September 8, 2025 • 44 mins
Join Casey Roberts, Founder of STAT Recovery Services, as he uncovers how suppliers lose revenue through deductions, chargebacks, and other opportunity areas within the retail supply chain.
Casey breaks down real-world insights on thinking like a retailer, preventing profit erosion, and optimizing the supplier-retailer relationship. From root cause analysis to strategic recovery tactics, you'll gain the tools to spot issues early, fix them permanently, and boost long-term profitability.
If you're doing business with major retailers, this podcast might reveal what you didn’t know you were missing—and what it’s really costing you.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Retail
Journey podcast.
I'm one of your hosts.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Charles Greathouse and I'm James Harris, and today
we're talking with Casey Roberts, and Casey is the founder and
president of STAT RecoveryServices.
Stat is a deduction recoveryservice that specializes in the
retail market and reallyspecializes in suppliers and
retailers working moreefficiently together.
Welcome to the retail journey,casey.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
That's right.
Well, thank you both for havingme and, as you said, I started
STAT eight years ago.
As you said, I started STATeight years ago and it's been
quite a journey.
I don't know if you guys wantto hear a little bit Sure.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Eight years, yeah, exactly, let's get into it A
real easy, linear.
I'm sure there were never anybumps, it's all just flown by A
lot of that journey.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Yeah, I spent six years at Walmart and I thought
that was a long time to be atone job, and now I'm eight years
into this one, but this hasbeen an amazing journey.
Yeah, I always wanted to be anentrepreneur, so getting to go
out and start my own businessthat was successful.
I had started one otherbusiness before that flopped.
Oh really, within like 60 days.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
So when were you first an entrepreneur?
When did it happen?
Can you be an entrepreneur ifyou're at a very large
corporation?
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Is it in your?
Speaker 1 (01:32):
heart, or is it about how you get paid?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
I think it's just about dreaming big and trying to
come up with something new.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
I totally agree.
Yeah, I totally agree I thinkthere's so many entrepreneurs
over at Walmart because I workedwith them where it's like
constantly looking at.
Totally agree.
Yeah, I totally agree.
I think there's so manyentrepreneurs over at Walmart
because I worked with them whereit's like constantly looking at
.
Okay, this is a neat constructthat the industry seems to think
I'm going to fit in.
What would happen if I justdidn't?
What if we think about it superdifferently?
You know I love doing that kindof work, collabing with brands
(02:02):
and figuring out ways toactually grow categories by
thinking about it differently,and to me that's
entrepreneurship.
But I think on this side youunderstand why people say cash
is king.
I used to use that analogy as amerchant of inventory being
(02:23):
Walmart, tying up cash in theinvestment in your product and
if you have too much, that's badfor cash flow.
And it was a useful tactic totry to push for what you do,
which is efficiency andcollaboration between Walmart
and its partners.
But the reality is the cashwasn't like that wasn't going to
(02:45):
change pay cycles or anything.
On the entrepreneur side, cashis king is a lifeblood reality
for eight years, which isawesome, yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
So, from your original business plan eight,
nine years ago, when you weredreaming this thing, up to now,
how much has changed of today'sreality from that first business
plan?
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Yeah, I mean the first business plan.
You know I didn't have reallygrand visions of you know how
big the business could be.
I had a vision that I could dosomething different, and maybe
it would only be me and a coupleof other people.
You know, um, I had never led ateam before.
Um, I was always an individualcontributor when I was at
(03:31):
Walmart.
So that's kind of all I knew.
You know, in the corporateworld was just getting things
done and kind of driving thesuccess on your own.
So you made quite a transitionthen.
Yeah, yeah, I and I had tolearn a lot of that the hard way
.
You know building up a team andyou know putting people in
different roles and helpingtrain them on different tasks
(03:52):
and thinking about the businessevery every month.
I felt like I had to go backthrough and reimagine.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
You know what the team and the evolution is fast,
yeah, and when the base is, youknow, zero, you zero, the
exponential change is sosignificant.
When you're starting out, I'dlove to hear the you could do
things differently.
What was that initial sparkthat said all right, casey, I'm
doing it, I'm going.
There's something that needs tobe done.
(04:18):
I'm going to go do it.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Yeah, I mean working at Walmart.
I saw a lot of the problemsthat suppliers had and some of
them were self-inflicted andsome of it was just.
You know, walmart's a bigcompany, so you know there's a
lot of different ways that youhave to interact with them.
But I got the opportunity towork with two to three hundred
different suppliers in that timeand dive into specific issues.
I'd call their EDI provider, Iwould go to a warehouse, we
(04:44):
would get on calls with theirsales team or their supply chain
team.
So I got all these differentperspectives and then I saw how
Walmart thought about things andit was very different.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
And so yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Typically it's the like which area?
Because when you say issues andretail, retail is one of those
things that presents itself likethere's this linear thing that
happens.
But the reality is there are alot of moving pieces, yeah, and
they're moving very quickly atWalmart, yeah, because there's a
lot of customers, a lot ofstores, a lot of traffic, a lot
of players involved.
(05:18):
So when you talk about issueswhich arena?
Yeah, payment issues.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
But payment issues can happen anywhere in the
product lifecycle.
So true, yeah, so from settingup a contract to setting up an
EDI provider, to building anaccounting process so that way
you can invoice and reconcile tohow people package their
products and where they putlabels, to what time they send
(05:42):
something and when they dispute.
And even then, when productgets into a store, what happens
then?
Does it get marked down?
Does it get lost somewhere?
So anything along that path candisrupt payment or create an
issue.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
This might be a good segue.
I've heard you speak before atdifferent panels, different
events, and you talk a lot abouthow to think like a retailer.
Yeah, this might be a goodsegue.
Now, I've heard you speakbefore at different panels,
different events, and you talk alot about how to think like a
retailer.
Yeah, how do you, how do youhelp suppliers think like a
retailer?
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Yeah, I mean, if you're a supplier, you're
dealing with, you know, maybe 10different retailers and then
you've got your own internalbusiness to run.
So and I see this even in ourbusiness you know we have 400
clients, right, so we have tobuild processes for ourselves so
that way we can be efficient.
But then we have to learn howto deal with every different
(06:34):
client.
You know some of them just wantto handle things a different
way, and so we have to customizethat.
With Walmart, you know they'rethe payer, so they are the one
who controls whether or not youget money and what happens to
your product.
So, being able to step out ofyou know where you are, and then
(06:58):
get in their shoes andunderstand what their processes
are like, how they think, whatdata they're using, that's where
I saw most of the challenges.
You know, whenever I was, whatproblems they're trying to avoid
.
Yeah, Oftentimes they justcouldn't see the other one's
perspective, yeah, and so andyou know Walmart's a big company
they're not going to bend theirprocess for every supplier,
(07:22):
Right?
So that leaves the suppliers toneed to change their process
sometimes.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Yeah, I think that's probably true with nearly all
retailers, even large or small.
They're working with hundredsto thousands of suppliers.
They got to have kind of oneprocess.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
We've talked about efficiency and I mean I love
that word.
There's so much that goes onwhere efficiency is a huge
differentiator.
A lot of times people thinkabout efficiency as just a
matter of cost, but there's alot of product categories,
especially fresh food and thatsort of thing, where efficiency
leads to product qualityimprovement.
(08:02):
The less time a banana spendsin transit, the more time you
have it on your counter and it'sstill good and there's a lot of
efficiency that process ends updefining.
But things get lost in themiddle Deductions as a topic
(08:24):
from a merchant point of view, Ihad really almost no idea how
much was out there from thestance of like hey, if you don't
pay close attention, there'sthings you might miss as a
supplier.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Yeah, I mean deductions can hit any part of
the product life cycle, and soand there's a drive to be
efficient that can sometimescost money, right oh?
Yeah, when you try to get tooefficient as a supplier or even
as the retailer it hasrepercussions sometimes, where
it will end up driving up claimvolumes or your accuracy will go
(09:00):
down.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
You save some money on a certain type of core, but
your damage rate goes up 20%.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Yeah, yeah, we've all , with great intentions, either
made or seen made decisions thatturns out nope.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
That wasn't that.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
That was not the right call Hindsight's real
clarifying for a lot of folks.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
We'd like to.
We'd like to give somethingthat the our listeners,
suppliers, can take away, likewhat are some things that
suppliers can do, either on thefront end of a new business
relationship with Walmart orjust in doing an audit of okay,
we've got this much OTIF, thismany kind of regular claims.
Where do they start on?
Just looking at, what do I needto do differently to avoid
(09:39):
these things?
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Yeah, I mean, you know the first step is try to
think like the retailer.
What data sets are they using?
What caused the claim in thefirst place?
Was it something that you didor something that they did?
How do you want to present thatto them?
What backup do you want to giveside might give you some clues
on.
Oh, if I just change that smallprocess on my end, they're not
(10:10):
going to change their process.
But I know if I make a smalladjustment here, then that will
reduce claims.
So, thinking like the retailerfirst and taking a step back and
asking yourself who do I needto talk to?
