Growing a Supplement Brand

In this episode of the Health Supplement Business Mastery podcast Vin Tricarico from NutraScience Labs and I sit down and discuss some ways to grow a supplement brand.

Bobby Hewitt:
In this episode I sit down with Vin Tricarico from NutraScience Labs. He has over 21 years of direct consumer and business to business experience. He’s a respected executive in the dietary supplement industry and is well-known for his ability to consistently build and grow successful teams that produce results. He currently serves as executive vice-president for Twin Labs Consolidation Corporation and NutraScience Labs, where he oversees sales and marketing. Let’s get into the show.
Welcome to Health Business Mastery, the Creative Thirst podcast. I’m your host, Bobby Hewitt. Hey, Vin, welcome to the show. Tell us a little bit about what you guys do at NutraScience Labs and how someone in the supplement space can benefit. Do you guys just do the supplement manufacturing encapsulation, or do you do more?

Vin:
It’s turnkey manufacturing, so not only do we do the formulation piece, but we’re going to get the product made. So you utilize us for the manufacturing, you utilize us for label packaging design, you utilize us for fulfillment. We do all of that, and we really act as an operations arm of their business, so we take pride in that. I think that’s probably the biggest thing that we do, is that we really care about each one of those individual businesses and having that relationship with the brand owner.
A lot of the bigger CMs, you get lost, right? If you have a low minimum you’re not getting your product at anytime soon. It’s going to fill in on a line somewhere, and we’re not that company. We treat those 1,500 bottle orders just like we treat the 10,000 bottle and up, 20,000 bottle and up orders, so we pride ourselves on that customer service aspect for sure.

Bobby Hewitt:
I was hoping today we could chat about how to grow a supplement brand online, a direct consumer brand that is.

Vin:
The topic of expanding product lines for dietary supplement and health and wellness companies direct to consumer and online digitally is something that is near and dear to my heart. I’m very passionate about it. I’ve been in the industry for about 22 years and the first 10 years I was the chief operating officer of a very successful direct to consumer brand and they’re still around.
For the last 12 years I’ve been a part of NutraScience Labs. What we do is we provide brand owners a one stop shop for their operations, so contract manufacturing, label design, fulfillment, those are the three areas that we focus on.
Being a part of NutraScience has given me a front row seat in a lot of ways to what has been working, what hasn’t been working. I’ve been in this space for the longest time. When you think about it, if you go back 12 years ago the avenues of the distribution model was very brick and mortar. It was like the beginning of bodybuilding.com. There certainly wasn’t any… You have these opportunities today that did not exist back then.

Bobby Hewitt:
I talk a lot with my one-on-one clients about really filling a gap in the marketplace that doesn’t exist. Through all of your time and experience that you’ve seen in the supplement industry, Vin, would you agree with that, and how do you kind of see the expansion of an online brand?

Vin:
When you think about it, right, there’s basic pay to play skills. What great companies do in any industry, they really focus on the needs and wants of the niche that they’re going after, and I think that in the dietary supplement space especially it’s crowded. There is a lot of big brands. There’s a lot of competition, but there’s a way through it for sure, and we’ve seen in our time of helping these brands come literally from the ground up and how they emerge, really the ones that are truly successful, they start off with understanding where the gray space might be. Where is that niche that really can create a place to stand out?

Bobby Hewitt:
Can you give us an example?

Vin:
One example that I can give is a company that we really started from the ground up. They had one product when they started, and four or five years later he was up to well over 75 SKUs. His play was through Amazon. You can start there, because that’s really where there’s a lot of opportunity, and there’s others as well.
But what this particular entrepreneur was able to do, he was really good at understanding the search engine results within Amazon. He was really good about dissecting a segment of the sports nutrition industry and the products that were being offered, and where found his success is in understanding the pricing of different types of products and the ingredients in those products, and how to position himself just so right, just in a way where he would show up in those results in a way where his competition, much bigger brands, were not.
That was just one strategy that he used to really grow a completely Amazon based business, and it goes back to understanding that there was the product category of pre-workouts, which is huge. There are so many different products that can fit into that category, and what he did was he found a price point that was the sweet spot.
He had just as effective ingredients, but he was able to maneuver the formulas, there was a couple of things with packaging and design, and those little subtle differences allowed him to price his products just a little more competitively. He was able to take a whole big chunk of market share away from some big players when you talk about a couple years ago, what he was able to do in that space, like just looking to that gray space. I think that was a really smart move on his part. That’s just one example of how you can set yourself apart and see sales grow as a result.

