I still remember the moment I hit Send on that email to the global Whole Foods Market buyer. I knew my cofounder, Nikki, and I had an amazing product. Within three hours, my phone lit up with a response: “Can I try samples?”
That email launched Elavi into Whole Foods Market stores. But here’s what most people don’t realize: It wasn’t magic, and it wasn’t luck. It was the intersection of the right pitch structure and the right product at the right time. If you’ve been sending pitch emails that disappear into the void, or if you’re terrified to even start reaching out to major retailers, I want to show you what works.
Mastering the art of the three Cs
I’m a huge believer that closed mouths don’t get fed. If you don’t advocate for yourself, who will? But here’s where most business owners go wrong—they think pitching means word-vomiting their entirelife story into an email essay. Here’s the method that I recommend to craft the perfect pitch—I call them the three C’s: concise, compelling, and clear call to action.
Let me break this down using my favorite analogy: the perfect length of a skirt. Short enough to keep it interesting, but long enough to cover the essentials.When you’re pitching a retailer or buyer, you have two seconds to capture their attention. These people are inundated with emails. They’re slammed between meetings. You need to hook them immediately and get straight to the point.
To keep it concise, I focus on one thing: what makes us different. For our protein brownies, that meant leading with the fact that we’re the first-to-market protein brownie that’s vegan, gluten-free, and has no added sugars—the brownies are sweetened with dates at a time when every protein snack uses sugar alcohols or stevia or random things you can’t pronounce.
The compelling piece is about psychology. Don’t make your pitch asking the person to help you out, make it about what value you can provide them. When I pitched Whole Foods Market, I emphasized that we’re women creating protein products specifically for women—who make 80% of household purchasing decisions. I made it clear why our authority as fitness trainers for more than a decade mattered. That legitimacy stands out because most snack brands in our category don’t have that.
Finally, the clear call to action tells them exactly what’s next: “Can I send you samples? Let me know the best address.” Don’t leave them wondering: Give them something concrete to respond to.
Finding the decision-maker, not the gatekeeper
I found our buyer’s email address through some creative research, and while I wasn’t expecting anything, I inherently knew this innovative product needed to be in front of the person who could bring it to our target audience.
If you can find out what time zone they’re in, use that to your advantage to send emails during their working hours, so you’re not emailing them in the evening. I wouldn’t send it on a Monday when they’re drowning in weekend backlog, or on a Friday when they’re mentally checked out. That Tuesday-through-Thursday sweet spot is when they’re most likely to actually read what you send.
Whoever you’re pitching will likely look you and your company up after reading your email. They’re going to Google you, look at your social media, find anything they can online. So before you even think about pitching, build up your profile and brand authority. Make sure when they research you, they find something so glowing they’re like, “I want that.”
Testing your product in the real world
When we launched in 2020, we couldn’t get our samples out to people in real life. We had no way of truly validating our products beyond online sales. So when we got the opportunity to do a Costco roadshow in Southern California, we jumped at it. Although we spent our weekends driving all over SoCal slinging samples to 70,000 members, it was the most invaluable experience as an early stage brand.
That road show was the best consumer research we never paid for. People pay thousands for this kind of data. We got to see real-time responses, watch what confused people about our packaging, what they liked, and where we could improve. We’d then have strategy sessions in the evenings, recapping what we learned while it was fresh in our brains, and took notes on how we could implement that invaluable data.
The insights from that roadshow led to our complete brand redesign. We found opportunities to make key information clearer for consumers, take a bolder approach in showcasing our personality and brand voice on packaging, and ensure our products stand out on crowded retail shelves. Shoppers make decisions in a blink—about 0.2 seconds—so our packaging had to stand out fast and make their choice easy.
Making strategic decisions based on capability, not just opportunity
Something that most people don’t know is that Whole Foods Market actually approved us to launch nationally in all stores across the country, but we said no. People thought we were crazy. Why would you turn down national distribution? That’s the dream. Whole Foods Market is a big deal, and we didn’t want to mess it up. We wanted to start in our backyard in Southern California, nurture it, perfect our operations, and then expand when we were ready.
We’re building a world-class brand with staying power. If that means taking a step back to do something right the first time versus breaking things at all costs and cleaning up a mess later, we’ll take the smart approach every time.
Studying the retail environment obsessively
Before we launched in Costco Southeast, Nikki and I flew from California to Florida to do a full analysis of our retail set—complete with tape measures. Yes, literally tape measures. We measured the packaging of the other brands in the aisles to understand the most optimal dimensions. We photographed the other brands to analyze their colors and pack sizes so that we could avoid duplication and make sure we popped in a competitive set. We observed who performed best and took notes on how we can learn from them.
You have to walk the aisles of as many stores as you can. Talk to the staff and ask them what are the top-selling products. Look at the pricing architecture: What’s the most expensive item and what’s the least expensive, and can your product fit somewhere in between? If you have your product with you, put it on the shelf yourself. Take a step back and see how it looks. Does it stand out? Does it blend in with your competitors?
These little things add up. When you’re in the aisles, you arm yourself with so much qualitative and quantitative data that when you’re speaking to a buyer, you know exactly what you’re talking about. You’re not making assumptions—you’ve done the fieldwork.
That three-hour Whole Foods response didn’t happen because we got lucky. It happened because we spent years learning what does and doesn’t work. When I hit Send, I had already built the right product, studied the market obsessively, and then crafted a pitch that made it impossible for the buyer to ignore. When those elements intersect—the right structure, the right product, and the right preparation—that’s when you get a lightning fast response instead of radio silence.
Closed mouths don’t get fed, and it’s vital to advocate for yourself. Check out my full interview on the Shopify Masters YouTube channel to hear how we drive traffic into each retail store and the marketing strategies that have really moved the needle for Elavi.