What process do I need toleverage?
What data do I need to belooking at?
Because if my data is differentthan their data, when I go to
dispute something or ask forthat money and I'm presenting
the wrong information, they'renot going to know what to do
(10:37):
with it and they're unlikely totake the time to try to
translate it.
Yeah, to translate it.
You know they don't want theburden of proof put back on them
.
They want you to tell them theright story with the right
information, put back on them.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
They want you to tell them the right story with the
right information.
Yeah, earn the proof is a greatsentence when it comes to
effective data use.
We talk about data a lot.
As a merchant used it a lot toprove what the customer's
telling me, without bringing thecustomer to a walkthrough to
say, hey, tell them, you know,tell my leadership why I decided
(11:06):
to buy this.
It's the data that shows thestory of where they're going,
what they're missing, what theywish that they had, and in this
space it's, you know, proving,hey, this was missed.
I think everybody's on the samepage of what should happen once
proof is here, but the journeyto get there can be nonlinear,
sometimes difficult.
I think everybody's on the samepage of what should happen once
(11:28):
proof is here, yeah, but thejourney to get there can be
nonlinear, sometimes difficult,and most people want to help you
solve it Totally.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
But if they have 100 things on their plate, how much
time is it going to take to helpyou solve that problem?
So if they're limited onresources, then they may not
jump in.
That was my job and so it waskind of a cool experience to be
at Walmart and they said go diveas deep as you need to you know
and figure out what the problemis.
But not everybody has that timeor that opportunity.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
That is interesting though and I think that's a
perspective that a lot ofsuppliers don't have that you
were challenged as a Walmartemployee to fix problems that
were causing deductions oncertain suppliers.
So I think there's a false kindof understanding that you know
deductions regardless ofretailers, just kind of a money
grab.
But I've heard you talk aboutthis.
You know about payer bias.
(12:16):
Do you mind jumping into that alittle bit, because I think
it'll be pretty illuminating.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Yeah, you know I hear suppliers say, oh, I think
they're just holding back mymoney and it's not as
intentional as some supplierssometimes think it is.
It's just Walmart is a bigcompany.
There are a lot of things totake care of, so your little
problem may not get theattention that it needs.
And there's also, I think, inany payer and payee relationship
(12:47):
.
Anytime that you're writing thecheck, you want to make sure
that you don't overpay Right,and that sometimes defaults to
underpaying just a little bit.
And it's not about keeping thatmoney, but it's about not
accidentally overpaying, becausesometimes it's hard to go claw
(13:07):
back that money once you'veoverpaid.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
So it's not quite the intentional money grab that
some people characterize as it'stypically an issue that would
happen in the supply chain, thatwould cause a deduction.
It's really a cost to Walmartthat wouldn't have been there
had the thing been done right.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Yeah, and then they've got to research it and
try to figure out how to pay itback.
So you know, and those, allthose things take time and
resources.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
So that helps you bring back the stuff that was
accidentally not paid.
Yes, it doesn't bring back thestuff that was accidentally not
paid.
Yes, it doesn't bring back thestuff that was legitimately not
paid.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Yeah, there's an error somewhere, and that error
could fall on the supplier sideor the retailer side and that
could cause a deduction and mostpeople with the right evidence
and the right data are going towant to pay that back.
But there is kind of a defaultto underpay when there's a
discrepancy and then let thatget reconciled later.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
I appreciate that mindset shift of just trying to
get to like no, this is the moreefficient thing to do, you
don't want to overpay.
Everybody can agree like, yeah,no one's trying to overpay
anything.
Trying to be precise is great,but there's a level of
investment necessary to be veryprecise and sometimes time might
(14:23):
be part of that.
I don't think anyone wants toget paid slower.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
There's a lot of things suppliers can do to stop
those discrepancies fromhappening, and that could be
going back all the way tolooking at your contracts and
making sure that they're set upthe right way.
Making sure that they're set upthe right way and that purchase
orders are coming across withthe right terms, to how an item
is set up.
To how you transmit somethingon an edi document.
(14:46):
To making sure that you havethe right information and the
right qualifiers.
Um, also, timing is a big issue.
It's uh, you know you transmitthings too early, the invoice
before delivery.
It can cause problems, you knowand some of that is a little
more difficult to manage.
So some people don't do that.
But monitoring what happensafter you send something out,
(15:07):
you know we all like to believe,hey, I sent it out and they're
going to, they're going to takeit in just like I sent it out.
But that doesn't always happen.
And so a lot, of, a lot ofhands touching things along the
way, and every time somethinggets touched that's an
opportunity for something to getmisplaced, something to get
routed to the wrong area orsomeone to miscount.
But there's quite a bit in, youknow we call it invoice
(15:32):
compliance, where a supplier canmonitor what they're sending
out, when they're sending outand how it's being taken in, and
you can get ahead of a lot ofthose deductions.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Stop them, and you might have already done this,
but how does stat come alongsidea new supplier that comes in
and says, hey, I've got thisproblem.
How do you help them?
Maybe they've been doing thisfor a long time and they've got
their processes and they workedfor a long time.
And they've got their processesand they worked for a long time
and now something changed andthat's not working.
Um, you know, sometimes maybeit's forced for the trees, maybe
(16:07):
it's just you don't know whatyou don't know.
How do you all come alongsideand consult them out of those
kinds of situations?
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Yeah, um, you know, when a supplier first talks to
us, sometimes they have thatproblem.
You know that's, that's a bigdeal to them.
They're having weekly meetingson it.
Sometimes it may not even bethat, you know, monetarily.
Let's not just define this aswhat you've stated it as.
Let's go back and let's look atthe whole picture.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
So we like to look at that root cause approach.
Anybody who's in my mind likeyou're doing anything right in
this sort of retail space.
They don't just take thesurface level symptom.
You go figure out, okay, whatcaused this, what's going to
make it happen again next time,what's the broader context?
Because sometimes somethingmight look real bad or look real
(17:07):
good and with a little bit ofzoom out, a little bit of
perspective, it changes yourentire understanding of the
situation.
Yeah, I love that approach.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Sometimes they're just defining the symptom yeah,
totally, and we need to go back.
Sometimes they're just defining, you know the symptom yeah,
totally, and we need to go backand be like, well, there's
actually we can treat that, oryeah, or we could try to find
the root cause, swim upstream alittle, and we try to look at
every transaction.
So I think that's what'sdifferent than you know.
Some of suppliers own internalprocesses is they'll get focused
on a deduction.
You know they is they'll getfocused on a deduction.
(17:38):
They're seeing this one thingappear on their check.
But when you go back and youscan every transaction, you get
a better story.
And then you do that over atwo-year time frame and it
starts to put some thingstogether for you Like, oh, you
continue to have this issue.
It doesn't always pop up as aclaim.
Sometimes there are issues thatsit there for years and because
(18:02):
suppliers aren't getting aclaim, they don't do anything to
fix it.
And then something changes intheir process or Walmart's
process and now it's just everyother transaction has a
deduction.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yeah, kind of giving me some FOMO, a little bit Like
all right, what do I not know?
Need to go dig in and scourthrough some data to make sure
you find the answer to that andsome of that is just taking our
suppliers on that journey too.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Like, help them step back because they can.
You know they know theirbusiness better than we do.
You know we may see a lot ofinformation and, you know, get
the opportunity to audit.
You know various issues, butthey know their business.
So we try to bring them alongthat journey of.
You know, take a step back,think about the retailer's
perspective and then come upwith a solution.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
You shouldn't have too much FOMO because we work
with stat recovery on all of ourclients too much FOMO because
we work with stat recovery onall of our clients.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
I'm just like in the mind of a supplier, thinking
about you know.
You said the first step is, youknow, take a step back, think
about it from a rethoughtperspective.
The first step is realizing youmight have some unwarranted
deductions, like if you think,like no, I don't have any
unwarranted deductions, like, ohgreat, maybe take a look at
every transaction and I betwithin some math we're going to
(19:25):
find you do.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Maybe it's not a huge amount, but it probably is.
It's surprisingly possible tohave deductions that you're
unaware of.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Yeah, and I had no real understanding of it as a
buyer.
So on this side it's been quiteeye-opening to see wow, there's
a lot of that and it makes alot of sense when you think
about it.
As a buyer I didn't.
A lot of people say buyersdon't buy because replenishment
managers are the ones thatactually click the button, but
(19:54):
it turns out they don't actuallywrite any checks, so none of us
actually bought.
It's when the check comes thattruly the buy happened.
I just you know as a merchantwould have decided it.
But it's interesting the moreholistic you get to think about
the business, the more some ofthese dots start connecting for
(20:16):
you.
I really liked being inmerchandising and when I got my
first job outside in that techspace building tools in tech
(20:37):
opened up my eyes.
The whole different angle ofthe problem trying to solve
which is delight customers andhelp them save money, live
better, save time or, if you'reat Sam's Club, just making
savings simple and making iteasy to be tickled to death that
you have a membership to shopthere and you come back more
(20:59):
often.