Bobby Hewitt:
Yeah. That gray space, I’d love to unpack that. There’s lots of ways to explore that. One is ingredients. Another is another is nicheing down even in the market. So even in the pre-workout space you niche down to just CrossFit people. You could even niche down just for a specific space. One of the green drinks did this. They niched down to just patriots, like patriot greens. They even had it in their title. So it’s really nicheing down an audience. There’s nothing specific about it. It’s nobody’s talking to the right-wing conservative group for this.

Vin:
Exactly.

Bobby Hewitt:
Yeah.

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Vin:
That ability to focus in on a group, or depending upon the product, really is so powerful when you think about it. And then when you combine storytelling, and this is something that we talk about in our business with our brands all the time, if you are narrowing in on a specific group being able to tell emotional stories, storytelling that touches someone emotionally, is a huge way to succeed in this industry.
Sometimes some big brands, they stay focused in on the science, and sometimes when you stay focused in on the science you confuse people and you don’t connect with them, and you end up looking like a part of the big machine. And everything that we know about the world today is it’s complicated, it’s crowded.
People are looking for simplicity. People are looking for simplicity in messaging and they’re looking for someone that they can trust, and the more you’re able to craft emotional stories that can pull people in… A good example of that is another brand that we helped launch from the ground up. The brand actually evolved from the story. And that’s an interesting route to take. But in this case, the young entrepreneur was a woman who was overweight, didn’t like how she felt, was going through some mental issues as well because of the fact that she had this body perception problem. and she just didn’t feel right. She wasn’t healthy.
One day she starts posting on Instagram her workouts and she starts telling the story about how she felt. She starts telling the story about how she’s feeling better, and little by little she starts acquiring a following, because now people are interested in seeing how this person is doing every single day.
The community that was created, because now if you’re a young woman that’s feeling the same way, it’s like, “Wow, so-and-so was able to accomplish this, and this is how she’s doing it.” It’s like, “Now I’m going to try that. Now, all of a sudden I feel better.” And next thing, it’s like, “Well what is she going to tell me next?” And now you’ve become…. Instead of just being a part of the scroll, we all do it, you just scroll through social media, now you’re stopping. And if you can get that stop, if you can connect to someone, the battle is basically won.
And what she was able to do when you talk about how you expand, she started out with a hero product. And in her case it was a greens product. That was the hero product. It was a anti-bloating formula, a digestion formula. And she was able to utilize social media to really bring people in on that one product. And because she was so good at making that connection, expanding the product line became, “Hey guys, what do you think of this idea?” And then she would list three or four different products, whether it was a pre-workout, a protein, a vegan protein. And now she’s getting input from her actual consumers, and that engagement is so valuable.
Brands and business owners in this industry that can actually get that sort of engagement on their posts, they’re going to be so far ahead of brands that are just so out of touch with what their consumers are looking for, because when you say where do you go to expand your product, my first instinct is I’m going to ask the people that are buying from us already. I want to know what they’re thinking. And you just create that trust, you create… And it takes a little bit of the guessing out.
So yeah, I feel that that’s a really powerful tool, to build that community, to engage that community, and then go from there and figure out what makes sense for your business and where you want to go with your product line.

Bobby Hewitt:
Yeah. I’d say 90% of the supplement businesses that I consult with all have a really solid founder’s story. There’s gold in that founder’s story. Many of them are afraid to put their face to the company. Many of them don’t want to get out there and build that community beforehand. But there’s always so much gold in that story, because that is really the purpose, the mission if you will. That kind of unique sets you apart from those bigger brands.

