Ep. 1 - Building Sam’s Club: From Zero to $93 Billion

Sam’s Club is a $93 billion business, but the story of how it was built still feels strangely untold. We sit down with Russ Robertson, one of the original Sam’s Club managers, a Blue Coat Award of Excellence recipient, and the author of Building Sam’s Club With Regular Folks, to get a ground level view of what made the early warehouse club model work and what today’s retailers can still learn from it.

We talk about leadership that actually shows up in behavior: knowing your people, developing talent, and earning credibility by doing the work. Russ and I share vivid stories about the old Walmart and Sam’s Club culture, including Bob Hart rolling up his sleeves to clean a bathroom, and why that kind of example sets standards faster than any memo ever could. We also unpack Sam Walton’s “steal ideas shamelessly” philosophy as a discipline of curiosity, integrity, and speed, then connect it to “do it, try it, fix it” as a practical method for innovation.

If you want the real mechanics, we get into the warehouse club business model: tight SKU counts, ruthless expense control, simplified processes, and why early membership rules were so strict that most shoppers did not even qualify. Russ also tells the unforgettable Houston story where he tried to stop car theft with a do it try it fix it solution that drew a reprimand but preserved the autonomy to keep improving.

Listen, share this with a retail friend who loves operating details, and subscribe for more conversations that bring the best of the past into what we build next. If you enjoy the show, leave a review and tell us which lesson you want to see retailers apply right now.

Transcript

Welcome And Why Sam’s Club

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Hi, everyone. Welcome to the initial episode of Between the Isles with John Reeves. I'm John Reeves, and I'm very excited to be hosting this first uh podcast with uh Between the Isles. Between the Isles will be uh a podcast that digs deep into some of the retailers uh and also uh hoping to have some great guests uh along the way. But this is the initial one, and um we're gonna start this with a series of a company that does $93 billion, a small little company, $93 billion. It always doesn't get a lot of the publicity that its sister company gets, which is Walmart stores, and we're talking about Sam's Club. And uh I'm very, very excited today to have someone who not only was one of the original managers of Sam's Club, but went on to a very, very uh distinguished career with Walmart uh as an officer of the company, uh, and now as an author, and I would love to welcome and hope you welcome Russ Robertson.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

John, thank you, man. Hey, I gotta tell you um how cool it is to be a part of the inaugural podcast Between the Isles. What I'm gonna predict is the future best podcast in America. So how can I not how could I turn down when you asked me if I'd come in the editor? So what an honor. Plus, start with me, there's nowhere to go

The Blue Coat Award Meaning

SPEAKER_00 1:35

but up. So you're you're doing me. You're doing well.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Now, Ross, you uh you had a distinguished career with Walmart. And as I mentioned, you were one of the first managers of Sam's Club. Uh, I also want to mention that you're also a blue coat award recipient of Sam's Club. You want to explain a little bit about what the Blue Coat Award is and and uh what that means?

SPEAKER_00 1:58

Yeah, you know what? I I forget that because I've been gone from the company for so long, and every now and then something will happen that will remind me of that. But just an amazing honor, really, to have been uh uh to be part of that. Um I don't know what she's not a club, but to be part of the group of people that have been recognized as uh as, I guess, top performers, uh, if you will, and people who represent the culture and uh of the company, and and there's more to it than that. But uh, you know, there's two or three people a year, I guess, uh are recognized with it and stay. They they carry it on, which I think is fantastic. Originally it was called the Sam Walton Blue Coat Award of Blue Coat Award of Excellence. I don't I think I know they still call it the Blue Coat Award of Excellence, but it's it's it's an honor to be part of that. I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Yeah, I was uh you know, I was looking through LinkedIn the other day and I was looking at a profile and somebody had uh said that they were a culture champion. So I would say, and I don't know if there's a belt for that, you know, that you put on, but I would say if there was if there was a culture champion uh in Walmart, there's a bunch of them uh

Why Russ Started Writing

SPEAKER_01 3:00

that this gentleman here is is truly one of the one of the culture champions. So what we want to start off talking about, um Russ, is you wrote uh this book that was released, I guess, last month. It's called Building Sam's Club with regular folks. Now, this is a follow-up to the initial book that you wrote calling leading regular folks. Am I correct on that?

SPEAKER_00 3:23

Yeah, there's definitely some tie over. They're two different books, of course, but there's some uh I think if somebody read both of those books, they would definitely pick up on some cultural things that uh that exist uh between the two books.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

So I guess my first question is what inspired you to write a book?

SPEAKER_00 3:41

Yeah. So on on that first one, I'll just keep it real simple. I was inspired, I had been gone from the company, John, for about nine years and you know, felt like I had a uh a good career and left on good terms, all good. But I'm uh I don't know about everybody who who you know who leaves the Walmart Corporation after a long time, but I was able to walk out and not look back and and just talk it up as, hey, I had a good career, worked with some great, great people, uh and uh was there at a time where we had an opportunity, you, you as well, to, you know, to be around some of the great leaders in our in our in the organization. So, but when I left, I was like, man, I'm I think I'm good and ready to move on. About nine years, I've been gone about nine years. This probably sounded ridiculous. I'm sitting on a bulldozer one day, move some dirt and rocks around, and and I got my iPod taped. I got a Velcro to the side of my bulldozer, and I'm playing some tunes and I'm going along. And I started thinking about just the old company and some of the old leaders and so forth. And and I'll be real straightforward and forthcoming with you. I actually was inspired, I I was starting, I started to get inspired more by some of the poor leadership behavior that I saw, which was the exception. Right, right. But we all, I mean, every company has that, right? I should and then yeah, all companies have it. And I I was starting thinking, man, how did why did that person, and you know, I would never talk about individuals in this regard, I mean, in this life, but well, what what made them think that was the way to treat people to to, you know, to uh did they think they that was inspirational behavior and that kind of thing? So I started thinking about that. Then I started thinking of some of the great leaders, and they weren't all the people I started thinking about weren't necessarily, they certainly were some of the people at the top of our company. Sam Walton, of course, is the pinnacle of an example. But I started thinking about people who were department managers and assistant managers and store managers, uh, people like Bud Vasquez, who who uh one of my very early mentors. I didn't know what a mentor was back when I was a young person, but he he I look back and I realized he was a great mentor. And he was not only a great retail talent, a good business person, never be was never he was a co-manager for many years in Branson, Missouri, but but he was just a great leader, a good teacher. He I knew he cared about me as an individual. He saw me, not just me, but the other associates. Right. And that's I think was uh that I think that was definitely the inspiration of that first one.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