That's the macro, butunderneath all that there's so
many things that go on.
There's a lot of solopreneurswho have great products, great
solutions, and there's a lot ofboxes that track across the data
and the nuance of the data andmaking sure you're actually
maximizing the situation.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
I try to take the same playbook to my business
that you know we we do with thesuppliers is.
I bring in consultants andoutside parties to give me a
different perspective, andwhether that's for how we're set
up as a leadership team orauditing our own books, or, you
know, we have data collectionand audit processes set up.
(21:42):
I bring in experts whospecialize in specific things
because they're going tochallenge our own team to step
outside of their box, Becauseany company that gets beyond a
few people starts setting upsilos and roles.
You know, starts setting upsilos and roles, and if you let
those things just become thenorm, then you know they'll
(22:03):
capture 80 or 90% of the thingsthat they're supposed to do, but
those, those little bits, falloff the end.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Well, I've I've been around for your kind of growth
over the years and you startedwith a handful of people and I
don't.
You've got more people now thanwe do and we're somewhere
around 30 and I think about thedifferent um evolutions that
we've had to go through fromsolo to 30.
I mean it's got to be like five, yeah, like five full
(22:30):
evolutions to become what weneeded to be for this new either
number of clients, number ofnumber, amount of complexity,
yeah, and you guys havesurpassed that.
So I don't think you'veprobably stopped evolving since
you hired your first person.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
No, sometimes I didn't even get a chance to stop
and enjoy, like, oh, we justevolved to this level.
Now let's all just take a breakand let's do it this way for a
while, because it was growing sofast.
There's that one to five personteam, and then there's that
five to 10, and then 10 to 20,and then 20 to 40.
(23:09):
And every time we were justconstantly having to reimagine
what the team looked like andwhat products and services we
were going to offer to suppliers, because when we were small,
there was only so much we coulddo, and then, as we grew, we
could do more for our suppliers,but then it was almost like,
okay, now we have to go back andtry to sell more or discover
(23:30):
more about what they need.
So that's been a prettyeye-opening journey for me,
because you know, I remember thethings that we did when we were
less than five people and youjust did all of the things.
If somebody asked you forsomething, you just did it, and
if it didn't make any money,then you're like, okay, I'm not
sure I'll do that again, but Ilearned something from that?
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Why do you think you've grown so fast?
Speaker 3 (23:57):
I think we have a strong attachment to money and
value.
Just our business model isabout bringing money back to
suppliers but then helping themhave transparency around how
much does it, what does it taketo do business with Walmart, how
(24:20):
much money are you making andwhere do you need to invest more
resources?
So I think just being so closeto the dollars has been a growth
driver for us, because thereare some businesses where the
results are less tangible or ittakes longer to realize.
With ours, you see it prettyimmediately Within 30 days
(24:42):
you're getting money back andthen you're able to reinvest
that money back into yourbusiness and your relationship
with Walmart, and the resultscome pretty quickly.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
And start to fix the things that caused that issue in
the first place.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
I love that intense focus on value addition.
That's the whole point is to beable to add value.
I think a similar perspectiveof some suppliers look at
Walmart under like there being adeduction that was unnecessary,
that should get paid back as amoney grab.
(25:19):
That was unnecessary, thatshould get paid back as a money
grab.
There's some folks out therethat look at anybody in a
third-party spot and like, oh,you're just trying to get money.
I think those that aresuccessful not at all.
Are you kidding?
I'm here about adding value.
I'm here to solve problems thatwould go either unsolved or
unrealized until they're waybigger.
Yeah, you know there's a lot ofthese problems are similar,
(25:44):
they're going to happen, ongoing, and if you're really good at
understanding where they are andwhere they've been and you've
seen a lot of them you get tofind them way faster and reduce
the size, and that, in reality,reduces a tremendous amount of
costs in the entire system.
Yeah, wouldn't exist if thevalue wasn't, you know, far
exceeding the cost that wasbrought.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
Yeah, just understanding like what can be
paid back and what can't.
I think that's you know.
When you're in a businessrelationship with someone and
you don't know exactly how muchyou're going to get paid or what
something's going to cost, thatunknown can put a lot of strain
on the relationship.
So you know there are certaindeductions that are not going to
(26:28):
be paid back because they'relegitimate, and being able to
identify those versus the onesthat you need to go and put time
and energy into and that helpsyou define.
All right, this is how muchmoney I'm making here.
This is what I need to do tooptimize my business.
So just understanding thatmakes your relationship better
(26:48):
with the retailer.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
And yeah, you're not wasting your time on deductions,
You're actually trying to growyour business.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Yeah, I was told often as a merchant that you
know Walmart's one of the bestretailers to work with.
Because you with, because ifyou say you're going to do
something, you do it.
That's kind of like how I grewup.
I also kind of grew upprofessionally at Walmart, so
there may be a little bit ofcorrelation in how I think about
those sort of things.
But curious from yourperspective how much that shows
(27:17):
up in your experience that likeno Walmart, they're not trying
to do things.
And then I'm not sure if you'realso working with folks outside
of Walmart, because we only doWalmart and Sam's.
I'm curious of your perspectiveof how that holds true, because
you're where that rubber reallyhits the road.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
Yeah, I mean I've spent more time working on the
Walmart business, so we also doAmazon, Target and a little bit
in Kroger, but I think Walmartis a is a great retailer to work
with.
You know their size and theirscale and you know when they say
they will do something.
Oftentimes they do.
You know, um, and you knowthere are unforeseen
(27:53):
circumstances that sometimes,you know, disrupt um.
You know what we hope willhappen.
But I think you know walmarthas been a great driver of
growth for a lot of companiesand I think they're pretty fair.
They're a large corporation, sounderstanding how to deal with
them, uh, is important, yeah,but once you understand that and
(28:16):
you realize, like, what theirexpectations are, and they tell
you, hey, I need this, and thenyou deliver that, then your
business is going to grow.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
I love that In merchandising I often talked
about.
The most valuable asset atWalmart was customer trust, and
if that ethos remains then we'reall on the same page.
The deduction should bewhatever actually was necessary
so that we can protect customertrust, whether it be quality,
efficiency, speed, inventorymanagement and I've seen that
(28:47):
hold true.
I think it's a majordifferentiator because the top
retailer has of those thingsthey're difficult to keep up
with, but if you can keep upwith them, then you're going to
be on that growth journey withWalmart?
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
You mentioned some other retailers a minute ago.
Are there any trends like justkind of across the board trends
you're seeing in your segment ofthe market?
Speaker 3 (29:25):
trend you're seeing in your segment of the market.
I think over the past couple ofyears we've seen some of the
post audits or those chargesfrom the two-year lookbacks
getting closer to the event andthat's across multiple retailers
.
They don't want to leavesomething out there for two
years and then hit the supplierwith some unexpected charge.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
It's a good thing right.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Yeah, it is a good thing, but it also, excuse me,
can require a little more workon the front end, gotcha.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Yeah, I think that's probably the biggest thing is
capturing dollars wheneveryou're supposed to pay them,
identifying compliance issuesbefore they balloon into some
bigger problem and the clearingof those items closer to the
event.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Yeah, Feels like speed's a major competitive
advantage.
I mean, really I could finishthe sentence there.
Yes, thank you.
But in this space where beingable to scour through,
understand, quickly get torecommendation, take action,
yeah, how has that evolved overthe last eight years?
Speaker 3 (30:34):
More and more data and automation.
Yeah, especially at the majorretailers.
The way they're using data isdifferent, the processes that
they're putting in place, theutilization of third parties,
whether that's in aggregatingdata or analyzing it, or having
third parties do differentfunctions.
So we just see more and moreinformation being available and
(30:58):
then that information being usedto drive efficiency.
And then we see some of thosebumps in the road that come with
efficiency, because you knowyou get too efficient and it
ends up messing something elseup.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
I'm a big fan of the Tim Collins book Good to Great
and one of the three kind ofprimary things he says in there
is large organizations can onlydo three things well.
So when you start getting intosome of these like granular
transactional things, it'sprobably better to get another
organization that's just doingthat.
Yeah Right, they'll do itreally well, they'll drive the
(31:31):
cost out of the process, giveyou the finished result and you
probably save money, yeah, inthe process.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
It's probably the same, you know, in the, in the
sales world too, you know it'strue for us.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
You know we we work with partners that do things
that we don't do.
That aren't a part of what wedo.
You know it's not part of oneof our three things our big
three things.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Like stat recovery, that's right.
What's in a name?
Why, uh, why stat recovery?
Speaker 3 (31:58):
Thought about this for a long time.
Um spent months just throwingnames back and forth, and I like
acronyms.
I think coming from Walmartthere's all these acronyms and I
couldn't come up with a clevername.
So I was like, well, let's justtry to fit it in, let's just
try to create an acronym.
So it's Supplier Transaction,audit, technology, nice.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
It rolls off the tongue.
I'm glad he called it STAT.