Vin:
Absolutely, and I’ve seen it so many times. The brand that I worked for those 10 years as the COO, it’s an entrepreneur, single, sole proprietor, and he was not afraid to get on the radio, get on TV. Back then that’s what you did. And he was the voice of the company. He was the face of the company. And by doing that in the industry that he was in you become someone even. And it only needs to matter to the people you’re trying to target.
So in our case we were a men’s health brand for the most part. We were selling, marketing… Our line was mainly built towards the prostate realm and things of that nature. And we talked to that customer through our founder, and the connection was gold. And so that founders story… And there’s so many more.
I know of a women’s health brand that was beauty from within, carnitine, collagen, resveratrol. The whole brand was built because the founder put herself out there, told her story about how she was not well as a child, went and seeked out natural alternatives to the drugs that she was taking and the prescriptions and the things that weren’t working and making her feel worse.
Next thing you know, you’re captivating people if you can do it, because everybody wants to feel better. That’s the great thing about the health and wellness industry, it’s everybody wants to feel better, but they’re being bombarded from all these different angles of do this, try that, this is the next thing, do that. And if you could just make that connection of trust it makes the sales process a lot easier. It almost becomes an enrollment as opposed to a sale.
When you think of sale, you think of the car salesman. With health and wellness you almost want to make it seem like you’re enrolling them in a chance at a better life. And that’s some of the things that we’ve seen really work and we’ve seen the brands that do it well succeed and certainly explode onto the scene within their realm.
And then we’ve seen the companies that did not put that thought or are afraid, like you said, to get out in front of it, and they wonder why their sales aren’t where they should be. Well, if you don’t believe in it why am I going to believe in it? And now I’m getting bombarded from all these different sides of companies that are doing it that way, telling a more simplistic message, I’m going to focus there, right?

Bobby Hewitt:
100%. It’s the way to compete in such a crowded space because it’s the trust and hope that’s a very big component of selling supplements and how selling supplements is very different than selling other products.

Vin:
Absolutely. When you talk about expanding product lines, there’s a couple different things you could do there. So what I’ve seen brands… I spoke about that concept of a hero product. Certainly in my experience we’ve had great success with hero products. You find that one that really addresses the primary concern of what your target market is and you put all your effort there, and you have that product work, you got to have the results.
I always believe that in supplementation an effect is a great thing. If you’re going to go out there and pitch urinary health, prostate health, any man that’s getting up a couple times a night to use the bathroom, next thing you know the amount of times is down, he’s going to pay attention and probably order the product again in 30 days because it’s working for him.

Bobby Hewitt:
Hey, I want to interrupt the show right here to offer you a special bonus. Vin and I talked about ways to get creative and there’s one way that was pretty powerful that I just couldn’t include in this podcast, so I separated that audio clip out and I’m offering it to you as a special bonus since you’ve made it this far into the episode. If you want that special audio bonus content, go to creativethirst.com/vin, V-I-N. That’s creativethirst, C-R-E-A-T-I-V-E, .com/V-I-N, to get that bonus content. Now back to the show.

Vin:
But what you do is you create that trust with your hero product and then it’s like what else are you going to offer? And you build line extensions around what that product might do. You might put a vitamin D product or a circulation product or something along those lines that compliment what that hero product really is doing for your target consumer.
And when you talk about dose forms there’s options there too. You have an eye formula, an eye support formula, and you might have been selling it in a capsule form. We all know that gummies are huge right now. Huge. Come out with a gummy form and expand the market that you’re able to actually sell to by having a different dose. Now you’re giving people options on your website, on Amazon. You’re taking up more space, and that’s all important to the quest for growing sales.

Bobby Hewitt:
You think competing with ingredients or ingredient differentiation is easier or harder these days, because it also depends on the sophistication of the market that you’re going after too.

Vin:
Right. Someone a long time ago told me that if your unique selling proposition can be understood by a fourth or a fifth grader you’re probably on the right track if you’re looking for that mass market.

Bobby Hewitt:
Not only that, if your sales copy is on that fourth, fifth grade reading level you’ve got something good there. Yeah.

