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
Helping Suppliers Thrive in Walmart's Ecosystem: Lessons from 8th & Walton
When we sat down with Jeff Clapper, President and CEO of 8th & Walton, we knew we'd get insights on supplier training – but our conversation revealed something much more profound about the evolving retail landscape.
From its origins teaching suppliers about Walmart's culture and systems to today's comprehensive support services, 8th & Walton has witnessed and adapted to dramatic shifts in what suppliers need to succeed. Jeff shares how the organization now balances urgent operational training with strategic education that prevents problems before they occur.
The transition from legacy data systems like DSS to new platforms like Scintilla represents both challenge and opportunity. While these systems offer unprecedented visibility into consumer behavior, they demand constant learning from suppliers who can't afford to fall behind. As Jeff aptly describes, success requires being an "aggressive student" of retail – recognizing that yesterday's expertise quickly becomes obsolete in this fast-moving environment.
Jeff shares about 8th Walton's journey to becoming a certified B Corporation, demonstrating that business growth and positive impact aren't mutually exclusive. Jeff's perspective on "scaling values" rather than just scaling revenue offers a refreshing counterpoint to traditional retail metrics. This philosophy aligns perfectly with the emerging trend of consumers preferring brands that demonstrate ethical practices and sustainability.
The conversation culminates with Jeff's preview of the upcoming "Consumer Impact" event in Bentonville, bringing together impact-minded brands to share best practices in sustainable retail. It's a tangible example of how the supplier community is evolving beyond transactions to create meaningful change.
Whether you're a seasoned Walmart supplier or just beginning your retail journey, this episode offers valuable perspective on navigating today's complex retail environment while building a business that makes a positive difference.
Hello and welcome to the Retail Journey podcast. I'm one of your hosts, charles Greathouse.
Speaker 2:And I am James Harris, and today we're talking to Jeff Clapper. Jeff is the president and CEO of 8th Walton, and 8th Walton is a supplier education organization.
Speaker 3:That's right, all right.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me. Welcome to the retail journey. Yeah, glad to be here.
Speaker 1:Thanks guys. Yeah, jeff, first question. So where is 8th Walton located?
Speaker 2:I just got to know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know that's an excellent question. There's actually a building that kindly branded at the intersection of 8th and Walton and people assume that is where we are. In fact we're at the Ledger in downtown Bentonville now.
Speaker 1:Perfect, so not 8th and Walton. So if you're looking for Jeff and you're at 8th and Walton, if it's signed 8th and Walton and you're inside, then you know you're at the Ledger. If you happen to be at the intersection of those streets, you're not, but historically pretty close to that's right.
Speaker 3:yeah, in fact we we used to have some, you know, kind of collaborative stuff and you know where the office was for many years and it was just a block away from there and we would occasionally get a call from someone who's like I'm at eighth and walton so where are you?
Speaker 1:where are you?
Speaker 3:like you're, you're very close but you're not close.
Speaker 2:I can't remember if you were there yet um when I was doing, but I used to lease, sublease space from eighth and walton, my first office was was in eighth and walton, long history, long, long time.
Speaker 1:And you're the significant uh retailer located at eighth and walton today. But I believe, yeah, uh, the announcement is actually happening to the day of this recording of the official opening of the new home office campus. So is there a rebrand of fifth and jay?
Speaker 3:no, yeah, you know, we've talked about it and thought about it. There's there. We've spent a lot of time building a great brand around the name and uh. So it'll be like an easter egg. You know, if you know, you know if you know, you know where the name?
Speaker 2:that's great. Well, and a lot of what you do now is virtual, is it not?
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah so much of our training is through zoom, uh and and virtual and uh.
Speaker 2:It's worked out really well for the whole team so, and I know aethon walton has been around for a long time. Probably a lot of locals know what it is. But assuming they don't, or there's somebody listening from out of town what? What is aethon walton? What has it been historically? What are you moving into?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I mean, it started off. You know, like you said, early on, education for Walmart suppliers. So anybody who had business with Walmart and you know the history, you know this as well as why don't you answer James?