Yeah, it's um as I was reading your book. I

Mentors Who Shaped The Culture

SPEAKER_01 6:05

I love uh first of all, it's nostalgic for me because I remember the original Sam's Club, and we'll talk about that in a minute. One of the people that you mentioned in there is Mickey Robinson. Yeah. And Mickey was my first DM when I was uh when I first went to work for Walmart in Stillwater, Oklahoma back in 1981. And like you mentioned in your book, I was I wasn't seeking a career, I was seeking a job. Yeah, I was going to school at Oklahoma State and wanted a job. Well, Mickey Robinson was the store manager was the district manager. Store manager was Mike Duncan, who later uh had a really good career as a district manager for Walmart. Yeah. But Mickey encouraged me and said, hey, you know, you you've got the ability to maybe be in the assistant manager program, which back back in the 80s that meant, you know, about 90 hours a week of uh of a lot of work and probably about 60,000 steps a day walking around the store, but uh a great foundation and a great start to a career. So what do you know about what what can you tell us about Mickey Robinson after he was a district manager? I know he he was one of the original Sam's uh team to.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Yeah, yeah. Mickey came over. He was district manager at Walmart at the time, and he came over to Sam's and the role as we early on was called director of operations. So at that time, they considered that role kind of in between a then district manager, today market manager. They considered that role in between a district manager and a regional manager, a regional BP, or whatever. But in any event, Mickey and Chuck Webb came over at the same time. Another Chuck Webb, another longtime Walmart guy, and then longtime uh Samscop guy. But Mickey was a hard charger. And Mickey, I tell you one of the things that really impressed me, and and I still remember to this day about Mickey. We we would have a um an operations meeting, uh, this starting in 1986 when Tom Cockland came over in January 86. But every couple of months we'd have an operations meeting. We'd get the four directors of operations, and Tom would be in a room, you know, usually a room that was way bigger than what we needed, you know, but it was cheap. And so that's where that's where we work. And we would go through one of the first things we'd do is we'd go through our rosters. And our rosters had every club that we had responsibility for supervising, and then on that rostered club manager, if they had a co-manager, that co-manager, the assistants, and we'd go down through every single person. We would talk about where they were and here's where they were in their development, how long, you know, Tom said, you know, how long you think it'd be before they can be ready to manage a club. And well, I think they're six months off or they're a year, whatever it might be. Mickey, the one I'm getting at, Mickey always talked passionately about at least a handful of those people on that roster. And I can remember one of the young people, I'm I remember him talking about um oh, a guy named Wayne Williams. Wayne Williams was one of our early guys. I remember him talking passionately about Wayne. I remember him talking about Wendy Lancaster, about oh, you gotta watch Wendy. Wendy's gonna be a good one. She's you know, he'd go into detail uh about him. And so that just really made an impression on me that wow, this is uh I mean, I I would like to think I was like that from day one, but I don't know that I was. I think I had to learn the importance of each one of our individual folks in our organization. But Mickey was really good, and that stands

Bob Hart And Leading By Example

SPEAKER_00 9:10

out in my mind about him. He's a really good people person.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

Yeah, another one that uh that I mentioned is Bob Hart.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

Bob was the regional uh VP. Uh Mickey reported to Bob. And um you tell a story in the book that's funny about um Sam was coming. Of course, we all remember the days uh when there was an alert system whenever Sam Walton was in the area.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

Um, and you let Bob know that Sam had called you in Columbia, Missouri, and he was going to be coming in the next day. You go into the store and Bob Hart stack and Old Roy dog food and 50-pound bags of Old Roy dog food. That reminded me of uh of a story that wasn't so pleasant for me as uh I was an assistant manager in Cushing, Oklahoma, and uh Bob was coming in, you know, the regional coming in. We had spent the night before making sure the store was spotless. And uh Bob came in, and Bob was being Bob, you know, he was a boisterous guy. He was thanking the associates, he was going around and doing doing the things that Bob Art was great at. He was a great people person. And then he said, Hey, excuse me for a minute. So the store manager and I were talking, and and Bob didn't show back up, and we were wondering, where where did Bob go? And so my store manager goes, Well, you better go find him. So I'm looking all over the store. I go into the bathroom, the men's bathroom, and Bob has his sleeves rolled up. He has a toilet brush in his hand, he's cleaning the bathroom. And uh, so the one thing that we had forgotten to do or that had been messed up since he came, he found it and he set the example. Nobody's too good to roll their sleeves up and do what's right for the company. And that's what I remember about Bob. Later on, uh, when I was retiring from Walmart, Bob got wind of it. You know, I was gonna leave Walmart and he called me into his office. And uh, you know, I was at the time I was having some issues with with the heart. And the doctor, of course, here was saying, well, it's stress-related. It was atrial fibrillation. Uh, and so I thought, well, you know, maybe it's time for me to slow down a little bit. And Bob was going, hey, called me into his office. He said, Um, I've got a cardiologist at the Cleveland clinic in Cleveland, Ohio. And um he got him on the phone. I mean, who can get a cardiologist on the phone immediately? But he called the Cleveland clinic and say, said, I'm Bob Hart. And of course, everybody at the Cleveland clinic was going, Oh, Bob Hart. You know, and the the uh cardiologist got on the phone immediately, said, Hey, I got a young man here that, you know, has these symptoms. He said, Well, have him come up. We'll take a look at it. And so um Bob offered the, you know, to fly up on a Walmart plane um at his expense. He would say, you know, we'll take care of this. And uh so I did it. I I didn't take the company plane, but I made my way to the Cleveland clinic. And uh it was the diagnosis that I received there was very consistent with what I had had here. So there was, you know, but it was a it was a peace of mind that I had uh to have had exposure to the best medical care. I don't know if you know a lot about the Cleveland Clinic, but probably the best medical care from a heart standpoint that you could get. And uh, you know, I always appreciated that that he took the time, he took the effort, used his contacts to take care of somebody. And the only thing that that only uh reason he does, because I was one of his guys, you know. If you were ever one of Bob Art's guys, you were always one of Bob Art's commands.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

Well, you what you just said, those two things combined. So that for you at first you mentioned about him seeing him rolling his sleeves up and um and cleaning the bathroom, right? Yeah. And then him caring about you as one of the individual people under his leadership to help get you the best medical care. And that goes above and beyond. That's not an expectation of people on leadership, right? I mean, if you're a retail leader, retail manager, it's nowhere on your job descriptions that say if you have a social one of your folks that has uh, you know, a serious health issue, do everything you can to help them get the best medical care on the planet. That's not in there, but that's who Bob, that's that's who Bob Hart was. He cared about people, and those were the best leaders. They're always, those are always the best, almost always the best leaders of the people who they see you as an individual and they make people feel like the they're uh not feel like no, they're important and all that kind of thing. But the thing about rolling the sleeves up, cleaning that bathroom, and throwing the old Roy 50-pound bags of old Roy and created dog food, which is a funny little story and a little side thing if we get a chance. But I guarantee you he didn't do those things because, okay, this is the most efficient way to get this done, right? Bob was a smart retail management leader. He realized he had broad responsibility of, say, when he was a district manager, hey, I've got eight, nine, ten stores, I can't tie myself down stocking dog, stalking dog food or cleaning a bathroom. But I guarantee you he was wise enough to know that, you know what, if people see that I'm willing on occasion to roll my sleeves up and even get dirty cleaning a bathroom, uh, that's gonna build some credibility. That's also gonna set an expectation level. And hey, sometimes it does require, if and if it does require me unloading a truck or or or cleaning a bathroom, no matter what my job title is or my role is, uh I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna set that example. So yeah, he was Bob was just a great, he he was a loss whenever uh when when the company lost him, he was a great talent.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Yeah. Great,

