The Retail Journey
Welcome to the Retail Journey where we will cover important topics, interview industry stakeholders, and address emerging trends as we journey through our mission of helping our listeners thrive in retail. Your hosts for this show are CEO James Harris and CGO Charles Greathouse.
The Retail Journey
Retail, Film, and Entrepreneurial Spirit: An Unstoppable Vision with Twilla Brooks
What happens when a keen eye for retail meets a passion for inclusivity and the arts? You get Twilla Brooks, a former VP at Walmart and the unstoppable force behind Lynette Create and Innovate and the Bentonville Film Festival. Join us as we journey with Twilla from her humble beginnings at Macy's, through a rewarding career at Walmart, and onto her latest ventures of working with influencers, film, TV, and retail consulting. Along the way, Twilla imparts the key insights and experiences that shaped her path, including brand-building for fashion giants and a retail sales gamble you won't believe!
Twilla is a testament to the power of authenticity, transparency, and open communication in business. She tells us how her corporate experience played a crucial role serving others by elevating diverse voices. You'll also learn some tips from Twilla about creating an open environment for your team and staying true to core values. Learn from her unique approach to failure, and how she has helped to turn the festival into a celebration of not just film, but also female and Black-owned businesses.
It’s not all business with Twilla, as she reveals the sports she loves and her gratitude for the journey that brought her here. Whether you've got your sights set on a corporate career, dreaming of starting your own venture, or simply love a good story, Twilla's tale is a testament to tenacity and vision. Buckle up for a thrilling ride through the world of retail, film, and entrepreneurial spirit!
Hello and welcome to the Retail Journey podcast. Today we are talking about excitement and growth with the one and only Twyla Brooks. Thank you for joining us today, twyla. I'm excited about it. My name is Charles Greathouse. I get to be one of your hosts, and to my left are better hosts James Harris.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you very much and thank you for joining us, Twyla. Twyla is the founder of Lynette Create and Innovate and she is also the corporate liaison for the Bittenville Film Festival. Twyla started her career in buying, initially at Macy's, until joining Walmart in 2009 and served there as the VP DMM of both Men's Apparel and Bed and Bath. Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me. I'm excited.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Let's start with retail. What drew you in to retail, particularly Macy's, or whatever came before that?
Speaker 3:Well, I actually started in retail right out of college. It's a funny story. I thought I would be a corporate lawyer and I ran into a friend of mine that was an executive trainee and I thought he was in law school and he said nope, I decided to work for a company called Robinson's May. It was a division of May Company and then was eventually bought out by Macy's. Awesome, that's how. Literally right out of college.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is before you found a job You're about to go to.
Speaker 3:No, it wasn't even that. I was actually studying in our universal center and I got up to go get a cup of coffee and literally I ran into him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how's law school? That's amazing. Yeah, I was like how's law school?
Speaker 3:I was like I just got in a USC and I assumed that that's where he was, and he was like nope.
Speaker 2:Nope.
Speaker 3:And he was like you got to come and check out the recruiter and that was before people call it a gap year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3:It would be like I would defer for a year, and so the rest is history, and I never look back. It was hard, but I loved it.
Speaker 2:So what did retail in those early days look like? What did buying or whatever role you were in, you know?
Speaker 3:back then. It was a lot of teaching, training, a lot of about building relationship with mentors, and I had my mentor who at the time was a senior buyer. She was from UC Santa Barbara, which is where I went, and she had mentored 14 previous executive trainees from Santa Barbara and so she kind of took me under her wing. I started out in costume jewelry and she taught me everything. We were in class for the first 12 weeks for most of the time, but we would go there in the beginning and I just realized if I could be as good as her or as half as good as she was, then this is where I was supposed to be and I never look back, like I never second-guess myself.
Speaker 2:The mentoring idea. It's almost moving because so often the people that invest in you, you end up really meeting your potential somewhere else. Right, it's just an investment in the person.
Speaker 3:And the thing that was weird is every single job and every company that I went to, it was because there was a mentor. There was someone who said to me I think this is where you should go next. And so, when you know, when Robinson's May got bought out by Macy's, it was because I had a mentor who was my divisional merchandise manager, who was like I think you should go here. And then I had no idea, being this young kid from Southern California, what Walmart was. And it was a GMM that reached out to me and said I know they want you to move to New York to work for Macy's, but I know where you should go next. You should go work for Walmart. And I was like, well, what is Walmart?