Speaker 3:No, yeah. So it started off. A couple of people recognize that Walmart suppliers needed to know more about working with Walmart and being a successful partner and collaborator with the company, and so they started off teaching things like history and values and culture how do you be a good supplier by knowing that customer and how they think and operate and then pretty quickly recognized a little bit more tactically, but really important was just to understand the systems, the data that was available and teaching the team. So, you know, going back almost 20 years ago, a lot of those suppliers just needed to learn you know how do I get sales data, supply chain data, all of that and so it was early on. It was Retail Inc and DSS and some of those systems and then Pour one out for DSS.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly Another yeah exactly another, yeah, another, uh, another bygone system. So, um, you know, and I always say, like that's really to walmart's credit, they're so dynamic, they continue to evolve and grow, and they're they're they're never like resting on their laurels what's worked in the past, let's continue to improve, you know. And so that means suppliers are along for that ride also charles shares this all the time.
Speaker 2:The dss was probably one of the major unlocks that made walmart a national grocer. Yeah, uh, just the sharing of that data in near real time. Yeah, it was really far ahead of its time when it was developed and launched absolutely, and now with uh scintilla from that data ventures group.
Speaker 1:You've got digital landscapes, you've got some insight activation, you've got shopper behavior. These are insights and data capabilities that have been completely unavailable to the retail network in the past. So I'm excited to see how that ushers in the next era of data utilization in this space. You know, to be a coast-to-coast grocer was the unknown, unprecedented thing of the 90s that Walmart accomplished, you know, here in 2025, that next unknown, unprecedented thing. I'm excited to see how that data plays a significant role.
Speaker 3:No, that's cool, that's right on. Sometimes I think of the comparison to Google selling advertising and that obviously has been its core product for a long time. And they said, hey, if we provide great analytics and great data and essentially make it free and we show people that when you put a dollar in this end of the machine in advertising and it produces $10 in sales over here, that's a good thing.
Speaker 3:If we could spend you know that's a good spend and you know you'll feel encouraged, compelled, to spend more of that. That's a good ROI. But again they made the data and the analytics free. So that you could justify spending the advertising, and I think it's going to be interesting to see how it shakes out with the strategy of we're going to monetize the ads and the data you know like. Where will that shake out?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean, even the free data is improved with the basic stuff as well. But yeah, behind that charter subscription is a whole different level of unlock that in the past wasn't available at all. The super large cpgs tend to get a little bit closer to it by combining all of the different available resources in the market, but the mid-tier and smaller have never been able to, and I actually think that there's a significant unlock for them when it comes to a relatively nominal investment with Walmart to get charter data. That gives you a very deep, very rich perspective on your customer, how they're evolving, how people are finding you online, so on and so forth.
Speaker 2:And if a supplier does have a campaign on Walmart Connect, there actually is quite a bit of free data that comes along with that. Very similar to the Google model. You just get a lot more if you incorporate charter in with it.
Speaker 3:Sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 1:No, but I think your point's well made. There's a very new wave of this data use of decision. Retail media, frankly, 10 years ago was an edge case. It is a fundamental core of CPG today. So to think what's 10 years from now look like is a fun thought exercise. We're not going to take the whole journey today. You can't see that far into the future. The retail journey, you know, is one that involves right now and about the next 18 months.
Speaker 3:And a few minutes along the way, but this podcast is not going to go for a full 18 months.
Speaker 1:No, I mean the three of us. Yeah, the three of us sitting here. Yeah, we'll have to circle back in 18 months and see where we were right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like that. Yeah, yeah. So that's. We talked a little bit about what where 8-1-1 came from. Where are you today? What's new, what's different? If somebody was familiar with, maybe 10 years ago, what the training options were.
Speaker 3:What's a reintroduction for them today?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, we still offer a lot of training to a lot of suppliers, particularly when they're and at this point this is many suppliers, are they're and at this point this is many suppliers they're well-established with Walmart at this point, so they know we have these people in these roles and here are topics or classes that are going to be relevant and helpful to the people in those desks, on those desks.
Speaker 3:And then the other thing that's kind of evolved from just the last several years now is just recognizing that some suppliers are either it's amazing, you guys know this well too. There are some suppliers I would consider large companies $100 million, $200 million a year in revenue just from Walmart, and no one has Walmart on their business card at that company. They're successful, they've been in for decades, but to have a little bit more expertise or guidance or instruction on how to support Walmart as a customer could go a long way for a company of that size. And so that's one example. And then on the other side of it, sometimes we're hearing from a company where it's maybe the president or VP of sales. They just got a yes and of course that's an exciting time, and then they're all like oh, shoot Now what do we do?