The Warehouse Club Boom Origins

SPEAKER_01 14:35

great leadership. So let's let's talk a little bit about uh the beginning of the wholesale club business. Yes. Uh this started in the early 80s, right? Um I think it started, and you can probably elaborate on this, but started in uh with the price club.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

It it did. So uh, well, in one sense, it started with uh price clubs. So the warehouse club industry, uh, I call it the 1980s club rush, whenever ever so many companies were that you know were starting, uh wanted to get in that business to get a piece of. But it actually started, if you go back before that, Saul Price had a company called uh Fedmart. And Fedmart came about as a result of a company called Fedco, which Fedco uh uh Saul never was never involved with Fedco, but he formatted Fedmart. He got the idea of Fedco, which goes back into the goes back to the 50s. But all that to say, the the modern day warehouse club industry really did start with Price Club, Saul Price started it, and uh and then uh but wasn't long at all by 1983. There were eight main players in it, but there were up to, I've heard all kinds of numbers, and I tried to do some research on this, although I didn't want to spend a ton of time when I was putting that story together because it wasn't why that that book's not meant to be comprehensive about the warehouse club industry or the retail industry. However, I wanted to give kind of a background for anybody that might read it that just didn't know, you know, because that's a long time ago and all that stuff went on. Uh, but there were about eight companies that were in that business in the 1980s. Uh Price Club started it, and and uh, you know, and then there was, of course, Sam's Club and Costco and BJ's and the wholesale club, the warehouse club, uh uh, you know, and a handful of

Steal Ideas Shamelessly Done Right

SPEAKER_00 16:15

others. A lot never got beyond one one store or one club.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

So one thing we know, uh, having worked with Sam Walton, was he had a philosophy, and we call it stealing shamelessly, I guess. It was really borrowing concepts, but he always had his eye on what was going on in retail. And he had seen the uh the original price club in San Diego, which is by the way, is still there. Yeah. I do like to visit that club. It looks like an old uh rodeo arena or something, but uh the original price club, which is now Costco, uh is still there. Try getting in the parking lot on a Saturday afternoon there. It's impossible to do, but I like to go there because it's so nostalgic. Reminds me of the old days, uh, even though the inside you know has changed dramatically since the early 80s.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

I bet.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

Um but what are some other examples of stealing shamelessly that you could think about?

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Well, it's interesting. So that was such a huge part of the Walmart, early Walmart Sam Walton culture and the early Sam's whole subclub, now known of course as Sam Club culture. And so it's a little bit of a misnomer, you know, when somebody might hear, if they've if they're hearing this term for the first time, steal ideas shamelessly. Sam Walton said it so often, it's a little bit of a misnomer because Sam was a person of high integrity. So he wasn't talking about we steal intellectual property. Right. He's talking about taking what's publicly out there, knowledgeable or available to anyone who wants to walk inside somebody, a competitor's store and go in and look and try to find out what they are doing that we can bring back, whether it's uh an item they're selling that we don't sell, maybe a category of merchandise that they're into, they're experimenting with or what have you, pricing, signage, uh custom customer service related things, maybe something they're doing that uh they're doing it more cost-effectively than we are. He he really he was the world, he was the greatest ever that I'm that for sure that I ever personally knew of, even heard about, heard of, or read about uh in in that area. He he put his ego aside and he looked to see how everybody was doing business, not just John, not just in the retail and the warehouse club industry, but in just business in general. If he thought you knew something, even as an individual, John, how do you have if he found out, for example, I I this just happened so many times. I saw it and also heard it from so many different people that experienced it. If he if he met you and and said, John, what did you do before Walmart? And let's just say you at that time would have said, Well, I worked for Target, or I was with TGY, or I was with Kmart or whatever, boom. I guarantee I can almost guarantee you the next question is gonna be tell me about something like tell me about your experience there. What were they doing better than us? What do you think we should do that they're doing? He was amazing at that. And he was like that all the way through the entirety to the end of his life. He was still uh still that way. So so yeah, so it was a big part of our culture, and then that do it, try it, fix it thing, the combination of those things. If you can kind of get a visual on going in, seeing something competitors doing, bringing it back and saying, hey, we're gonna try this. And if it doesn't work initially, or maybe maybe it it kind of works, we're gonna tweak it, we're gonna change it, we're gonna fix it. And then, John, if it doesn't work, or we determine it it's not for us or it doesn't work like we thought we it would, we just stopped doing it. Just stop doing it, move on. That's called do it, try it, kill it.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

Yeah, yeah. There you go. But the the idea, and

Do It Try It Fix It In Action

SPEAKER_01 19:40

I uh I love one of the things that I always adhered to as a as a Walmart associate was the do it, try it, fix it. And as a buyer for Walmart, I always felt like uh Walmart was supportive of ideas that you might have and say, hey, let's try something. Um and one of the things that I mentioned on one of my LinkedIn posts the other day was the advent of the palette program. You know, if you go into a Walmart store today, you'll see pre-assembled palettes all over the place. And some of them are really, really, really well done and get the product out and and featured in a in a great way. Well, I was involved in the original pallet program. Um, and if you remember back in the old days of Walmart, the action alleys were pretty well set with stack bases or tables. And, you know, the the cleaning or the floor crew would come in and seal the floors, and so the stack bases would be stuck.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

And and the only way to get them out is to take a two-wheeler and bang on them and get them out. Then you've got a little square ring of uh of uh wax or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

You're at I forgot about that, but yeah. I can remember busting those, busting those pallets stack bases up.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

So asking uh the stores to rearrange their uh their action, I don't know it was a tough ass. Right. But uh we did. We went out with uh the Sarah Lee Company had proposed freestanding pallets of underwear, men's underwear, ladies' underwear, boys' underwear, and socks for back to college or back to school and back to school. Underwear always pinged. We always had the issue of running out of stock, too, and back to school. So we were looking at a way to get feature product out there to handle that additional business. And so we, you know, Walmart was uh you'd have to get disapproved. So you'd go through the uh executive committee and you would go through the operations team of which you were a member, and they would say, Yeah, let's let's try it. So you do it, you try it, and then you fix it. Well, what we found out was the sales increased dramatically. Um and so that was the beginning of something that today has been taken to a completely new level. Now, they don't just let everybody throw a pallet out there. There is some organization to that chaos, but that's an example that I have of do it, try it, fix it, and uh and where that has gone to

Wholesale Model And SKU Discipline

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Now is is pretty amazing. But so back to Sam's Club. You mentioned in the book the difference between a retail company and a and a wholesale company, which Sam's Club started out to be, and the fact that, you know, a lot of times they would recruit buyers or they would recruit people from Walmart that didn't quite understand that concept. So maybe you can explain a little bit about the early days and how that differed.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

Yeah, I I tell you what, it's uh it's to me it's kind of fascinating. And and again, I spent a lot of years not thinking about this stuff.

