July 22, 2026 • 14 mins
Landing your product on a retail shelf is a massive victory, but bleeding out in year two due to operational failure is a harsh industry standard. Right now, the margin for error in large-scale fulfillment is razor-thin, meaning founders must adapt their entire infrastructure to keep pace with rapid retail demands. To break down what separates surviving brands from those that fizzle out, we pulled together a masterclass mashup featuring retail experts Matt Adams, Erin Wall, Grant Demers, Brian Salmon, and Katie Smith.
We get into the tactical execution required to maintain your retail footprint long after the initial line review. The panel covers critical missteps in omnichannel promotional strategy, the cascading impact of minor point-of-sale setting adjustments on fulfillment loads, and the exact methods to properly forecast domestic replenishment. The key shift highlighted by the group is learning how to run directly toward problems, ensuring you always bring merchants actionable solutions rather than simply reporting a failure.
Keeping up with massive retail volume is a grueling endeavor that will quickly expose any structural cracks in your communication pipelines. A seemingly harmless inventory tweak can trigger sudden thirty-truckload demands, forcing teams to scramble through weekends just to prevent empty shelves and missed deliveries. Viewers will walk away understanding the critical need for extreme operational transparency and why admitting your capability limits early will save your long-term buyer relationships.
If you care about supply chain resilience, operational accountability, and building lasting trust with major retail buyers, you’ll get a lot from this. Please subscribe to the channel and share this episode with anyone currently scaling a physical product business. What is the most difficult operational bottleneck your team has had to overcome to keep your product in stock?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_05 (00:07):
Hello, I'm James Harris and welcome to the retail
journey.
Uh, for those of you that checkin with us often, you uh know
that we normally dig in deepwith one or two, one or two
folks about their specificcorner of the retail world.
Uh, but today we're doingsomething a little different.
We've gone through our archivesand pulled together a
masterclass from some of thebrightest minds we've had on the
(00:30):
show.
Today's topic is the brutalreality of retail.
Getting your product on theshelf is a massive victory, but
staying there in year two oryear three, that can be a
different story and requires acompletely different set of
skills.
We are talking today aboutmoving from a good supplier to a
great supplier.
To break this down, you're goingto hear from high impact COO
(00:52):
Matt Adams, Aaron Wall fromLunar Capital, Grant Demers from
McLean Company, and Katie Smithand Brian Salmon from Walmart's
Beverage Department.
So to set the stage, we firstneed to define what actually
separates the brands thatsurvive from ones that fizzle
out.
A lot of it comes down tooperational excellence and how
(01:13):
you communicate when thingsinevitably go wrong, as they
always can.
Here is High Impact's chiefoperating officer Matt Adams
explaining the exact differencebetween a good brand and a great
one.
Our COO, Matt Adams, joining himto talk about what the
difference is between a goodbrand at Walmart and a great
brand at Walmart, because wetend to see two brands the
(01:36):
product, the innovation, theidea, the price, you know, all
the all the four Ps is what getsa product in.
But in four years, to any twobrands, one is probably still
going to be there with a with aprogram, and the other's
probably going to be gone.
Let's talk about the difference.
So the vision for high impactwas so when they went to
meetings, when when the supplierwent to a line review, had a
(01:58):
call with replenishment,whatever their interaction was,
that they were showing up atleast as well as their Fortune
500 competitors.
So that actually kind of leadsus, Matt, to operations.
Uh, Matt is our operationsdriver.
If any of our clients haven'tmet Matt, that he still has his
fingers on just about everythingthat goes out the door here, um,
and all the people and systemsthat get it to that point.
(02:21):
Um, so from your perspective,you know, going back to brands
operationally, what's thedifference between good and
great?
We already established that badis operational failure.
SPEAKER_02 (02:32):
Uh I I think the the the if I was gonna boil it down
to like one thing, um, becauseit's never just one thing, but
let's let's pretend that we canboil it to one thing.
Um, I would boil it down tocommunication and probably a
layer of accountability in thereas well.
