[Music]
okay stephen key here
and today today is an amazing day at
inventory tv because we have a great
speaker
that's going to talk about the dream
for every entrepreneur right
i know you're listening every
entrepreneur out there that's got a
product idea you want to be in the one
major retailer which one is that brian
walmart okay all right and you're the
guy
that can help people get into walmart
navigate walmart because it's not that
easy is it
because they're i mean they're like
it's it's like being in an nfl right i
mean
maybe you've got this little idea maybe
you're selling some local
retailers but when you get to the big
leagues does everything change
most of it changes not everything
changes but pretty much
not let's say 92.4 of everything changes
okay and and it's funny you say that
like
my job's not just to get people into
walmart
it's also to help people understand that
walmart's might not be the right
choice for them at this moment okay um
everybody give you a little backup
one of our students i'm not going to say
who it is
but he was doing fantastic online
i mean selling millions of dollars of
stuff this guy was really doing well qvc
killing it but his dream was walmart
and he got into walmart but it took him
a while until he found you
right because it's not easy to get into
walmart is it i mean
no and once i heard the story of how it
took him like a year until he found
you because you're not easy to find but
once he found you
you navigated how easy was it for you
once you saw his product
to get into walmart was it hard easy
what were the issues
um well i i wanted to take a little step
back of how we even evaluate
who we talk to because i mean that's
that's a really important part of this
step is that
you know his product is one thing but we
we have what we call our three ps
um it always starts with the product
right you have to have an item
is the item unique where does it fit in
a category how does it fit in space
where is it at how is it produced what's
the capability there's a lot that goes
into that um the second is potential
right if you're the same as something
else that's out there
there's not a lot of potential you have
to take space from someone else
um that potential is very important and
the third biggest one
when i first started doing this i would
say that oh it's
it's 33 you know it's equal they're all
the same and it's not
the the last p is people and people by
far
are the most important part of this
entire process
because i've seen more more of that get
in the way
of good potential and good product or
accelerate it
and what i mean by that is is you know
from a background perspective a lot of
people aren't
20-year veterans like myself dealing
with walmart and and being raised in a
corporate world and understanding
all these business models and you don't
have to be there but you have to be
really
open and transparent and willing to roll
up the sleeves
and and find new things and so
when we first started talking um it
didn't take long
from a product perspective because the
product was great
right i knew the product had potential
um we spent a lot of time i bet we'd
talked on the phone
at least five or six times before we
ever signed a contract
okay and the the crazy thing is
you could tell a lot about someone's
perspectives about walmart
based off the conversation and the
questions they ask me
so people come with the two wrong
questions the two
the two wrong questions are how fast can
i get into walmart
and how many dollars am i going to make
right because i i think that's what's so
appealing about walmart is the size
right there's so much foot traffic
there's so many dollars involved
that's when you feel like you've finally
made it you're on the walmart shelf
um but that's that's not the questions
that should be asked
right and we spent months having really
in-depth conversations
who is your customer are they shopping
at walmart if they're not shopping at
walmart why are you so
fascinated with walmart how do you
communicate with them how do you
communicate if you get on shelf
there is all this back and forth
dialogue is about
truly understanding sustainability and
then the other biggest conversation that
we had leading up to this
is something called channel strategy and
channel strategy is by far the most
effective
way to get into walmart and what i mean
by that
by channel strategy is if you own if you
are the guy that sells this pen
how are you going to sell this pen in
the club channel
in mass at target versus walmart versus
you know qvc or online retailers if you
can't
you have to be able to step back and
really look at the category and the
channels
okay to understand when i take this pen
and i stick it into walmart
what's it gonna do because it's going to
do a lot so there's
are you even ready to get into walmart
from a capacity from a product from a
sustainability from you know being able
to produce the product capabilities
okay to okay if i do go in there there's
a lot of ramifications that happen and
i've seen it where people have have
screwed their own business up because