Stat works great.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
We had a lot of trouble with our logo, trying to
fit those things likeunderneath the letters somewhere
, so eventually we just Someonejust said actually, maybe let's
just go with STAT, yeah, let'scall it STAT.
And even at first we were justSTAT recovery consultants
because, you know, at that pointwe didn't have a lot of
technology, so we were justthere to advise and help
(32:45):
suppliers fix problems, getreally hands-on.
And then we rebranded as StatRecovery Services because we've
got the technology services andthe audit and consulting
services.
But sometimes we just callourselves Stat.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Yeah, totally, because it's hip, it is hip, so
we call ourselves High Impactsometimes Quite often actually,
yeah, it's so we call ourselveshigh impact.
Sometimes quite often actually,yeah, it's high impact.
Analytics If you want to emailus, got the rest of those
letters in there?
Yeah, that's awesome.
So if I'm a supplier to Walmartand Sam's or Target, kroger,
(33:23):
amazon, et cetera, and I'meither unsure that I'm operating
efficiently or maybe evenunaware where my empathetic FOMO
comes from for them, what wouldbe the right sort of next step?
Speaker 3 (33:41):
You know, just inviting us in.
You know, or you know, if youwant to engage an individual or
a third party, invite them inand have them not rely on your
open AR report or what you thinkis the problem.
So, help me identify what theproblems are and then see if
(34:02):
that matches up to the thingsthat you have.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
We do some of that discovery work, we show the
opportunity before.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
That was kind of the playbook for us in the beginning
and it's still.
What we do today is first go inand we'll take a look at what
they have, what they think theirissues are, but then we like to
take a step back, analyzeeverything.
That's free analysis andsometimes we come back and we
(34:34):
say you know what you're reallydoing, everything that you
should be doing, you've alreadycleared everything.
It happens occasionally, butmost of the time there's things
that are getting missed.
It could be under tolerance, itcould be something that got
denied and you wrote it offbecause you thought, well, it
was denied and it seemed to havea valid reason.
But there's actually moreinformation there that would
(34:56):
uncover it should have been paidback or an approved yes, yeah,
and so I like that, so you provethe value as a part of the
reason for actually workingtogether.
Yeah, we show where the money isand different ways to go get it
, and then where we see some ofthe problems are.
Occasionally Well I say quiteoften actually, you know, we get
(35:19):
pushback from the teams thatare doing those jobs, those jobs
, and I think they believe thatwe're there to make them look
bad or that we're going to takeover their job, and that's not
it.
The team asked me the other dayon one of our calls.
They said what's your greatestvalue, or what's that's greatest
value, what's the corporateculture?
(35:42):
That word that really says whowe are and I was like our
greatest value is value.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
I thought that was really clever.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Our greatest value is value.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
But that's where we are there to add value.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
And if we?
Speaker 3 (35:56):
can't add value.
We don't work with you knowthat company, because we've
always wanted to be associatedwith real dollars and value and
for people to be able to seewhat we did, and not that we're
just coming in there and saying,oh well, you could hand your
process off to us and maybe wecould do it cheaper.
That's fine, there is somevalue in that but we've always
(36:18):
looked for a little more impact.
We want to have a high impact.
High impact man, you need itquickly.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
So stat Well done.
Oh, you need it quickly so statWell done.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Well, I love that.
I think that's part of why it'sreally easy to partner, because
it's very much an ethos we have.
I often say, like I'm notlooking to plug a hole that
doesn't need to be filled.
We want to solve real things,and for me, a solid litmus test
at the end of the day is I don'twant to receive a resentful
check from a client.
(36:48):
Yeah, like, if you're writingme a check, it's because you're
like, just really glad wedecided to partner on this and
what I did was of great value toyou and your, your company, or
of high impact yeah, of highimpact all right.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Hey, we usually finish these up with a lightning
round.
Okay, I got just a handful ofquestions, kind of fun little
things.
I'll start off here.
We talk about fail fastfrequently, right, it's how you
learn what's one of your biggestfailures in business that you'd
want to share.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
My biggest failure was probably not realizing early
on that we needed to develop acompany culture and, coming from
an individual contributor role,I thought, well, everybody just
does everything and we all justdo stuff and we get
satisfaction out of doing thingsand making money.
But people come to work fordifferent reasons, and it took
me a few years to reallyunderstand what was driving the
(37:50):
people that were coming to workevery day.
Sometimes it was money,sometimes it was career growth,
sometimes it was beingchallenged and trying something
new, and so Sometimes, it's asense of belonging.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
It's community.
Sometimes it's very sense ofbelonging.
It's community.
Sometimes it's very intangible.
What motivates an entrepreneurto do their thing is probably
not what motivates the majorityof the other people, and
learning that it was a big onefor me too, that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
I love that realization and having it early
enough that you wouldn't havethe growth you have without
people wanting to be a part ofthe squad.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Yeah, I wrote the team a little note a couple
weeks ago and I was thinkingback to my Walmart days and
saying our people make thedifference.
And when I was at Walmart I waslike, oh, those are just
slogans that are up on the wallon the wall.
But as I've grown, you know, inbusiness and matured.
(38:49):
I'm like no our people really domake the difference because
we're a relationship basedbusiness.
You know some some people say,oh, you're a tech company.
I'm like, well, we usetechnology but we build
relationships with peoplebecause they have to trust us to
go in there and take a look attheir business and not feel
threatened.
And you know, when you findmoney you don't want them to go.
Man, now, now I've got a badtaste in my mouth because I
(39:12):
should have found that and now Ilook bad Like we try to make
our clients and the people thatwe interact with.
You know the heroes and sopeople you know whether it's
employees or whoever you'reworking with at a client those
people make the difference.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
I love that.
What are you reading lately?
Speaker 3 (39:36):
Well, I never read a book in like 10 years.
People always ask me.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
I'm glad you just said that.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
And I tell the team I don't read books.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Memes.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
You get a good meme.
You read I read plenty ofemails.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
Oh yeah, that's fair.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
I read some news.
I'm actually trying to get moreinto reading.
I have a little project thatI'm working on with my son.
I'm trying to get him motivatedabout it because I I do like
reading.
I'm just not a very good reader, like you know I'm.
I'm the guy that wants apicture book.
Um so we're trying to come upwith a little bit of a a
(40:17):
different way to consume, Do you?
Speaker 2 (40:18):
do podcasts or anything like that.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
Um, occasionally I listen to a little bit.
My wife likes the audio books,but I should.
I should get into reading.
I've been so focused on thebusiness for the past eight
years that, you know, sometimesyou just put hobbies and other
things aside and, uh, I'mrealizing now that some things I
should probably do just for myown wellbeing yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
And we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll wrap with this.
Uh, from the last 12 or somonths, what's the one of the
biggest things you've learned?
Speaker 3 (40:53):
um, been kind of an unlock yeah, I think, oh, it's
something I've learned aboutmyself, but also about the
business.
Looking at myself, I realized,oh, I'm not a doer anymore.
I got out of doing stuff and Ithink I didn't realize that that
(41:16):
transition was happening Right.
But also, as I've gotten out ofdoing things, other people have
picked up those things that Iwas doing.
They're making those decisionsand I need to let them.
So that's probably been like ahuge transition.
Yeah, it's a realization aswell as a realization about
(41:38):
myself, but also an observationon those around me that as I
stepped back from doing things,they picked up all of those
tasks and they do them betterthan I was able to do them.
So that's over the last 12months.
That's been cool to see.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
Well, I wouldn't sell it short either, because you're
doing something, you're leadingan organization.
You're doing less and leadingmore.
Yes.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
That's important Influencing other people to do
things you know and challenging.
You know, I think the biggestthing that I bring to the table,
you know, with the team todayis perspective.
You know, whenever I wouldstart an audit when I was at
Walmart, and then you know, evenafter I was, like you have to
assume that everything's wrong.
Okay, like just the data's bad.
Whatever information you havefrom the past is wrong and then
(42:23):
go through the careful steps ofproving which pieces are right
and which pieces are missing.
Um, so I'm trying to, you know,continue to give that
perspective to the team of like,wait, let's all just assume
that everything that we've heardup to this point is wrong and
let's just take a step back.
If we go on this journey, we'llprove some of those things to
(42:45):
be right.
Hopefully that's not true.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
Yeah, hopefully everything is right, but we'll
find out.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
That's awesome.
I like that.
Oh, go ahead sir.
Speaker 3 (42:54):
Oh, I was saying the other thing about I think that's
been an eye opener for me aboutthe supplier world is there are
so many different needs outthere.
We kind of came into this withone particular area that we
wanted to focus on and astechnology has evolved and
(43:15):
retailers are putting more dataout there, suppliers are
applying more data and moreanalytics.
There's just so manyopportunities in our know, in
your industry as well.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
That there's a ton of things that we could do to
drive efficiency and change, andgrowth creates opportunity.
Yeah, and there's a lot of bothright now.
Yeah, awesome, okay, so Ireally appreciate you spending
some time with us.
It's been, I mean, I've workedwith you for five or six years
and I learned some stuff today,so hopefully everybody else did
too and, as always, thank youfor joining us.