Um, but clear lines ofcommunication, top to bottom,
um, and clear accountability forwho owns what in the journey and
(02:54):
in the process.
And all those people are talkingto each other and they're all
speaking the same language.
It breaks down when you anytimeI see it breakdown for brands or
even here at High Impact, likethe breakdown is almost always
at some level of communication.
Yeah, uh, either somethingwasn't said that needed to be
said, something, uh something, anote wasn't sent that needed to
(03:16):
be sent, a communication didn'tgo out, um uh, or what was said,
you know, wasn't received insuch a way that they understood
what needed to be done.
Um and for me, yeah, studentsunderstanding exactly.
And if we can, if you can solvethe communication problem, you
can almost always solve becauseyou're always gonna run into
(03:37):
issues.
Oh, yes.
Operations is problem solving.
You're spending all your timelike solving some kind of a
problem.
Yeah.
So there's no, there's no, youknow, you'd love to be able to
just set it and forget it.
And it's just not really areality uh when it comes to
operations.
But if you're communicating welland you're um identifying those
problems as they come up and andum you know working together to
(03:59):
solve them, um, then that'sreally the defining difference.
That's really a big focus for usfrom an operational perspective,
not only for our clients, uh,you know, as we build trust with
them, but as well as we helpthem and support them in
building trust with Walmart, youknow, we want to provide it's
one thing to just call it, hey,there's a problem.
(04:20):
Um it's another thing to say,here's a problem.
And then here is here is asolution.
Here's what we believe is aneasy button solution for just
what we've seen working.
Walmart merchant.
Um, they may have a bettersolution, but we're coming with
not just an operationalopportunity.
We're coming with the what webelieve is what we believe could
(04:40):
be the best solution to thatoperational opportunity.
SPEAKER_05 (04:43):
That operational focus is what keeps you alive,
but how do you plan for yourbrand's longevity?
Erin Wall spent years as asenior merchant at Target before
launching Lunar Capital, and shehas seen firsthand what happens
when brands have a great itembut fail to think through what
it actually takes to besuccessful on the shelf.
Yeah, so maybe going back toyour time at Target, um, you
(05:07):
know, sitting in those roomswith with people, but with
brands, right?
What were some lessons youlearned in that period that you
you you wouldn't havenecessarily even been exposed to
were you not merchant, seniormerchant at uh Target?
SPEAKER_00 (05:22):
Yeah.
Um, that's a good question.
I mean, I I always am steppingback and thinking about the
longevity of the brand and thelong-term sell through.
So I think there is a lot ofexcitement sometimes to get a
brand in.
But like we talked about, theyhaven't always thought through
the what does it take toactually be successful on shelf
(05:46):
situation?
And a lot of that is you know,great pricing, clear promo
strategy, how are you um drivingsales through nowadays UGC
content offline or outside ofthe store?
Um, you know, do you actuallyhave a meaningful following?
Do people, you know, come back?
(06:06):
Like all those questions are thethings that I feel like I
learned where it's just notabout coming up with a great
item.
It's like the stuff around it isalmost more important than the
item itself in a lot of ways.
And then even since then, what Ilearned in this job about that
is we made the mistake early onwith a few clients of not
(06:26):
getting the samples.
And you know, we're all comingout of COVID.
This is a time when like maybeyou weren't as like hands-on
with every sample.
And that was a huge mistakebecause there is something
intangible about like trying aproduct if it's a food and bed
product, seeing and feeling thepackaging and the weight and the
(06:48):
size and scale against what itscompetitors we on the shelf that
is just nothing compares.
You cannot compare it.
I mean, we've all orderedsomething online, like the one
time when I ordered off Timu andI thought I was getting a
blanket, and then I got like ablanket that was this big, you
know?
But it's like we've all madethat mistake.
Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_05 (07:07):
You can't fake excellent execution, and you
sure can't fake supply chainexcellence.
Grant Demurs, vice president ofsales at McLean Company, knows
exactly what happens when youdon't communicate with your
operational partners.
Sometimes a seemingly smalladjustment can completely break
the system.
