Signing your first broker is one of the higher-leverage decisions a CPG founder makes in year one or two. A good broker opens doors that would take you 18 months to open alone. A bad broker burns 12 months of runway, locks up your category, and leaves you with a thinner pipeline than you started with.
This is a tactical checklist, not a strategy essay. Work through it in order, take notes, and walk away from anyone who fails more than two sections. Most first-time founders sign too fast because they are flattered to be courted. The brokers worth signing will respect this process.
Section 1, Questions to Ask on the First Call
Treat the first call like a structured interview. You are hiring an extension of your sales team. Run the questions in order and listen for specifics, not slogans.
1. Which retailers do you currently sell into, and who is your buyer contact at each? You are looking for named buyers, not vague references to "great relationships." A broker who cannot name their buyer at Whole Foods Northeast or Sprouts Southwest does not have the relationship they are claiming.
2. Which brands in my category do you currently represent? Get the full list, not just the flagship names. You need this to assess conflicts and to understand what their portfolio actually looks like.
3. What is the average revenue range of the brands you represent? A broker whose entire portfolio sits at $200K in annual revenue will not have the playbook for getting you to $2M. A broker whose portfolio averages $20M will not give a $500K brand the attention it needs.
4. What is your fee structure and what is included? Ask for the standard commission percentage, any monthly retainer, any setup fees, and what is specifically included (slotting negotiation, promo planning, distributor management, retailer reviews). Get every number on the table now.
5. What does month one with a new brand look like? A serious broker has a 30-60-90 day onboarding plan and can walk you through it without notes. Vague answers about "ramping up" and "getting to know the brand" are a sign they wing it.
6. Which retailer reviews are you preparing for in the next 6 months? A working broker knows their calendar months in advance. They should be able to name specific category reviews at specific retailers and explain where you might fit.
7. What is your win rate at the retailers I care about? Ask for placements landed per pitch over the last 12 months at the chains you actually want to be in. Vague answers here are disqualifying.
8. How many brands are you actively pitching right now, and how many accounts do you manage? You want a sense of bandwidth. A two-person brokerage with 40 active brands is not giving you enough attention. A 12-person brokerage with 25 brands probably is.
After the first call, write down three specific, verifiable claims the broker made (a buyer name, a recent placement, a portfolio brand). You will check these in the reference and document phase. If anything turns out to be exaggerated, end the conversation. Trust at the start sets the ceiling for the whole relationship.
Section 2, Documents to Request Before a Second Call
Do not move past the first call without seeing paper. A serious broker has this material on the shelf and will send it within 48 hours.
1. Current brand roster with categories. A simple list of every brand they currently represent, with category for each. This is the single most useful document for spotting conflicts and assessing portfolio relevance.
2. Retailer coverage map. Which chains they actively sell into, broken out by region if relevant. Look for the retailers on your target list. A broker who covers all of New England natural channel but none of your Texas grocery targets is a poor fit no matter how good they are.
3. Standard representation agreement. The actual contract template they use. Read it before you talk price. Look for exclusivity scope, territory definition, term length, termination clauses, and post-termination commission tails.
4. Sample line review presentation. Ask for a redacted version of a recent line review deck they built for a current brand. The quality of this work product is a direct preview of how they will present your brand to a buyer.
5. Reporting cadence and template. What reports do they send you, how often, and what is in them. A broker who cannot show you a sample monthly report is not running structured account management.
6. Insurance certificate. Confirms they carry general liability and errors and omissions coverage. Boring but non-negotiable.
Section 3, References to Verify
References are where most founders cut corners and most regret happens. Make the calls. Take 30 minutes per reference. Be specific.
1. Call three current brand references they provide. Treat these as warm leads, not character witnesses. Ask: what placements have they actually landed for you in the last 12 months, how responsive are they, do they show up to retailer meetings prepared, how do they handle promo planning and chargebacks, would you sign with them again knowing what you know now.
2. Find one former client reference on your own. Look at LinkedIn, ask in founder groups, check old buyer presentations. A former client tells you what the current clients will not. Ask: why did the relationship end, what did they overpromise, what would have made it work.
3. Verify at least one buyer-side reference if you can. This is hard but worth the effort. If you have any buyer contact at a retailer where the broker claims to have a relationship, ask discreetly if they actually work with this broker and how they would rate them. Buyers will not throw a broker under the bus, but the absence of warmth tells you something.
4. Cross-check claims from the first call. Did they say they have a strong relationship with the Sprouts Southwest buyer. Confirm it. Did they say they placed three new brands in Wegmans last quarter. Confirm at least one. Specific lies on the first call are disqualifying.
Founders treat broker references like wedding toasts, expecting nothing but praise. Ask sharp questions. "What is the one thing about working with them that frustrates you?" is the single most valuable question in any reference call. If the reference cannot name anything, they are either lying or they are not paying attention to the relationship.
Section 4, Red Flags That Should End the Conversation
These are not yellow flags. Any one of these is a real reason to walk away.
1. Vague answers about buyer relationships. "We know everyone at Kroger" without a single named buyer means they do not have the relationship. Buyer relationships are about specific people, specific categories, and specific recent conversations.
2. Demands for a large upfront retainer with no commission structure. A retainer can be reasonable for a fractional sales leader model, but a broker who wants $5K to $10K a month with no commission tie to actual placements is selling you hope, not sales. Pay for performance.