SPEAKER_01 22:38

Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

But when I when I decided, when I decided to start writing that, putting that story together, um, and I started calling researching and thinking back through and talking to people and going back through some of the stuff that materials that I had, the the the memories that came up and this stuff started bubbling up, and it became so clearly evident. Um how and this is this is such a um paradox, I guess, because it was such a bit simple business concept. And in fact, whenever Ron Lovis, the very first conversation he and I had about it in December 1983 over the phone, and he shared the, and I'll never forget it, he shared the basic um nothing, he shared the business model. And when he when he was talking to Tim, I remember him on the phone thinking, man, that sounds really that sounds cool. It sounds really simple. It sounds much simpler. I remember what than what I'm doing now, which managed a Walmart store or at the time. And I remember one of the things specifically that I thought of in that conversation, and I'm not I'm not making this up. It's been 40 some years ago, but I remember thinking, man, not to have to do a weekly ad and have a monthly circular. And back then we were still pricing merchandise with the the gun, with the the the week date, the uh the the month, uh excuse me, the week and the year, the Garvey gun and the price and doing and doing that. And then we had a sale when something was on sale. We had to take out say you had an in-cap of the item, you had to then put change the roll of tickets out to the sale tickets. The red and white was, John, that's right. Boom, boom. And then you had to go through and price those. And I thought, man, just that one thing alone, that's that's going to be make it more simple. Simplify the business. And I I and all probably all retailers have had the thought over the course of their careers of thought, man, if we could just, if we could really just focus our attention on the merchandise, if we could put most of our effort in the items and the categories, how much fun would this business be? And how much volume could we do? Well, let me tell you this, John. We found out in those early SAMS wholesale clubs how much volume you can do when you simplify the business and you take out every unnecessary, well, not necessarily unnecessary, but every possible step that you can take out and every expense you can take out, and just put that item out there on the uh on the rack at the absolute lowest price that you could possibly do it at. Uh, we found out we can you can do a lot of volume and it was exciting. So yeah, it was just uh it wasn't retail, yet we're selling retail items. I'm sure that we had a lot of wholesale business items, of course, in those earlier years, especially. But um, but we had, you know, we we were basically somebody might look at it and on the surface say, well, it's retail. It wasn't retail.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

Right.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

It was a wholesale warehouse club business, and it was just different.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

So anybody that came over from Walmart to Sam's Club had to understand that concept and understand those differences. Because as a buyer, I would have had a tendency to say, hey, let's put more items out there. But there was a limited number of SKUs that you could have in a wholesale club.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

Yeah, and and to pick a number, you'll hear different numbers. You'll hear people say 3,000, 5,000, 440, 500, 4,000. That was the number that we talked about early on. Uh, and we had probably 4,000 for a short period of time, and then it started etching up in one of the most difficult things to do, John. And being a lifelong merchant, you'll be able to relate to this. When you're when you're responsible for buying product, put it on the shelf of any kind of a uh call it a re of a retail store or warehouse club. If somebody comes in with something that's like, man, I think we could sell that. I think we could sell quite a few of that. It's it's hard to turn that down, right? Yeah. And especially when you're in a business that has call it 4,000, you're trying to keep a speed count of 4,000. And for those who a lot of people are going to watch your podcast, John of retail, very knowledgeable, and they'll know that, okay, wow, 4,000. They'll know what that kind of looks like. Right.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

Right.

SPEAKER_00 26:17

But for those who might watch your podcast, uh, that might come across, incidentally called Between the Isles, I'm predicting future number one podcast in America, who might come across it. And they may think 4,000, what's that mean? Well, Walmart stored at it today, John is super center. How much how many SKUs about would they have, give or take?

SPEAKER_01 26:34

100 and it's in the hundreds of thousands.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

Yeah, 120, 30, 40,000, maybe. And online, Walmart has I in uh I guess tens of millions of items, potentially as you're obviously third party. They grow it every day. And they grow it every day. So back to your point, though, the one of the toughest disciplines, the two most toughest disciplines, and we struggled with it to be through the entirety of even in our early years, was keeping your skew, your skew count down, keeping it low, around 4,000, give or take, and then keeping expenses at an absolute bare minimum. It's why in that book I used that example of how we hand wrote our signs for the first uh approximate year, a couple of years or so. It it sounded like a silly thing, uh, you know, but when we made, when we went from handwriting our merchandise signs, I mean item number to price and putting them, taping them on the rack when we went from that to making them on a sign printer. Obviously, there's capital investment for the sign printers, uh, you know, and that kind of a thing. Uh it's easy that it opens the door for, okay, we did that. It's easy to think, well, where else can we? Nobody goes out looking for ways to spend money, but how else can we improve the business that might require capital expense or might require more man hours to execute it? So all that to say it was one of the toughest things. Um, and and people struggle with it, especially since almost everybody was coming to us from a retail environment, a lot of people from Walmart. If they didn't receive a good indoctrination, let me just give you an example. If somebody came over, let's just say somebody transferred over, we had a lot of folks that came over as assistant managers.

SPEAKER_01 28:07

Right.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

They were there was an excitement about that, or a little side thing. There was an excitement about the early Sams Hosuck Club uh model. Once the information started kind of, you know, going around the company, people started hearing about it, and we were doing tons of volume and we were making a lot of dollars on the bottom line. People wanted to come over and get be a part of that. So at any rate, as people started coming over, let's say somebody comes into a club and there's and they're working with a general manager uh and/or management team, we and we had small teams. We had three maximum of four assistant managers in those early clubs, what way less than we needed. If we really needed more, but but again, keeping the expense structure down, we have very limited supervision. But you come in, if you're working for a general manager, reporting to a general manager who doesn't fully understand the concept, the whole the warehouse club model, they're not fully bought into it, they're not committed to it, they're not focused on it. Well, okay, now this person's learning from somebody who has more of a retail store mentality, thought process, business, and then this person now, so they go on and they become a general manager. Maybe this person here gets promoted up to director of operations or what we call market manager today. Now you got this person here and this person over here who look at it as more of a retail type business who aren't fully bought in. And then that just expounds. And that's an oversimplified way of saying that's how Sam SoulSale Club went from being a true warehouse club saw prize style business model to uh call it a hybrid or something, uh what whatever you want to call it. Uh it's not the same today as it was back then, and that's not a knock on anybody. Right. Uh there's aspects of that business today, John, that are head and shoulders above where we were 40 years ago. Right. There's also aspects of it that 40 years ago we were better at than we are today. And the I think one of the keys is I'm not in a position to tell anybody to have to do anything, but just a suggestion. You you take you take what was done in the past, whether it's at Sam's Club, Walmart, Target, uh uh, you know, Home Depot, tractor supply, you take the best of what you did back then culturally as well as business-wise. I'm not telling you anything you don't know. Uh, along with combining that with what the best of what today is, that's how that's how you grow from wherever the heck you are to holy