Speaker 3:And so and I said, I said no like four times, but I mean thank God I did, because I mean Walmart helped shape my career and my life. Amen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a lot of folks that are being told that they're going to come to Bentonville at some point. Where's Bentonville? How long do I have to stay? And they're still here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they're still here. You know there's a lot of us. I mean, they asked me four times when we were in New York to come down because all you see is Arkansas. You know there's this, you know this little place called Bentonville, arkansas, who's not so little anymore, that it's a little bit of a gem and it's very hard to explain to people and that's why people stay here. But they stay here not necessarily because of Bentonville, they stay here because of the people and that's kind of how my career, you know shaped out is.
Speaker 3:It's always been about the people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so, speaking of people for Twyla, where are you from? Tell us a little bit about yourself pre getting into retail.
Speaker 3:Pre retail. Okay, so I was a young kid. I grew up in Southern California, in Los Angeles. I played softball and I literally woke up, trained, went to class, trained, and that's what I thought I was going to do.
Speaker 1:So when you say play softball like this is I'm serious.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I played softball all throughout high school. I played for college. I played semi pro. I thought I was going to go to the Olympics. I thought I was going to be like the next great, you know, Lisa Fernandez. And then I realized they didn't really pay softball players that much money.
Speaker 1:Great hobby.
Speaker 3:Great sport, are you?
Speaker 2:in a league now.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, I wasn't a league right before COVID, but then when COVID happened I took up golf and so now I play golf and that's been kind of a passion. So when I'm not working I try to, like you know, go and hit some balls and help center or fun, but not as stressed as I used to be. But I used to hit a lot of balls.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, I mean any of the baseball or softball players that I know that swing a club can smoke the ball.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, I could smoke the ball Sometimes I may not know where I'm where it's going, but I'm going
Speaker 2:to hit.
Speaker 3:I'm going to hit the heck out of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, power's not the problem, yeah, yeah. So what is Lynette? Create and innovate.
Speaker 3:So when I decided to probably a year into COVID, you know, I reached out to Walmart and my mentors and you know I talked to Doug, who was the CEO. I had a pretty good relationship with him and I said you know what? I think it's time for me to do something different. And I've been thinking about it for a while and I said I wanted to create a company where I could lend myself differently. And he was like, well, what do you mean? I said, well, I wanna figure out a way to bring diverse voices to Northwest Arkansas.
Speaker 3:And so I kinda wanna take a little bit of what I learned at Walmart, also being the chair of the African American Officer Caucus, and I want people to understand why Northwest Arkansas is welcoming to people like me. Right, because on the outside it doesn't look as diverse. But as you dig into everything that we have access to whether it's the talent, the programming, the businesses, the food, the music so that's kinda how I started it. So I started as a creative consulting but also to lending myself to small businesses that probably need a little bit of help, not necessarily to get into Walmart, but to help kinda start. That's kinda how it started.
Speaker 2:That's awesome to hear your perspective on the area. I'm a local, so grew up in Silo Springs and it didn't always. There wasn't always an inclusive nature, but the area has grown and changed and I'm sure there's still lots of room for improvement.
Speaker 3:Still a lot of work to do, but we're starting yeah that's great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm from St Louis, grew up in a melting pot, really, and came here and was a lot of the same people, and the change over the last 16 years has been incredible.
Speaker 3:Yeah, every year you come back. I go back to LA and I come back and I'm like there's another building going up or there's another company or they're in the works of another restaurant, and so a lot of times when people come, they don't know what to look for.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one of my favorite ways of kind of listening for diversity is actually listening to conversations and seeing if it's all English or if you're hearing other languages Right. I went to New York for a work trip, was delighted to remember and see all the different languages. Came back home, was walking around, I think, near Crystal Bridge, just come to Gardens and heard three different languages walking by. All right, let's go, go for a Sarkissal.
Speaker 3:And it was interesting because I was at Walmart last week for the belonging summit and it was the first time that I had been in the home office auditorium for a while and I noticed that the screens were different and they were a little bit smaller, but underneath the screens they, for every single word that someone said, it was written up there. So just in case someone necessarily English is not their first language or they can't necessarily understand what you're saying. And then every single program where they even in the auditorium now didn't necessarily matter someone was doing sign language or before it was like just a lot of the bigger programs are occasionally.
Speaker 3:So I think the world is evolving and changing and just trying to be as open as possible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what's it like to be able to be in a seat where you're helping to drive some of that change.
