It was a wet, rainy day in Omaha when I was part of a team going in to pitch the CEO of ConAgra Foods to buy David’s Sunflower Seeds business. At the time, I was the VP of Marketing for GoodMark Foods, the folks who made Slim Jims and other snack foods. We were a division of ConAgra and wanted to buy David’s from Nestles.
The conference room reminded me of a Roman collision. I felt like the design of the space was like being fed to the lions and that the ruler would give a thumbs up or down if I would live or die. The table must have had 50 seats and there was stadium seating surrounded the table.
After the financial presentations, the CEO asked me why I thought this deal made sense to pay millions of dollars for this brand.
I naively said I had a feeling.
He jumped down my throat telling me he didn’t care about my feeling; he cared about data. He wasn’t going to spend millions of dollars based on my hunches. Yet, if he bought into the data and financials, he had to bet that our business unit could make the volume projections happen. He too had to follow his own feelings, hunches, and intuition. (although as a lawyer, he’d never admitted it)
When he calmed down, I shared with him that I had a feeling based on a hunch and my intuition about consumer trends. Remember, this was in the early 2000’s.
I told him that while we saw double-digit growth of what we affectionately called our greasy, slimy Slim Jims,® there was a countervailing trend that came up in observations of young male teen consumers that they also loved the addictive habit of biting into a shelled seed, spitting out the shell and enjoying the salty hit.
My hunch was that there was an underserved market for a natural product, seasoned with flavors that you could spit.
It was like a rite of passage – like spitting chewing tobacco or spitting in general. It was a very teenage male thing to do. I told the imposing CEO that at dozens of events that the Slim Jim brand attended (WCW professional wrestling, X Games, Nascar, Hoop it Up, and Motor Cross), you could watch kids and see how this habitual snack would fit with their lives.
Like an anthropologist watching a subculture, I observed the desire for habit in teenage boys, and I thought David’s Sunflower Seeds could fit into this need. And, I understood how to reach that target audience in a similar way to how we had doubled the volume and tripled the profits of Slim Jims over many years.
The CEO, I’ll call him Bruce, wasn’t buying my shtick. He thought I was crazy.
The Spitting Image
Well, we did buy the business, and my instincts were right. Through our added distribution and marketing savvy, we could grow and expand the market for the product. Yes, the data showed the opportunity, but it was an instinctual hunch that led me to believe that my team could grow the brand. Although I only stayed with the business a few more years, my instincts were right, and we found many ways to make spitting seeds a deeper part of the American snack food landscape.
Following my Feelings
Over thirty years, I have followed my feelings and instincts as a marketer. Based on observations in the field, I trusted that gut belief that I understood a distinct target audience. Intuition is a feeling of knowing inside. The Latin root word tueri “to look at, watch over.” Based on observations, business hunches percolate through your gut.
Hunches are a core feeling that you know the right path to take to grow a brand or build a business.
Hunches, Intuition, and Feelings
The noted Australian marketer Bernadette Jiwa has a new book out called Hunches. I have only listened to a short excerpt, but it sounds like a terrific book for anyone thinking about following their hunches.
She tells the story in the first chapter about a young Maasai boy named Richard living in Nairobi, Kenya. Charged with protecting the family’s greatest asset, Richard had to protect the family cows from the lions.
Over a few decades, lion populations have declined from 200, 000 to 25,000 lions. As cities grow, the people and the Lions meet in places where both need space. Richard had a hunch about protecting the herd after observing the lions staying away from bright, moving lights at night. He also thought his idea could protect both the lions and his family’s cows.
To learn more about the book and Richard’s hunch and how it fits into a marketer’s worldview, follow this link.
Trust me on learning more about Bernadette and her work– I have a hunch you’ll love this book.
Do you have a hunch about a new business idea? Maybe your instincts tell you that you could sell that product concept that has been kicking around your brain. Need help getting started? I can help. Text me at 919 720 0995 or email me at jeffslater@themarketingsage.com
I feel I can help you.