Membership Limits And Record Sales

SPEAKER_00 30:30

smoking cow. Look where we are going, you know, kind of thing anyway. It's exciting when you think about it, I think.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

Now, in the early days, uh it was more difficult to become a member of Sam's Club than it is today. In fact, I didn't qualify originally.

SPEAKER_00 30:46

Neither did I if I hadn't been working.

SPEAKER_01 30:49

Now, uh I know that in my family, my my brother's wife was a teacher, so he qualified. And he was one of the original uh Sam's Club members in Houston. Okay, cool. Uh and has been a you know, uh he's he loves Sam's Club. And and I asked him, you know, what were some of the items you know that were that you used to be able to buy back then. He gave me a whole list of of things that um that they used to go and and buy at Sam's all the time. And then I started thinking about it. Uh, every television I've bought since the 80s, I bought at Sam's Club. And the reason I have was because they always you you knew they were doing the due diligence to find the best value and have the best product out there. And you didn't have 800 different sets to look at. Yeah. You knew that if this was the size that you wanted and Sam's had it, it was the right one. So you built a trust by doing that. Um, but yeah, early on, I couldn't even get a membership.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

So it's so funny to say that because if I hadn't been working there, I wouldn't qualify to be a member. But I was Rath Mays and Club's the only reason I had a member would have had a membership card. Here, here is something, John, I want you to I uh this when I really realized this, I knew this back then, but I'd forgotten it. But as I put this story together and I start going through this stuff in my head and it hit me, this is mind-blowing. What, which, which camera, like if I'm on the camera right now, which one is it? Or am I uh is it this one over here? I think so. Okay. Um if you're listening to this, I here's something. I want you if you only remember one thing about that early, that early time period, and John, and this is it. This is mind blowing. So in those years, in those early years, there were fewer people, much fewer people who qualified to be a member in Sam's Holes Club than there were those who did qualify. Right. I mean like by 90%. I maybe I'd never tried to figure estimate what percent of the population would have qualified back then, but I think it'd probably be I'm gonna pull the number out, 10%, maybe 10, 12, 15 percent of the population in America in the markets we were in would have qualified to be a member. Yet and let me share one other thing with you that that ties in with this membership thing. So in 1985, fiscal eighty-six, Walmart year, you know, fiscal one thirty-one um eighty-six, but in the calendar year eighty-five, out of a hundred less than a hundred and two thousand square feet, so 101,560 to be exactly a building nondescript, warehouse style, nothing fancy, not I mean, just as bare bone as you can be, with around 4,000. We probably by that time were up to 4,500-ish skews, right? No fresh produce, no fresh meat, no bakery, no deli, no seafood, no prepared meals, none of that, none of that kind of stuff, no floral department, almost no health and beauty aids. We had about six or eight SKUs geared towards beauty shops and and barbershops, that kind of thing. So essentially, no health and beauty aids, no children's, uh, only men's and women's in apparel. Didn't we didn't even sell shoes and that kind of thing. Only alcohol we sold was a small selection of wine without pharmacy, without hearing centers, without optical, without curbside delivery, without gasoline fuel, no, with no technology, and in an era where we had to physically case-cut every box that came in, if it was something that was sold individually, case-cut it, mark every can or item in that with a marking with a marking gun, take that item, set it over on another pallet, and process everything that came through that door by hand in today's dollars in that environment. We had clubs that did over $2,400 square foot, $250 million in today's dollars, which that's the only way you can do a true comparison. Right. So in that you take that environment that I just that that vehicle doing $250 million, no technology, processing everything by hand. Oh, and and it all had to be when it went out through the front, it all had to be there were two people at every, and this is well known, but there were two people at every register, cashier and a caller, had call at every item, 1246, 1837, 2953, 250 million, $2,400, over $2,460 square foot. Now, at that time, that was in Houston, Texas, and we had a couple other clubs who were real close to that. But as we opened up, as we expanded, we started building better clubs, of course, and the the and anyway, that's a whole nother part of it. But out of that environment, at that time that was a company record by far, sales per square foot. Right. I don't know this for a fact, and I didn't say this in the book because I don't I didn't have any way to verify it. I did. Anyway, I think it's still a record that exists today. I don't believe Walmart has a facility on the planet. I could be wrong. I don't know all their details, but I'm very confident they don't have a retail Walmart super well, and we know super centers produce a lot of sales per square foot, but nothing closer to 2400. So that's that's the thing worth some looking into. That's right. That's worth like, why the heck? What was it about? What was so unique about it back then? Now, some people might say, and I always I always laugh when people say, well, yeah, you had a lot less competition. Sam's host of that club had a lot of less competition. Well, that's true, that's true to a degree. But if if that's if that's the only thing, well, then Sam Walton was either wrong or he was lying every time he said competition makes us better. Saul Price actually said the same thing. I saw I've seen that right. Our leaders, I know you were a Bill Fields fan, worked. He was uh I think he was kind of one of your mentors, wasn't he? Sure, he was, yes. I personally heard him say that many, many times. David Glass, Paul Carter, by the way, one of the most underrated leaders in the history of that company. Somebody needs to write a book about Paul Carter. He was an amazing leader. Tom Cockland, uh, all the people who led that company made that comment so many times. Competition makes us better. Well, if that's true, then we should be better. I'm not saying we should be, but we could be better today than we were then because there's more competition. Right. So anyway, it's just exciting when you think of it in those terms.

SPEAKER_01 37:03

That's it's interesting. That's one of the reasons why I I follow Target really closely. And I'm actually, you know, when I when I was a Walmart buyer, they were my competitor. But I think Target made Walmart better. And so as they struggle these days, I'm hoping, you know, and I look closely then hoping that they pull that together because for nothing else, it makes the other people better when you have somebody that's doing something differently. Sure. And as you know, as a buyer, we always looked at them and and uh we thought they did a great job on merchandising. We always looked at ways that we could take some of the things that they were doing, stealing shamelessly and improving on them. So that's part of the Walmart culture, and uh I think it always will be.