Speaker 3:Well, it was weird. I posted on Facebook. It was I was part of my job was bringing the talent, and so I flew with them from LA. And it was weird because they were like, wait, where do you live? And I was like, well, it's a long story, but I live in LA, but I also live here and it's my job to make sure that you guys are welcome when you get to North with Arkansas. And so then we get to Walmart and everyone's like oh, hey, hey. But then now I have this access.
Speaker 3:So I was on executive row, I was talking to. I was there in a different capacity. It was a weird situation because then the Walmart people were like, well, what do you do? Why are you here? And then the talent was like now, who is she? What does she do? It's just a great opportunity of being able to bring both of my loves together. But at the end of it all, it was bringing people together, which is what I wanted to do. I just didn't necessarily know how to do it and now it's starting to come together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. If we rewind back to the retail journey for you from Macy's, the journey to Walmart, can you tell us a little bit more about?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I like to tell people I lost my job three times, but I've never not been without a job. Does that make sense?
Speaker 3:So, either through a corporate restructure, an elimination, a move. So Macy's had decided at the time. There were all these regional offices, and so I was in the San Francisco office and they had a New York office, a Florida office, I think. Based off of the economy, they decided to basically eliminate all of their regional offices, and so they were going from eight to one, and so they brought us all in and they said, hey, we're closing this office effective May 1st. You have six months to kind of figure it out. And so I was one of the lucky seven of the 300 people that got offered a job in New York.
Speaker 3:But I had a mentor of mine say to me I know you wanna go and work for Macy's in New York, but I gotta tell you there's an opportunity at Walmart. They're moving their fashion office to New York and you have a unique opportunity that they don't have. And so at the time I was kind of like what I'm doing now in a weird way. I was so. My role was I was in charge of all the better sportswear, so I had Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren and Isaac Masrahi and Oscar De La Renta and I was kind of like their girl Friday in a weird way. So I had to make sure that they were happy. And so when Walmart moved to New York and they took over the fashion, they were launching brands like Miley Cyrus, starter, danskin, ocean Pacific, and the caveat was Neil Cole, who was Kenneth Cole's brother.
Speaker 3:And he owned this company called Iconics, and Iconics also launched Isaac Masrahi for Liz Claiborne, oscar De La Renta and Tommy Hilfiger, and so they were like, yeah, there's this young girl who's like 29, and she works with all of them. And Walmart was like, do you think she would want to work from us? And that's how it started. So I moved to New York and I launched Starter and Danskin for Walmart and I got to work with him because he was incredibly difficult to work with.
Speaker 3:So I just kind of moved from one company to the next. And so that's how, because, literally, my interview process was eight hours.
Speaker 1:I love it that the most. Yeah, so from the beginning, driving excitement Was a part of your Walmart persona. Right, let's bring in launch brands.
Speaker 3:Well, launching brands, and so this whole adaptability the ability to deal with different types of people and To be okay with being, being able to think outside the box and be uneasy, so somehow being able to find comfort and newness and Excitement, and not necessarily knowing what your path is going to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, right. I mean anytime you're launching a major initiative, yeah, at a major company. Yeah, there's the, the plan, and then there's the reality of what it takes to get there. We've said before the the retail journey is a nonlinear journey right. It's not just a simple a to b. There's a lot of things that end up changing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I associate it with also being you know, when you're a division one athlete and you play on a team, you you have to be able to be a team player, but you also need to know when to step out. Yeah and what it's your turn, and so I kind of associate it with. There's this discipline, right, but you have to be able to be open to do something different, and then what it's your turn is time to step up.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:And so that's kind of how I've been able to kind of glide through and that's, I think, way the way I've been able to also Navigate my life inside and outside as I go on this journey of newness right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's exciting. Yeah, lots of new things. No pun intended.
Speaker 2:So there's a really cool project that you're involved with with Dave and Jenny Mars from HG TV Fixed her to fabulous the TV show. You're not with the TV show, but you're working with them on developing what.
Speaker 3:So it's kind of what Charles talked a little bit about. The reason why I started working with them is because of developing brands, and so we had had a prior relationship and when they knew that I was retiring or or leaving Walmart, they actually had been approached by Walmart to develop a brand with Walmart. And so they have a line, in collaboration with Better Homes and Gardens, called the Dave and Jenny Mars collection. But they had no idea about product development, about brand yeah, and so when I came on, literally it was just me, jenny and Dave, and I was doing all of helping them with the product placement, the packaging. We're trying to figure out social media, trying to figure out marketing, and we kind of just created it from the ground up.
