8th & Walton Experiment Gaining Foothold

It started out as an experiment a little more than three months ago, one of many ideas that frequently go through the mind of Matt Fifer, founder and CEO of 8th & Walton in Bentonville.

This idea, however, was different, and has quickly become a weekend routine for thousands in the Wal-Mart Stores Inc. community and its large supplier ecosystem.

Fifer and his team have developed “Saturday Morning Meeting,” an informational webcast that runs from 45 minutes to an hour each week.

The show is produced in the 8th & Walton offices in the Bentonville Plaza, and posted online each Saturday morning on the company’s YouTube channel.

Derek Ridenoure, a consultant with 8th & Walton and a national account manager for The C.F. Sauer Co, hosts the show, which recaps current Wal-Mart-related headlines through interviews with professionals who are relevant to the supplier community.

“In the spirit of Wal-Mart’s own legendary Saturday morning meetings, we are inviting the global supplier community to join us for a meeting every Saturday morning that is just for them,” Fifer’s group announces on its website.

The first webcast aired June 8 and had a few hundred views. Less than three months later, episodes are getting more than 30,000 views, including a July 20 episode titled, “Building High Performing Supplier Teams” featuring Denise Natishan, a senior partner with Cameron Smith & Associates Recruiters in Rogers. That episode has nearly 35,000 views.

“The viewership has just gone crazy,” Fifer said.

Fifer started 8th & Walton in 2006 to provide classroom training on how suppliers do business with Wal-Mart. The company grew from a handful of classes in Northwest Arkansas to virtual classes that are now held all over North and South America.

“Today we are about service and community,” he said. “I started a newsletter about four years ago and we started relaying news that was being reported about Wal-Mart and relevant news about the Wal-Mart supplier community.”

Fifer said his newsletter subscription list grew to more than 40,000 within a year. With that growth and continued interest in the information 8th & Walton was providing, it didn’t take long for him to come up with an idea to reach even more people with more in-depth information and data.

“We wanted to take it a step further and instead of just focusing on the reporting of others, create a means to bring the community in and have conversations about what is going on at Wal-Mart,” Fifer said. “We knew we would have an audience that would want to learn about best practices, trends, insights, all things that help supplier teams do business better with Wal-Mart.”

 

Exciting Response

Fifer’s idea quickly started to become a reality when his team produced a couple of pilot episodes of “Saturday Morning Meeting.”

The rest is history.

Guests in recent episodes who have taken part in the round table discussions have included Tom Coughlin, former vice chairman of Wal-Mart; Bill Akins, vice president of client services at Rockfish Interactive; Darrin Robbins and Zach Simpson, senior directors of merchandising for Wal-Mart Stores; Mike Graen, director of innovations and supplier collaborations with Wal-Mart; Michael Clark, director of retail strategy and execution with Kellogg, and Bill Sussman and Amy Callahan with Collective Bias Inc.

“Wal-Mart reached out to us to be a part of this,” Fifer said. “We have been really excited with the guests we have and already have some big ideas for future people we hope to bring in.

“Just within the past 30 days our guest list has grown beyond the supplier community. We had a pretty big vision from the beginning and obviously had some big names from the supplier community we wanted to feature, some recently retired, and some third party providers, but the response has been exciting.”

 

Gaining Attention

“Saturday Morning Meeting” is already getting national attention as a way the public can gain knowledge on common practices between Walmart and its suppliers.

A recent story in Forbes magazine used a “Saturday Morning Meeting” episode to provide insight about the struggles Walmart often has dealing with demands of its suppliers. The story quotes Simpson and Robbins from their webcast discussion about communication with suppliers they deal with regularly.

 “What’s something you really wish suppliers knew before they ever stepped foot in the office, or picked up a phone to call the buyer?” Ridenoure asked the pair during the August 3 episode.

“Much of the advice dished out liberally by Mr. Robbins and Mr. Simpson sounded like Trade Partnerships 101. And in their tone, one could detect an element of frustration,” the Forbes article stated. “Mr. Robbins, for example, appealed to reps who keep issues to themselves. ‘If you’ve got a problem within your business, make it heard — especially if it’s something that’s material,’ Robbins said. ‘If you have in-stock problems that are just continually perpetuating, raise your hand. If we don’t know about it, we can’t fix it.’”

Another theme Robbins and Simpson hammered home was the need for suppliers to consider their value proposition all the way through to the consumer.

Simpson’s comments regarding geographic product selection was also highlighted in the Forbes report, stating “Walmart isn’t necessarily looking for a product that does well in 4000-plus stores. In fact, consumer-centric appeal may win over mass appeal in many local markets.”

“There’s a saying that in order for us to get bigger we have to act more locally while still maintaining scale,” Simpson said in the webcast. “That’s a challenge I try to instill in a lot of vendors that come in, the big guys and the little guys, that 4,000-store features are great and they move the needle for your organization, but I’ve got to become more relevant and I’ve got to use more precise tactics.”

 

 Advertising Inquiries

Fifer said a staff of seven people work on the weekly production, usually filming on Thursday and Friday. Staff members work through the night each Friday to get the show ready for its online release the following morning, usually by 9 a.m.

The webcast has also caught the eye of companies who want to be a part of the production. Recent episodes have featured commercials from Cameron Smith and Associates.

Fifer declined to reveal specifics about production costs for each episode, but he did say other companies have inquired about being part of the show.

“Our priority has always been about content and building relationships,” he said. “However, when you’re running 20,000 to 30,000 viewers on a weekly basis in a supplier community, I started getting phone calls about advertising on the show.”

Which will in turn help “Saturday Morning Meeting” continue to grow and become more advanced, Fifer said.

“All of us are just trying to make suppliers better because we love Wal-Mart,” Fifer said. “We really love Wal-Mart.”