Speaker 1:What does this mean? Yeah, yeah, like the third wise question to ask. Usually, you end up finding out what it means and where your assumptions were wrong.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's good to be proactive.
Speaker 1:That's right yeah.
Speaker 3:And you know, I'm sure in what you guys do it's like well, better to address this earlier than later. It's been interesting.
Speaker 1:The full service brokerage side of high impact analytics is only a couple of years old. It's becoming the largest portion of our business. I think it's because we've focused so long on those things that are just tactical rubber on the road. Very good at setting items up the way that they're supposed to be. Very good at stewarding inventory management, seeing when something's going to be out before it's out, seeing where inventory is not flowing through fulfillment centers or DCs where it's supposed to be. In this digital world, all the content scores that need to be in place for a customer to even find your item page, let alone convert on that item page. All of these different aspects are just very fundamental that keep changing, keep evolving and they have to be there for your sales team to be successful.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:Table stakes.
Speaker 1:You can enter and get by, but we're more about the thrive. What's it take to actually be a really good partner to your merchant? What's it take to be able to um sustain everyday low cost in a way that uh allows you to help Walmart continue to deliver against everyday low price? And that takes some foresight. That takes planning. It takes intentional cost removal through your entire network. There's been a lot more time spent upstream, coaching manufacturers through where they have waste and they need to remove that waste, than I feel like there was in years past.
Speaker 2:One of our core messages is that year two in distribution is harder than year one and year three is harder than both of them combined. If you're going to continue to grow not only your brand, but the category that you're in, which is the ultimate goal.
Speaker 1:The category is the thing that matters, not just whether or not your item is on the shelf.
Speaker 3:Of course that's something anybody who's selling a thing wants their thing.
Speaker 1:Walmart, the most effective retail platform on the planet, but to stay there, you got to be doing something with the merchant stewards, which is customer trust. And what's happening to the category yeah A company?
Speaker 3:we've worked with for several years uh, their head of sales has a great uh, has a great metaphor for what you've just said, which is it's not a baseball game where you're guaranteed nine innings. It's a boxing match, you know, and you could drop at the end of the first round I like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, isn't that great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, yeah, and you describe that first you think, oh wow, the work is done.
Speaker 3:He knows no, it's not, you're just more tired. Yeah, you're both sweating already. Yeah, you got some blood.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh gosh yeah, I don't think it's as abusive of a relationship, as that metaphor always breaks somewhere.
Speaker 3:The work is definitely yeah yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you got to keep fighting, you got to keep working for it. Yeah, well, what are some of the topics when it comes to training that you're seeing a high awareness of, and people you know pulling down the door like we got it, we got to have this. And then perhaps are there some where there seems to be a low awareness but a high need.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, I think, a couple different questions in there or topics. You know, one that is consistently, you know, of need is hey, my CFO just called. We're getting all kinds of deductions. Help us figure this out. And so here are some classes that are going to help you understand the cause and really get to that. And what I like about the approach on all of this, in terms of just teaching and trying to help problem solve, is, like you know, try to get to the root cause. We don't want you to just have to take aspirin the rest of your life. If you can avoid it, let's figure out why it's happening. So, whether it's on a consultative basis or on a training basis, really trying to help you understand what's behind these charges or deductions so that you don't have to keep fighting them in perpetuity. That's not always avoidable. There are certain things that are part of how it works, but sometimes there are some key things you can unlock. Then it's like, oh, these deductions have gone away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, so that's always fun yeah, um, it's much easier to prevent one than to get it back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we just talked about cutting costs out of the system and that, yeah, that is, that is a way you don't need to bear that expense. Let's right, let's get it right the first time, right, right yeah, and so those are.
Speaker 3:That's a common topic still, um, of course. Uh, illuminate a lot of suppliers just trying to figure out. Okay, what happened to dss.
Speaker 1:I did this for years and you know we're a. We're a blast from the past right now, because this is being recorded in january, where it is still that, but it's scintilla by the time this episode releases. Thank you, yes, I got you right on the cusp.
Speaker 3:I appreciate the nod. Speaking to the future, yeah, right, okay, well, no, I'm glad you mentioned that. So Scintilla, formerly known as formerly known as, yes, yeah, so that's. Another key topic is just understanding supply. You know, for suppliers to continue to be good partners, they have to have the data that they you know Walmart has provided, and so so, helping them understand new systems and how to use it, that's an important topic.