they have this great product
they launch it at walmart now their
amazon business is screwed up
and their business at qvc is screwed up
and they don't want to talk to them
anymore
um so that that is the real the real
conversations that are
have to get pretty deep pretty fast okay
let's talk about what a
perfect if there is such a thing i know
there isn't but let's take
let's talk about a perfect situation
where you think someone is ready
okay number one you said scalability can
they produce the product because
if it does work you got to be ready to
produce a lot of product pretty fast
correct because when those orders come
in if i get an order from walmart how
much time do i have to ship that to them
because
it's fairly short window isn't it it it
depends on
launching versus replenishment and so
here's
walmart will typically set an individual
so if you walk in
and go to their milk aisle that milk
aisle sets about once a year
okay right so so everything leads up to
this this calendar
right so if you go into automotive and
you sell brakes
those brakes are going to get set once a
year so
you back that up about five months to
when they make their decision
and then before that they have what's
called line reviews and so
the goal for us is to get
any entrepreneur any any company any
partner that we're working with
into that line review process okay so
while i'm speaking with one of your
students for over two months
we still have another three months
before the line review even happened
got it right so we we took three months
to build out a perfect presentation
what's important how do you talk
what are the different levels the
different metrics so then you go to this
line review meeting
they meet with everybody and their
brother
to to put that set together they spent
about two to three months
having that conversation and then they
hand this beautiful matrix out
which is everyone's dream that says you
have a spot on the shelf
and we're gonna start shipping in three
months okay
good luck all right um and so that's
that's kind of
backtracking up to that okay um
looking back i was a walmart vendor
very very exciting by the way okay
all right and that first order came in
it was probably a little larger than we
thought they did a little test first
and then that first big order came in um
we had a certain limited time to supply
it you know so
we were getting ready but it really um
it was kind of a short window to get
that first product in the door
but i was worried about the reorders
because it we could track it i want to
talk maybe you can mention a little bit
about that but that second order came in
fairly fast
that's what scared me because you have
to have that inventory
because they want it certain time and
and so talk a little bit about just
being prepared
for reorders yeah and this really comes
down to
the expertise and the language right
where where someone like myself can help
a company is because you think to
yourself oh my gosh
how many are they going to sell a week
yeah how many are going to have to go on
the shelf
how often are that's a lot of the
questions and i can tell you
after living in northwest arkansas for
17 years and dealing with walmart
the best thing they do is systems
and logistics they move product better
than everyone else
and they actually have really good
visibility to that product they use a
system called retail link
i can get on my computer today tell you
how many individual
items sold yesterday at a store down the
street of one product
okay right so the the you know the your
student that we're talking about
i could tell them every day how many he
sold where they sold them at
what's on what's coming down the pipe
it's crazy
but that's a lot of data if you think
about every item every sku like okay
manhandling that data is a job in itself
i take it for granted because i've been
doing it for 17 years
um when someone's brand new to it it's
just it's like drinking from a fire hose
right just like what do i even do with
this um
going back to your original question
inventory at walmart looks like this
and it's i'm going to oversimplify it
because it's going to sound simple but
it's not
you have what's called the pipeline fill
that means we're just going to fill the
shelf
okay so if you have a thousand stores
and you've got
a case that has five items in it they're
probably going to ship two cases to
every store
it's the easiest one to calculate okay
the one that you're talking about
is the one that really screws everyone
up and it's that secondary follow
so that first big you know you got a a
po for a half a million dollars i'm like
back the trucks up
run over the bushes let's go right that
is that is
that's literally what happens and they
send it out and there's this
this moment in time where you're like we
did it and then all of a sudden
bing bing bing all these orders keep
coming in
well now the system is trying to look
out ahead
the first one is just filling the shelf
that next one is looking eight weeks ten
weeks
okay and the system is really good so
what it's doing is it's saying okay
