Specialist retailing can be Dangerous

There is always a certain amount of trepidation when you are invited to sit on a panel and receive questions fired at you from the trade. In an industry where 90% of your potential customers DON'T visit your major market channel you have to keep the retailer's satisfied whilst finding ways of enlarging the total market with new channel strategies elsewhere.

You also know that, on a panel, one word out of place could blow your chances of keeping the retailers on-side!

In the end, though, it's best to be straight with people. 'Yes, you are our most important customer group but we have to be looking alsewhere as well in order to fulfil our commission'.

A lesson that a never seems to be learnt is that the market buys stuff the way that it likes to, not the way that you would prefer it to. You cannot NOT enter new market channels if you want to get to your customers.

So, fingers crossed, on Monday I may lose the entire business to an ill-timed comment or... we could move forward together with a new understanding and purpose.