SPEAKER_00 37:48

Hopefully so.

Tom Walton Stories And Getting Recruited

SPEAKER_01 37:50

So you you uh you were running a store in Columbia, Missouri, which is like a hotbed for anybody in Walmart because that's where Sam Walton is from. And uh one of your frequent guests was Tom Walton. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about uh to me, if I was running a store and Tom Walton was there, he'd be a little bit nervous.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

I I when I I was fairly naive about I mean, we all knew back in those days, we knew a lot about the company. And you know, the company Grapevine was huge in the 70s and 80s. I mean, my gosh, every day you're hearing the stuff that was going on over in in Camdenton, Missouri, or over in Oklahoma or wherever it might be. So, so we knew a lot about what was going on. But I don't remember, I don't know that whenever I got my first store in Columbia, store 80, in the old original location, I don't know that I knew Tom, Thomas Gibson Walton lived in, uh lived in Columbia. I don't think I knew that. But so Sam and Bud's dad, I'll never forget the first time I met him. I I can't say with certainty it was my first day on the job as the manager, but I believe it was the first day or two uh that I get an intercom call. Uh, you know, hey, come to the front. I go walking up and stand, or actually I got a call on the intercom and said, hey, uh Mr. Grandpa Walton is what the the long-term associates called him, which he loved being called grandpa. I never did, I always called him Mr. Walton. But I remember I said, uh Grandpa Walton's up here, he wants to meet you. So I go walking up. I'll never forget, I looked up and there's this gentleman. I won't stand up because you won't be able to hear me, I guess, but there's this gentleman standing there. He had it had a cane, he was dressed. He he always that I recall, he always wore a tie. A lot of times, if he didn't have a sport coat, he had his tie tucked in. And I don't know if he did that for any, uh if if if he did it when he was kind of working around the house or whatever, maybe he forgot to untuck it. But at any rate, there's this kind of stately looking gentleman, but down-to-earth fella standing there, and he's looking at me, and I and and I looked back on it now, he's sizing me up as I walk up. He's kind of like, Who is who's this young manager? I want to meet him, and went up and he introduced himself, shook my hand, and I don't remember, I wish so badly I could recall the words that we'd changed. But he he introduced himself. He was very pleasant, very cordial. I left that, I didn't have any kind of a feeling like, oh my gosh, and when this when this guy comes in my store, I gotta I gotta make sure I'm standing tall and that kind of thing. I respected who he was and uh and his position and call it that. But and he never, he never over the 15 months I was there when and he was in that store quite a bit, but when I went uh to store 159 across town, that was just down the road from his home, he was in that store quite often. Never one time did I ever have an experience with him where I felt intimidated. Even when he came in to specifically make a point to tell me that we were getting beat by Kmart on duct tape. It happened, I think it happened twice, but I know for sure it happened once on duct tape. And I remember thinking, oh my gosh, this is Sam Walton's dad, and he knows Kmart's beating us on duct tape, which that was news to me. But uh, I stood, I was standing tall on that day. It's like we made a real real point to get that taken care of. It was really sudden. Yeah, absolutely. But he was such a he was such a gentleman. He was so proud of what his boys had created with Walmart. Uh he was so unpretentious, down to earth. People loved him, and he was just a joy. And I got to know him personally over that time there. And it was just a just really an extremely memorable time. And I'm so I feel so fortunate that I had the opportunity to have known him.

SPEAKER_01 41:18

He was involved in your uh being called to become a leader at Sam's Club, too.

SPEAKER_00 41:24

100%. And I I didn't fully realize that until well, I was kind of aware of it when it was happening, but it was after the fact when I look back and I realized, oh my gosh, without without Tom Tom Walton, with had he not um uh I don't know why you want to say it, had he not kind of promoted me, call it to Sam. Well, I found out later in life that they talked on the phone almost every day. And so I and then I one day I'd share a story in there about it whenever I was over his house and Sam called, and I didn't think Sam would have had any idea that I was ever over his dad's house and come to find out through a, you know, through that conversation that he was aware that I was over there. All that to say, Tom behind the scenes, Tom Walton was going to Sam and saying things, and I can't quote it. I wasn't there to hear the words, but I found out later he was pumping me to Sam, saying, hey, this guy, this Rusk hit, keep an eye on him, whatever. I think he's got potential. And so whenever they started Sam's wholesale club up in their first few people, they tried to get highly experienced Walmart store managers to come over and run that first one in those first three or four or five. Right. And they they were turning him down because John, back then the store managers were paid 100% on store profit. We got a salary, small salary. We got a uh uh sometimes you you could get a draw after your first year, you could get a draw against your future bonus, but not a whole draw, just a little bit, bump you up a little. But bottom line, our pay was based on store profit. So they tried, they offered those first few general manager jobs to some of the long-term proven store managers who were in a store where they're making really good money. Well, they wanted guarantees. They wanted guarantee if I move out of this, because I know if I stay here, I'm probably gonna make, you know, next year, probably make even a little bit more than I made this year. They wanted a guarantee. Sam was this is Walmart. We don't give guarantees a customer. So that's whenever Sam said, get some of these young guys like Carl Roche, Jerry Oglesby, me, uh, and a handful of other folks. Uh actually, those were probably the ones that came from Walmart that were a result of Sam saying, we're not giving guarantees. Get some of these young guys and let's give them a shot, which is another huge part of the culture, John, and you know this too. But taking, taking a chance on young people who are showing promise and who are, you know, who just show the basics. They they show up for work and they work hard and they're good with people and they understand our basic culture about customer service and that kind of thing. Giving them a shot. Let's let's see what they can do. And so somehow we still made it work, even with some relatively inexperienced uh retail store managers. Right. That was the that was part of the.

The Stolen Car Problem Solution

SPEAKER_01 44:00

the culture back then. The last thing I there we wanted to talk a little bit more about the do it, try it, fix it. And I know you had a great example in your book in Houston back in the 80s. There was a auto theft problem going on. And um uh the Sam's parking lot was a was a prime spot for the thieves to come and you had a solution to that. You had a do-it-try-it fix-it solution to that.