if i sell two units a store per week
then i need you know 10
to get me through five weeks well it's
like okay you filled that
so it's seeing that but now it's
thinking okay well now you or i need to
order two more cases
because now i have to have enough
inventory behind it to make it 10 weeks
and then all of a sudden you have never
another order for 500
000 dollars like oh my gosh what just
happened
like that that's that's the crazy part
and so that
that first initial shipments in the
walmart is a dance
yeah after that then it really is
flowing in and out
and another thing that people don't
realize and it really depends on the
product
right food just moves constantly um not
everything does
right the item that we've been talking
about doesn't move as rapidly
but there's also seasonality so
the system itself will actually say hey
it's december this item's gonna go up
so even if you've been selling two a
week two week two week it's like oh
here's coming christmas we're hitting
thanksgiving okay and the system's gonna
say well it's three week three week then
four a week then five a week
and so you will see the actual orders
ramp up before your sales
and then ramp down okay afterwards
you know i think looking back when we
were selling at walmart
we didn't have someone like you to help
us
[Laughter]
i didn't know you existed we were
just excited to be in walmart we were
ready we were selling that
all these stores around the world we
really knew our product we knew the
customers wanted it
but when that first order came in it was
pretty exciting we rushed and then
those orders started to come in and i
think it panicked us because we
didn't understand looking further out
but we had to hold so much inventory
because we knew if we didn't
and we couldn't fulfill that order what
would happen to us
oh you would get crushed i mean that's
that's where walmart
is the pain in the butt to deal with
because if out of stock
situations is is a big
no-no inside of walmart's world now i
say that during corona there were plenty
of other stock situations and they
actually you'd be surprised how
well they worked through some of that
okay but they
the the hard thing is when you play with
walmart on that level
they expect you to be able to perform at
a high level i know
right and and that is that's where the
burden and the stress and the pain
comes okay it's not it's not
insurmountable
but that is that pain of how much and
trust me
i talk to your student all the time
about this every day the worries
are there going to be markdowns what am
i accountable for
when does that happen um when do i know
i failed
like that looms over you constantly
um so that's that's a real feeling yeah
no the
inventory we started looking at how much
we had to hold because of it
we knew how long it took to get our
product into my warehouse
to get it to them so we we knew that so
we knew we had to
to hold a lot of inventory which got a
little scary because you're purchasing
from your supplier now you're holding it
and you're waiting for those orders to
come in
it's really a float game a little bit
too
that i don't think a lot of people
realize that
you know the the gap between
when i've got to pay my supplier of the
product to when i get paid at walmart
um right walmart was they paid they they
were
right on it which was great but it never
matched up
so there's a gap that i had the we had
the float
in there and sometimes if you have your
own finances great maybe you could
factor
i mean there's all these things you
could do but at the end of the day
you're you're really managing inventory
and money
and i don't know if a lot of people
really realize
that's what you're doing um and that's
stressful
how stressful is that well i used to
weigh a lot less and not have gray hair
so
it's it's a pretty stressful situation
but i will say this
the really nice thing about walmart is
they give you the tools to succeed
i remember when i first came down here
17 years ago i read this article and i
wish i could quote the guy because i
don't know who said it
but he said you know the nice thing
about walmart is they give you the bat
they give you the ball they give you a
playing field they give you uniform they
give you a hat they give all this stuff
but you have to show up and perform yeah
right and
and that's where there's you know
someone like me can be very helpful is
that
retail link is the second largest
database in the world
right next to the library of congress it
is ginorm like
you can use it to do so many amazing
wonderful cool things if you don't know
how to use it though
it's a massive it's an app on your phone
it's a paperweight it's a
it's pressure whatever it is i don't
think we
i don't think we knew how to use it very
very well um
i mean looking back now that i think
about it
god we could have used someone right
that really knew it we were just
i think we did okay you know we we hit
the orders
we shipped it correctly so everything
was done
i mean we were pretty good at it took a
little bit of time but boy the stress
of not having someone that knew
looking ahead prepare you so let's do