You can check out our videos oraudio podcasts on
(43:57):
highimpactanalyticscom orYouTube or wherever you get your
podcasts.
Thank you for joining us.
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Retail
Journey podcast.
I'm one of your hosts.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Charles Greathouse and I'm James Harris, and today
we're talking with Casey Roberts, and Casey is the founder and
president of STAT RecoveryServices.
Stat is a deduction recoveryservice that specializes in the
retail market and reallyspecializes in suppliers and
retailers working moreefficiently together.
Welcome to the retail journey,casey.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
That's right.
Well, thank you both for havingme and, as you said, I started
STAT eight years ago.
As you said, I started STATeight years ago and it's been
quite a journey.
I don't know if you guys wantto hear a little bit Sure.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Eight years, yeah, exactly, let's get into it A
real easy, linear.
I'm sure there were never anybumps, it's all just flown by A
lot of that journey.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Yeah, I spent six years at Walmart and I thought
that was a long time to be atone job, and now I'm eight years
into this one, but this hasbeen an amazing journey.
Yeah, I always wanted to be anentrepreneur, so getting to go
out and start my own businessthat was successful.
I had started one otherbusiness before that flopped.
Oh really, within like 60 days.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
So when were you first an entrepreneur?
When did it happen?
Can you be an entrepreneur ifyou're at a very large
corporation?
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Is it in your?
Speaker 1 (01:32):
heart, or is it about how you get paid?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
I think it's just about dreaming big and trying to
come up with something new.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
I totally agree.
Yeah, I totally agree I thinkthere's so many entrepreneurs
over at Walmart because I workedwith them where it's like
constantly looking at.
Totally agree.
Yeah, I totally agree.
I think there's so manyentrepreneurs over at Walmart
because I worked with them whereit's like constantly looking at
.
Okay, this is a neat constructthat the industry seems to think
I'm going to fit in.
What would happen if I justdidn't?
What if we think about it superdifferently?
You know I love doing that kindof work, collabing with brands
(02:02):
and figuring out ways toactually grow categories by
thinking about it differently,and to me that's
entrepreneurship.
But I think on this side youunderstand why people say cash
is king.
I used to use that analogy as amerchant of inventory being
(02:23):
Walmart, tying up cash in theinvestment in your product and
if you have too much, that's badfor cash flow.
And it was a useful tactic totry to push for what you do,
which is efficiency andcollaboration between Walmart
and its partners.
But the reality is the cashwasn't like that wasn't going to
(02:45):
change pay cycles or anything.
On the entrepreneur side, cashis king is a lifeblood reality
for eight years, which isawesome, yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
So, from your original business plan eight,
nine years ago, when you weredreaming this thing, up to now,
how much has changed of today'sreality from that first business
plan?
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Yeah, I mean the first business plan.
You know I didn't have reallygrand visions of you know how
big the business could be.
I had a vision that I could dosomething different, and maybe
it would only be me and a coupleof other people.
You know, um, I had never led ateam before.
Um, I was always an individualcontributor when I was at
(03:31):
Walmart.
So that's kind of all I knew.
You know, in the corporateworld was just getting things
done and kind of driving thesuccess on your own.
So you made quite a transitionthen.
Yeah, yeah, I and I had tolearn a lot of that the hard way
.
You know building up a team andyou know putting people in
different roles and helpingtrain them on different tasks
(03:52):
and thinking about the businessevery every month.
I felt like I had to go backthrough and reimagine.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
You know what the team and the evolution is fast,
yeah, and when the base is, youknow, zero, you zero, the
exponential change is sosignificant.
When you're starting out, I'dlove to hear the you could do
things differently.
What was that initial sparkthat said all right, casey, I'm
doing it, I'm going.
There's something that needs tobe done.
(04:18):
I'm going to go do it.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Yeah, I mean working at Walmart.
I saw a lot of the problemsthat suppliers had and some of
them were self-inflicted andsome of it was just.
You know, walmart's a bigcompany, so you know there's a
lot of different ways that youhave to interact with them.
But I got the opportunity towork with two to three hundred
different suppliers in that timeand dive into specific issues.
I'd call their EDI provider, Iwould go to a warehouse, we
(04:44):
would get on calls with theirsales team or their supply chain
team.
So I got all these differentperspectives and then I saw how
Walmart thought about things andit was very different.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
And so yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Typically it's the like which area?
Because when you say issues andretail, retail is one of those
things that presents itself likethere's this linear thing that
happens.
But the reality is there are alot of moving pieces, yeah, and
they're moving very quickly atWalmart, yeah, because there's a
lot of customers, a lot ofstores, a lot of traffic, a lot
of players involved.
(05:18):
So when you talk about issueswhich arena?
Yeah, payment issues.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
But payment issues can happen anywhere in the
product lifecycle.
So true, yeah, so from settingup a contract to setting up an
EDI provider, to building anaccounting process so that way
you can invoice and reconcile tohow people package their
products and where they putlabels, to what time they send
(05:42):
something and when they dispute.
And even then, when productgets into a store, what happens
then?
Does it get marked down?
Does it get lost somewhere?
So anything along that path candisrupt payment or create an
issue.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
This might be a good segue.
I've heard you speak before atdifferent panels, different
events, and you talk a lot abouthow to think like a retailer.
Yeah, this might be a goodsegue.
Now, I've heard you speakbefore at different panels,
different events, and you talk alot about how to think like a
retailer.
Yeah, how do you, how do youhelp suppliers think like a
retailer?
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Yeah, I mean, if you're a supplier, you're
dealing with, you know, maybe 10different retailers and then
you've got your own internalbusiness to run.
So and I see this even in ourbusiness you know we have 400
clients, right, so we have tobuild processes for ourselves so
that way we can be efficient.
But then we have to learn howto deal with every different
(06:34):
client.
You know some of them just wantto handle things a different
way, and so we have to customizethat.
With Walmart, you know they'rethe payer, so they are the one
who controls whether or not youget money and what happens to
your product.
So, being able to step out ofyou know where you are, and then
(06:58):
get in their shoes andunderstand what their processes
are like, how they think, whatdata they're using, that's where
I saw most of the challenges.
You know, whenever I was, whatproblems they're trying to avoid
.
Yeah, Oftentimes they justcouldn't see the other one's
perspective, yeah, and so andyou know Walmart's a big company
they're not going to bend theirprocess for every supplier,
(07:22):
Right?
So that leaves the suppliers toneed to change their process
sometimes.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Yeah, I think that's probably true with nearly all
retailers, even large or small.
They're working with hundredsto thousands of suppliers.
They got to have kind of oneprocess.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
We've talked about efficiency and I mean I love
that word.
There's so much that goes onwhere efficiency is a huge
differentiator.
A lot of times people thinkabout efficiency as just a
matter of cost, but there's alot of product categories,
especially fresh food and thatsort of thing, where efficiency
leads to product qualityimprovement.
(08:02):
The less time a banana spendsin transit, the more time you
have it on your counter and it'sstill good and there's a lot of
efficiency that process ends updefining.
But things get lost in themiddle Deductions as a topic
(08:24):
from a merchant point of view, Ihad really almost no idea how
much was out there from thestance of like hey, if you don't
pay close attention, there'sthings you might miss as a
supplier.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Yeah, I mean deductions can hit any part of
the product life cycle, and soand there's a drive to be
efficient that can sometimescost money, right oh?
Yeah, when you try to get tooefficient as a supplier or even
as the retailer it hasrepercussions sometimes, where
it will end up driving up claimvolumes or your accuracy will go
(09:00):
down.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
You save some money on a certain type of core, but
your damage rate goes up 20%.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Yeah, yeah, we've all , with great intentions, either
made or seen made decisions thatturns out nope.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
That wasn't that.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
That was not the right call Hindsight's real
clarifying for a lot of folks.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
We'd like to.
We'd like to give somethingthat the our listeners,
suppliers, can take away, likewhat are some things that
suppliers can do, either on thefront end of a new business
relationship with Walmart orjust in doing an audit of okay,
we've got this much OTIF, thismany kind of regular claims.
Where do they start on?
Just looking at, what do I needto do differently to avoid
(09:39):
these things?
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Yeah, I mean, you know the first step is try to
think like the retailer.
What data sets are they using?
What caused the claim in thefirst place?
Was it something that you didor something that they did?
How do you want to present thatto them?
What backup do you want to giveside might give you some clues
on.
Oh, if I just change that smallprocess on my end, they're not
(10:10):
going to change their process.
But I know if I make a smalladjustment here, then that will
reduce claims.
So, thinking like the retailerfirst and taking a step back and
asking yourself who do I needto talk to?
What process do I need toleverage?
What data do I need to belooking at?
Because if my data is differentthan their data, when I go to
dispute something or ask forthat money and I'm presenting
the wrong information, they'renot going to know what to do
(10:37):
with it and they're unlikely totake the time to try to
translate it.
Yeah, to translate it.
You know they don't want theburden of proof put back on them
.
