When Rexall Sundown, Inc. (RSI) entered the herbal supplement industry nearly 20 years ago, competition was collectively generating $8.9 billion per annum---a crowded market segment, to say the least. What set RSI apart from other brands was a corporate mission to sell directly to consumers through health-care stores rather than putting its vitamins and herbal products on the shelves of drug stores and other retail chains. Sundown actively recruits distributors, so you're in the right place at the right time. By following a few steps, you could be bragging about your own healthy bottom line before you know it.
Contact Rexall Sundown by visiting its website (link below). Arrange to meet with staff at headquarters to determine whether you are a good fit for RSI. Query principles on company research and development operations; find out what guidelines you will be required to follow as a distributor. Ask about the breadth and depth of marketing assistance you can expect from the home office.
Formulate a business plan that takes into account how you'll fund your distributorship, where you will warehouse products, how you will approach new customers on behalf of the brand and, importantly, learn whether or not there's already a Sundown distributor in your area, as this fact alone may require you to move your base of operations if a protected territory has already been claimed.
Prepare your distribution facility for operation by installing a physical infrastructure designed for efficient picking and packing. Erect shelves and set up systems of coding and stocking supplements. Install a computer with software written for distributors so you can order product from Rexall Sundown and then track, inventory, fulfill and ship orders methodically and quickly, leaving a detailed paper trail in each order's wake.
Get to know the herbal supplement industry--from its history to the growing breadth of formulations being marketed to consumers to help with everything from weight loss to cholesterol modification. Investigate the growing body of federal legislation affecting all herbal-supplement companies. Check out Food and Drug Administration guidelines (link below) governing herbal supplements.
Enhance the credibility of the products you're distributing by touting the Rexall Sundown family of herbal supplements as the only company Shuster Laboratories cited for high-quality products six years in a row. Align yourself with one of the company's most ambitious marketing campaigns (see link below): the recruitment of physicians and other clinicians into the fold, offering to act as their distributor for the products they sell to their patients so they can go about the job of practicing medicine.
Begin making sales calls to penetrate markets not yet among those on the Sundown list of approved retail outlets. Open new accounts and introduce yourself to existing ones. Follow Rexall Sundown guidelines for attracting new business and put into place business-generating promotional efforts--co-op advertising relationships and promotional programs--to help retailers build their customer base while you boost the size of your territory.
评论