My guest on today’s show is Matt Pierre, partner at The Partnering Group. Previously, Matt was Senior Director of E-commerce at General Mills and had a 28-year career at Mills across shopper marketing, marketing management, and finance. We discussed Matt’s experience at General Mills, his learnings from working with teams of 10 to more than 200, and his insights on working with retailers like Amazon, Instacart, and Walmart. Please enjoy my conversation with Matt Pierre.

Dave: Matt, welcome to the show.

Matt: David, great to be with you. Big fan of all the content that you’re putting out here and obviously your innovation in the space.

Dave: Well, thanks so much. I appreciate you dropping by for a chat. Take us back, if you would. How did you get your start in the space and at Mills?

Matt: Yeah, obviously, David. Unfortunately, that was a long time ago in my career, somewhat of a relic of a past era. But I started with Mills in a finance role right out of undergrad. Thought I would be there for three, four years, and then maybe on to business school or on to the next thing, and 28 years later, I was still with the company. So I had an opportunity to move from finance to brand management. I was one of the first in the company to be able to do that without kind of a newly minted MBA. And figured out the finance area was interesting, but the brand management side of the equation was really where all the action was at. So I was super fortunate to get to work on some of America’s most iconic brands – Wheaties, Nature Valley, Pillsbury, Chex Cereal, Chex Mix. Build a lot of innovation across the organization in different channels. And then drive change with where our shopper marketing teams were going and ultimately on to e-commerce. 

Dave: Such a great run, so many great experiences. What are some of your learnings from the different roles that you had?

Matt: Well, I think one of the benefits I had, I wanted to go to a big CPG early on because I wanted to have lots of experience. And I wanted to be able to work in different functions. And see what happens in sales, what happens in brand management, what happens in finance, and then just see different types of businesses. And so obviously I got that in spades at General Mills with 80 brands and 26 categories. I think some of the advice I’d give to our more junior folks is listen, there’s a huge benefit to ultimately being able to see a little bit of the bigger picture or the breadth of where an organization’s at. I think sometimes folks get a little my ambirelative to their specific role and you’ve got to understand how does that fit into the broader organization? I think once you understand that and have a little bit more empathy for other functional leads and what they’re trying to accomplish and where they go, it makes I think navigating across the organization a little bit easier. And I saw in my role ultimately trying to significantly influence the organization from an online e-commerce perspective. That was a huge asset for me.

Dave: You seem to have the ability, Matt, to sort of see ahead. Or see around the corner a little bit – e-commerce being one example of that. Would you talk to us about that? What enables you to kind of see what’s coming and decide to play in that area?

Matt: I think a couple things. One, just going back to, again, I think I had, at the time where e-commerce started to show up on the grocery food side of the equation was about 2010. So obviously Amazon had been around for a while in other categories. If you’re selling books or diapers, you know, you were knee deep in e-commerce. You know, on the grocery side, it was just starting to be a play at that point. And I kind of looked at where other categories had gone and said, “Hey, I think this will be a play in food.” There were a lot of folks in the organization that said, “Ah, we’re not quite so sure.” And I’d been around enough where I saw the emergence of a small retail or northwest arkansas trying to get into food and get into a funny EDLP pricing model. And at that time, a lot of the organizations said, “Ah, we’re not so sure that’s going to be a big deal.” And when Costco and Club Channel came around. So I’d seen enough channel transitions to know hey, when something’s right for the consumer, and there’s value to the consumer, that ultimately this probably will stick.” So I kind of leaned in a little bit and said, “Hey, I think this is going to work.” At the time, we did not have any commerce organization. And I kind of raised my hand and said, “Hey, I think this is important. I’d like to champion that.” I felt like I could lead that through the organization, having a breadth of experience working across many functions. And so I really started on that journey in 2010. I had a team of myself and one other. Fast forward to eight, nine years after that, ended with a cross-functional team of over 20. And we started with about 7 million in sales and ended with, at the onset we were driving, probably 65% of the company’s growth and almost 300 million in incremental sales to the organization.