SPEAKER_03 (07:25):
One that comes to mind would be early in my uh my
time leading our our uh Walmartbusiness.
Um yeah, I was I was familiarwith uh with Walmart, had
traveled up here when I was inpurchasing and would meet with
merchants and felt like Iunderstood the business and um
learned or received a call or anemail or something about a uh a
(07:47):
setting adjustment on Walmartexclusive items that um was
going to draw, you know, a lotof inventory.
And I was setting adjustments.
It sounded small in the way thatit was presented.
And and I was like, well, thatseems great.
Like we're we're in the volumebusiness, we want to sell more
products.
So what I didn't realize is justa small setting adjustment can
(08:08):
can uh can mean very big thingsfor our operations.
Uh and how many more trucks thatmeans?
Yeah, lots of trucks, lots of, Imean, it every piece converts at
some level into hours of ofpeople doing the hard work.
And I and I could very quickly,once I realized, um, and the
realization came when I wasreceiving uh a lot of phone
(08:28):
calls and emails from from ourdivisions asking, you know,
what's happening, what's goingon.
Yeah.
Um, and we got through it.
And I mean, that and uh asillustrated earlier, I mean, the
our our folks will work late andcome in on weekends and they're
gonna get the product where itneeds to go.
But the learning was I need todo a better job of aligning
(08:48):
expectations and thencommunicating both, you know,
bidirectionally, both with ourcustomer to make sure I
understand what the need is, andthen with our operations and
replenishment team so they canprepare accordingly.
Yeah.
Uh unfortunately, I've made thatmistake more than just once, but
uh it's something that wasmemorable.
SPEAKER_05 (09:08):
I've similar story to that.
I was placing uh kind of modfill orders in domestic, so
pretty large cube comforters,duvets.
Uh, and this one particularcompany, I sent them POs all
with the same ship date that wasequivalent to 30 truckloads.
And the guy called me and Isaid, Well, you know, this is
Walmart volume.
What do you go?
(09:29):
I have three doors.
I can't do 30.
I can't do 30 trucks in one day.
We had to stagger those out.
So in uh 2024 or more recently,what what's been I don't know,
something you've taken away akey learning um relevant to what
you're what you're doing, whereyou're focused today.
SPEAKER_03 (09:49):
I would say a key learning uh has been and uh the
realization of the the pace ofchange is dramatic.
Um and the need for us to bothanticipate that, right, and not
just wait for it to happen andthen and do something about it
(10:09):
uh has been uh I think was arealization throughout 24, but
also something exciting to seeuh us respond to, to see us
meaning our um especially ourour corporate leadership, our
ELT, I mean, make some reallybig uh steps in favor of um uh
uh infrastructure change,investment IT, et cetera, to to
(10:33):
enable us to um again, goingback to what I said earlier, be
where our customers need us tobe.
SPEAKER_05 (10:38):
Operations, communication, and supply chain,
all of these feed directly intothe buyer's confidence in your
brand.
To close this out, Walmart VicePresident of Beverage, Brian
Salmon, and vice president ofAdult Beverage, Katie Smith
explains what it takes to buildreal, lasting trust with their
merchant team.
I think it starts withtransparency.
SPEAKER_04 (10:59):
You know that you'll know usually in that first
meeting are they holding cardsback or are they they're pretty
transparent?
Yeah, and vice versa.
You know, I think the same'strue with with Katie and I've
seen as well.
We always want to create aculture of transparency.
Um, I think second is ownership.
We talk a lot about ownershipand we want to build teams that
have a high level of ownership.
In our cheer, we say, you know,whose Walmart is it?
(11:21):
It's my Walmart.
Like we want that level ofownership.
Um, and the same to be true, youknow, on the supplier side too.
There's a there's a commitmentthere.
Um and then third, we want to beable to run to problems.
Like retail is fun, but you gotto be able to run to problems
and have the curiosity and aspeed to go solve things.
