What We Do

SOS Is A Business Development Firm With A Focus in Specialty Food & Beverage
We work with all size businesses to help solve sales, marketing, product development, and brand management issues. Our primary industry is Specialty Food + Beverage with a focus on Specialty Coffee products.

Areas of Business Development Marketing Expertise:

SOS CEO Advisor: What CEOs Worry About

Here are the top 6 current concerns of CEOs we advise:

1. Cash Flow
SOS Advice:
“Add more sales channels to increase cash flow. For example, along with normal or higher margin items, consider higher volume, lower margin B2B channels such as private label working with distributor/retail partners. Rebrand these higher volume items if necessary to avoid sales channel conflicts. No time or your sales people too busy? Hire an industry expert business development expert to do it”. Get More SOS Advice. No Obligation.

2. Creating Growth
SOS Advice: “Stick with your core business and look for your hidden product and service assets that can be applied to new sales channels. These assets may include those that can be rebranded and reformulated. Do not use in-house marketing resources for this, work with an outside industry expert and branding/product specialist to move a project like this along”. Get More SOS Advice. No Obligation.

3. Staying Competitive
SOS Advice: “Rather than relying only on your sales people and staffers for their opinions, get market research done from an industry expert. The data will reveal what you will need to do next”. Get More SOS Advice. No Obligation. Continue reading

Coffee CEO Advisor: Why Your Email Campaigns Are Not Working

SOS Coffee CEO AdvisorIf you are in the coffee business and send out emails, I probably get your email marketing campaigns; I subscribe to literally hundreds of coffee-related emails. From roasters, cafes, equipment companies, and online retailers, to allied products including syrups and cup sleeves. It’s good business to keep up and see what’s going on in the industry. The problem, however, is all the emails are “self centered”, as if the creators of these emails are in a bubble. Continue reading

CEO Advisor: The 4 Ways To Speed Up Wholesale Sales

Wholesale is an important sales channel for continued growth. If you’ve been selling wholesale or considered selling more wholesale you know that the sales cycle, the time it takes to close a sale, can take a long time. Sometimes too long. Let’s say you’ve got prospects in your pipeline, but they need to close for you to make your sales targets by the end of the month. How do you accelerate the wholesale pipeline?

In order to close the sales faster, you need to speed up the sales process by doing a better job in lead scoring, knowing your target customers’ interests and pain points, and building a relationship through lead nurturing.

Here are the 4 ways to speed up wholesale sales : Continue reading