The Doing Business in Bentonville Podcast

Ep. 128 - The Secret to Walmart-Ready Talent

• Doing Business in Bentonville • Episode 128

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A talent shortage can stall a thriving market, or it can spark a movement. We sit down with logistics leaders, program directors, founders, recruiters, and graduates to map how Northwest Arkansas built a reliable pipeline of Walmart-ready professionals and a repeatable path from idea to shelf. From warehouse tech that boosts pick efficiency by 40 percent to a curriculum that teaches real Retail Link analysis, this is a playbook for anyone aiming to break into the supplier world.

You’ll hear how the Certified Retail Analyst program at NWACC formed through a rare three-way partnership: Walmart provided system access and data, the college delivered accredited instruction, and a supplier steering committee defined the exact skills that drive results in category management, account management, and supply chain. A graduate-turned-director explains how that framework has helped more than a thousand people land roles, while a former school psychologist shares a candid look at reskilling into a sales analyst position at a leading confectionery brand, proof that transferable data skills can power a bold career pivot.

Innovation and recruiting round out the story. The founders behind AON Invent and Double Dog Display recount the whiteboard sprint that led to the first swipe-activated prepaid card, what we now know as the gift card, and how they now connect inventors with the manufacturing, engineering, and display support needed to win retail placement. An executive search leader from Cameron Smith and Associates reveals how Bentonville’s dense supplier network fuels hiring for Walmart, Target, Kroger, and more, and why the region’s ecosystem lowers risk for both companies and candidates.

If you’re targeting a role in the Walmart supplier community, want to turn a product idea into a retail reality, or need a roadmap to upskill with impact, this conversation delivers practical steps and real outcomes. Follow the show, share with a friend who’s Bentonville-bound, and leave a quick review to tell us what you’re aiming to learn next.

SPEAKER_05:

Hello everyone, I'm Andy Wilson and we're broadcasting live at the Shoemaker Center Tech for Technology Advanced.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, absolutely. My name is Taryn Smith. I am actually new to the Bentonville area. I will be relocating down here from Columbus, Ohio, uh in about a month. Yeah, so I work with FST Logistics. We're a full service asset-based 3PL. And part of what that means for us is that we're able to enter into a we consider a pool program with Walmart where we're working directly with them to help ship different suppliers' products into Walmart distribution centers. So as we continue to do that and build a bigger presence, we're gonna have some office space down here, and I get to be one of the lucky few that help get that started. It definitely has. We've gone into a few different partnerships actually. Um, one that is more recent, and this is more on the e-commerce side, but we've actually implemented a new system recently in our warehouses where it helps to make our picking a little bit more efficient. I'm the sales guy, so I don't know all of the details for it, but I know it's helped to increase our overall efficiency for picks uh about 40% across the board.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so I am the director of retail and supplier education over the Certified Resale Adales program here at NWAC. Um, this program has actually been going on 25 years strong, and that's why we're here tonight. We're celebrating that with this event tonight, with this Gala, um, just with a lot of our stakeholders and constituents and whatnot. We just want to have a celebration to uh uplift the program and take it further.

SPEAKER_06:

Well, well, first of all, congratulations on your role.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, thank you.

SPEAKER_06:

And you are a graduate, right?

SPEAKER_02:

That's that's correct, that's correct. I'm a 2017 graduate of the CRA program. Um, and it was uh it was a stepping stone for me, you know. Um I was at a point where I was wanting to, you know, entertain new ideas and maybe get break into the retail space in a different way, and I thought that the CRA program would be a perfect fit for that, and sure enough it was. Thank you so much, and that that's a true honor. And I I hope I hope I'm able to lead the charge correctly, and I just want to continue to carry on that legacy of the program and of Mr. Shoemaker and all of that, because I heard a lot of great stories about Jack growing up.