And if if you line those thingsup, you know, to your point,
you're gonna have a greatsuccess, you know, story at
(11:43):
Walmart because there's acuriosity and a commitment and
this relentless journey of justmaking progress.
And you'll learn over time andand dial things in.
But I think um sometimes peoplefall in love with the item and
they think they've arrivedversus the journey of the
process that is the everyday.
And that's I think thedifference of where suppliers
(12:05):
tend to be successful and wherethey create opportunities.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (12:08):
So advice for a new supplier walking into their
first meeting with you or theiror your team and bev or adult
bev.
SPEAKER_04 (12:16):
Breathe, be authentic, yeah, yeah, have fun.
Yeah, from there we'll figureout you know, everything else.
But um, our bias is always getto a yes.
You know, I think about evenopen call, you know, the day on
campus, high energy, but ourbias is always get to a yes.
And Omni Channel has helped getus there even faster.
Yeah.
So um it's it's the personalstory of what you're solving
(12:41):
for, the product you'rebringing.
Like we love products, and so welook forward to those meetings.
Um, but sometimes I think, youknow, maybe a little stress or
anxiety, whatever, maybepressure.
Um, we get it, but justbreathing, being yourself, and
um high levels of collaborationfrom there we we take off.
SPEAKER_01 (12:59):
Yeah, we're not that scary.
Uh we we honestly do.
I I very much do look forward tosupplier meetings.
I have an associate on my teamthat is uh getting promoted and
he's he's moving on, he's aboutto start line reviews in a few
weeks.
And I was like, can I send aline review person?
So like, no, um, you're notallowed.
(13:20):
So I mean, I find it to be likeShark Tank, like it's really fun
for us.
SPEAKER_05 (13:24):
It is.
SPEAKER_01 (13:24):
Um, and so we don't go in with like that level of
stress or anxiety around it.
But I I we talked earlier aboutlike transparency and being and
and trust and being direct aboutyour capabilities and and what
you can't do yet.
And I think that's core for us.
Um I think iteration too, likethese people have years and
years of experience and they'rereally good at what they do.
(13:45):
Like we have a fantasticmerchandising team.
Yeah and so be open to iterationbecause you might get feedback
about particular things and andit's usually really good
feedback.
SPEAKER_05 (13:55):
Be direct about your capabilities and be open to
iteration.
If you take one thing away fromtoday's episode, let it be this.
Your product gets you on theshelf, but your operations keep
you there.
Communicate early, secure thecapital you need to fund your
growth, treat your supply chainlike a strategic advantage, and
when problems happen, and theyalways will, run towards them,
(14:19):
not away.
So thank you, Matt, Aaron,Grant, Brian, and Katie for your
insights.
As always, you can find ourpodcast anywhere you get your
podcasts or on our website atthe retailjourneypodcast.com.
I'm James Harris.
Thank you for joining us for theRetail Journey.
Hello, I'm James Harris and welcome to the retail
journey.
Uh, for those of you that checkin with us often, you uh know
that we normally dig in deepwith one or two, one or two
folks about their specificcorner of the retail world.
Uh, but today we're doingsomething a little different.
We've gone through our archivesand pulled together a
masterclass from some of thebrightest minds we've had on the
(00:30):
show.
Today's topic is the brutalreality of retail.
Getting your product on theshelf is a massive victory, but
staying there in year two oryear three, that can be a
different story and requires acompletely different set of
skills.
We are talking today aboutmoving from a good supplier to a
great supplier.
To break this down, you're goingto hear from high impact COO
(00:52):
Matt Adams, Aaron Wall fromLunar Capital, Grant Demers from
McLean Company, and Katie Smithand Brian Salmon from Walmart's
Beverage Department.
So to set the stage, we firstneed to define what actually
separates the brands thatsurvive from ones that fizzle
out.
A lot of it comes down tooperational excellence and how
(01:13):
you communicate when thingsinevitably go wrong, as they
always can.
Here is High Impact's chiefoperating officer Matt Adams
explaining the exact differencebetween a good brand and a great
one.
