Twenty years ago, an aspiring new brand had one dream: to get their product onto the shelf of a big retail store. The rise of e-commerce changed that to some degree, enabling brands without mass appeal to be marginally successful by simply staying online. Then, when the e-commerce boom of the pandemic lockdowns hit, direct-to-consumer brands crushed their numbers, thanks to social media and the enduring power of reliable shipping. Small, online-only brands saw exponential growth and delivered their wares to thousands of homes as long as they could keep up with demand.
But as stores reopened, foot traffic returned, and suddenly the only brands beating expectations were the ones in brick-and-mortar stores. Brands that could be easily found in the next aisle over. Today, the race to get into retail stores is on yet again.
Enter TLK Fusion, the award-winning retail distribution company founded by fintech veteran Ken Collis in 2009. The company’s team of retail experts knows how to position brands in the market. With the power of 15 years of powerful retail connections, TLK Fusion has a proven strategy to partner established brands with the right retailers.
Collis, who was instrumental in helping take authorize.net public in 2009, created TLK Fusion as a licensing, endorsement, and PR agency with a hyper-focus on the Kardashian family. But early into the process, Collis noticed that there was no shortage of large and small companies, other celebrities, and influencers who needed assistance in the branding arena. As a fellow entrepreneur, Collis instinctively felt the need to help them grow and take them to the next level.
Collis saw the importance of physical retail well before the pandemic, but working with his family at home also inspired the creation of another entrepreneurial effort. His adult children, who also work for TLK Fusion (Ken Collis III is Vice President, and daughter Candi Collis is Director of Sales), had a tradition of burning candles for a more pleasant at-home work environment. They discovered that the candles’ ingredients were toxic, so they worked with local businesses in Los Angeles to create a healthier, non-toxic candle collection in an array of sophisticated scents. Better yet, they grew the business around the perimeters that TLK Fusion offers, making a business case for what they can offer prospective clients.
First, they created a social footprint with content and influencer support, promoted the candles in editorials and on tv, and established consumer confidence and awareness. The strategy worked, and after holding talks with buyers, the candles are now found in over one thousand stores, including Saks Fifth Avenue. Kendi Lux, which is the name of the highly successful in-house fragrance line, demonstrates to clients that TLK Fusion not only understands the retail journey, but they have the numbers to prove it can work.
Of course, it doesn’t stop there. Once a product is in stores, the team builds a digital footprint with digital advertising, where they target geographically within a five-mile radius to get consumers to go in and purchase the brand. “In short, we want to ensure a social footprint, editorials are in place, and influencers are in place,” Collis says. The goal? The buyer purchases your product, and the consumer buys it off the shelf.
Their latest product success story is also a great business case. Baked Cravings, a healthy, all-natural cookie, was in a handful of stores when they came to TLK Fusion. But in just over six months of their first meeting, Baked Cravings received purchase orders topping six figures, and the brand’s marketing and consumer confidence skyrocketed because of enhanced marketing, influencer buzz, and PR. They’re on their way to doing seven figures in the next 24 months.
When working in retail, Collis says success is generally measured on a return of purchase orders, which doesn’t happen overnight. The process in retail takes about three to twelve months to see purchase orders fulfilled, and five or six figures in POs are typically the goal.
So what are American retailers looking for? Across the board, Collis says retailers look for these three things:
- The brand has a marketing strategy in place.
- Consumer confidence is already built.
- There’s a differential in the product type. A candle is a candle, but what’s the differential? What sets it apart?
TLK Fusion irons all of this out before they take on a client. “We want to make sure the brands we work with are going to be here five years from now,” Collis says. “And retail buyers want to make sure the same. They’re not looking for short-term trends; they’re looking for longevity and brands that can compete with the major enterprise names on the shelf today.”
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Since 2022, TLK Fusion has tripled in size, which Collis attributes to his son and vice president, Ken Collis III. The younger Collis started at the tender age of 14 when he offered to take on social media and influencer management each day after school. To date, the relationships he’s built in the social space have been the strongest company-wide, and his uniquely Gen Z perspective on what’s scaling has been invaluable. “It’s always been my dream to have a family enterprise,” Collis says, but it’s also a selling point to clients. “It all comes down to honesty and transparency. When you have family values behind you, it’s a different experience for our clients and partners.”
In addition to this son and daughter, his wife, Mary, is CFO, and COO, Tim McCouch, a veteran of Macy’s, is a longtime friend and right-hand man. They have even more Gen Z acumen with Eddie Antimo, VP of Business Development. Most companies are desperately trying to unlock the mysteries of Gen Z, but TLK Fusion has young adults throughout their office. Collis says they’re an enormous source of common sense and ideology for their clients.
TLK Fusion is always planning and strategizing for upcoming seasons, but when it comes to the future, Collis is keeping a close eye on artificial intelligence. “AI can be a useful tool to agencies like ours,” he says. His team, led by his son and COO McCouch, constantly communicates on how the industry evolves. Their goal for AI is to make it enhance the buyer and consumer experience on behalf of their brand partners. “It’s going to be a big part of our future,” he says.
In general, though, Collis wants to grow and improve for future generations. “I have a billionaire mindset. I want my clients to be highly successful, and with that, our goal as a family enterprise is to become part of that billionaire club. It’s not all about money. If we’re all eating at the table, not just my family but my partners and employees, that means a lot more than just one of us eating at the table. It’s very lonely to sit at the table and eat a five-course meal. I want everyone to eat! That’s part of what we do, and that’s where we want to go. How we’re going to get there is putting together major deals, major transactions in the retail space, major licensing transactions, and flourishing in our other businesses as well, like Kendi Lux, that all needs to flourish. I know that with my kids, my wife, and my amazing team, I really feel that we’ll be able to blow up into that. It may be a five to ten-year goal, but we’ll get there.”
Discover more about TLK Fusion, their clients, and their leadership at tlkfusion.com or follow them at @tlkfusion on Instagram.
Collis Share Tips for New Brands
“Follow your passion, but make sure you’re properly funded,” Collis says even the most impressive products need funding to make it in today’s marketplace. Without capital from the earliest days, even the most promising businesses have to shut down before they make it in retail because they can’t pay their bills.
Capital must be raised before a brand works with a broker like TLK Fusion. In 2023, though, Collis says that the investment pool for brands is dry. Crowdfunding, family, friends, and royalty transactions are better funding opportunities than a bank loan in the current climate.
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