Speaker 1:Still, it's a very new platform very new data on the charter side and the basic side. It's kind of new, but certainly the way you access it is new. Dss wasn't new. It's very much the same and yet you were still doing training for DSS. Do you expect there to be an end for the need for it for training for scintilla?
Speaker 3:well, I mean, I'm in my head. I have, like my pre-teen, you know, kind of flip answer which would well have suppliers stopped hiring new people who have never worked on new people, of course yeah, there's always some churn supplier teams shift, someone leaves, someone new comes in, someone gets promoted, whatever.
Speaker 3:It is a wonderful career path, which means it's a step. Yeah, and the new person we had we had someone who consistently bought a block of training from us every year for his team. You know this was a well-known brand and he said every time I get a new person on my team, I say congratulations, you just won a trip to take several classes with Ethan Watson. Nice, because it was, like you said, a new person on the team. Someone got promoted, moved away, whatever it was.
Speaker 2:When you think about it, organizations can only do so many things. Well, right. So a brand company or a private brand company, they're going to do that really well it doesn't mean they're good at training for basic skills.
Speaker 3:That's exactly it. They're not. I mean, and they probably have some good HR people, but even there, those HR people are not necessarily Walmart experts, or they have some really capable, knowledgeable Walmart people, but they're busy doing their day job. How much time can I take? Furthermore, can I give that person a consistent understanding? Is it? Are we going to teach them A through Z? Are we just going to kind of spot check certain things that I happen to know and am I teaching them the right stuff? Am I teaching them bad habits? All of that Right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's for the relevance of it. Yeah, I like that as a way of stewarding a cohesive training program with Dave and Walton. What are some of the things that people should probably be spending more time on training? And you see the results from those that see it. But, aren't commonly first of mind.
Speaker 3:Yeah, from those that see it um, um, commonly, first of mine, yeah, you know, I think one of the things we talk about with suppliers and and this is you know, they're sort of like what should you learn? And then, what do you think you want to learn? And I mean from an entrepreneurial, entrepreneurial perspective. You're always kind of like, well, this would be in your best interest, but you have asked me about deductions, so that's what I'm going to offer you, and so your question is a great one.
Speaker 3:I mean, there are topics you know, you guys are probably familiar with, like important versus urgent yep and there are some topics retail airs on the urgent exactly all day, every day exactly, and so, in terms of demand for what we teach, it's almost always an urgent issue and I'm like if we could have taught you how to set your items up correctly on the front side, we wouldn't be having to urgently teach you about how to fix it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you know, I think, uh, I think that I come back around to the question. I think, um, that is anything that we would say that's important. Um, it's just a lot tougher to sell those classes, frankly, because people are like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that's important, but right now, do it one day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what about in the omni or digital space? Are you guys doing much in that realm?
Speaker 3:Yes, it is that definitely leans more towards and you guys know this well, I'm sure. It's such a wide and variable space right now and so it's. It doesn't lend itself a couple of factors. It doesn't lend itself as well to training on a system like like Scintilla and I've caught myself where it. You know it is, that platform is changing consistently but it's kind of headed down a path, but it's so much more sort of dynamic and meandering, and so you know, from one month to the next that class could take a totally different direction. And we just told someone that you're going to learn these things in this class and then the next month, actually, what you need to know, these things have changed.
Speaker 2:And because the content score guides are different by category, they get updated. The algorithm gets updated multiple times a year. There's a lot of factors.
Speaker 3:Available tools to drive growth with Walmart Connect are constantly evolving, growing, and which ones work really well, frankly, evolve with that and all of that speaks to the value of what you all do and I think, anybody who's here being an aggressive student of Walmart that can provide that value back to a supplier. That's really important. You know and you know. And then, to your detriment, if someone left a career with a supplier or with Walmart and said I know this thing and I don't have to keep studying it, you did, yeah, you did.
Speaker 1:You did know last week. I love that An aggressive student.
Speaker 3:That's what. That's the language we use internally.
Speaker 1:That's the word right there, yeah.
Speaker 3:Progressive student. That's the language we use internally. That's the word right there. We have specific meetings every week to talk about. What are you learning right now? To make sure we're continuously learning about Walmart, because we've got and same with you all. You've people who've done this for a long time, but in two weeks that could be totally irrelevant.