Dave: A little bit of growth there.

Matt: Just a tad, yes.

Dave: Some might say, if you’re in a large organization and you decide to go in an area where it is a bit of an unknown. There’s some risk associated with that, both career-wise, planning, what you’re going to do, all of that. You were able to have the confidence to take that risk. What enables you to do that?

Matt: Yeah, confidence or maybe ignorance is bliss. I’m not sure which one, David. I think when I look at it, I clearly knew I was going in and leaning into some risk. Right? Anytime you’re going off the beaten path, you’re never quite sure how things will turn out. I would say one of the things that I really enjoyed in my career – I love building brands and the strategy side of brand management – but I really enjoy the innovation side. And I enjoyed finding roles that weren’t quite paint by the numbers, or you know, you could kind of innovate outside the box a little bit. And so, hey, I saw this as an opportunity to add value and lead with the organization. And saw the opportunity to really play into what I thought some of my strengths were. And so, I think it turned out to be just that.

Dave: Good timing. Good planning. All lined up. Super happy for you. Tell me about bringing in new technology. Obviously, at It’sRapid, we focus on creative automation, helping brands scale, their content creation, but you’ve got to have a way to adopt these new technologies, especially now people are thinking about AI. How do you make those successful when you bring in these new capabilities? 

Matt: Yeah, great question. I think every CPG right now, this is the challenge for them. It’s how fast do I move, where do I go, how do I pick the right partners? Obviously, you see that well in terms of with your client list. I think it starts with being very clear on what job has to be done. I think when you get into new technology at times, there’s a little bit of a shiny object and you know, hey, what’s out there? What do we need to purchase? And I think it starts with, hey, what are we trying to accomplish? What job, what need do we have? And really focusing on what’s the technology that’s going to give us our biggest bang for the buck? I think also, at times you’ve got to look at a little bit of a dynamic between, hey, do I want to drive competitive advantage with where we’re going in the space or with this piece of the equation or do I want to be a fast-follower? And so, you know, am I going to buy, am I going to build, am I going to rent the technology relative to that? And obviously in a fast moving, high-change environment, like we are, it’s really hard to build. And so thinking about those dynamics. And then I think, last but not least, I think probably the hardest element – so hopefully you pick the right technology to do the job, you’ve got hopefully the right partner to work with on that and collaborate and kind of build and develop it as needs adjust and change – but it’s really how do you integrate it into the organization? And I think that requires an element of training, that requires an element of kind of oversight that requires at times an element of, hey, are we aligned on the kind of KPIs and the ways of working and are we kind of integrating that across the org? And so I think a lot of times, you know, you might purchase a new piece of technology and say, oh, we’ve solved that. And I think that’s half the battle. 

Dave: The other part is, how do I get usage? How do I get everyone up to speed? 

Matt: Right. 

Dave: And I’ve got some other questions for you. But what’s your advice for partners like us, for example, that are coming into an organization? We work with many large CPGs, but every organization is different. Rules of the road, recommendations when you’re bringing new technology in?

Matt: I think to be very clear on what problem you’re solving. I think ideally to be clear in terms of how we can make this easier for the organization to kind of integrate and digest and integrate it into their existing processes. So I think that’s, you know, that’s one of the significant challenges I think in this e-commerce digital space is the playbook is different and a lot of the technology is different and the technology stack is different. And so you really have two different models going. And the more you can say, hey, how can I allow this to be a little bit more integrated into what you’re doing – critically important. And then I think there’s, there’s got to be an element of change management to it. Understanding, hey, this is new, this is different. And not everyone in the organization likes new and different. And especially a lot of those senior leaders or mid-level leaders who’ve been doing their roles for 10, 15, 20 years. Again, at times this can be a little fearful for them, like I don’t understand this. And at times, maybe my junior talent has more interest and empathy for what’s going on digitally than I do. And so realizing, you know, how are we going to make it easy? And how can we, you know, maybe have some training or ways to drive that integration much more effectively?

Dave: Such a great insight. Now you’re with The Partnering Group. Tell us what you’re up to and a little about TPG, if you would. 