Our COO, Matt Adams, joining himto talk about what the
difference is between a goodbrand at Walmart and a great
brand at Walmart, because wetend to see two brands the
(01:36):
product, the innovation, theidea, the price, you know, all
the all the four Ps is what getsa product in.
But in four years, to any twobrands, one is probably still
going to be there with a with aprogram, and the other's
probably going to be gone.
Let's talk about the difference.
So the vision for high impactwas so when they went to
meetings, when when the supplierwent to a line review, had a
(01:58):
call with replenishment,whatever their interaction was,
that they were showing up atleast as well as their Fortune
500 competitors.
So that actually kind of leadsus, Matt, to operations.
Uh, Matt is our operationsdriver.
If any of our clients haven'tmet Matt, that he still has his
fingers on just about everythingthat goes out the door here, um,
and all the people and systemsthat get it to that point.
(02:21):
Um, so from your perspective,you know, going back to brands
operationally, what's thedifference between good and
great?
We already established that badis operational failure.
SPEAKER_02 (02:32):
Uh I I think the the the if I was gonna boil it down
to like one thing, um, becauseit's never just one thing, but
let's let's pretend that we canboil it to one thing.
Um, I would boil it down tocommunication and probably a
layer of accountability in thereas well.
Um, but clear lines ofcommunication, top to bottom,
um, and clear accountability forwho owns what in the journey and
(02:54):
in the process.
And all those people are talkingto each other and they're all
speaking the same language.
It breaks down when you anytimeI see it breakdown for brands or
even here at High Impact, likethe breakdown is almost always
at some level of communication.
Yeah, uh, either somethingwasn't said that needed to be
said, something, uh something, anote wasn't sent that needed to
(03:16):
be sent, a communication didn'tgo out, um uh, or what was said,
you know, wasn't received insuch a way that they understood
what needed to be done.
Um and for me, yeah, studentsunderstanding exactly.
And if we can, if you can solvethe communication problem, you
can almost always solve becauseyou're always gonna run into
(03:37):
issues.
Oh, yes.
Operations is problem solving.
You're spending all your timelike solving some kind of a
problem.
Yeah.
So there's no, there's no, youknow, you'd love to be able to
just set it and forget it.
And it's just not really areality uh when it comes to
operations.
But if you're communicating welland you're um identifying those
problems as they come up and andum you know working together to
(03:59):
solve them, um, then that'sreally the defining difference.
That's really a big focus for usfrom an operational perspective,
not only for our clients, uh,you know, as we build trust with
them, but as well as we helpthem and support them in
building trust with Walmart, youknow, we want to provide it's
one thing to just call it, hey,there's a problem.
(04:20):
Um it's another thing to say,here's a problem.
And then here is here is asolution.
Here's what we believe is aneasy button solution for just
what we've seen working.
Walmart merchant.
Um, they may have a bettersolution, but we're coming with
not just an operationalopportunity.
We're coming with the what webelieve is what we believe could
(04:40):
be the best solution to thatoperational opportunity.
SPEAKER_05 (04:43):
That operational focus is what keeps you alive,
but how do you plan for yourbrand's longevity?
Erin Wall spent years as asenior merchant at Target before
launching Lunar Capital, and shehas seen firsthand what happens
when brands have a great itembut fail to think through what
it actually takes to besuccessful on the shelf.
Yeah, so maybe going back toyour time at Target, um, you
(05:07):
know, sitting in those roomswith with people, but with
brands, right?
What were some lessons youlearned in that period that you
you you wouldn't havenecessarily even been exposed to
were you not merchant, seniormerchant at uh Target?
SPEAKER_00 (05:22):
Yeah.
Um, that's a good question.
I mean, I I always am steppingback and thinking about the
longevity of the brand and thelong-term sell through.
So I think there is a lot ofexcitement sometimes to get a
brand in.
But like we talked about, theyhaven't always thought through
the what does it take toactually be successful on shelf
(05:46):
situation?
And a lot of that is you know,great pricing, clear promo
strategy, how are you um drivingsales through nowadays UGC
content offline or outside ofthe store?