Vin:
Absolutely. So when you think about it, again going back to the concept of simplicity and the ingredients, I always believe that ingredients serve for the betterment of the product. You want to tell the story about what that ingredient… Not only what it is, but how it’s going to make your life better, so you’re going to have more energy to go out and play with your kids or whatever the case may be. I’ll use the prostate example again because it’s one that’s near and dear to my heart. You’re going to sleep through the night.
Those things tug at you. And I do believe that it’s harder today to tell the ingredient differentiation story, because I think people’s brains are loaded with information. I think you got to try and tell that story in a way that connects emotionally within most markets. Now if you’re really going after the… Say if you’re going after the scientific community, yeah, there’s an angle there that you can play, but for me the more simplistic you can be, but being assertive when you do have a better ingredient.
Sometimes with our own brands, I’m involved in the supply chain and they want us to go out and source trademark materials for the clinical studies that come along with them. And certainly there is an advantage to that, but there’s a premium there, which means you have this information, you need to use it in your marketing, you need to use it in your messaging, and you can’t be passive about it because it really does play to your unique selling proposition if you’re going to go that route. If you’re going to make that differentiation statement and invest in the formula in a way where there is a premium there, go out and tell that story in the most emotionally evoking way you possibly can, because you’re missing the boat if you don’t.

Bobby Hewitt:
Absolutely. I mean it’s just like the founder’s story. There’s so many elements like that kind of lying around that are not being utilized that really are… That’s where the marketing firepower is.

Vin:
And again, you have the social media aspect of being able to understand what your consumers are looking for. Certainly where as a digital entity, acquiring email addresses, acquiring phone numbers, that customer list is so magical. One of the things we’ve always said, to acquire a customer and to understand what that customer’s value is long term, it allows you then to do the math to understand what you can afford to acquire the next customer. And it’s in that power of understanding, that very simple equation allows you to focus your marketing dollars. But again, it gives you another outlet to ask the question what do you guys think we should do? Where do you think we should go next?
I see so many brands that we manufacture for on their Instagrams, and they’re doing it all day long. They’re constantly interacting with their consumer through their social media. But I know because I am on their email list they’re also asking me there too, what should we be doing? What should we focus on? What do you guys think of this ingredient? And they make it easy, right? There’s choices. You click, so again it’s that simplicity aspect.

Bobby Hewitt:
Yeah. Going back to the customer you can never go wrong.

Vin:
Right. For sure.

Bobby Hewitt:
So, Vin, what are some other ways that supplements can expand their product line?

Vin:
So the other way to expand your product line, especially if you have powders… Let’s talk about that massive opportunity that exists. Flavors, flavoring and sweeteners is a tremendous opportunity, I mean you could start from unflavored and just keep going depending upon the product form. And we’ve seen plenty of companies that get ahead of the season, whether it’s the summer, whether it’s winter, there’s a feeling that the changing of the seasons just happen. People shift, you kind of see it. People want to pull out the boots and the sweaters. They’re done with summer and it’s like now I want to evoke those feelings of fall for the next couple of weeks. And now when the winter is coming it creates a new opportunity to bring those feelings. And then the spring, and now you’re starting to liven it up again, and in the middle of the summer you’re selling pina colada flavored pre-workouts, right?
So we’ve seen companies do a really great job of flavoring and staying ahead and offering seasonal flavors. You got one formula and you all you’re doing is applying a bunch of different flavors to it. Certainly an experienced CM will be able to assist with that, and we’ve seen companies explode because of this. They get ahead of it, they beat the rush, and they’re prepared where winter comes and they got their hot cocoa flavored protein.
They still got the other ones, but now they’re making this offer. And that’s a really smart kind of simple way of expanding that line. Knowing that you have a formula that is already well received and well tolerated, now you avoid product fatigue that way also, right? You come out… When you first start out you’re going to have vanilla, chocolate, maybe unflavored if you’re looking to be an add-in to a functional food. There’s only so much vanilla that someone is going to be willing to take unless they’re really hardcore vanilla folks.
So what do you do? You throw a couple of different options at them, and it’s like, “Oh, okay, I’m going to try this flavor.” It’s a really smart way of expanding a line without bringing a different formula to the table.
And what’s nice about that is that once you do know that certain flavors are well received, now you have it for that SKU. Now it’s like, all right, I come out with another powdered product, and then you’re able to understand through your data what flavors are popular. Now it’s like, okay, I got a pre-workout now, or I have a digestive formula, and where it’s practical you can take what you learned on one formula and apply it to others.