Speaker 3:Hmm and then from there it goes back to and I hope that's the thread that goes throughout the conversation is we had such a great relationship and we trust it, but we were also open to whatever the newness was and that we were going to be challenged. Yeah, and so well.
Speaker 2:That's where creativity comes and that's for creativity.
Speaker 3:So then that moved into Strategic partnerships. You know brand influencer deals, helping to manage them. You know she has a new book coming out, so I lead that and so kind of just jumping in wherever I'm needed and then going from there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a lot of folks, both on the merchant and the supplier side that are trying to build brands or to Develop brands really effectively. I'd love to hear you know what's the short list of all right. What do you focus on and and how do you draw your attention in the right direction so you can launch a brand Well?
Speaker 3:well, I think the reason why I've been able. I don't know if they've all been successful, but I've launched a lot of brands and I always start with what do people want?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I think we forget that the customer is the most important person, always, huh, and always, always. And I think that that's why I've been able to be so successful at Walmart is even though I didn't necessarily come from Walmart, I knew that that in order to be successful in a brand, if you're not taking the customer into consideration, Yep then you've already lost.
Speaker 1:Oh, totally. It's so you don't have a brand, you don't have a brand.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and every single brand that I've launched, it's always figuring out when did we go wrong before being accepting of the feedback. A lot of time you don't want to hear the feedback. You know what I mean, but what are you gonna do about it? You got to get over that part. A lot of Analyticals from the data guys, you know so Analyzing everything.
Speaker 3:Yeah and then what we do is we kind of create an experiment where we ask the same questions to the same suppliers and If you get some of the same results, you know what path you should go and you know what should be what you should eliminate.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:And so that's really kind of how we started. So I kind of started with Jenny and Dave and mine Giving them a reality check of who the customer is, but also never losing sight of why you did what you did. And I think, if you could be authentic about it, you have the right quality, the great price and you're taking that customer and then you just try, but then when something doesn't work, you know, I still one of my, the people that I that's up there, there's quite a few people that I consider to be people that I would never forget, that will always be in the back of my mind, would be Andy Baron, yeah, who retired as an executive vice president, but also Greg foreign, who was, you know, the president of Walmart US.
Speaker 3:Yep and he used to really be like push you into doing something new, but then he would tell you if it didn't work, I need you to fell fast and then I need you to move on. And so, as long as you're always being okay with the fact that you're not gonna be right and that you don't know at all, then you're gonna be okay right and so my favorite thing that I say to my team all the time.
Speaker 3:I'd be like, well, who did that? And then I'd be like, was that my suggestion? And they'll be like, yeah, I was like. I don't know what I was.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, and the the light bulb is having that permission to fail or fail fast. Yeah allows you to stay in that gray area until Creativity sparks.
Speaker 3:That gives you the thing you're looking for in the first place and I think that's what what gets in people's way is, because there's this fear out there that you can't show your weakness Right, that you can't be who you are and that it's okay that you don't know, and so I think that that's a big part of it. And then just being the other part of me is being prepared Right.
Speaker 3:If I say I'm gonna be somewhere, if I say I'm gonna do something, I'm gonna do it yeah and if, if I can't do it because For some reason, then it's my job to communicate that, and so and I think that that's why I've been able to have so many great relationships is because everyone says alright, whatever she is, that's who she is, you know, whatever she says she's going to do, she's going to do it. Yeah and if she doesn't know how to do it, she'll tell you.
Speaker 1:I'm seeing the the thread of how openness, both in relationships and in business, is the key to being able to be creative. If you're focused on the right things, if you're authentic, right on relationship, authentic and brand, you're focused on the customer, you're focused on the human Growth occurs right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you know another thing that kind of stands out To be able to live in that discomfort for a period of time until you land somewhere. You've got to believe in yourself. Yeah right and so, valuing what you bring, valuing the, the, the thing that you're bringing, you know, how do you, how do you approach that it bring us into? To Twila's mind, I mean.
Speaker 3:I'll start with saying is that it's not always easy.