3. Demands for broad exclusivity across all retailers and all geographies. Exclusivity should be scoped to retailers and territories where they are actively working. A broker who locks up all of North America for three years and only sells into the natural channel in the Northeast has frozen your growth in every other channel.
Opener identifies best-fit retailers, verifies buyer contacts, and runs personalized outreach so you walk into broker conversations with a full pipeline of accounts already interested.
Book a Demo4. A dead brand portfolio. Look at their roster and check the brands. If most of them have not posted on social, updated their website, or shown up in retailer ads in the last 12 months, you are looking at a portfolio of brands that signed up and got nothing. The roster tells the story.
5. Pressure to sign quickly. "We have an opening for a brand in your category but we need to know this week" is a sales tactic. Real broker capacity does not evaporate in seven days. Anyone pressuring you to sign before you finish reference calls is selling you on urgency because they cannot sell you on results.
6. Unwillingness to set written KPIs. A broker who pushes back on having clear, measurable goals in the agreement does not want to be held accountable. That position is incompatible with paying them to grow your business.
7. No clear plan for the first 90 days. "We will get out there and start talking to buyers" is not a plan. A broker without a structured onboarding playbook will spend three months getting up to speed on your brand and another three months figuring out where to pitch you.
8. Conflicts in your exact subcategory. A broker representing two functional sparkling water brands cannot do equal work for both. They will prioritize the one with more revenue or longer history. If you are the smaller brand in a conflict, you lose.
Section 5, KPIs to Set in the Agreement and Review Weekly
Write the KPIs into the agreement before you sign. Verbal goals get forgotten in month two. Written KPIs become the basis of every account review.
1. New placements per quarter, by retailer tier. Set specific targets for tier one (Whole Foods, Sprouts, Kroger, Albertsons), tier two (regional chains and natural specialty), and tier three (independent grocery, food service, specialty). Example: 3 tier one wins per quarter, 6 tier two wins per quarter, 15 tier three wins per quarter.
2. Sample-to-meeting conversion rate. How many samples shipped to buyers convert to a follow-up meeting. A broker with strong relationships should land meetings on 40 to 60 percent of samples sent. Below 20 percent means they are spraying samples without context.
3. Meeting-to-placement conversion rate. Of the buyer meetings they take, how many result in authorization within 90 days. This is the truest measure of pitch quality. Strong brokers convert 25 to 40 percent.
4. Monthly account review with written report. Non-negotiable. Every month, in writing: accounts contacted, meetings held, samples shipped, placements landed, deductions and chargebacks managed, upcoming category reviews. If your broker pushes back on this, they are not running structured account management.
5. Response time on buyer requests. When a buyer asks for a sample, a spec sheet, or a promotional plan, what is the turnaround. Same-day acknowledgment, 48-hour delivery should be the standard. Slow response time loses placements.
6. Revenue attribution. Track which retailer revenue is genuinely broker-sourced versus inbound or founder-led. At the end of year one, you need to know whether the broker is generating multiples of their commission cost or whether you are subsidizing their portfolio with your retainer.
The broker agreement is the easiest place to enforce accountability. Specific quarterly placement targets, monthly written reports, and clear termination triggers if KPIs are missed for two consecutive quarters. Brokers who push back on written KPIs are not brokers you want.
Section 6, Final Walk-Away Test
Before you sign, run this final check.
1. Could I describe their value in one sentence to my co-founder? If you cannot, you do not understand what you are buying. Slow down.
2. Did I do the reference calls or did I cut corners? If you cut corners, do them now. Every founder who skipped references regrets it.
3. Am I signing because I am excited or because they passed the checklist? Excitement is fine. Excitement without checklist passes is how you end up locked into a 24-month exclusive with a broker whose phone the buyers do not pick up.
4. Does the contract have a clean 30 to 60 day termination clause for cause if KPIs are missed? Without this, you have no leverage in month nine when nothing is working.
5. Am I starting small enough to test the relationship? If possible, scope the initial agreement to a defined territory or channel for the first 12 months with the option to expand. Brokers worth signing will agree to a structured trial. Brokers who refuse a trial are telling you they do not believe they can earn the expansion.
The broker I almost signed with checked every box on the pitch. The broker I actually signed with checked every box on my references. Six months in, the difference shows up in every report.
How Opener Fits Alongside Your Broker
A broker is a relationship layer. They open doors at retailers where they have warm contacts and category presence. But brokers do not cover every retailer you want, and their roster pulls their attention across many brands.
Opener gives you a pipeline of best-fit retailers your broker may not be working, with verified buyer contacts and personalized outreach running on autopilot. The result is a founder-led top of funnel that complements broker-led account management. Your broker closes the deals their relationships already point to. Opener feeds the next wave of accounts into that same machine.
Opener identifies the retailers your brand is genuinely ready for, verifies buyer contacts, and runs personalized outreach so your pipeline grows whether or not your broker is working that account.
Book a DemoWork this checklist in order. Skip nothing. The hour you spend on reference calls saves you the year you would otherwise spend in a broker relationship that was never going to work. The right broker, vetted properly, is one of the best decisions you make as a CPG founder. The wrong broker, signed too quickly, is one of the most expensive.