Bobby Hewitt:
And again, going back to the audience, going back to the list to minimize your risk, of should we do a pina colada? Well, let’s ask them, right? Let’s give them three or four choices and say what do you want? Now sometimes seasonality… Like you said, we’re in full pumpkin spice mode right now, right? So obviously a pina colada right now may not work, but still going back to the audience and really asking them what flavors they’d like to see and then doing a limited edition is a brilliant idea. So is there any downside to doing a limited edition flavor, selling out or not selling out?

Vin:
We always believe that selling out was a great sign. I feel like that exclusivity is always something that generates a buzz. And if you really are able to tie your messaging on your website to your social media and really playing it up, you can see a nice boost there, those limited edition. Then you start getting the comments, “When are you bringing it back?” That’s the best thing you could hear. Your product is in so demand, guess what now guys? Now we’re bringing it back full-time. Awesome. Right?

Bobby Hewitt:
Yep. It’s the McRib. It’s the McRib for McDonald’s, right? It’s the brilliant strategy.

Vin:
Brilliant strategy. And that’s probably the best example of that exclusivity in that limited time. Get it while it’s hot, and you create that nice bump that you’re looking for and you’re making people happy. It’s back again. Okay, I’m going to jump on it. So that’s a great one. That really is a good one that we’ve seen work plenty of times.

Bobby Hewitt:
What are your thoughts on sample products or even the way the product is put together, the way the customer receives it, the opening of the box experience when they get the first interaction of their product? Give us a little bit insights of what your perspective is on that.

Vin:
So the other item to think about when you’re talking about powders and you’re talking about line extensions is the concept of sampling. You have a box that you’re selling direct to the consumer digitally. That box becomes a selling tool. How does it look? What’s in there? You see that unboxing is now a social event, and you put something in there that says tag us in your unboxing of your product. And not only that you’re going to get what they ordered, but if there’s two or three samples in there of a new powder, or even depending upon what it might be, you’re coming out with gummies and you want to throw a couple of them in the box, that’s a really good strategy of launching product, is to be able to give your active consumers a chance to try it and really generate a buzz about it.
Maybe throw in, use this code exclusive to our current customer base, use this code, go to our website, now it’s available and you’re able to order it. Things like that can generate quick momentum around a new product launch and can take some of the risk out of it. It’s an investment in the sampling, but, again, you’re trying to be of value to your customer base. Throwing a couple samples in there is a nice thing, and that could be a way of certainly getting some sales around a new product line, whether it could be new flavors of what they’re ordering or something completely different.
In our experience I’ve seen that it goes both ways. I’ve seen sometimes we’ve done sampling of a product completely different from what they’ve ordered and I’ve seen it bomb, and then I’ve seen it do well. You got to know your customers, right? For sure you have a powder and you’re trying out a new flavor and you throw one in there, that’s thank you very much. Okay, cool. Again, you’re dealing with that flavor fatigue concern. But sampling is definitely another way to think about expanding the product line that you’re offering for sure.

Bobby Hewitt:
What about expanding on the monetary side, getting them to basically buy more, either bigger packages or more complimentary pack products? Any best practices there?