Speaker 3:Yeah right, because you can be your biggest critic, right? Not to mention the fact that you have the whole world that's possibly saying that, hey, she doesn't know what she's doing, mm-hmm, right. So someone's always gonna have an opinion, but if you are your biggest critic and you're not fighting for yourself, then you've already failed, right. And so for me, as I go into each moment, it's more of what is it that I need to do? And and if it's something that's not sitting right with me and it's just not for me, and then I say it's just not for me. And that was the hardest part where I live in a world right now, if I decide that it's taking up too much of my time, then I say I can't do it.
Speaker 3:Yeah if it's, if it's something that I don't think align with my core values, then I tell you it's not gonna happen. Yeah, where before? I think when you work for a corporate Environment, sometimes you can't necessarily say that yeah, or you feel like you can't, and the courage is the courage is being able to do it.
Speaker 3:You can see people who have the courage to stand and be themselves and be true to that Right and so, and I think that and I've always said this, and I said the day that it doesn't align with my core values and I feel like I can't be who I am, then that's when it's time for me to go. Yeah and so, when I knew it, I Communicated it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that and so yeah, and that you know, creating openness and encouraging People to be true feels like a segue to the Bentonville Film Festival. Yeah, can you tell us a little bit about what it's about and what you're doing with the Bentonville Film Festival?
Speaker 3:So the the Film Festival came about in a very interesting way. So I was always kind of a part of it as being a part of the entertainment entertainment council for Walmart, but more like I would be a moderator or I would introduce a film. And then, right when I left, they reached out to me because I wanted Dave and Jenny to To do kind of like a fireside chat for the Bentonville Film Festival, and so we did that and then the president reached out to me, probably six months prior before I started working with them, and they said you know what? We've all been talking and we want you to come and work for us. And I said well, I appreciate that, but there's a lot of people offering me jobs and I actually don't really need a job.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:I said but I'll do whatever I can to help, but I just can't really be involved. And so I decided, probably about March of last year, that I started just sitting in on calls Trying to understand the film business or the media business. If anybody knows Like, no one really understands.
Speaker 1:Well, you're from Los Angeles, so you must inherently I'm from Los Angeles.
Speaker 3:What I know about it some of it you don't want to know about- right, you don't mean it.
Speaker 3:So I was like, how can I Be authentic, how can I be open? So I kind of do everything that I do, like building a brand. I go into a creative mode where I start learning about it. And so I was sitting on a lot of Calls, I was being introduced to like the Sundance Film Festival, to Gina Davis's Foundation, trying to understand what people did, to try to figure out what my value would be, yeah, and then I realized that my goal was to help them kind of connect the thread strategically While but I love what they stood for, right, and so there it's about women and people of color, bring in diverse voices, helping to, you know, expand Bentonville with a partnership of Walmart and Coca-Cola. And I was like this is what I want to do. Yeah, but my first priority obviously is to David, jenny and to my own company. So I knew that I had to kind of like skip and take my time. So I started with just doing the communications and community liaison, helping them navigate.
Speaker 3:Walmart did a few. There was a huge two films that were from local talent. So Mackenzie Marks, who obviously she works at Walmart, she is the, the granddaughter of David Glass, and she had directed a film, the story of Mr Glass, and then RJ Hanna he did of. He did a movie called hard miles. He went to Bentonville High School, hmm.
Speaker 3:And so I was like, well, maybe this is why I meant to be here. I meant to take Local voices that are living in Los Angeles or jet or have their own film and figure out a way to regionally get exposure out there. And that ended up Going over very nicely and they're like you need to do more of that. But we also want you to do films from New York and from LA, and I said I'm willing to do that. But I want to make sure that we're highlighting the people of Northwest Arkansas who are doing good things.
Speaker 3:You can't highlight everyone, but you can highlight the ones that are doing good things. And so I used my resources. You know my partners and you know I helped them strategically start to come up with the plan, and that's how it started. And then they asked me to, you know, be their chief operating officer, and I was like another keep, they keep trying to give me jobs and I was like I can't. I said my priority is David, jenny, but I can come on and help you as your corporate liaison and your local PR lead, and that's where we are. So for someone who wants to, enjoy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, bentonville Film Festival, tell us about how. And then, if someone wants to engage and we've got Well, if they want to engage, you guys, they could always reach out to me.
Speaker 3:You'll have my information. But if they want to enjoy, our 10th anniversary is next year. That's crazy. It's crazy that it's been 10 years.
Speaker 2:It really is wow and like.
