Sven, 42he: How do you get this pepper to market, which distribution channels do you use?
Martin Gompelmann: We quickly realised that it doesn't work to simply put pepper on the shelves next to other spices at the retailer. Even if you don't think so, it requires too much advice. Consumers are not used to differentiating between peppers based on quality. For example, we sell red, white and black pepper. Incidentally, all varieties come from the same plant and are just of different degrees of ripeness or are based on different processing methods. With green pepper, we could no longer meet our quality standards, as it has to be processed absolutely fresh. This is simply not possible in Cambodia under reasonable conditions. Even the white pepper commonly sold in stores quickly develops a musty character if not handled properly. You won't find anything like that colombia telegram screening with white Kampot pepper. Long story short: in order for a prospective customer to become a customer, they have to experience the product, that is, smell and taste it. To do this, we go to a lot of trade fairs, cooking events and markets. Customers who have tried or bought the pepper there then order from our online store. Some also do it the traditional way by post or telephone. Customers from Cologne usually come straight to our shop in Ehrenfeld .
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Martin Gompelmann: At first we probably did it like most start-ups, with Outlook and Excel. At events, we collected addresses and sent out newsletters in addition to sales. But that quickly became too confusing. We now use CentralStationCRM, a CRM that makes our sales much more structured. For us as a start-up, it was important to use a solution that we could find our way around straight away and that was not too complex. We wouldn't use hundreds of features. We would rather have fewer functions, but that were functional and well thought out. That suits us better. We now plan our projects mainly around events. We tag the associated contacts accordingly. Anything that needs to be organized goes on the to-do list of the person in charge of it. Over time, processes are established, from event preparation and implementation to following up with new contacts or PR work. For us, CRM has thus developed from address management to a management tool. Even though I sometimes have to remind my colleagues to make sure that everything is stored in the CRM , we are much more professionally positioned today, especially in sales, than we were a year ago.