this
i want to talk about five things someone
should consider
that should be ready if they even think
they're ready for walmart what would
those five things be
um you said scalability you have to have
plot i think by far
by far number one is
is can you actually supply and it's not
even that first order
um the the nice thing is sitting down
myself or any professional that's worked
with walmart
you have to be able and these are the
five things that even even if
everyone that you know calls me and we
have great deals that's fine but even if
people are looking at hiring someone to
do this
these are the questions you should be
asking a sales rep inside northwest
arkansas okay
it's not just scaling up for that first
order it's what
what does it look like as it moves
forward because yeah you might ship a
half a million dollars on that first
order
but if it takes you six months to build
that inventory
right and then you can make that one
order but now you need a hundred
thousand
every single month and you can't keep up
with it
you that you talk about stress that will
be that will be the one that ends you
because now you're in out of stock
situations the products underperforming
you know you've got all this inventory
out there that i mean that's
that's by far the one thing that you
have to have a really good grasp of
so number one scalability what's number
two brian
number two is what do you have to offer
walmart i don't think people really
really think about this but walmart's
got a lot of shoppers they've got a lot
of products
what makes you different and
and that conversation has actually
changed a lot
it used to be i've got a patent i've got
a product that you don't have
i've got something unique and those are
all great those are all wonderful
wonderful things
but there are other things that people
have do you have a following
people that you're going to bring to the
shelf a social media presence that is
driving like that has gone a long way um
we've gotten more than one item into
walmart
really based off of a community
right if you've got a massive following
that you know here
everyone loves my blue pen here's why
they love the blue pen
and i'm going to take my time to drive
them to walmart shelf
okay buyers get buyers get excited about
that they really really really do
okay well that's really interesting
because that's fairly new if you have an
audience you built it
leverage social media drive your
customers to walmart fantastic what's
number three
all right number three i would say
um channel strategy and here is why
you have to be able to understand how
your items
need to differ and interact with each
other okay and i'll give you a really
good example um
if i have this one pen and it's 99 cents
and i sell it at amazon and online and
i've built this great business
well if i take this pen i stick it in
walmart they're going to sell it for 79
cents
and your amazon business is gonna going
to suffer from it
now before i even approach walmart i
should understand how i'm going to talk
to them because that's going to drive
the conversation
right i've got this blue pen that
everybody loves i've been selling it on
amazon forever
but now i've got this blue pen which is
completely different different upc
same social media following but you can
sell this one for 79 cents
and it's not gonna hurt this one okay
right and then
then for sam's club i've got this marker
and it's a blue marker
it sounds it sounds strange but so many
people
that i talk to especially inventors they
have these great ideas and these great
products and they're like this
is perfect just the way it is you have
to be able to step back and be like
are there subtle differences subtle
changes so that
what i'm actually taking to walmart
doesn't mess up the rest of my business
and and you can do it right your student
is a prime example of this
he built a product that went out and is
being sold on his website
and doing millions of dollars what you
will see in walmart that's on the shelf
is not the same product
same company same people same social
media same
concept same everything different
product
lower retail because we've changed the
size down
we're already talking to club and sam's
club about putting
multiple products and sam's club is
excited because it's
not the same three totally different
channels
three totally different strategies and
neither one's going to suppress the
other to make
your overall brand i'm really glad you
mentioned that because it's so important
you really don't want to hurt some of
the other relationships other
sales funnels that you have because we
we were concerned
because we were selling back in the day
to all these independent
musical stores and how was that going to
impact
because the price would come down to go
to walmart everybody was concerned but
you're right we changed the price point
we changed the package
we same product but it was delivered
differently
to keep everybody kind of happy if not
you could lose some business yeah and it
it's so simple as this one's brian's
blueprint
pen this is the brand well this is