They want you to tell them theright story with the right
information, put back on them.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
They want you to tell them the right story with the
right information.
Yeah, earn the proof is a greatsentence when it comes to
effective data use.
We talk about data a lot.
As a merchant used it a lot toprove what the customer's
telling me, without bringing thecustomer to a walkthrough to
say, hey, tell them, you know,tell my leadership why I decided
(11:06):
to buy this.
It's the data that shows thestory of where they're going,
what they're missing, what theywish that they had, and in this
space it's, you know, proving,hey, this was missed.
I think everybody's on the samepage of what should happen once
proof is here, but the journeyto get there can be nonlinear,
sometimes difficult.
I think everybody's on the samepage of what should happen once
(11:28):
proof is here, yeah, but thejourney to get there can be
nonlinear, sometimes difficult,and most people want to help you
solve it Totally.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
But if they have 100 things on their plate, how much
time is it going to take to helpyou solve that problem?
So if they're limited onresources, then they may not
jump in.
That was my job and so it waskind of a cool experience to be
at Walmart and they said go diveas deep as you need to you know
and figure out what the problemis.
But not everybody has that timeor that opportunity.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
That is interesting though and I think that's a
perspective that a lot ofsuppliers don't have that you
were challenged as a Walmartemployee to fix problems that
were causing deductions oncertain suppliers.
So I think there's a false kindof understanding that you know
deductions regardless ofretailers, just kind of a money
grab.
But I've heard you talk aboutthis.
You know about payer bias.
(12:16):
Do you mind jumping into that alittle bit, because I think
it'll be pretty illuminating.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Yeah, you know I hear suppliers say, oh, I think
they're just holding back mymoney and it's not as
intentional as some supplierssometimes think it is.
It's just Walmart is a bigcompany.
There are a lot of things totake care of, so your little
problem may not get theattention that it needs.
And there's also, I think, inany payer and payee relationship
(12:47):
.
Anytime that you're writing thecheck, you want to make sure
that you don't overpay Right,and that sometimes defaults to
underpaying just a little bit.
And it's not about keeping thatmoney, but it's about not
accidentally overpaying, becausesometimes it's hard to go claw
(13:07):
back that money once you'veoverpaid.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
So it's not quite the intentional money grab that
some people characterize as it'stypically an issue that would
happen in the supply chain, thatwould cause a deduction.
It's really a cost to Walmartthat wouldn't have been there
had the thing been done right.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Yeah, and then they've got to research it and
try to figure out how to pay itback.
So you know, and those, allthose things take time and
resources.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
So that helps you bring back the stuff that was
accidentally not paid.
Yes, it doesn't bring back thestuff that was accidentally not
paid.
Yes, it doesn't bring back thestuff that was legitimately not
paid.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Yeah, there's an error somewhere, and that error
could fall on the supplier sideor the retailer side and that
could cause a deduction and mostpeople with the right evidence
and the right data are going towant to pay that back.
But there is kind of a defaultto underpay when there's a
discrepancy and then let thatget reconciled later.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
I appreciate that mindset shift of just trying to
get to like no, this is the moreefficient thing to do, you
don't want to overpay.
Everybody can agree like, yeah,no one's trying to overpay
anything.
Trying to be precise is great,but there's a level of
investment necessary to be veryprecise and sometimes time might
(14:23):
be part of that.
I don't think anyone wants toget paid slower.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
There's a lot of things suppliers can do to stop
those discrepancies fromhappening, and that could be
going back all the way tolooking at your contracts and
making sure that they're set upthe right way.
Making sure that they're set upthe right way and that purchase
orders are coming across withthe right terms, to how an item
is set up.
To how you transmit somethingon an edi document.
(14:46):
To making sure that you havethe right information and the
right qualifiers.
Um, also, timing is a big issue.
It's uh, you know you transmitthings too early, the invoice
before delivery.
It can cause problems, you knowand some of that is a little
more difficult to manage.
So some people don't do that.
But monitoring what happensafter you send something out,
(15:07):
you know we all like to believe,hey, I sent it out and they're
going to, they're going to takeit in just like I sent it out.
But that doesn't always happen.
And so a lot, of, a lot ofhands touching things along the
way, and every time somethinggets touched that's an
opportunity for something to getmisplaced, something to get
routed to the wrong area orsomeone to miscount.
But there's quite a bit in, youknow we call it invoice
(15:32):
compliance, where a supplier canmonitor what they're sending
out, when they're sending outand how it's being taken in, and
you can get ahead of a lot ofthose deductions.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Stop them, and you might have already done this,
but how does stat come alongsidea new supplier that comes in
and says, hey, I've got thisproblem.
How do you help them?
Maybe they've been doing thisfor a long time and they've got
their processes and they workedfor a long time.
And they've got their processesand they worked for a long time
and now something changed andthat's not working.
Um, you know, sometimes maybeit's forced for the trees, maybe
(16:07):
it's just you don't know whatyou don't know.
How do you all come alongsideand consult them out of those
kinds of situations?
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Yeah, um, you know, when a supplier first talks to
us, sometimes they have thatproblem.
You know that's, that's a bigdeal to them.
They're having weekly meetingson it.
Sometimes it may not even bethat, you know, monetarily.
Let's not just define this aswhat you've stated it as.
Let's go back and let's look atthe whole picture.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
So we like to look at that root cause approach.
Anybody who's in my mind likeyou're doing anything right in
this sort of retail space.
They don't just take thesurface level symptom.
You go figure out, okay, whatcaused this, what's going to
make it happen again next time,what's the broader context?
Because sometimes somethingmight look real bad or look real
(17:07):
good and with a little bit ofzoom out, a little bit of
perspective, it changes yourentire understanding of the
situation.
Yeah, I love that approach.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Sometimes they're just defining the symptom yeah,
totally, and we need to go back.
Sometimes they're just defining, you know the symptom yeah,
totally, and we need to go backand be like, well, there's
actually we can treat that, oryeah, or we could try to find
the root cause, swim upstream alittle, and we try to look at
every transaction.
So I think that's what'sdifferent than you know.
Some of suppliers own internalprocesses is they'll get focused
on a deduction.
You know they is they'll getfocused on a deduction.
(17:38):
They're seeing this one thingappear on their check.
But when you go back and youscan every transaction, you get
a better story.
And then you do that over atwo-year time frame and it
starts to put some thingstogether for you Like, oh, you
continue to have this issue.
It doesn't always pop up as aclaim.
Sometimes there are issues thatsit there for years and because
(18:02):
suppliers aren't getting aclaim, they don't do anything to
fix it.
And then something changes intheir process or Walmart's
process and now it's just everyother transaction has a
deduction.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yeah, kind of giving me some FOMO, a little bit Like
all right, what do I not know?
Need to go dig in and scourthrough some data to make sure
you find the answer to that andsome of that is just taking our
suppliers on that journey too.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Like, help them step back because they can.
You know they know theirbusiness better than we do.
You know we may see a lot ofinformation and, you know, get
the opportunity to audit.
You know various issues, butthey know their business.
So we try to bring them alongthat journey of.
You know, take a step back,think about the retailer's
perspective and then come upwith a solution.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
You shouldn't have too much FOMO because we work
with stat recovery on all of ourclients too much FOMO because
we work with stat recovery onall of our clients.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
I'm just like in the mind of a supplier, thinking
about you know.
You said the first step is, youknow, take a step back, think
about it from a rethoughtperspective.
The first step is realizing youmight have some unwarranted
deductions, like if you think,like no, I don't have any
unwarranted deductions, like, ohgreat, maybe take a look at
every transaction and I betwithin some math we're going to
(19:25):
find you do.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Maybe it's not a huge amount, but it probably is.
It's surprisingly possible tohave deductions that you're
unaware of.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Yeah, and I had no real understanding of it as a
buyer.
So on this side it's been quiteeye-opening to see wow, there's
a lot of that and it makes alot of sense when you think
about it.
As a buyer I didn't.
A lot of people say buyersdon't buy because replenishment
managers are the ones thatactually click the button, but
(19:54):
it turns out they don't actuallywrite any checks, so none of us
actually bought.
It's when the check comes thattruly the buy happened.
I just you know as a merchantwould have decided it.
But it's interesting the moreholistic you get to think about
the business, the more some ofthese dots start connecting for
(20:16):
you.
I really liked being inmerchandising and when I got my
first job outside in that techspace building tools in tech
(20:37):
opened up my eyes.
The whole different angle ofthe problem trying to solve
which is delight customers andhelp them save money, live
better, save time or, if you'reat Sam's Club, just making
savings simple and making iteasy to be tickled to death that
you have a membership to shopthere and you come back more
(20:59):
often.
That's the macro, butunderneath all that there's so
many things that go on.
There's a lot of solopreneurswho have great products, great
solutions, and there's a lot ofboxes that track across the data
and the nuance of the data andmaking sure you're actually
maximizing the situation.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
I try to take the same playbook to my business
that you know we we do with thesuppliers is.
