Michael Shea PA
Way back in the early 90’s I worked for PepsiCo. My first job was as a night manager in the distribution center. Brand spanking new we moved millions and millions of cases of Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Doctor Pepper (I’ll write about the Total Beverage Strategy in a later Post) along with a myriad of other brands and flavors.
At about the two or three mark I got moved into Sales Management. My boss was a West Pointer and he happened to hire prior military officers as he placed a premium on leadership skills and work ethic (we also were really cheap labor).
Anyway, a couple months into my tenure as a Territory Development Manager he pulled me aside and had gave me two taskings: 1 gather up and collect competitor invoices and 2 get eyes on the Coke Warehouse and see what products and in what quantity they were bringing it in.
(Rewind)….now if you are too young to remember this was the time of the Cola Wars. Pepsi had always been the also ran of soda. Along came a guy called Roger Enrico and he brought in the afore mentioned Total Beverage Strategy, the acquisition of Frito, KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut (now you know them as PFG but also whey pepsi is sold there).
I digress, back to the tasking. Let’s talk about the invoices. Consumer products sales is dynamic and its a war of market share garnered by pricing and free goods to get position in retailers. As the upstart we needed to know what the competitions pricing was (by chanel – convenience stores do not get the same price as walmart, as publix). The boss needed to know what pricing wholesale the competition was using so he and his marketing team could plan pricing to maintain or gain share. It was good old intelligence but started at the street. The Dumpster diving and taking went down the chain to drivers and merchandisers…”get me paperwork”
Second, the OP or Observation Point.
Now the coke warehouse was surrounded by woods. Their plant for production was in Baltimore so product got delivered in waves. We knew the receiving hours so all we had to do was get a good position, not get seen and wait. Now I didnt break out all the old camo pain but I did put on the BDU’s and get my binoculars out.
Now I didn’t have a laser finder but I did get to record in the 12 packs, Cubes, and Mix of Flavors and packaging.
So what pray tell does all this have to do with small business. Well as the great strategist Sun Tzu once said “know your enemy and you will dictate the outcome of a thousand battles.” By knowing pricing, by knowing what products that were coming to market and as the underdog we were able to strategize to maintain parity and negate and ability on the part of the Evil Empire to gain further Market Share…cause Market Share is everything when you are in a competitive environment.
For more on small business in Tampa and Orlando contact Michael Shea of Transworld Business Advisors at 321-287-0349