Um, you know, do you actuallyhave a meaningful following?
Do people, you know, come back?
(06:06):
Like all those questions are thethings that I feel like I
learned where it's just notabout coming up with a great
item.
It's like the stuff around it isalmost more important than the
item itself in a lot of ways.
And then even since then, what Ilearned in this job about that
is we made the mistake early onwith a few clients of not
(06:26):
getting the samples.
And you know, we're all comingout of COVID.
This is a time when like maybeyou weren't as like hands-on
with every sample.
And that was a huge mistakebecause there is something
intangible about like trying aproduct if it's a food and bed
product, seeing and feeling thepackaging and the weight and the
(06:48):
size and scale against what itscompetitors we on the shelf that
is just nothing compares.
You cannot compare it.
I mean, we've all orderedsomething online, like the one
time when I ordered off Timu andI thought I was getting a
blanket, and then I got like ablanket that was this big, you
know?
But it's like we've all madethat mistake.
Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_05 (07:07):
You can't fake excellent execution, and you
sure can't fake supply chainexcellence.
Grant Demurs, vice president ofsales at McLean Company, knows
exactly what happens when youdon't communicate with your
operational partners.
Sometimes a seemingly smalladjustment can completely break
the system.
SPEAKER_03 (07:25):
One that comes to mind would be early in my uh my
time leading our our uh Walmartbusiness.
Um yeah, I was I was familiarwith uh with Walmart, had
traveled up here when I was inpurchasing and would meet with
merchants and felt like Iunderstood the business and um
learned or received a call or anemail or something about a uh a
(07:47):
setting adjustment on Walmartexclusive items that um was
going to draw, you know, a lotof inventory.
And I was setting adjustments.
It sounded small in the way thatit was presented.
And and I was like, well, thatseems great.
Like we're we're in the volumebusiness, we want to sell more
products.
So what I didn't realize is justa small setting adjustment can
(08:08):
can uh can mean very big thingsfor our operations.
Uh and how many more trucks thatmeans?
Yeah, lots of trucks, lots of, Imean, it every piece converts at
some level into hours of ofpeople doing the hard work.
And I and I could very quickly,once I realized, um, and the
realization came when I wasreceiving uh a lot of phone
(08:28):
calls and emails from from ourdivisions asking, you know,
what's happening, what's goingon.
Yeah.
Um, and we got through it.
And I mean, that and uh asillustrated earlier, I mean, the
our our folks will work late andcome in on weekends and they're
gonna get the product where itneeds to go.
But the learning was I need todo a better job of aligning
(08:48):
expectations and thencommunicating both, you know,
bidirectionally, both with ourcustomer to make sure I
understand what the need is, andthen with our operations and
replenishment team so they canprepare accordingly.
Yeah.
Uh unfortunately, I've made thatmistake more than just once, but
uh it's something that wasmemorable.
SPEAKER_05 (09:08):
I've similar story to that.
I was placing uh kind of modfill orders in domestic, so
pretty large cube comforters,duvets.
Uh, and this one particularcompany, I sent them POs all
with the same ship date that wasequivalent to 30 truckloads.
And the guy called me and Isaid, Well, you know, this is
Walmart volume.
What do you go?
(09:29):
I have three doors.
I can't do 30.
I can't do 30 trucks in one day.
We had to stagger those out.
So in uh 2024 or more recently,what what's been I don't know,
something you've taken away akey learning um relevant to what
you're what you're doing, whereyou're focused today.
SPEAKER_03 (09:49):
I would say a key learning uh has been and uh the
realization of the the pace ofchange is dramatic.
Um and the need for us to bothanticipate that, right, and not
just wait for it to happen andthen and do something about it
(10:09):
uh has been uh I think was arealization throughout 24, but
also something exciting to seeuh us respond to, to see us
meaning our um especially ourour corporate leadership, our
ELT, I mean, make some reallybig uh steps in favor of um uh
uh infrastructure change,investment IT, et cetera, to to
(10:33):
enable us to um again, goingback to what I said earlier, be
where our customers need us tobe.