SPEAKER_00 44:29

Well first off there's a reason why I shared that story. It sounds ridiculous just on the surface you you really did that but I use that as an example because that was the environment John that we worked in in those early years and a huge part of the Sam Walt culture Sam Walton culture was he created an environment where they the the company leadership they held the reins very very tight on hey these are non-negotiables an example would be customer satisfaction. If you're John Reeves and you're managing a Walmart store John you do not have the right to turn to uh let a customer walk out of your store unsatisfied. Right. Now that's a paraphrase but that was that was one of those non-negotiables. However John Reeves as a Walmart store manager or in the case of Sam SoSub Club as a Sam SoSub Club manager, we're going to give you the autonomy if it make if you think it makes sense and you think it's going to affect our top line or our bottom line, provide better member service, customer service, give it a shot, man. Give it a shot. So here I am I'm 24. I might have been 25, let me think about I could have maybe turned 25 when this happened. I don't remember the month that this occurred but I was 24 or 25 years old and we had a massive problem with stolen cars. And in fact so much so that I got used to it and I won't tear the whole story I tell in the book. But bottom line I ended up putting an armed guard up on the uh roof with a pair of binoculars and a scoped rifle on on his back. No bullets. I did tell them no bullets in the gun. But I wanted to I wanted to uh um reduce the amount of stolen cars. Mine had got stolen twice and we had other associates who I found I who have their car stolen and I found out one of our associates Melanie um uh who Melanie uh who was our cash office department manager Melanie Dalton Duke she had her car stolen twice I didn't know that until she kind of she read the book she kind of sent me an email she said oh my gosh she goes my car got stolen twice but there wasn't a day went by we didn't have people come in and complain and all that kind of thing I kind of got used to it until mine got stolen twice. What I'm getting to and I'll shut up because I again the the story's in the book but I felt comfortable doing that. I felt comfortable doing now I got my hand slapped and light facial torching uh from my supervisor but it wasn't held against me. Nobody said Robertson don't ever before you you don't ever make a decision again that's not that's outside you know the general operating rules of manager I got I got I got reprimanded for it just verbally you know hey get him down don't do that again but it didn't leave me feeling my uh the the CEO at the time Ron Lovless and my supervisor Bill Wagner they were both there when this occurred uh they didn't leave me feeling like I can't try anything in the future. It's just like okay I know that that was kind of overstepping the bounds, right? So don't do that or something like that. But I still felt empowered to go and try things that that that I you know future things I thought work.

SPEAKER_01 47:20

And you think part of the club we also have some examples in the book of uh some things that were tried that ended up being um big big corporate programs like cartrail putting items on the cartrail then that started now you walk into a Sam's club today I was in Bentonville two days ago and the first thing you see when you walk in are these are great items you know right here at the front and you're gonna see some great items. Yeah that started with an idea from somebody at at the store and it was try it fix it. In your case it was do it, try it kill it. Yeah do it do it try it don't ever do that again John

The Pig Barn Meeting Backstory

SPEAKER_01 47:55

so one of the things I love about you Russ is is you worked really hard in your career but you were always one of those that that saw the fun in the business too and you have a story about one of the very first year end meetings where they would bring Walmart and Sam's together. Of course Walmart you know was dominant because of the number of stores and the number of managers and then there was a small little but very vocal uh team from Sam's and you were one of the members of that so you talk about doing the ways in a very very small portion and when David was speaking but the but the one thing that it I thought was really funny and I remember this because I was there is the slop episode.

SPEAKER_00 48:38

You remember that that is so cool. A lot it's interesting how many people remember it what they don't know and they couldn't have was how the why that happened what led up to that um and then importantly and most importantly what came out of that and without going into all the detail first off how much time do we have left?

SPEAKER_01 48:56

Roughly not much but well because because I want to edit some things out.

SPEAKER_00 49:01

Oh okay yeah well uh because I want to ask you a question because this is John Reeves this is your deal and I'm excited for you but back to that so that that whole experience the pig I call it the pig barn experience right that was a that was a watershed moment uh in the history of Sam's Hoso Club that and this is not a knock on anybody because there's been that's a long time ago there's been a lot of leadership changes at Sam's Club Sam's club over the years and all that but I've not found one person in the company over the years when I've shared that or even touched on that pro on that topic that even was even remotely aware of it. And it was significant in in their history out of what came out of that. So maybe more on that later but but let me let me do this since we've got just a minute or two. This is not my show it's yours but let I want to ask you so between the aisles with John Reeves you're gonna keep doing this I'm gonna predict you're gonna have great success. So t tell tell your viewers here a little bit more about you.

John’s Walmart Career And Expat Years

SPEAKER_00 50:00

I know I know we know you I know you started in Oklahoma as a store associate. Right and incidentally one of the really really cool things and I wish you and I would have visited before I wrote that book or while I was reading it because I would have put in there that you were at that grand opening on April 7th, 1983, 10 o'clock in the morning when the ribbon was cut for that very first Sam's Club in that worn out, raggedy old building in Midwest City across from Tinker Air Force Base. You were there and I think that's awesome. But going back tell us tell your read tell the viewers here about yourself.

SPEAKER_01 50:31

Uh well I've I've I started like I said in Stillwater Oklahoma uh and went into the management program shortly after that um I worked for somebody I know you know very well Maxi Carpenter closer to somebody who's a great influence on me. Uh he helped me get into the home office and I took a position in sales promotion back in those days. It's now marketing. Right. But we were in charge of things like the year-end meeting we were in charge of the Made USA program. Uh I had the charge of the auditorium and I was in charge of the VPI program. That's how I uh met a lot of people including uh spending a lot of time with Sam because as you know the VPI program was very dear to his heart so you know part of what I had to do back in those days was prepare that report that would be sitting on the chairs of everybody in the morning that had a copy of the VPI program. So from there I went on to uh my first buying position I worked for Harrietta Bailey who was the first female vice president um at Walmart and she was very instrumental in the growth in my buying career and the thing that she did that was interesting was because she was so well respected in the industry um in the apparel industry she had access to people that were experts in that industry and she challenged these people to take interest in my career. And so I learned from some of the brilliant minds in the apparel industry. And then I met you for the first time Russ when I was doing an expat assignment in Canada we were part of the transition team that took over the original Wilco stores in Canada in 1994. We would go up to Toronto every week for an entire year led by another person that we both have a tremendous amount of respect for Mel Redmond absolutely love to get on this show sometime. Oh you got to get him on you got to get him on here because I know that uh that he had a a tremendous career too but he led that whole challenge and then I also did um an expat assignment in Mexico I lived in Mexico City for two years. Oh well um and so and came back in my final position at Walmart I was in the housewares department as a senior buyer uh and when I left there I kind of stayed in that industry and worked with a supplier base. Um I've been to China over 75 times. Um I tend to focus on um companies that are based in China uh Pakistan um India Thailand places like that um that do direct import business to Walmart I'm kind of a the eyes and ears and marketing person for some of these companies so it's been a it's been a lot of fun and it's been a great career and I do this because um you know I love this community and and I want to be able to share what I know and I also want to learn too from people like you and uh and people like Andy Wilson who's been a great influence and mentor for me as well.