I bring in consultants andoutside parties to give me a
different perspective, andwhether that's for how we're set
up as a leadership team orauditing our own books, or, you
know, we have data collectionand audit processes set up.
(21:42):
I bring in experts whospecialize in specific things
because they're going tochallenge our own team to step
outside of their box, Becauseany company that gets beyond a
few people starts setting upsilos and roles.
You know, starts setting upsilos and roles, and if you let
those things just become thenorm, then you know they'll
(22:03):
capture 80 or 90% of the thingsthat they're supposed to do, but
those, those little bits, falloff the end.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Well, I've I've been around for your kind of growth
over the years and you startedwith a handful of people and I
don't.
You've got more people now thanwe do and we're somewhere
around 30 and I think about thedifferent um evolutions that
we've had to go through fromsolo to 30.
I mean it's got to be like five, yeah, like five full
(22:30):
evolutions to become what weneeded to be for this new either
number of clients, number ofnumber, amount of complexity,
yeah, and you guys havesurpassed that.
So I don't think you'veprobably stopped evolving since
you hired your first person.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
No, sometimes I didn't even get a chance to stop
and enjoy, like, oh, we justevolved to this level.
Now let's all just take a breakand let's do it this way for a
while, because it was growing sofast.
There's that one to five personteam, and then there's that
five to 10, and then 10 to 20,and then 20 to 40.
(23:09):
And every time we were justconstantly having to reimagine
what the team looked like andwhat products and services we
were going to offer to suppliers, because when we were small,
there was only so much we coulddo, and then, as we grew, we
could do more for our suppliers,but then it was almost like,
okay, now we have to go back andtry to sell more or discover
(23:30):
more about what they need.
So that's been a prettyeye-opening journey for me,
because you know, I remember thethings that we did when we were
less than five people and youjust did all of the things.
If somebody asked you forsomething, you just did it, and
if it didn't make any money,then you're like, okay, I'm not
sure I'll do that again, but Ilearned something from that?
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Why do you think you've grown so fast?
Speaker 3 (23:57):
I think we have a strong attachment to money and
value.
Just our business model isabout bringing money back to
suppliers but then helping themhave transparency around how
much does it, what does it taketo do business with Walmart, how
(24:20):
much money are you making andwhere do you need to invest more
resources?
So I think just being so closeto the dollars has been a growth
driver for us, because thereare some businesses where the
results are less tangible or ittakes longer to realize.
With ours, you see it prettyimmediately Within 30 days
(24:42):
you're getting money back andthen you're able to reinvest
that money back into yourbusiness and your relationship
with Walmart, and the resultscome pretty quickly.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
And start to fix the things that caused that issue in
the first place.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
I love that intense focus on value addition.
That's the whole point is to beable to add value.
I think a similar perspectiveof some suppliers look at
Walmart under like there being adeduction that was unnecessary,
that should get paid back as amoney grab.
(25:19):
That was unnecessary, thatshould get paid back as a money
grab.
There's some folks out therethat look at anybody in a
third-party spot and like, oh,you're just trying to get money.
I think those that aresuccessful not at all.
Are you kidding?
I'm here about adding value.
I'm here to solve problems thatwould go either unsolved or
unrealized until they're waybigger.
Yeah, you know there's a lot ofthese problems are similar,
(25:44):
they're going to happen, ongoing, and if you're really good at
understanding where they are andwhere they've been and you've
seen a lot of them you get tofind them way faster and reduce
the size, and that, in reality,reduces a tremendous amount of
costs in the entire system.
Yeah, wouldn't exist if thevalue wasn't, you know, far
exceeding the cost that wasbrought.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
Yeah, just understanding like what can be
paid back and what can't.
I think that's you know.
When you're in a businessrelationship with someone and
you don't know exactly how muchyou're going to get paid or what
something's going to cost, thatunknown can put a lot of strain
on the relationship.
So you know there are certaindeductions that are not going to
(26:28):
be paid back because they'relegitimate, and being able to
identify those versus the onesthat you need to go and put time
and energy into and that helpsyou define.
All right, this is how muchmoney I'm making here.
This is what I need to do tooptimize my business.
So just understanding thatmakes your relationship better
(26:48):
with the retailer.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
And yeah, you're not wasting your time on deductions,
You're actually trying to growyour business.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Yeah, I was told often as a merchant that you
know Walmart's one of the bestretailers to work with.
Because you with, because ifyou say you're going to do
something, you do it.
That's kind of like how I grewup.
I also kind of grew upprofessionally at Walmart, so
there may be a little bit ofcorrelation in how I think about
those sort of things.
But curious from yourperspective how much that shows
(27:17):
up in your experience that likeno Walmart, they're not trying
to do things.
And then I'm not sure if you'realso working with folks outside
of Walmart, because we only doWalmart and Sam's.
I'm curious of your perspectiveof how that holds true, because
you're where that rubber reallyhits the road.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
Yeah, I mean I've spent more time working on the
Walmart business, so we also doAmazon, Target and a little bit
in Kroger, but I think Walmartis a is a great retailer to work
with.
You know their size and theirscale and you know when they say
they will do something.
Oftentimes they do.
You know, um, and you knowthere are unforeseen
(27:53):
circumstances that sometimes,you know, disrupt um.
You know what we hope willhappen.
But I think you know walmarthas been a great driver of
growth for a lot of companiesand I think they're pretty fair.
They're a large corporation, sounderstanding how to deal with
them, uh, is important, yeah,but once you understand that and
(28:16):
you realize, like, what theirexpectations are, and they tell
you, hey, I need this, and thenyou deliver that, then your
business is going to grow.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
I love that In merchandising I often talked
about.
The most valuable asset atWalmart was customer trust, and
if that ethos remains then we'reall on the same page.
The deduction should bewhatever actually was necessary
so that we can protect customertrust, whether it be quality,
efficiency, speed, inventorymanagement and I've seen that
(28:47):
hold true.
I think it's a majordifferentiator because the top
retailer has of those thingsthey're difficult to keep up
with, but if you can keep upwith them, then you're going to
be on that growth journey withWalmart?
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
You mentioned some other retailers a minute ago.
Are there any trends like justkind of across the board trends
you're seeing in your segment ofthe market?
Speaker 3 (29:25):
trend you're seeing in your segment of the market.
I think over the past couple ofyears we've seen some of the
post audits or those chargesfrom the two-year lookbacks
getting closer to the event andthat's across multiple retailers
.
They don't want to leavesomething out there for two
years and then hit the supplierwith some unexpected charge.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
It's a good thing right.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Yeah, it is a good thing, but it also, excuse me,
can require a little more workon the front end, gotcha.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Yeah, I think that's probably the biggest thing is
capturing dollars wheneveryou're supposed to pay them,
identifying compliance issuesbefore they balloon into some
bigger problem and the clearingof those items closer to the
event.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Yeah, Feels like speed's a major competitive
advantage.
I mean, really I could finishthe sentence there.
Yes, thank you.
But in this space where beingable to scour through,
understand, quickly get torecommendation, take action,
yeah, how has that evolved overthe last eight years?
Speaker 3 (30:34):
More and more data and automation.
Yeah, especially at the majorretailers.
The way they're using data isdifferent, the processes that
they're putting in place, theutilization of third parties,
whether that's in aggregatingdata or analyzing it, or having
third parties do differentfunctions.
So we just see more and moreinformation being available and
(30:58):
then that information being usedto drive efficiency.
And then we see some of thosebumps in the road that come with
efficiency, because you knowyou get too efficient and it
ends up messing something elseup.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
I'm a big fan of the Tim Collins book Good to Great
and one of the three kind ofprimary things he says in there
is large organizations can onlydo three things well.
So when you start getting intosome of these like granular
transactional things, it'sprobably better to get another
organization that's just doingthat.
Yeah Right, they'll do itreally well, they'll drive the
(31:31):
cost out of the process, giveyou the finished result and you
probably save money, yeah, inthe process.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
It's probably the same, you know, in the, in the
sales world too, you know it'strue for us.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
You know we we work with partners that do things
that we don't do.
That aren't a part of what wedo.
You know it's not part of oneof our three things our big
three things.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Like stat recovery, that's right.
What's in a name?
Why, uh, why stat recovery?
Speaker 3 (31:58):
Thought about this for a long time.
Um spent months just throwingnames back and forth, and I like
acronyms.
I think coming from Walmartthere's all these acronyms and I
couldn't come up with a clevername.
So I was like, well, let's justtry to fit it in, let's just
try to create an acronym.
So it's Supplier Transaction,audit, technology, nice.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
It rolls off the tongue.
I'm glad he called it STAT.
Stat works great.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
We had a lot of trouble with our logo, trying to
fit those things likeunderneath the letters somewhere
, so eventually we just Someonejust said actually, maybe let's
just go with STAT, yeah, let'scall it STAT.
And even at first we were justSTAT recovery consultants
because, you know, at that pointwe didn't have a lot of
technology, so we were justthere to advise and help
(32:45):
suppliers fix problems, getreally hands-on.
And then we rebranded as StatRecovery Services because we've
got the technology services andthe audit and consulting
services.