SPEAKER_05 (10:38):
Operations, communication, and supply chain,
all of these feed directly intothe buyer's confidence in your
brand.
To close this out, Walmart VicePresident of Beverage, Brian
Salmon, and vice president ofAdult Beverage, Katie Smith
explains what it takes to buildreal, lasting trust with their
merchant team.
I think it starts withtransparency.
SPEAKER_04 (10:59):
You know that you'll know usually in that first
meeting are they holding cardsback or are they they're pretty
transparent?
Yeah, and vice versa.
You know, I think the same'strue with with Katie and I've
seen as well.
We always want to create aculture of transparency.
Um, I think second is ownership.
We talk a lot about ownershipand we want to build teams that
have a high level of ownership.
In our cheer, we say, you know,whose Walmart is it?
(11:21):
It's my Walmart.
Like we want that level ofownership.
Um, and the same to be true, youknow, on the supplier side too.
There's a there's a commitmentthere.
Um and then third, we want to beable to run to problems.
Like retail is fun, but you gotto be able to run to problems
and have the curiosity and aspeed to go solve things.
And if if you line those thingsup, you know, to your point,
you're gonna have a greatsuccess, you know, story at
(11:43):
Walmart because there's acuriosity and a commitment and
this relentless journey of justmaking progress.
And you'll learn over time andand dial things in.
But I think um sometimes peoplefall in love with the item and
they think they've arrivedversus the journey of the
process that is the everyday.
And that's I think thedifference of where suppliers
(12:05):
tend to be successful and wherethey create opportunities.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (12:08):
So advice for a new supplier walking into their
first meeting with you or theiror your team and bev or adult
bev.
SPEAKER_04 (12:16):
Breathe, be authentic, yeah, yeah, have fun.
Yeah, from there we'll figureout you know, everything else.
But um, our bias is always getto a yes.
You know, I think about evenopen call, you know, the day on
campus, high energy, but ourbias is always get to a yes.
And Omni Channel has helped getus there even faster.
Yeah.
So um it's it's the personalstory of what you're solving
(12:41):
for, the product you'rebringing.
Like we love products, and so welook forward to those meetings.
Um, but sometimes I think, youknow, maybe a little stress or
anxiety, whatever, maybepressure.
Um, we get it, but justbreathing, being yourself, and
um high levels of collaborationfrom there we we take off.
SPEAKER_01 (12:59):
Yeah, we're not that scary.
Uh we we honestly do.
I I very much do look forward tosupplier meetings.
I have an associate on my teamthat is uh getting promoted and
he's he's moving on, he's aboutto start line reviews in a few
weeks.
And I was like, can I send aline review person?
So like, no, um, you're notallowed.
(13:20):
So I mean, I find it to be likeShark Tank, like it's really fun
for us.
SPEAKER_05 (13:24):
It is.
SPEAKER_01 (13:24):
Um, and so we don't go in with like that level of
stress or anxiety around it.
But I I we talked earlier aboutlike transparency and being and
and trust and being direct aboutyour capabilities and and what
you can't do yet.
And I think that's core for us.
Um I think iteration too, likethese people have years and
years of experience and they'rereally good at what they do.
(13:45):
Like we have a fantasticmerchandising team.
Yeah and so be open to iterationbecause you might get feedback
about particular things and andit's usually really good
feedback.
SPEAKER_05 (13:55):
Be direct about your capabilities and be open to
iteration.
If you take one thing away fromtoday's episode, let it be this.
Your product gets you on theshelf, but your operations keep
you there.
Communicate early, secure thecapital you need to fund your
growth, treat your supply chainlike a strategic advantage, and
when problems happen, and theyalways will, run towards them,
(14:19):
not away.
So thank you, Matt, Aaron,Grant, Brian, and Katie for your
insights.
As always, you can find ourpodcast anywhere you get your
podcasts or on our website atthe retailjourneypodcast.com.
I'm James Harris.
Thank you for joining us for theRetail Journey.
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