A Story of Strategy & BBQ

This story is about being strategic. We often hear that term thrown around, and we're often counseled to "be more strategic" in our thinking. Well here's a great example of how to do that.

Back in 2002, I was working for Kerry Ingredients, a large food ingredient manufacturer, when they acquired a small sauce bottling business located in northern Wisconsin. The ultimate end of this acquisition was to "flip the business" by increasing production quickly, then selling the business for a profit. To accomplish this MISSION, our marketing group was charged with promoting our sauces and capabilities at the National BBQ Association trade show in Houston, TX.

We began our process using DISCOVERY to learn as much as we could about (1) the NBBQA, and (2) our newly acquired business.

We quickly learned that BBQ in Texas is something of a religion, and the folks who belong to the NBBQA take it very seriously. We soon realized that we couldn't possibly convince our TARGET that a Wisconsin company knew anything about BBQ sauce, so the prospects of creating bottling projects for our factory seemed very remote.

We also spent some time learning about the CAPABILITIES of our newly acquired factory, interviewing the operations people who ran the plant. We were surprised to see how small the place was. We asked the general manager what kind of projects he usually ran in his facility. He said, "We can't run anything less than 75 gallon batches. We just can't afford to turn the machines on for less than that. And, we usually don't get anything bigger than 500 gallons, because our competitor nearby is much more efficient and they can produce at a lower cost".

By learning about our TARGET and our CAPABILITIES, we quickly understood our POSITION, with alarming clarity. We had to convince proud & fanatical Texas BBQ'ers that we could make great BBQ sauce in Wisconsin, in our little factory with all its limitations.

Here's how we did it:

• We didn't try to sell our own sauce recipes. 
• We played to the attributes of what we knew about our target -- mainly that they all have their own sauce, and they believe theirs is the best ever.
• We offered manufacturing time for their recipes. This overcame the "pride" factor.
• We understood that our mission was to get the factory productive.
• Our company really didn't care whose sauce was being bottled.
• We clearly defined our competitive niche - 75 to 500 gallon runs, and we put this on our graphic.

Bottom line, we got 73 new project leads, which turned into 49 new projects. the factory was at capacity in six months, and sold within the year.

During the show, we even had referrals from our competitor (the big factory down the road) who sent us the small project leads they didn't want. So we also referred larger projects back to them.

Here's a picture of our booth.

As you can see, we spared no expense here. We actually spent less than $500 to pull this off.

The point of this story is this: you don't need big budgets, you don't need fancy tactics, or bells and whistles to have a successful exhibit. Our effort was successful because:

• We understood our mission and objectives
• We learned about our target audience
• We clearly understood our own strengths and weaknesses
• We knew exactly how much equity our brand would carry into the show
• We weren't afraid to narrow our focus to our own advantage
• And most importantly, we found all of this out BEFORE we started executing our exhibit.

This is the essence of strategic thinking. Learning how to think strategically is the key. It will set your exhibits apart from everyone else who simply shows up to the BBQ.

TSB

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