Merchandising Legends Still In Town

SPEAKER_00 53:45

Well what's so cool about what you're doing those names you mentioned you mentioned Maxi Carpenter as an example what a great great human being and it I didn't I didn't know that he was somebody that was influential in your career but it doesn't surprise me because you're a you care about people you're a people person. You seem to focus on the right things and it's so easy to get out in the left field and get or drug down you know a rabbit hole on stuff that may not matter all that much nearly as much as the the merchandise and the people who buy and sell it and that kind of a thing. And I'll say I'm gonna give you a little plug here John I hope you don't edit this out uh I hope you don't edit it out but you were one you and I never worked directly together other than I I was initially on that transition team in Canada. Right. But I wasn't there I I was just up uh there for the first uh maybe the first couple of months I'd go up for every other week or so for a few days. You were on that transition team the entire year or longer along with 11 or 12 other really top notch performers up there and you you should do a podcast on that at some point because that's at least a podcast worth of uh and a lot of stuff people have probably forgotten about. But what I was going to get to you are one of those people and we had quite a few of them not not everybody but we had quite a few people who were I I spending having spent most of my career um uh on the operating side although I was in merchandising a little bit marketing a few other areas leadership training some different things but most of my time was in operations by Martin Sam's my view of our buyers and you being one of them you were very professional very serious about your business on the details and one thing that always impressed me in those merchandise meetings sometimes in the officer meetings sometimes on Saturday morning meetings whenever somebody would come up with the question or uh or a problem or whatever that you didn't know was coming, you were one of those people who you had an answer. Not always 100% but there's no way anybody can have every answer to every question or problem, right? But you you almost always had an answer that was specific whenever people bring things up and I always admired and we had other people like that Don Harris was one you'd ask and when even when Don had responsibility for multiple departments somebody would come up with something Chuck Kirby was another one. So somebody would come up with something and Don would have an answer for him most of the time Chuck Kirby would have an answer for him most of the time Lois McKead I mean you could go on there's best shomer there's so many people over but that always impressed the heck out of me and I remember one time telling Tom Cockland I said me and I said I'm I'm kind of a generalist you know but I I I know a fair amount about our business but I really I would like to be an expert someday I would love to be an expert on a category of merchandise or whatever. But you were one of them who was I believe an expert I think you still are and there were others. And the awesome thing about you doing this this town we live in is absolutely chalk full it's not like there are a dime a dozen and a lot of them are gone, right? I mean there's a lot of them are gone but there are still quite a few people in this community who who know more about merchandising and about buying than than some of the people probably who are currently right in there doing it, doing it today. I was sitting at that um back in December first week in December at that alumni uh uh uh uh meeting that Doug and John throw every year which is pretty cool I always don't always go but I was at that one I'm sitting at a table John I I I was up talking and I looked around and and it was time for the thing to officially start and I look and there's not very many places to sit I go over here on the far right I sit down and look over. I'm sitting next to Dick Mahan, Jim Woodruff and Steve Bailey. Wow now for those who are watching this and don't know those are three icons of merchandising in Walmart history that Dick started with Walmart in 1969 and he was there through 1991. He he he was a buyer whenever a buyer bought an entire department it's mind blowing there are still those people around now they're not going to be here forever but there are still people scattered around that have that kind of experience who saw Sam Walton and saw the culture up close uh intimately and so what a neat thing I hope I hope you have some of those folks on your show.

SPEAKER_01 57:49

I

Writing Without AI And Book Updates

SPEAKER_01 57:50

hope they're willing to come on they've got so much knowledge and experience I've got a list of uh people that I would love to bring on because I like you I agree there there are people who's I I think their stories need to be brought forward and uh and some of them you know I think it's just uh there's a lot to learn from individual people and that's part of what I would like to do this brief forward some of those voices so thank you for that yeah Russ Robertson um great read I like his book for a couple of reasons one it's informative two it's nostalgic and number three it has your personality all over it and I notice um in this book and on your posts on LinkedIn that you always reference that AI isn't used at all and uh you know AI is great we talk about that a lot for a lot of things but I really enjoy the fact that we get your personality in here along with the book and I appreciate that I'm one of those too and I write some things on LinkedIn too and you know some you may you may find some grammatical errors or things but it's all because of it's coming from the personality and I don't think AI is ever going to be able to come in and say you know let's duplicate the personality of somebody like Russ Robertson not available not available.

SPEAKER_00 59:11

There's a one of a kind there are I appreciate that very much and uh yeah that that's one thing that AI cannot do. I'll I will say you have a first edition. Yeah. So there's three editions. So I I I was in such a rush to get that out there that I put that was highly edited professional editor, professional copy setter professional book designers and all that kind of stuff. So it's professionally done there's no but there's no misspelled words but I will tell you I misspelled two names in there that's been corrected since then. And one of them, I'm gonna just go ahead and tell you right up front so if by chance she listens to this, Shelly McMillan, I misspelled her first name I left out an E. And I didn't find that out until that book was out. So I unpublished as soon as I found it out I unpublished the book and we changed that and there was a couple of two or three other things like that. Nothing that took away or added to the meaning of it but I was so darn embarrassed. She's such an awesome person though I know she would have never even said anything. But Shelly McMillan if you're by chance listening to this you ever listened to it or if Doug you listened to it please tell Shelly I'm gonna take one of those first edition books. I'm gonna turn to page 142 where her name's misspelled and I'm gonna ask her to sign it, personalize it for me.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:18

And I'm hoping she will I that's funny. I I knew her as Mrs McMillan she was a teacher at Apple Glenn Elementary School she sure was going to school there. So they had her how cool so I'm not sure only in Bentonville Arkansas right yeah only in Bentonville Arkansas.

Where To Buy The Book

SPEAKER_01 1:00:35

Russ has been great um how do how can somebody acquire this book?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:42

Walmart.com Amazon okay uh and it's uh there's hardback there's uh so far I haven't been able to figure out how to get the ebook on Walmart.com is probably an error on my part and the person I have helping with it but at any rate uh yeah Walmart Amazon.com and I will tell you that for some reason there are two different publishing sites for some reason the the Income Spark which is where Walmart purchases a lot of their books the physical quality of the book is a little bit better. I'm gonna say it's about five percent better okay than the Amazon. Okay. I don't know why that is but it's a tiny little thing. Nobody else may notice it but I noticed it whenever I held the two books in my hand. So anyway for what that's worth.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:19

And finally if somebody wants to get a hold of you call you what's the best way I'll get they can shoot me an email man I'm an open book whatever somebody thinks I got yeah they can shoot me an email leadingregularfolks.com okay or leading leadingregular folks at gmail dot com. Okay. Uh shoot me there, find me on LinkedIn uh I'm not on Facebook much.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:41

I would recommend uh anybody to to find you and follow you on LinkedIn as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:45

Oh I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:46

Well I really appreciate you coming and uh and it's really exciting having you here for my first podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:52

It's been it's been awesome. Your first record setting podcast yeah you're gonna set some records on this podcast industry. Thank you Russia Robertson appreciate it thank you John thanks for having me many people