Speaker 1:Not only could it be it happens At an almost alarming rate as things keep evolving. We've got new systems we were just talking about one of the private brand systems for submitting all of these details and it takes a lot of. There's a lot of nuance, called pro spec, and there's a new system coming within the next six months. So it's okay great. We definitely need to know how to do this, and soon.
Speaker 3:We won't need to know at all. It's going to be a brand new system, right?
Speaker 1:right. And guess what? On day one in the new system we will need to be proficient. Yeah, because it's the system you get to use there's not an overlap period, and so there is definitely a language of Walmart systems that we've found. So we find we're pretty fast at interpreting and you kind of block off that week and you send at least one person to go entirely deep.
Speaker 1:Your job this week is let's go find out, document, help each other, and then we learn. We call it the hive here. That's our hive mindset, where one person is an expert first, and then there's a few, and then we all have that skill set in our toolbox.
Speaker 3:That's good. Yeah, it's really important, yeah, and if you don't do that, I think you guys could probably appreciate. Also, frankly, when things change, sometimes you have more notice or chance to prepare and sometimes you don't, and then we end up looking like jerks, honestly, where someone on the outside is like I thought you guys knew this stuff and you're like, well, it just changed 20 minutes ago. Yeah exactly.
Speaker 1:Well, it's fun Kind of our histories. Here You're telling James like you know this James because, James has quite a bit of history, with 8th Walton helping develop some retail.
Speaker 2:It was a major launching hub for me. When I started the business, first I was employed and I kind of did it for about a year and I built up three clients and then met the original founders of 8th Walton and they said, well, we need a trainer and we need some content written and we need some. I said, all right, I add these together, I can step out. And then we had a referral. So probably my next 10, 12.
Speaker 1:So a huge part of you quitting your day job, so to speak.
Speaker 3:And high impact happening 8th and.
Speaker 1:Walton, the origin story.
Speaker 2:We still have clients that I met in an 8th and Walton training in 2010.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, that is so cool, which I love that you know the the retail link need from a training perspective and this sort of constant changing. I also have experienced the reality of retail link constantly training. I used to train all of the incoming merchants, whether it's I did some internship program training, I did some MBA program, but the it's been through a lot of different names but the buyer training program, merchant training program, merchant leadership program there's a dozen more examples. But I did retailing training and I remember showing up one time to teach how to use Retail Inc I'm the expert here and it was the day they did a major update on Retail Inc and so the screen was entirely different than it was the day before when, I did my final prep I was like, all right, yeah, we're ready for the training tomorrow.
Speaker 3:We have some facilitators Sure enough?
Speaker 1:Nope, not today.
Speaker 3:We have some team members who I'm sure can share your pain on that.
Speaker 1:And it's always more intuitive eventually. Eventually, you land on like, okay, I see what you did there, but in front of a room of 30 new in their career associates. It's a little bit more like Imagine if they paid to be there, that would hit me, that's true. Like Imagine, if they paid to be there, that would hit me sometimes. That's true. They didn't pay me anything to be there.
Speaker 2:Be in a room as the only instructor. 20, sometimes 30 people.
Speaker 2:And about half of it was walking around while people. I'm a hands-on learner believer. You learn more doing than thinking and I'd have to catch myself every single time when somebody would ask a question Maybe I didn't understand the way they were saying it, or maybe it was just a new thing and I'd open my mouth to say I don't know, and that's something you can't really say when somebody's paying for you to tell them, like you're supposed to know, you're supposed to know that's true.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know it's such a good point and that actually that exact phrase is something we talk about on our team also, because back to being like an aggressive learner or student like you can't learn until you say I don't know, yeah, yeah, right. So the first step of learning is just to say I don't know, I knew, I didn't know, but I just wasn't going to vocalize that in the you know, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:And then and then, at the same time, you know you're there, you're building trust with your students or whoever you're working with, and part of trust is to say, like I have limitations, this is something new and I need to learn it. It's like, oh, but you've paid me to have this knowledge.
Speaker 2:It would have been a little insecurity of me in my 20s too. That's just honest. So I believe you all are doing more in the consultative realm. Um, you want to share a little bit about that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, yeah, kind of touched on it a bit, but but really, like I said, um focusing on behind the scenes. So we're not, uh, you know, like repping, brokering, anything like that. It's companies that have business with Walmart already. It could be for many, many years, it could be just new Um, but trying still in the, in the, in the through the lens of education. So we're glad to show you what we're doing, how we're doing it at any point, and sometimes it just makes sense in their business to say like, can you guys do this for a little while until, um, until we have people?