Vin:
I’m always a believer in your website and your shopping cart experience needs to be top-notch. If it’s clumsy, if it’s frustrating, not only are you not going to acquire large orders, but you’re going to get people to abandon it, right? I mean people are going to be fed up and they’re like, “You know what? I’m going somewhere else.” So your experience with your website has to be top notch.
It’s got to be fluid, it’s got to not be glitchy. And then it’s a powerful tool when you get over those pay-to-play type humps. We’ve seen and certainly somebody adds something to their cart, you know, have space right there… Anywhere between one to three we suggest based on this. I feel like that’s a really good way of upping the package a little bit. If something is a little bit more in depth, but this has been something that’s been new of late, is the idea of personalization and offering a quiz and having that quiz spit out what’s your three? So somebody engages, they take up short quiz, they get answers based on that quiz, you have an algorithm that legitimately suggests three products that they should be taking, that person might have came to the website to order one, now they’re ordering three.
Certainly I’m a big believer in offering… Percentage off seems to be working better of late than buy X, get… You know, if it’s buy two, get one free. It seems from our experience it still does work. It feels like though percentage off has been doing better of late, at least from what I’ve seen. I could tell you 10 years ago we literally built a business around buy two, get one free, buy four, get two free, get free shipping, buy eight, get four. And you just keep incrementally giving a little bit more value and once you have what I would call a rabid user, they’re going to jump on that. If there’s an option to buy eight and get four free and get the year supply and they know that the shelf life is good and the whole thing, they jump on it. The year supply is a little bit of a tougher one, but certainly the buy fou, get two free seems to definitely be something that years ago was tried and true.
I just think that right now the we’ve seen percentage off has been doing… It might be outpacing it by a little bit. Both strategies to test. That’s the big thing that I think is important for brand owners to realize, is that you got to be nimble with being able to test, rest, understand, and see what is working and what isn’t working so you could best apply your learnings. The nice thing about a digital business, and I love that, that’s why I’m so passionate about it, is that you control a lot of the information and the customer experience.
That is a huge difference than going and selling it within brick and mortar. You’re going to sell it and you don’t know what happens. You do, but it’s not as specific. The fact that you can test and rest and understand, try different offers, try different promotions… For someone, for some customer base, that buy four, get two free or buy two, get one free might really work, or free shipping. At the same time, someone else it might not work for for whatever reason, but the 50% off or the 40% off or something along those lines might work better. Test them both and see-

Bobby Hewitt:
Yeah It just depend on the market. It really depends on the market.

Vin:
Right.

Bobby Hewitt:
Yeah. You always have to be testing.

Discover the 3 funnels that can help your health supplement business succeed.

Vin:
So when you talk about expanding your marketing strategy, being able to test and rest and understand and look and being nimble enough to be able to test a couple of different things, that information is so valuable. Then it feeds into your customer value and understanding what customers are worth long term, and it really does allow you to take those marketing dollars, which are so critically important, to be spent correctly. I can certainly speak to we’ve seen companies that have gotten completely wrecked by overspending, whether it be on pick your social media outlet, thinking that you’re reaching this audience and you’re going to keep dumping money in, and then you find out that your costs are way up and your sales are down, and all the metrics get out of whack.
So it’s really important to be able to evaluate that marketing spend and putting those dollars to use in the best way possible, and being able to test different offers and different promotions is one of the best ways to be able to do that for sure.

Bobby Hewitt:
Absolutely. Unfortunately it’s getting harder and harder to do that with privacy concerns and iOS updates.

Vin:
Right. Right. Yeah. I feel like it’s that overload. So people immediately try… The world of the web has responded as a result, which has made that a little bit more challenging than maybe it was a couple years ago when the data was just there and you were able to take it and utilize it. So you got to get creative for sure.

Bobby Hewitt:
Yeah. It’ll swing back. You’re right, you have to get creative. It’ll swing back at some point, but who knows when it’ll take five years or longer. But it really all comes back to owning that customer. Like you said, we talked about the value of the email, and extending the lifetime value of that buyer. Any thoughts or trends you’re seeing about partnering with people? So instead of creating another line extension or even a new product line doing affiliate or joint venture deal or putting somebody else’s product in the box?

Vin:
I’ve seen that become more popular of late. There are these box programs that you can get involved in where it’s a company that goes out and grabs several different products within a space and then you’re included in that box. But one of the things for sure I’ve seen, that brands now are more likely to join forces depending upon where the industries might lie. But there is a lot of value in the power of groups of customers that are looking for my product and your product, and how do we leverage that and how do we partner from that? We take advantage of the skills on both sides, so certainly we’ve seen that trend.
I’ve also seen, again, utilizing the power of social media, because again I think of social media as a way to inform, entertain and keep engagement. I’ve seen brand owners hop on their social media and say, “Hey guys, guess what? We’re partnering with X, Y, and Z.” Now that gets tagged in with that other brand, and now it’s a bigger audience, and you see the engagement go up completely. And then obviously a result of that would be wherever they’re directing you to go find out more information, you see an uptake in traffic from things like that. So we’ve seen. It’s certainly something to investigate.