Speaker 3:We're really like our theme is hashtag, turn it up Like we're really going to take over Downtown Bentonville and with the partnership of, you know, obviously, walmart and Coca-Cola, we're going to have more films, more music. You know, we did a few things that were pretty interesting this year. We had a marketplace to highlight women and black owned businesses. That took off, so we're going to have even more and open it up to more people. And then we also did this vendor village where we had a partnership with a lot of the. The chefs from Food Network come in and and all the food was free. Okay, so it became this family environment.
Speaker 3:So the other thing that I, love about it is If you don't have a lot of money. But let's say you have a, you're a family of four. All you have to do is get in your car, come into downtown Bentonville and you can eat food for free, you can watch a movie for free. So there's so many things that you can do where you don't necessarily have to have a lot of money, and so it comes back to. Our job is to provide access.
Speaker 1:I love that so much, cause I mean talking about bringing people together and then putting money directly to oh, we're going to make it free and bring people together.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the crazy thing is, you know, between the Walton Foundation, like the momentary, a lot of that is end kind donations, and so people can come out and even if you have $20, you possibly can watch movies, you know, all day. So if you're a lover of movies, you're a lover of film, and so our job, so now my job also is, to every single person that comes into Bentonville, if they're coming from Los Angeles, from New York, from wherever they're coming, when they step off that plane or if they drive, they will be welcome right, and so it's all about how can we welcome you and show you what we're about so that you never want to leave and that you want to come back and reinvest it into Northwest Arkansas, and so that's kind of how you continue, that's how this cycle works.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the voices start to feed off of each other and becomes an organic sharing.
Speaker 3:And it becomes this ground lifting, groundbreaking thing that happens, and then we can take the Bentonville Film Festival from a regional festival to a national festival. So that's kind of the goal.
Speaker 2:I love that. So what's coming up that you're most excited about, whether it's with Dave and Ginny or another project? What?
Speaker 3:We have so much coming up. So Dave and Ginny so Fix it or Fabulous will air will premiere on November the 7th. So they moved that up. In addition to that, we will start on the 13th on a national book tour for Ginny. Her new book is coming out called House Plus Love Equals Home. So if you think about gravitating being around the table, so that'll be important.
Speaker 3:We have another TV show that we're filming in Tuscany in Italy that we should be done filming that at the end of December. So that's great. And then we're working on a 10th anniversary of the Bentonville Film Festival. But one of the other things that we did this week and last week was we're working with where it's no longer CD&I you know from Chief Diversity and Inclusion it's belonging. So we're working with Denise Malo and her team to bring content throughout the year to Walmart and to Northwest Arkansas. So this past Tuesday at Sam's Club we actually premiered A Great Divide, which is a movie starring Ken Jong and Jase Park. It was our feature film for the Bentonville Film Festival and it was talking about Asian hate and how Asian Americans are portrayed in.
Speaker 3:America specifically, you know, after COVID and what they're going through, and every single touch point will be focusing on Hispanic Heritage Month, which started yesterday with John Ligozamo, so that will be next month, and then we'll go into Black History Month, International Women's Day, and we'll have a run-up before we get to June.
Speaker 1:Awesome.
Speaker 2:Belonging. I like that. Yeah, I like that a lot, because it covers so many things.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you just. Everybody needs to belong.
Speaker 1:You start in retail. Yeah yeah, the momentary was ahead of the game.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so, yeah. So that's a little bit of what I'm doing.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, that is exciting. So time for the lightning round.
Speaker 1:I think we can get to lightning round before we go there. I mean, your experience is both at Macy's and Walmart in retail. You know this is the retail journey. I think what's so cool is talking through how the human aspect of being open and even in retail being open, those things come together, retail or business. Otherwise. I'd love to hear your sort of closing thoughts on how does your experience, what you know today like what advice would you give to yourself coming out of college stepping into retail.
Speaker 3:That's good.
Speaker 1:Knowing what you know now.
Speaker 3:Well, I think, if you think about the retail landscape today, it's substantially different than you know. When I stepped out of college, right, you know, it was very like brick and mortar. It was all about what was happening in the store. I think the exciting thing about retail is you never know where it's gonna come from. Right now, right? Yeah, between e-commerce, between what's happening.