Speaker 3:in place or we have more clarity on who's going to do what we. We don't want to mess up or drop the ball for Walmart. Ultimately, we want to do this ourselves, and so you know, it's kind of an in-between solution there.
Speaker 1:I feel like that makes sense, especially when we talked about a training topic that someone really needs, but they don't know that they need. It's helpful to be able to be in a position to articulate why you need it, without simply being the one selling the training Spot on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, 100%, you know, and one of the things like what that we've done for many years is just kind of a Q and A service. It's very light and it's like it's a hotline, basically, and it's like hey, I'm stuck, I can't figure this out. You got to talk to somebody, yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like otherwise you're spiraling by yourself Counseling. Yeah, I'm wondering why it's ticking. If it's only you, I can't tell you how many times there's just uh. There's a slack channel. We have called I actually need help and it is used every week and every day.
Speaker 1:Their uh systems just go down, yeah, and then come back up, but when it's down and you don't know that it's down, yeah it's your fault yeah but then when you know that, okay, it's down for everyone, right, deep breath, move on about your day, find something else to do to be productive and move on. So I love a hotline, so yeah yeah, it's, it's so true and it's.
Speaker 3:You know, sometimes we're talking to a supplier and saying it's not just you, yeah yeah, sometimes there's a lot of comfort in hearing that sometimes, yeah, you can.
Speaker 2:You can read the body language it's exactly that, so a little bit of a pivot here. Aethon Walton is a B Corp. Yeah, do you want to explain what that is to us?
Speaker 3:Sure, Thank you, I love talking about this. So, yeah, we got certified. We're in our third year as a B Corp. At the time we were only the second B Corp in all of Arkansas and it's a designation. It's a rigorous screening process. The short I can't. I'm going to force myself to talk about it briefly.
Speaker 3:Essentially, it's like using business as a force for good. So you know, we still have to do all the things that any business does to be viable Revenue, profit, take care of your team, that kind of thing. You have to deliver a product at a value or whatever, and we have certain requirements on ourselves. And there's a nonprofit body that certifies B Corps called B Lab, and so we have to meet certain standards. We went through a 200 question screening process. Then we had to back up and show everything that we checked the box for Like, yeah, exactly, Do we have a good policy for maternity leave or parental leave?
Speaker 3:How do we take care of benefits, transparency with our team, environmental impact? If we were a product company, it could be ethical sourcing. It really kind of runs the spread. As a, you know, less physical business, it's a little bit easier in some respects, but at the end of the day. It's just like are we really trying to use our business to do more than just make money? Can we do that, and do that in a way that has a positive impact on the broader community?
Speaker 2:Well, you're definitely on the front edge of that, being the second company in the state. Do you know how many B Corps there are in Arkansas? Now, I know there are.
Speaker 3:I do know there are several working towards it. It's rigorous. I mean, it was a full year of like a pretty, you know, intentional effort to get to that. You fill out this questionnaire and you have to get all of the documentation lined up and then, once they pick up your application and say like we're actually ready to review this, Um, then we go back and forth. They say we need more detail on this. Uh, you know, one of the pieces is we give a sizable amount of our of our money to nonprofits and charities. Um, so you're just backing all that up. There's a lot of back and forth. It's an audit. They actually call it an audit. It's friendly, but it's an audit. Can any audit be friendly?
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:No, so it's rigorous and I know there are several other companies going through that effort now and yeah, you know, one of the other fun things is just kind of building more of the community around the big corp space.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, you're clearly passionate about the using business for good. Do you have an event coming up pretty? Soon, that's kind of that same theme I do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I, you know, and I think for a lot of it, I think you guys are probably have a similar mindset and sort of your hearts are in the same place, like, okay, I want to take care of my family, I want to take care of the team here, but like, can we do more? Yeah, then just take home a paycheck. That's good, right, and we have to do that.
