Hire the Top 1% of Retail / Wholesale Consultants

A retail and wholesale consultant helps a brand sell into retailers, from the first buyer meeting to a national program. The work is specific. It is not motivation. It is getting your pricing, margins, and packaging to a standard a buyer will accept, building the pitch that survives a line review, choosing which retailers to chase and in what order, and planning the trade investment and in-store execution that turn a placement into reorders. Three quarters of the founders who come to MentorPass for this are moving a DTC brand onto shelves for the first time, and most are doing between $1M and $100M.

What a retail consultant does

Getting on shelf is the easy part. Staying there is the job. A good consultant works both ends: the sell-in (the buyer pitch, the line review, the terms) and the sell-out (velocity, demos, merchandising, and the sell-through that earns your reorder). They will pressure-test your retail readiness before you take a meeting, sequence your expansion so you don't overextend, and protect your margin against price spidering, clearance, and channel cannibalization. They also help you vet reps and distributors, which is where a lot of first-time brands get burned on exclusivity and territories.

What to look for when hiring one

Hire for proof, not titles. The best retail advisors have sat on the buyer's side of the table or built a brand onto shelves themselves, ideally both. Ask what they actually launched and into which retailers. Someone who ran emerging brands at Target reads a buyer differently than someone who has only read about it. Look for operators who give specific, applied advice and, when it fits, open real contacts. Match the operator to your stage: independents and Faire need different help than a national Costco or Sephora program.

Why founders use MentorPass for it

The operators here have done the work. They ran emerging brands at Target, launched consumer brands into national US retail, scaled CPG toward $100M, and built brands like RIND Snacks from a side hustle to national shelves in under five years. You book by the session, so you get a buyer's read before a line review instead of a retainer you have to justify. Reviews say the same thing again and again: specific advice, real introductions, and calls that saved months of going down the wrong path into big retail. When a buyer meeting is on the calendar, that is the help you want.