether. I'm like, "Great. Yeah. I'll consider it for the next year," and you'll never hear back from me.

Speaker 22:49

So good.

Speaker 2 22:49

So light a fire under their butts.

Speaker 22:51

Yeah. And follow up. In PR we always say, "Follow up." Yeah. What is your etiquette on following up?

Speaker 2 22:56

So we want to follow up until we hear the no. Even when we hear the no we have ways of like reopening the conversation. But I think so often we take a buyer's silence or a buyer tapering off as disinterest, and instead we need to realize that buyer is just extremely busy. They're going to trade shows, they're managing their team, they're a real person. They're taking vacations and all of that. And we need to realize that when we follow up and get back to the top of their inbox, it is doing the best customer service that we could do for that buyer. And so by reminding them, like staying top of mind, that buyer, there will come a time, and again, if your pitch is correct and stuff and they actually want you for their category, there will come a time when your pitch lands at exactly the season needed for that buyer to say yes. So we always say like following up is great service. And I always think, too, like if that person is like, "Oh, I'm getting annoying, I'm getting annoying, I'm following up every couple weeks for months and months," we need to realize that you already have the no. Like you, you don't have the account anyways. So you might as well follow up until that buyer says yes or no. if you don't have it anyways, what's the harm in following up?

Speaker 24:13

Yeah, the upside is so much than just silence. That's so good. You've given us so much to think about. Obviously, entrepreneurship takes so many things, right? It takes being tenacious, it takes being persistent, and just like PR pitching, is about making the pitch so that there's value to them. I love the, how the five Ps are not about benefits and features. It's about what's in it for you. Is it relevant? Is it seasonal? so many crossovers. I love that, and that's why we work so well together. So you've given us very, quick masterclass. I know, we can talk for hours and hours on this, but I feel like you've given us enough to at least get started, and given us motivation to know you don't have to be a big brand or have a huge- endorsement to get into the shelves, and that's really encouraging, so I wanted to thank you. How can people find out more about you and join your world?

Speaker 2 24:54

Yeah. So the best place to find me is on Instagram. I'm @foodbizwiz. I love hanging out in my DMs. I love following new brands. So if you are listening, send me a DM. Let me know that you listened to this episode. I'll give you a follow right back. And then also, I have a resource that can be really helpful and get a little bit deeper into these buyer pitches. We have our 100 Buyer No's guide. So it walks through 100 different reasons why the buyer's gonna say no to your product line, and how you switch it to a yes. So you can DM me the word rebuttal. Our Basil the Bot will, send it right back to you, or you can find it at foodbizwiz/100 and download it there.

Speaker 25:33

So good. If you're listening, this is your sign to get out there. There's a reason why you're listening to this today, and that is the universe telling you that you need to pitch and keep pitching, so you got this. Thank you all for listening. If you know any small business owner who could benefit from this episode, as always, please share it with them. And until next time.