Ramping Your Consumer Goods Brand with Dr. James Richardson,

How do you realize exponential growth with your consumer brand, and yet not try to grow too quickly and fail? Dr. James Richardson shares his unique insights and approach to ramping your CPG brand, and the story of how he leveraged his Ph.D in Anthropology to help companies achieve exponential growth.

Dr. James Richardson is the founder of Premium Growth Solutions, a strategic planning consultancy for early-stage consumer packaged goods brands. As a professionally trained cultural anthropologist turned business strategist, he has helped more than 75 CPG brands with their strategic planning, including brands owned by Coca-Cola Venturing and Emerging Brands, The Hershey Company, General Mills, Kraft Foods, ConAgra Brands, and Frito-Lay as well as other emerging brands.

James is the author of “Ramping Your Brand: How to Ride the Killer CPG Growth Curve”, the #1 Best-seller in Business Consulting on Amazon. He also hosts his own podcast—Startup Confidential.

James lives in Tucson, Arizona.

Topics and questions addressed in this episode of The How of Business podcast include:

• Ramping Your Consumer Goods Brand with Dr. James Richardson
• What led you to a Ph.D. in Anthropology (wanted to be a professor) and how does it influence the work that you do now?
• Why did you decide to launch your own firm – Premium Growth Solutions?
• Why did you write the book, and who is it for? (Are you a skateboarder?)
• Exponential Growth depends on Superb Velocity Management…
  • What causes exponential growth?
  • What’s the primary problem with trying to grow a new consumer brand too quickly?
• Please introduce the 4-Part approach to thinking smarter about growth as a CPG entrepreneur, and we can discuss these as the primary basis for our conversation….

• Part 1. Designing to Command a Premium
  This is where many founders fail without realizing it. There is a cultural logic behind premium products that grow extremely fast. You should learn it.
• Part 2. Managing A Small Experiment
  Don’t hit the gas too early. Successful CPG startups manage a rolling, iterative experiment until key KPIs appear. You should learn this art. This means remaining geographically local during the initial MVPs?
• Part 3. Fine Tuning the Conversion Playbook
  Steady velocity growth is essential to ramping your brand. Your team needs to learn the art of sustaining it in key geographies, so that you don’t have to buy premature distribution to obtain growth.
• Part 4. Accelerating to Scale

Episode Host: Henry Lopez is a serial entrepreneur, small business coach, and the host of this episode of The How of Business podcast show – dedicated to helping you start, run and grow your small business.