Speaker 3:I think what I didn't know then, what I know now, and what I would say to every new person who wants to get into retail, is to be open and be okay with challenging yourself and give yourself grace, because you're gonna fail, right. And then, once you fail, most people don't necessarily judge you on how you got there, right, but they judge you on how you react to something. And so, you know, be open, be willing to take on something that you've never done. If you fail, give yourself grace, and it's how you react to it. What did you learn? How can you be better and how do you just and lastly, the other thing that I always say to my team no matter what, always have fun, right. If you're not having fun, and then I hate to tell you this you need to go find something else to do, because life's too short, you know, and it's not like we're. Sometimes we think it's a surgical procedure, but it's not, yeah, and so those would be the things that I would say to myself.
Speaker 1:I love it. Yeah, I'd like to start the lightning round with your biggest fail in retail.
Speaker 3:Oh, my God, I've had quite a few. Oh, but I have. There was this one that we did where we were very excited about it. So back in the day, licensing's huge and someone had and I went to the home show and I found these little pillows that were the size of a square Right and they were like three dollars and we put all type of licenses around them. We're like you could throw them, you can do that, and Scott McCall, who was always like one, of my biggest cheerleaders.
Speaker 3:He was like you got to do it up, you got to make it big. And I was like, well, we're gonna buy like 500,000. And he was like 500,000. What are you talking about? I want millions. And I was like okay.
Speaker 2:We can do millions.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh. I think we had like a A 2% sell sale the first week and then I was like no, no, no no 2%, you know how you wake up and you're like is this a joke?
Speaker 1:So then we were like okay.
Speaker 3:So then a month went by and we were like at 10% and I was like I would break out in hives because I was like this is where I get fired. Yeah, like I'm gonna get fired she got yeah. And so I went into Scott McCall and he was like, yeah, that was bad. And I was like, oh my god, that was bad. I was like you're not upset. He was like if I had a penny or a dollar for every bad item, I thought and he was like I would have a lot of money.
Speaker 3:And I was like don't you have a lot of money? And he was like, well, you know what?
Speaker 1:You gotta be able to fail. Yeah, I've checked a UPC before to make sure it was working, and sure enough it was.
Speaker 3:That wasn't why. It wasn't why we were just buying it. They just didn't like it. You were like surely you were like. They have not put it out.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I am gonna drive to every single store locally, and then you see it and you're like oh, it's just, it's just by it.
Speaker 2:So the flip side of that, what's, what's the thing in retail that you're most proud of Are? They enjoyed the most at the most fun.
Speaker 3:I think I could say building a brand, you know. But I think I would say and I know it sounds cheesy, but I think it was the people- yeah you know what I mean. And I think the other thing that I think I enjoyed was with Walmart. I think I went to 28 countries.
Speaker 2:Hmm.
Speaker 3:And so I always tell people like I'm a better person, I'm a better human. Because when you travel around the world and you understand that the life that you think is so hard, yeah our lives are not hard, and so it.
Speaker 3:You get a quick reality check and it puts it into perspective, and so I would think that the two things would be obviously, you know a lot of the people that I met, that I've got to mentor, the people who have been toward me, but the places that I've been around the world, like I can go through my passport and you know I may not want to go there again ever there's some places but I went and and everywhere I went Walmart or the people who were there made sure that we were taken care of.
Speaker 2:Hmm, that's great. What's your favorite sports team?
Speaker 3:I live and breathe through the Los Angeles Dodgers. I mean they I know this sounds dramatic, but sometimes I was like they are why I exist. But I'm like obsessed and every single person knows. And so I am so excited that Luckily it was this week, because I was nervous when you were like oh yeah. Because I'm leaving for New York, I mean for LA, and I'll just go back and forth Until and hopefully they'll go to the World Series.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then I'll just be with them wherever they go. We're like those, those people that they say like Dodger fans, we will go wherever we need to go to get our team over the hump.
Speaker 1:You're going the distance, going the distance. This is the year, oh, this is the year.
Speaker 3:I mean it's gonna be different than 2020, because you know I was there In Texas when they did it, but this, like we're gonna get it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's gonna be the year. That's great. It's been so much fun talking to you. Appreciate you coming out today.
Speaker 3:Oh no, my god, I'm so. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Very grateful if, if one person understands it and and it helps one person, then that makes my life and my job so much easier.
Speaker 1:I love it. Thank you so much for joining and thank you all for joining us on the retail journey. You can find our podcast on our website at highimpactanalyticscom and on any of the podcast streaming platforms. We're here to go on the retail journey with you, both the human side, being personal and being the people that we are as Individuals and also with you in CPG land, figuring out how to make things work that's right figuring out what customers are actually looking for. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:You.
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