But sometimes we just callourselves Stat.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Yeah, totally, because it's hip, it is hip, so
we call ourselves High Impactsometimes Quite often actually,
yeah, it's so we call ourselveshigh impact.
Sometimes quite often actually,yeah, it's high impact.
Analytics If you want to emailus, got the rest of those
letters in there?
Yeah, that's awesome.
So if I'm a supplier to Walmartand Sam's or Target, kroger,
(33:23):
amazon, et cetera, and I'meither unsure that I'm operating
efficiently or maybe evenunaware where my empathetic FOMO
comes from for them, what wouldbe the right sort of next step?
Speaker 3 (33:41):
You know, just inviting us in.
You know, or you know, if youwant to engage an individual or
a third party, invite them inand have them not rely on your
open AR report or what you thinkis the problem.
So, help me identify what theproblems are and then see if
(34:02):
that matches up to the thingsthat you have.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
We do some of that discovery work, we show the
opportunity before.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
That was kind of the playbook for us in the beginning
and it's still.
What we do today is first go inand we'll take a look at what
they have, what they think theirissues are, but then we like to
take a step back, analyzeeverything.
That's free analysis andsometimes we come back and we
(34:34):
say you know what you're reallydoing, everything that you
should be doing, you've alreadycleared everything.
It happens occasionally, butmost of the time there's things
that are getting missed.
It could be under tolerance, itcould be something that got
denied and you wrote it offbecause you thought, well, it
was denied and it seemed to havea valid reason.
But there's actually moreinformation there that would
(34:56):
uncover it should have been paidback or an approved yes, yeah,
and so I like that, so you provethe value as a part of the
reason for actually workingtogether.
Yeah, we show where the money isand different ways to go get it
, and then where we see some ofthe problems are.
Occasionally Well I say quiteoften actually, you know, we get
(35:19):
pushback from the teams thatare doing those jobs, those jobs
, and I think they believe thatwe're there to make them look
bad or that we're going to takeover their job, and that's not
it.
The team asked me the other dayon one of our calls.
They said what's your greatestvalue, or what's that's greatest
value, what's the corporateculture?
(35:42):
That word that really says whowe are and I was like our
greatest value is value.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
I thought that was really clever.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Our greatest value is value.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
But that's where we are there to add value.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
And if we?
Speaker 3 (35:56):
can't add value.
We don't work with you knowthat company, because we've
always wanted to be associatedwith real dollars and value and
for people to be able to seewhat we did, and not that we're
just coming in there and saying,oh well, you could hand your
process off to us and maybe wecould do it cheaper.
That's fine, there is somevalue in that but we've always
(36:18):
looked for a little more impact.
We want to have a high impact.
High impact man, you need itquickly.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
So stat Well done.
Oh, you need it quickly so statWell done.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Well, I love that.
I think that's part of why it'sreally easy to partner, because
it's very much an ethos we have.
I often say, like I'm notlooking to plug a hole that
doesn't need to be filled.
We want to solve real things,and for me, a solid litmus test
at the end of the day is I don'twant to receive a resentful
check from a client.
(36:48):
Yeah, like, if you're writingme a check, it's because you're
like, just really glad wedecided to partner on this and
what I did was of great value toyou and your, your company, or
of high impact yeah, of highimpact all right.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Hey, we usually finish these up with a lightning
round.
Okay, I got just a handful ofquestions, kind of fun little
things.
I'll start off here.
We talk about fail fastfrequently, right, it's how you
learn what's one of your biggestfailures in business that you'd
want to share.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
My biggest failure was probably not realizing early
on that we needed to develop acompany culture and, coming from
an individual contributor role,I thought, well, everybody just
does everything and we all justdo stuff and we get
satisfaction out of doing thingsand making money.
But people come to work fordifferent reasons, and it took
me a few years to reallyunderstand what was driving the
(37:50):
people that were coming to workevery day.
Sometimes it was money,sometimes it was career growth,
sometimes it was beingchallenged and trying something
new, and so Sometimes, it's asense of belonging.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
It's community.
Sometimes it's very sense ofbelonging.
It's community.
Sometimes it's very intangible.
What motivates an entrepreneurto do their thing is probably
not what motivates the majorityof the other people, and
learning that it was a big onefor me too, that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
I love that realization and having it early
enough that you wouldn't havethe growth you have without
people wanting to be a part ofthe squad.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Yeah, I wrote the team a little note a couple
weeks ago and I was thinkingback to my Walmart days and
saying our people make thedifference.
And when I was at Walmart I waslike, oh, those are just
slogans that are up on the wallon the wall.
But as I've grown, you know, inbusiness and matured.
(38:49):
I'm like no our people really domake the difference because
we're a relationship basedbusiness.
You know some some people say,oh, you're a tech company.
I'm like, well, we usetechnology but we build
relationships with peoplebecause they have to trust us to
go in there and take a look attheir business and not feel
threatened.
And you know, when you findmoney you don't want them to go.
Man, now, now I've got a badtaste in my mouth because I
(39:12):
should have found that and now Ilook bad Like we try to make
our clients and the people thatwe interact with.
You know the heroes and sopeople you know whether it's
employees or whoever you'reworking with at a client those
people make the difference.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
I love that.
What are you reading lately?
Speaker 3 (39:36):
Well, I never read a book in like 10 years.
People always ask me.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
I'm glad you just said that.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
And I tell the team I don't read books.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Memes.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
You get a good meme.
You read I read plenty ofemails.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
Oh yeah, that's fair.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
I read some news.
I'm actually trying to get moreinto reading.
I have a little project thatI'm working on with my son.
I'm trying to get him motivatedabout it because I I do like
reading.
I'm just not a very good reader, like you know I'm.
I'm the guy that wants apicture book.
Um so we're trying to come upwith a little bit of a a
(40:17):
different way to consume, Do you?
Speaker 2 (40:18):
do podcasts or anything like that.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
Um, occasionally I listen to a little bit.
My wife likes the audio books,but I should.
I should get into reading.
I've been so focused on thebusiness for the past eight
years that, you know, sometimesyou just put hobbies and other
things aside and, uh, I'mrealizing now that some things I
should probably do just for myown wellbeing yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
And we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll wrap with this.
Uh, from the last 12 or somonths, what's the one of the
biggest things you've learned?
Speaker 3 (40:53):
um, been kind of an unlock yeah, I think, oh, it's
something I've learned aboutmyself, but also about the
business.
Looking at myself, I realized,oh, I'm not a doer anymore.
I got out of doing stuff and Ithink I didn't realize that that
(41:16):
transition was happening Right.
But also, as I've gotten out ofdoing things, other people have
picked up those things that Iwas doing.
They're making those decisionsand I need to let them.
So that's probably been like ahuge transition.
Yeah, it's a realization aswell as a realization about
(41:38):
myself, but also an observationon those around me that as I
stepped back from doing things,they picked up all of those
tasks and they do them betterthan I was able to do them.
So that's over the last 12months.
That's been cool to see.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
Well, I wouldn't sell it short either, because you're
doing something, you're leadingan organization.
You're doing less and leadingmore.
Yes.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
That's important Influencing other people to do
things you know and challenging.
You know, I think the biggestthing that I bring to the table,
you know, with the team todayis perspective.
You know, whenever I wouldstart an audit when I was at
Walmart, and then you know, evenafter I was, like you have to
assume that everything's wrong.
Okay, like just the data's bad.
Whatever information you havefrom the past is wrong and then
(42:23):
go through the careful steps ofproving which pieces are right
and which pieces are missing.
Um, so I'm trying to, you know,continue to give that
perspective to the team of like,wait, let's all just assume
that everything that we've heardup to this point is wrong and
let's just take a step back.
If we go on this journey, we'llprove some of those things to
(42:45):
be right.
Hopefully that's not true.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
Yeah, hopefully everything is right, but we'll
find out.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
That's awesome.
I like that.
Oh, go ahead sir.
Speaker 3 (42:54):
Oh, I was saying the other thing about I think that's
been an eye opener for me aboutthe supplier world is there are
so many different needs outthere.
We kind of came into this withone particular area that we
wanted to focus on and astechnology has evolved and
(43:15):
retailers are putting more dataout there, suppliers are
applying more data and moreanalytics.
There's just so manyopportunities in our know, in
your industry as well.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
That there's a ton of things that we could do to
drive efficiency and change, andgrowth creates opportunity.
Yeah, and there's a lot of bothright now.
Yeah, awesome, okay, so Ireally appreciate you spending
some time with us.
It's been, I mean, I've workedwith you for five or six years
and I learned some stuff today,so hopefully everybody else did
too and, as always, thank youfor joining us.
You can check out our videos oraudio podcasts on
(43:57):
highimpactanalyticscom orYouTube or wherever you get your
podcasts.
Thank you for joining us.
Popular Podcasts
Betrayal Weekly
Betrayal Weekly is back for a new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. If you would like to share your story, you can reach out to the Betrayal Team by emailing them at betrayalpod@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.