Speaker 3:That's necessary that's necessary and good, but like, can we also try to do more? Because you know life is short and we're only here once, yeah, yeah. So that that was kind of the driver. For me is like, okay, what can we? Can we do more than just take home money? Yeah, Um, and the event that we're building is actually going to be here at the ledger in Bentonville in September and we're pulling together uh impact minded, uh product companies. They may be B corps, they may not be um brands that you would know that are B corp uh Cabot, Danone, uh Nespresso, uh, Danone, Nespresso, Vital Farms, Tillamook.
Speaker 1:If you see a, b with a circle on it, it's not a product.
Speaker 3:And really the idea is for change to happen, for positive environmental change and ethical practices and all of that.
Speaker 3:We really believe that the change happens where consumers make a choice, like am I going to buy flour from the guy who treats his employees like garbage or am I going to buy it from the guy who I know takes care of his people? And if I see those two things sitting next to each other on the shelf and I'm like you know what? The prices are pretty close and this guy's like I know that he cares about his people that is going to affect my change or to impact my choice, and so but it's harder to do that, like we said, because you have to make a profit and do these things. And so the idea is we want to give all those B Corp kinds of companies or impact-minded companies a space to connect with each other and learn from each other. We changed our packaging. How did that go? What went well, what didn't? We changed our sourcing to reduce concerns of bad labor practices. Some things went well, some things didn't but learning from each other, creating an event where they can learn from each other.
Speaker 2:And there's a, there's a inclination maybe to say about that, like running a business that doesn't fail is hard enough. Yes, this is all extra. Yes, and our, our last podcast, um, uh, the guest reminded us that, uh, that, uh, culture, each strategy for breakfast. So if your people feel like I'm doing something that, yeah, I've got to do, I've got to provide for my family, I've got to pay my rent, my mortgage, but I'm also contributing to something that's larger than me, larger than 100%, that starts to build its own momentum, that maybe takes away some of the extra effort or the pain For sure.
Speaker 3:I saw a real. This has really stuck with me, uh, in a book and it was about there's so much discussion like how do I scale up this business? You know again like I've got this idea, I'm gonna get money, I'm building the business and it's all about like growing the scaling's, the new synergy it's like yeah, yeah, and it's like scale, scale too much and and and the.
Speaker 3:Just the nugget that has stuck with me was like how do you scale, scale values? And I was like that is a much harder and more important and more valuable question. Frankly, you know, I mean 30 years from now, what is high impact going to look like? I think that comes down to your ability to scale the values of the organization, not just the revenue or the profit.
Speaker 2:We talk about that all the time in leadership meetings. This week we did a quarterly meeting.
Speaker 1:We used the entrepreneurial operating system EOS to help organize and keep things in structure, and part of that is a 10-year vision, and we actually talked about why we intentionally removed a dollar target.
Speaker 3:Because what we?
Speaker 1:care more about is who we're becoming, not the revenue associated with it. If we're doing these things, if we are a premier destination for suppliers to come alongside with high impact to thrive at Walmart and Sam's Club, the revenue will take care of itself. If we're creating value, that's a non-issue.
Speaker 1:And frankly our focus isn't just trying to hit a dollar, it's it's the impact, and ours actually states with a positive impact on the local and global community, because we're moving further upstream into a lot of these manufacturers, as there's opportunities for walmart to work more directly with these manufacturers. We're finding those that do treat their people.
Speaker 3:Yeah that's really cool. It's very different um I, I have to say you know again kind of candidly for the last several years, and we use something very I mean it is eos. But just like if you, if I called in and adapted yeah, if I called in an actual eos person. I'd be like that is an insult, but no, but it's. I mean I read the book and so much good stuff and so we've implemented like 95 of it, but anyway I like the, uh, the disclosure, yeah, yeah but for for several years, like kind of my own 10-year thing, has not had numbers and and it's kind of like, oh, it's bugged me.
Speaker 3:And it's interesting to hear you say that.
Speaker 2:You've come at it the other way and said, no, actually we've intentionally left that out this time yeah right, I mean I don't think we ever wanted our the, the vision, to be a dollar amount, right, but it is a principle of eos that your 10-year target is a dollar right so now we're at 99 implemented.
