For new food brands and established brand alike, seeking financing and investment can be intimidating. Whether you’re looking to build a local, regional or national food brand, understanding the role of both brand strategy and financing – and how the two intersect – is helpful to accelerate your success.
When approaching funding sources for your business, a clearly defined brand strategy is among the most important things. This includes an understanding of what your brand stands for, your target audience and how your product fills their need in a way competitors can’t or don’t, world class packaging and logo design, and a firm grasp on your goals for the desired scale of your brand.
In this episode, Tera Johnson shares how her strong sense of mission and brand strategy guided her in decision making across all areas of her business. Tera is the founder of teraswhey, an organic whey protein product that has risen to #1 in the natural food category. Now, as the founder of the Food Finance Institute (FFI) at the University of Wisconsin-Extension, she is a frequent speaker, teacher and financial consultant to sustainable food and farming businesses, social venture funds and investors. It is an honor to have Tera on the podcast to talk about her experiences as she started teraswhey and the Food Finance Institute. Tera has mentored many food companies over the years and is the host of one of my favorite podcasts, Edible Alpha. If you haven’t checked out this podcast, I highly recommend putting it on your list!
It’s interesting to think of potential investors as a customer of sorts. You are bringing them your business and asking them to put their money into it, just as you ask shoppers to buy your product in exchange for money. You need to clearly and accurately communicate the benefits of your brand to investors in the same way you would to an end user so they can understand the potential.
When you have a clearly defined brand strategy, you can create a unique point of difference that resonates internally within your company culture, as well as externally with your consumers, buyers, suppliers, influencers and investors.
Please join us in the free Real Food Brands Marketing Round Table Facebook group with other food company owners, and a few industry experts, to continue the conversation!
In This Episode:
- How Tera started Tera’s Whey, now the #1 whey protein brand in the natural category and #4 overall
- The importance of the company name and product label
- How Tera’s Whey paved the way for organic whey protein
- Why a clearly defined brand strategy matters when working with financing and investment
- Why becoming a national brand needs to be an early decision
- Why your target market may not be your local market
Quotes:
“Optimal financial structure will involve raising both debt and equity.” — Tera Johnson
“Investors understand that their investment is going to live and die on the brand.” — Tera Johnson
“Investors want to see world class design.” — Tera Johnson
“A high level investor expects you to be investing heavily in marketing.” — Tera Johnson
“Being a successful national brand is an intentional choice.” — Tera Johnson
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