the blue pen powered by brian okay
it's sometimes you can come up with sub
brands
sometimes you can come up even private
label there there are different ways
to have conversations around it um
and and being transparent with walmart
they don't mind having those
conversations
good and you help with that too
absolutely okay
all right number four number four
um have a good way to relieve stress in
your life
and i know this sounds this sounds
really kind of strange because
i watch with your student every single
time i have a phone call there's one
moment
of just like oh man what are we doing
what are we doing um
that's probably what i spend a lot of
time doing is saying this is okay and
here's why
okay right like you you have to i think
a lot of times
inventors um entrepreneurs they get so
focused so just on the little tiny
things
that having either a team around you a
mentor like yourself and
you know someone like that they can say
okay let's open up the vision a little
bit
let's understand why this isn't the end
of the world
okay and let's let's talk through
because to your point
the roller coasters of ups and down you
get a half million dollar order you're
like
we got another one oh my gosh like this
constant back and forth
okay the actual business isn't
doing that the actual business is just
getting on the shelf
it's flowing okay you're being able to
read it and understand it
um so really it'll be all right having a
good education having someone that can
help you
and well-being right make sure you're
getting good exercise good sleep because
it's going to be a little crazy okay
number five what have we got
for number five number five if you're
going to deal with walmart you better
know retelling
or find someone who knows retelling okay
because that is their system if you
don't understand their system
you're not going to be able to put pos
into the system you're not going to be
able to accept pos you're not going to
be able to see store count you're not
going to be able to see zero sales
reports
the the system is truly amazing
um there are things in there that
fortune 500 companies don't use on a
day-to-day basis
i know because i've worked for them you
can go pull an item
um so say brian's got his pen out there
i could pull the top
10 items inside of walmart that sell
with my item
there's what's called it's called what
sells with my item it's a report you
pull it
and it'll say milk chicken whatever
other things people buy it'll show you
your market basket size
okay so if you know that the average
market basket at walmart is 70
yet when your product is in their basket
it's 90
you can sell against that like there's
just so much really good information and
by far
it's the information that you're talking
about is
is how do i control inventory how do i
look out ahead
there's ladder plans there's all this
these things
it's taken years to learn um
either learn it there are actually
courses and classes you can go out and
take on retail link
or find people you know put yourself
around some or someone who's done it
i would say out of everything that we
talked about
the the capability to provide
product is probably number one but the
knowledge and understanding of the
systems and how it operates is honestly
probably number two
in that order brian you talked about you
hear these horror stories about
walmart put you out of business i don't
believe that i mean they they want you
to succeed because they're going to
succeed too
so big picture walmart wants you to be
helpful they're giving you all the tools
is that correct it's usually if
something goes wrong it's usually
the the entrepreneur or the other
business it's not walmart is it
absolutely walmart walmart wants you to
succeed no one's going to put something
on their shelves and hope that it fails
right and it most of the time it's a
communication error right it's it's
not understanding the system it's not
understanding how inventory flows and
all that stuff
um it's honestly it's like walking into
a foreign country you would think it's
just a retail store it's not a big deal
yeah but you're walking into a
completely different world and if you
don't speak the language if you don't
understand the systems
that's where you can get tripped up
pretty quickly got it hey
brian thank you very much for coming on
uh absolutely we're going to put this
out there
i want to tell everybody if you're if
you've got a product
you think it's ready for walmart you
think you're ready you've listened to
this
we're gonna put brian's contact
information down below give them a call
reach out to them and maybe you
are ready and if you are ready hey
you're gonna need some help i understand
it i've been there i drowned it i
thought i lost
weight i thought i was gonna jump off a
cliff
because it's it's it's exciting it's all
those things
but you need some help and you really
need a pro so brian thank you very much
for this information we'll have you back
on because i want to continue this
conversation
it's just too good because it is the
american
dream so thank you brian thank you i
appreciate it
[Music]
you