Bobby Hewitt:
One of the areas that many supplement brand owners get tripped up on is in the operations side. I know you have a lot of experience on that side of the business. Are there any recommendations or guidelines that you’d give to a supplement brand owner when it comes to that?

Vin:
Being on the operations side of the business, one of the things that I preach is removing distractions, not getting yourself too complicated, not stretching yourself too thin. And when you speak about expanding the product line and expanding your marketing strategy, understanding your resources and where your passions are as an owner will really drive the best results.
It’s very common, because I see it all the time, within this industry where we want to do everything at once. We want to come out with a product that does four or five different things. And there certainly is something to be said about the younger generations looking for that…. I don’t want to call it a magic pill, but certainly cross-functional, right? I don’t think they want to take a handful, so to speak. But you can get yourself where the messaging gets too convoluted, and how do you market that, because you’re trying to tell three different stories about the same product, and that can get confusing, and then you’re, you lose someone. So removing distractions, staying focused, understanding what your resources can handle and not making your messaging too complicated, especially when it comes to product development.

Bobby Hewitt:
Can you give me an example?

Vin:
This perfect example was someone came to us with a keto formula, or an intermittent fasting I should say, and the ingredient list was… If it wasn’t 50, it was close to 50 ingredients, right?

Bobby Hewitt:
Wow.

Vin:
It’s a lot of ingredients. And we look at it and immediately we let them know this is going to be impossible to put together, number one, and if we are the cost is just going to be prohibitive. And sure enough, they felt that this was the right answer, and as much as we tried to steer them out, we costed it out, next thing we come back to them with a $30 cost of goods, and never hear from them again.
And we understand that, but at the same time there’s a lesson there. You can’t put every ingredient in your formula. You need to pick something that you can tell a story about, that you can connect to, and that’s really how you focus in on innovation and making products that matter, once you gather that information from wherever you you’re gathering it from and where you choose to focus, because a lack of focus and distractions and stretching those marketing dollars too thin, it’s a telltale sign of the businesses that fail in this space, and we want to help companies grow for sure.

Bobby Hewitt:
Yeah. If your [inaudible 00:40:07] are too high, you can’t do things like discounting or BOGO offers, but at the same time you have to have a quality product, you have to start with a good base on ingredients.

Vin:
Absolutely. That certainly is something today that really hits home in this industry. There has been a long documented history of the brands with the, I like to call it the sprinkling of ingredients and a whole bunch of marketing. That don’t work today. So brand owners need to be aware that the consumer today, because health and wellness has become such a focus and over time people like anything, they get smarter about whatever it might be, and as a result brand owners need to be aware that quality matters, and having a product that is effective and has research behind it is the foundation point for everything that we’re talking about.
You need to have quality ingredients. You need to have good manufacturing. You need to have a product that is going to perform, going to last, not going to break down. You don’t want your label to fall off, all these little details. You want to make sure that you’re using reputable ingredients, reputable suppliers, and that’s your foundation, because then you at least know you can rest your hat on this is something that is quality.
And then you get the reputation of quality, and when you have a reputation of quality that’s great. You want to have that, because that makes that trust that much easier. and you get that engagement level up, and when you talk about wanting to expand you already have a consumer that knows you made that well, I’m going to trust you to make this well too, and that’s really powerful. It certainly goes a long way.
Same thing like delivery, you want to partner with delivery services that gets the product out timely. Especially with Amazon out there people have been conditioned the product is coming tomorrow, right? If you’re going to ship through your website want to be… Whether it’s tomorrow or whenever, when you say it’s going to be there make sure it shows up. It just goes a long way towards building that trust.

Bobby Hewitt:
100%. It really starts with the product line, because the faster you can feel the effects, the faster they’re going to stick. They’re stick longer. They’re going to come back for more. It’s going to increase lifetime value. It’s going to increase retention.

