Articles

This session was originally presented live at the Fall 2025 RGM Summit in London.

Speaker Background 

• Jelle de Jong is an experienced global pricing and Revenue Growth Management expert with more than 25 years of experience across FMCG and Consultancy with Diageo, McKinsey and Lexia Analytics 

• Co- author of book “Revenue Growth Management” described by the CEO of Nestlé as “a must read”  

Overview

Jelle de Jong shared practical, field-tested lessons on how to best improve trade terms and retailer partnerships. His central point: trade terms are inherently difficult. Rather than a silver bullet, the biggest profit opportunities often come from tightening everyday execution, removing small operational leaks, and consistently building a relationship with your buyer.

Key Takeaways

Understand the retailer’s world before pushing your agenda. 
Jelle emphasized how different the economics are on the retailer side (thin margins and fast decision cycles). Strong negotiations start with empathy for how the customer makes money, what pressures they face, and their goals and priorities.

Execution beats analysis if you don’t follow through in-store. 
Teams often over-analyze promotions, then fail to validate whether they’re live and correctly executed across the agreed store estate.  Jelle highlighted that best-in-class suppliers actively check early on day 1 and hold high execution standards—creating accountability and better outcomes. 

Don’t “sell your brand” — help the buyer win their category. 
Retail buyers care about the category performance and their internal KPIs, not your brand. The suppliers who win are the ones who understands the buyer’s targets and who help them deliver results. 

Winning trade terms isn’t outsmarting a buyer — it’s making them look good internally. 
Jelle’s advice: help the buyer succeed with their boss, operate with fairness, and build trust through consistent delivery.  

• Work with your buyer, mutuality  

• Know the buyer’s KPIs better than your own 

• Solve their problems, not just yours 

• Be honest about your red lines 

• Build trust through execution, not charm 

• Play fair, and play the long game 

• Be consistent, keep going

“Winning a trade program is not about outsmarting your buyer. The very best thing you can do is make your buyer look good to their boss.”

Situations To Deliver Trade-Term Changes Successfully

• You can prove the current model is loss-making (clear economics create permission to reset). 

• Benchmarking your customers’ profitability to your business so they understand that they are a total exception and out of sync vs others and the market.  

• Deliver true innovation, driving total category growth, bringing new consumers, increased volume, higher frequency and/or AWOP  

• Changing the game positively delivers leverage, remember to use it 

Outside of those, the winning approach is being sharp around the edges: eliminate leakage, execute flawlessly, and manage details. 

Use data-backed pricing: conjoint analysis / discrete choice modeling 

Jelle recommended conjoint (discrete choice) modeling to move pricing debates from emotion to evidence, both internally (Sales vs Marketing vs Finance) and externally in retailer negotiations where you can explain the category impact and what a product attribute is worth. 

Traditional Trade: The Biggest Untapped Lever

Jelle said the most overlooked opportunity for many brands is traditional trade, where standardizing trade terms and execution standards across thousands of independent customers can materially lift profit, improve ROI visibility, and shift sales teams from “trading” to true selling, with conditional investment in outcomes.  

Want to get insights from more RGM leaders? Check out the highlights from the Spring 2026 RGM Summit in London.