Speaker 3:That's funny you know, I think it somehow it like is it more inspiring to have a hard number or less? I mean, yeah, budget cycle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there are folks out there, merchants out there, that are going to fight as hard as they can to get a number as low as possible so that they are able to, as deeply as possible, guarantee success of getting over that number. I was the opposite kind of merchant where it's like great, yeah, bring it on. Um, oh, we need to hit more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, bring it on and bring some resources with it yeah, I'm gonna remember this when we have a feature discussion. Uh, for the next quarter, I got a couple ideas. I've been noodling how is future charles gonna lap this? I don't know. I feel like he's pretty smart. He's gonna figure it out. Current charles can't worry about it. Let's let future charles figure out how to lap this budget number.
Speaker 1:And I always went for the like let's, let's just go now. Whether or not that was good for my, my soul, I don't know. Yeah, have I made more eye contact with other humans in the more recent years? Maybe, but I do think there's a. There's a level of calling yourself to a higher standard and in environments where the numbers are the key driver of that, then call yourself up.
Speaker 1:It's public. It was in a news article. Creighton Kuiper, who is now leading Home, said that he's going to double the home business. To double the home business Like you don't go and say you're going to double an entire division of Walmart without a pretty deep conviction and the tenacity to say and I'm pretty sure the article said it like no, we don't. It's like we have the exact plan, but this is not going to happen if we don't go set a marker out there that says it's important.
Speaker 1:I think it's the same as the jet acquisition for Walmart. Is e-commerce worth a $3.2 billion acquisition? I don't know, but we're going to go find out and we're serious about it, and I think that that was a huge moment in what is now becoming a huge part of of the business at Walmart. So I think I'm not anti number in any way. I love numbers. I'm a data nerd, but it's less about the, the data itself. It's about empowering decisions. It's about bringing the right thing when you show up and then, at the end of the day, you have the psychological safety to go fail fast, to fail forward, to learn as you are progressing towards an objective that requires something a bit beyond yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, sorry so, speaking of failing, we're about there on time so we're gonna, we're gonna get to the lightning. And the first question is biggest failure that you've learned the most from? That is maybe made you who you are today in some way. Oh my gosh. And we can stay with business, we don't have to.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, yeah, then we'd need a lot of lightning In marriage.
Speaker 1:You might want to lay down Family Right, right, right.
Speaker 3:Man, even in business, I feel like you can learn so much from the failures. They're so painful, it's awful, but, um, you know, we, we really uh. Several years ago we tried to grow the business really aggressively and and I was just uh, I was, I was young and my ego got the better of me and, like you were talking about, who cares what I'm going to have to anniversary next year, and I think for me just a little bit more sensibility about growing the business. This ties back to a lot of what we were talking about Growing the business to be what I want it to be and not letting my ego drive the ship is maybe the best way to package that.
Speaker 1:If that's okay, I love that Absolutely. What's on your reading list?
Speaker 3:I just started a great book I'm maybe halfway almost halfway in. I got for Christmas from my wife. My wife is a professional book buyer and so we have to buy each other books for Christmas, and it's the worst. Yeah because she's gonna buy a great book.
Speaker 3:Yes she knows every book and like she's like oh, this book will be out and I can get an advanced reader on it. And she gives me a book called super communicators by charles duhigg and it just like dissects I mean you don't stop and think about breathing, right, like you're just sitting here breathing, and but it dissects conversation in a way that I've never like slowed down to think about and I'm like I am blocking time just to read this book right now because I love it so much. It's beautiful. So, yeah, check it out. I think I blocking time just to read this book right now because I love it so much.
Speaker 2:It's beautiful. So, yeah, check it out. I think I am going to have to read that one. Yeah, sure, and then just new in a new year. Now what, looking back on last year, what was kind of a key takeaway, key, aha.
Speaker 3:We, probably we started working on the event that I mentioned. It's going to be called Consumer Impact. That'll be here in september. Um, and really just saying, because it was something we've been talking about for several years just recognizing, like bringing together impact-minded brands in bentonville to talk about retail and supply chain and their business and everything, and just like we're doing this and maybe it's not like an aha, but so much as like here we go, here we go.
Speaker 2:We're doing this. Yeah, yeah, that's fun. Yeah, new things are new. Things are fun for entrepreneurs. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I and and and and. You know it's like sometimes you have a couple of things where you're like I tried that and it didn't work.
Speaker 2:I tried that and it didn Well, jeff, I appreciate your time. This has been a great conversation and overdue, oh yeah, for sure. It was great to be with you guys, absolutely, and thank you for listening or watching on YouTube. Feel free to like, subscribe and we'll see you back here next time, thanks.
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