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For budding food entrepreneurs, this is an hour of pure gold, or pretty close to an hour. This show is our hosts, Sarah Marshall, founder of Marshall’s Haute Sauce and Sarah Masoni, Director of Oregon State University’s Food Innovation Center in Portland, Oregon, giving freely of their advice on being successful with your brilliant new food idea. On this episode, they get into the details of leveraging both trade shows and your own food communities to build your path to sharing your food creation, helping to bring people together. They start with community, and one of the biggest and best is OSU’s Food Innovation Center. Sarah Marshall talks about rolling into the Center once directly from Seattle for a mini-trade show, getting delayed by a train, showing up late but absolutely being surrounded by people she knew and didn’t know asking if they could help out. The Portland food community has always been supportive, cooperative and amazingly helpful to all food founders and feel that everyone can be successful; no need to have a win/lose attitude. So find that community where you live, or as close to you as possible. This particular Center mini-trade show event brought in journalists from the food industry to look over the latest research and meet the new food entrepreneurs, a tremendous opportunity for the founders. You can see pictures if you look on Sarah Masoni’s LinkedIn page. And here are some tips for interacting with people at these trade shows. When there are media people, you want to be part of the show’s story. When Sarah Marshall goes to shows, she sets up differently to stand out from the crowd. She has things for people to eat so they will stand there, chat, get to know her and understand her business. She doesn’t give the usual elevator speech but instead “sells” her story naturally and deftly, getting to know people by getting them to know her. They understand the WHY she has developed this unique food product, not just he HOW. And the food she set out was not a big spread. It was a few small snack items at a time, all freshly made. Also, she cautions be conscious of other’s food allergies and make sure you put out samples that appeal to a wide number of people. Also, change up your offering every day to attract different people and display the variety of package sizes as well. Sarah and Sarah also draw from two well-known sources, consciously or subconsciously. First, from the Boy Scouts: Always be prepared! Anytime you show up to any place, have your samples. Be ready to meet complete strangers and let them know about your outstanding treasure and where to buy it. As they say, every person is like a mini-trade show. Second, Woody Allen’s quote, “98 Percent of success is showing up.” Be there. Go to the trade shows that are worth while and work them. The good ones are like digging in a vein of pure gold and the returns are all out of proportion with the effort involved. However, be aware that some media people must be careful not to accept gifts, so have some mini-sizes that are obviously sample sizes and not in the gift category. Our hosts: Twitter - @sarahmasoni and @spicymarshall, Instagram - @masoniandmarshall, Sarah Masoni LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-masoni-67182a23/
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