Vin:
Not only that, what does… People who get bamboozled talk, but people that… Especially when it comes to their… Well, the one thing that will happen, depending upon what way you are in the market, what products they are, you look a little bit less tired if you look a little leaner, if you look a little less bloated, if your skin looks a little bit better, your hair looks a little bit better. People notice that stuff. You don’t even have to say it. People are like, “Hey, what are you doing?” Especially now as the world wakes up from the pandemic. It’s like we got to go back to work, go to our office, and you’ve been sitting around and working from home and reaching over and grabbing the chips, next thing you know look down and a lot has happened, right? Now you go out back in society again for a lot of people, and it’s like, “Oh man, you look great. What are you doing?”
And it’s like, “Guess what? I’m ordering this from this company on this website. Go try it.” That’s powerful, and that’s not going to happen if you’re pixie dust spraying ingredients. You’re going to get that one sale and it’s just going to walk away. They’ll be on to the next thing.
So to your point, seriously, quality ingredients affect… Not only helps with everything that you spoke about, but that word of mouth is still important in the world of reviews. The world of reviews that we live in, whether it’s products online or restaurants, people love to talk good, they love to talk bad. So having a quality experience with a quality product goes so far in this industry, and it’s more so important today than it ever was. And if you just think about where that’s going to go, it will only continue to go in that direction, and brand owners need to be aware of that and be prepared to be ahead of the curve when it comes to those kinds of things.

Bobby Hewitt:
So if you’re a supplement brand or starting a supplement brand and looking for someone to help you with those quality ingredients, how can NutraScience Labs help someone like that?

Vin:
Well, we’ve been in business for 15 years. All of our team has been with us… I mean we have a really great team. We’ve been together for over 10 years. And what we look to do is we look to provide supplement brand owners a one-stop shop so they only need to speak to one expert. But more importantly, we want to give them our experience. We want to guide them through the process. We can handhold them through the formulation process. We can handhold them through some of the things that they might think are a good idea and we know from our experience we can steer you away from that to a better idea. When you talk about flavoring and sweeteners and making a flavor profile, I believe we have the most talented flavor scientists in the industry. We have so many of our brands that do powders that just absolutely love everything we do from a sampling standpoint.
And our food scientists, when they get a great formula… You might ask us for three flavors, we might throw two or three more in there and we’ll guide you through the process. I think that’s the most important thing, is that from start to finish you’re going to have someone with a lot of experience with a quality manufacturing, that’s all CGMP certified through the NSF. Our facility where we do our storage and distribution, if someone needs fulfillment that that facility is also CGMP certified through the NSF, so we don’t cut corners.
We’re going to help brand owners create that quality product and have a quality experience with us. We might not say everything that somebody might want to hear. We’re going to tell you the truth, and I think that that’s important, because it’s relying on that experience in collaborating and working together to make sure that that product that comes off that line is a quality product, is what the brand owner is looking for, and everything that has to happen before that moment, they’ll have somebody to guide them through that process and update them where we are, what is needed from them, and how we can make the best possible product for them to be able to go to market with.
And that’s what we take pride in. We’ve probably launched well over a hundred different brands this year, and in the course of time we’re well over thousands and thousands of brands, and we’re proud of all of them, and help them to see them take those first baby steps towards a successful business and a successful brand and company.

Bobby Hewitt:
Vin, so if someone has an idea for a supplement, or even just wants to get into the supplement space with a product of their own, would you be able to support them in that way?

Vin:
Yeah, and we will make it a reality. So we’ll get you a price on the turnkey, and then if you want to utilize us for fulfillment and distribution, we can do that as well. We have connections with all the major carriers. We ship to Amazon, we’ll ship to any fulfillment center that you want to utilize, and we’ll ship right from your website. We can connect right to your website and do your D2C orders, so full capabilities there as well.

Bobby Hewitt:
Thank you so much for your time today, Vin. If anyone is interested and wants to reach out to you, wants to learn more, where can they go?

Vin:
Well, our website is certainly the best place to reach us, so www.nutrisciencelabs.com, just click on the contact us page and someone… We pride ourselves on getting back to every single inquiry immediately, so they will certainly… We have a great team ready and willing to assist anyone.

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