SPEAKER_00:

Hello, my name is Claire Patton, and I'm it's a pleasure to be here. I was a school psychologist. Um, I worked in Rogers Public Schools as a school psychologist for almost 10 years prior to becoming a certified retail analyst candidate graduate. And now I am a sales analyst for Lint Chocolate. So I made a huge career transition, all thanks to NWAC and the continuing education that I received through the Shoemaker Center. In my previous profession as a school psychologist, I worked on a lot of educational, I worked with a lot of educational data and analytics and um made connections between data and problems that could be solved with students and within the school system. And so I have always wanted to be in corporate, and so I did my due diligence and my research, and I heard about the certified retail analysts program through NWAC, and I thought it was a good fit for me because I could continue working full-time while taking classes online. And so that's how I kind of landed at NWAC. So I did the program for a year and applied to jobs, and now work for Lentz. I wholeheartedly believe that I could not have made the transition into um the consumer packaged goods industry, the uh supplier industry without this program and this opportunity. Wonderful. 100%.

SPEAKER_08:

I'm Larry Robertson, uh co-founder and CEO of Aeon Invent and uh an owner of uh Double Dog Display. It's Andrew Boji.

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah, I'm Andrew Boji, and uh I'm the engineer at the company, and um yeah, we do a lot of great stuff together for CPGs as well as uh you know other people getting into Walmart and um whether it's uh product design and uh and engineering and getting into production or whether it's just retail displays and promotions, we do the whole gambit.

SPEAKER_08:

This is just such a great event. Um I I have worked with, known so many people who were new to the industry, who were fortunate enough to end up in northwest Arkansas for one reason or another, had no idea what their next career move was going to be. And uh frankly, advice that I've given people over the years was just get a job with a temporary service to get in the door of one of these CPGs in Northwest Arkansas and then learn a little bit about the industry. And then 25 years ago, here comes NWAC with a program. Oh, yeah, and you no longer need a Trojan horse to get into the industry.

SPEAKER_06:

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_08:

Many years ago, I'm talking back, going back to the mid-90s, uh, I was fortunate enough to be recruited onto a very small team uh and asked to create some new products. And um the the mission, so to speak, was hey, lock yourselves in a room for a year, we'll feed you, water you, give you support, and uh let's see what happens. And so we started with a whiteboard and we created five ideas that we just kind of spitballed, frankly. And we were fortunate that within a year, all five of those items found their way to the shelves of Walmart and or Sam's Club and some other retailers. But one of those items we never dreamed it would be as big as it was the swipe activated prepaid phone card that later morphed into the gift card. So we had a team of 12 people, generated$100 million in revenue the first year, and it exploded beyond that. And so we started getting suggestions from everyone from Walmart and Sam's Pub buyers and individuals that came from all over the country who said, Hey, I've got this idea. I called Walmart and they explained that we don't develop products, we buy and sell things. We'll talk to these guys. And back in the day, those folks just blundered in off the street and called every day. And um, frankly, I resisted starting an invention service because I knew that was a predatory industry by and large. And then I met this guy and I wouldn't take no for an answer. Do you want to?

SPEAKER_07:

I was doing engineering, I was working with a lot of the CPG companies to design products for them, and then I started working with inventors as well. And I'm thinking, how do I get these inventors that flounder as soon as they stop working with me because they don't know what to do with their invention, yeah, connected with the CPG companies? And I thought, Larry, this is a match made in heaven. Yeah, this is great, we can get everything taken care of in EO and really help these people take their products to market. And Larry said no. And I said, but what about if we did it this way? And Larry said no, and he said no about five times, and I eventually wore him down, and that's where Aeon Invent came from.

SPEAKER_04:

