The Serious Business of Getting Busy on White Space:

This installment begins the second half of our four-part series on getting after white space. The fun part! Execution.

In the first in this series, we covered ways of finding the areas where your business is just waiting to grow. Then, in our second installment, we formulated a plan for growth and laid a rock-solid foundation. In this third installment, we look at best practices for putting your plan into action and being well on your way to delivering against the goals you've set.

Sometimes whitespace is whitespace because you haven't had a way to get at it or to go after it. Don't let that slow you down from executing against it. Go after it like your business depends on it because, very likely, it does.

Taking the First Steps

The first step in moving forward is, once again, to take a brief step back. We talked in Step Two about reviewing the leverage points you identified in your original assessment but applying a planning lens. The same is true for executing. Take a discerning look at your plan with an execution mindset and the end goal in mind - are you ready?

Before we move into action in this step, it's important to recognize that as leaders in foodservice organizations we've all felt the pressure to be in motion and make it happen! Rushing to execute, though, can lead to mistakes and mistakes can cost time, money, and momentum. Team members may say, "let's just get out there and do it. Let's just execute it." My admonition here, though, is to pause and make sure your plan is solid and your team is ready. That confidence will carry through to your team and your customers.

Review the space you've identified, and double-check yourself, regardless of whether you're brokered, direct or hybrid, that your plan will provide a viable solution to the operator. Don't try to manufacture a solution to a problem that doesn't exist for the operator. Check? Let's move forward.

Look at your plan. Traditional execution models work, and they may take care of 75-80% of your market. Is there an execution model that will help you reach the other 20+%, even if it's a little less traditional? Don't be afraid to swerve from the traditional execution model you use for other things. Don't fear veering from the ordinary to do something different to achieve the extraordinary.

Review your plan with your team - both the conventional and the unconventional parts -- and build consensus and excitement.

When you're confident about your whitespace vision and your plan, start executing. Don't wait for perfection or absolute certainty - you'll know soon enough if you need to pivot and you'll be more than prepared to do so.

Identifying Your Leverage Points

Your first and most important leverage point will be your fully invigorated and well aligned team against the whitespace.

I once took on a whitespace project with a very, very small budget. I earmarked nearly all of it for seller incentives. Every Monday for nearly a year, I stood by a fax machine (cutting edge technology at the time!) and received the week's numbers, and every week someone got rewarded. I invested in the team and kept them motivated, and it paid off with double-digit growth.

Leverage the relationships with your sellers and as a team. Consider incentives that matter to them. Maybe that's money, or maybe it's car washes, time off, or public recognition and bragging rights. Motivate them to achieve both individually and as a team.

Regardless of the specifics, if you've lined your soldiers up against what's got to get done, you're on your way to success.

Your second leverage point is building a culture of transparency, and a culture where failure equals success. Meet regularly with your direct team - at least once every couple of weeks. If you're working with a broker, make sure you listen to their feedback as they begin to execute, as well. Regarding both types of sellers, make it safe for them to give you real feedback on what's happening. That will help you help them sell more.

Your meetings should include team members who feel encouraged to bring whatever problems they encounter, and to come up with solutions. Once we establish what doesn't work, what will we focus on instead? What will we pivot to and implement next to achieve our goals?

The road to success is paved with failure -- when your team comes across a failing point in the execution process, you should celebrate that. I've always taken that unconventional approach. Something didn't work? That's the greatest news I've ever heard! Now we know where not to go. Thank goodness that's over.

This allows you to build your own execution playbook, with agility and effectiveness built in, to give people what they really need to close more business. Making it safe for people to say, "this didn't work," plus the accountability of checking in every week with successes, keeps people focused on the goal and on finding solutions.

Also, be reminded - the foodservice industry can look very different from one geographical region to the next depending on your category. Look at adjusting regionally if something works in one market but not another. This is where agility really pays off, and speaking of agility...

And your third leverage point will be the agility you build into your execution plan. Through the whole execution process, you're going to have barriers and gaps you did not predict during planning. You ARE going to miss something, and you're not going to know what you missed until you're out there in the middle of it.

Allowing team members to be honest about what works and doesn't work for them in the field, building on a culture of transparency, often translates into honest feedback about bigger issues, like problems with the plan itself. When leaders know what's not working or what may have gotten overlooked during planning, they can adjust. Without solid (& safe) communication, you can't change course and will continue to spend valuable resources in places that can't and won't make a difference.

Don't just stick to the plan because you planned it. Your team's goal is to get after the whitespace, not to execute a particular plan, regardless of its results. Don't get caught in thinking, "We've got a formal plan, we've got to follow this plan no matter what."

Think of the plan, instead, as a guide. Stakeholders who've bought into the plan will stay close to it and will help figure out what's not working and what might work better. Somewhere in the execution process, one or two of those segments you've chosen are going to rise to the top as clear winners. And you're going to double down on those.

The agility you've built into your plan and into its execution will allow you to pivot toward success.

Raw Honesty - OBSTACLES: Identify & Overcome

• Understand adoption cycle length.
  If you're new to foodservice, adoption cycle length may surprise you. The average adoption rate for regional and national chains, for example, varies from nine months to a year. Other segments will have different timeframes, but getting on the menu in any segment doesn't happen overnight. The foodservice adoption cycle almost always takes longer than finding a space for a product on a CPG shelf.

• Be nimble but realistic.
  If you're using a foodservice broker, you're going to be part of their semester or trimester planning and pulling back midway through those periods can be difficult and confusing for everyone. Once a broker's sellers get assignments, they work at different paces to get their assignments done. If you figure out halfway through the trimester, for instance, the college and university segment is not a good target for this white space attainment, many of the calls will already have been made. You'll want to have formulated your plan with a recognition of where there is flexibility and where there isn't.

• Keep watching out for "I told you so."
  Make sure your meetings allow room for constructive and positive discussion of problems but take a hard stance against negativity and naysayers. Each stage of progress may produce its own voices that pipe up with "it's not going to work." When the rubber meets the road and the time to execute has arrived, the fully onboard people who make it happen can contrast pretty sharply with those who make excuses and belittle the plan. Positivity is contagious. Negativity is just as contagious.

Our next installment in this series will focus on setting benchmarks, tracking, measuring and setting yourself and your organization up for success with your next white space initiative.

Other resources

Download "The Serious Business of Getting Busy on White Space" Infographic here.

Julie spent 25 years in sales and marketing for the French's Food Company and McCormick, and then just over 4 years as a broker in senior & executive leadership roles across sales, marketing, digital & business development. She has interviewed over 100 potential manufacturers - she knows what she's talking about!