OUR CULTURE
We’re driven by our principles.
Our Principles
At the heart of our work are five simple principles that remind us to cut through the noise and stay focused on what’s important for the success of our business.
Principle 1
There are NO customers in the office,
so we shouldn’t be there either: At the start of Fred Neubauer’s career, his mentor, Sol Dorf, constantly reminded him that there are no customers in the office. This is something he never forgot, and it impacts the way we do business. Our people are measured by how many appointments they have. The reason is simple: No appointments, no orders. The formula for success is outstanding people, best-in-class brands, and an obsession for getting appointments.
Principle 2
We focus on the 8 Ps:
When measuring a brand’s performance, we score these eight areas. Why? Because not having these things buttoned up prevents you from reaching your business potential. When things aren’t working, come back to these Ps and get to work.
Principle 3
Unique, best-in-class products
We only represent unique, best-in-class products. We’ve found that when you are so passionate about the brand that you are “preaching the Gospel,” you never lose.
Principle 4
Hungry, Humble, and Smart
We want to work with exceptional people of high character and with strong work ethic. We’ve all worked with toxic people; they are draining and rarely successful. At FDM we hire Hungry, Humble, and Smart people. We evaluate new talent and our current team using this tried-and-true system.
Principle 5
“It’s about sales, period.”
At the end of the day, people don’t hire us for advice, although that is part of what we do. The bottom line is that it’s about growing our Clients’ sales and everything else is just details. Bill Parcells said it best: “You are what your record says you are.”
Principle 2
We focus on the 8 Ps:
- Placement — If you’re on the bottom shelf, it is going to hurt sales. Placement matters.
- Pricing — You don’t have to have the lowest SRP (in fact, many of our Clients have the highest SRP in their department,) but you must be positioned properly.
- Promotion — Like it or not, achieving sales tags increases brand discovery and velocity. Determining the correct promotional cadence and the right depth of promotion, while not brain surgery, is an important discipline. All promotions we execute are scrutinized with an ROI process and submitted into our promotional tracker process.
- Product Selection — Do you have your best-selling products and the ideal products for this particular retailer’s demographic on the shelf? This seems so obvious and simple and yet, people get this wrong all the time.
- Process — If you don’t have a good work process with retailers, brokers, or distributors, things go wrong. Again, this is frequently overlooked, but bad process equals bad results.
- People — Do you have the right person calling on the retailer? Do you have the right support people for the retailer? Make sure everyone is in the right seat on the bus, every time.
- Packaging — Branding is vital. Are there ways to tweak your packaging to more effectively reach the consumer?
- Path to Market — When achieving growth in the brand one of the key steps is determining how you will get the product to the retailers; Is it Direct or through DSD Distributors.