I'm Scott Crossett, I'm the CEO of Cameron Smith and Associates, and we are an executive search firm here in Bentonville, Northwest Arkansas that's been here for 30 years, and we focus on recruiting suppliers uh for the Walmart supplier community or anybody that sells to the consumer goods industry. We do recruiting for the supplier community. So anyone who sells a product to Walmart, whether it's in category management, account management, uh marketing, finance, or supply chain, we recruit the people that support that business to Walmart or to Kroger or to Target, Publix, HEV, any of the major retail accounts across the country. And so, as you said, you and Cameron were great friends, as was I with Cameron, gotten to know you a little bit through that and through doing business in Bentonville. Uh but yeah, we're we're expanding to other markets. We've got recruiters in Ohio, Florida, New York, Chicago, and a variety of other places, and still looking to grow. So uh Cameron established the company in 1994, and we've just continued to go from there. But it Cameron just he's he had a vision for this town when there were 50 suppliers in Bentonville, and now there may be 1,500 companies in Bentonville servicing Walmart supplier teams, and and so here we are. Oh, absolutely. Cameron Cameron was at the beginning. I mean, we were doing uh I I've been here 18 years at Cameron Smith and Associates, and I think the first week I started, we came to NWAC and we did some mock interviews for the students to help them prepare for interviews in for the supplier community or wherever their careers may take them. So we've been involved with NWAC from from its beginnings uh with the the retail link programs. I know it probably its infancy stages, we got involved pretty early, and it's been a great thing for CSA and for all of Northwest Arkansas. Yeah, I I don't think everybody saw the vision. There were 50 companies here. It was a lot of work to go and get companies to relocate here. And now you can go and you can look, and there's there's people everywhere that are already here that have those skills. Yeah. But I'd say as people look at software companies or whatever they are bringing in to support Walmart in this town, while it may seem like a risk, if you've got the vision and you put putting your faith behind it and go all out, there's there's a lot of opportunities to continue and and new companies to be founded, just like there's so many leaders here that have done the same thing.

SPEAKER_01:

So well, thank you, Andy. It's uh honor to be here tonight. What a fun evening we have uh celebrating. Maybe I'll just hit a couple of the highlights. Uh some of the fun things that we talked about tonight was um, you know, having a purpose, and the purpose was uh real. Um uh, you know, back in 89, uh 98, I'm sorry, 98 and 99, uh in our uh marketplace, the uh demand for uh talented, trained people to do the analytical work, the the important retail link work um was uh was a challenge. It just wasn't enough people to go around. And and it is so lucky that a group of us were called together and uh a challenge was given by Walmart to um, you know, uh figure out how to quit hiring from each other and and see what you can do to um you know s support the the analytical need, but uh find a different way to uh to get that work done. And and so uh there were a lot of us that um ended up working on the project, but it but I was fortunate to you know wake up one night with an idea, and the idea was uh if we could get Walmart to help us um with access to the retail link system and store data. And if I could get the community college to uh teach and provide professors in classrooms, and then uh get a supplier steering committee together to um maybe work on some curriculum, what was important to uh have people know to be successful in our business. If if there was a way to pull those three things together, uh we might have the seed of an idea that would uh increase the talent pool and uh reduce some of the pressure on um the available talent in in Northwest Arkansas at the time. And you know what? Uh I'm I'm so excited to say that the top leadership of the company, Lee Scott, was the one that said, yeah, I like I like that idea and let me uh reinforce it with uh great resources within within the company. And and uh people like uh Andy, I talked tonight about uh Randy Sally and how important he was early on in the uh program. And then I went to the community college and talked to the president there, and he really endorsed the idea and provided um um uh not only uh support, but people that would really help engage and help us uh achieve our goal of um teaching the right thing to uh potential candidates. And then the stuff then we formed a uh supplier steering committee, and that was probably the most fun uh because I had, you know, from all times we we probably had from 12 to 20 people working together on various parts of this idea trying to bring it to light. So the steering committee was just uh was just incredible. And tonight I had Jack C and Jeff Brazil here, um uh two of my original uh not only friends before but during and and after that whole uh exercise. So it was fun to uh to celebrate with them. But so what happened, uh Andy, was once we had those three pieces, it literally was an idea. It wasn't real yet. And to make it real, we actually had to design curriculum. Um, and we had to write the curriculum. So the um the supplier steering committee did that. It was it was amazing. They actually wrote the curriculum for what we defined as five critical needs or classes that that could be taught. And um all five of those, thanks to the support of the the college, uh, were approved by the college accreditation board. So when you think about those things and then the support from Walmart, um that's what gave us the belief that we we really had something. And so with a little bit of work, we um we got our first um student um body. Uh was 12, we were looking for 12 candidates, and um they quickly um not only were they successful but in the in the coursework, uh, but they immediately got jobs. And that uh just um spurred momentum uh for more people to want to sign up, and they got jobs. And at the end of the first uh 15 years, we had more than 600 people that had um gotten a job, and now tonight we were celebrating uh all together that over a thousand people have gotten jobs through the certified retail um analyst program at Northwest Arkansas uh community college, and I couldn't be more proud of the colour.