Matt: Yeah, so I’ve been with The Partnering Group, really helping clients navigate this space for the better part of the last three years. And so really enjoy kind of the variety and helping lots of different clients and bringing, you know, almost, you know, 12, 13 years of kind of food, grocery, e-commerce, knowledge to bear. And then I’ve got a digital commerce practice with about 15 other phenomenal individuals. And one of the things I like about kind of our secret sauce of The Partnering Group is, listen, we’ve all had 15, 20, 30 years experience at what we’re doing. So we’re coming at prompts and helping clients with the very practical solutions. We’ve walked in your shoes. We’ve had your roles. We’ve built e-commerce teams before. We’ve built, you know, digital teams before. So we understand kind of the trials and tribulations. And we’re hopefully offering a lot of practical experiences to help folks advance the ball and solve the problems that they have to drive and accelerate their growth. 

Dave: And a shout out to Danny Silverman, who introduced us. So appreciate that also with The Partnering Group. You do work with a lot of brands of all sizes. What are some of the challenges and opportunities you’re seeing with those brands in the market? 

Matt: I think right now we’re seeing a significant challenge. I think we’re starting to see e-commerce slow down a little bit from a growth rate perspective. I think we’re starting to see e-commerce fragment more into what I would call kind of spear fishing models like an Amazon or Walmart.com or more of a full basket model where from our food and grocery players are going to play more. So think instead of Amazon, Amazon fresh, think Walmart online grocery pickup, Instacart, Kroger. I think we’re starting to see the blooms off the rose a little bit in terms of retail or media. I think that is going to continue to be an important lever to drive growth. But I think folks are starting to look at that and say, hey, we need to make sure we’re getting the right return out of that. We’ve got to think differently if we’re going to have to grow a lot more of how that’s going to fit into our joint business planning with customers. We’re going to have to think differently about where we’re going to fund that. And then I think ultimately, you know, I think we’re seeing a lot of organizations starting to move from this kind of small scrappy e-commerce team to really trying to integrate it across kind of the commercial organization. And so, you know, small scrappy e-commerce teams are great to be nimble and quick and find some quick wins, but they’re not always attached and connected and, you know, haven’t the appropriate number of resources or budgets that they need. And so that transition is a significant pain point for organizations. I’ve seen a lot of organizations get really good wins early and then kind of stall out in this integration phase. 

Dave: We had the privilege of working with PepsiCo early on. I remember the e-commerce team started out. I think it was a few people really. And now it’s a big group driving a lot of revenue and growth. Seems like it’s gone really well there as an example of how you scale. There’s also cases, they say, where it started small and now it’s trying to be integrated and it’s harder. And I was curious when you’re advising some of these organizations. What do you share with them to help them with the integration? 

Matt: Well, I think to start there’s an African proverb, if you want to go fast, go alone and if you want to go far, go together. And so I think that’s the genesis, I think strategically of where organizations have to evolve to. And as you know from your current business, speed is really, really important in this space. So we’re in a high-change environment and speed is important. So you have to have really good commercial alignment. You know, in the old world, marketing would do their thing and sales would do their thing and we might meet quarterly for business planning sessions in a way we’re at. Now we’ve got to make changes daily from a search perspective. And we’ve got to be much more agile and flexible in terms of how we’re budgeting dollars and where we’re finding things that are working, how are we lifting and shifting funding to where that goes. So really hard to do, but I think ultimately organizations have to start thinking about, hey, how do I make sure that sales and marketing and e-commerce are all kind of attached at the hip in terms of where they go. And so for us, what that means is helping a lot of organizations in terms of, hey, am I thinking about these roles and competencies within these roles and what folks have to accomplish? Am I thinking about the right KPIs and who owns those across the organization? If we look at where a lot of growth in terms of categories is coming right now, you know, over 50% of growth on a lot of categories is now online. If I’ve got a five-person e-commerce team, just responsible for e-commerce and they’re driving 50% of the company’s growth, that doesn’t seem like we’ve got a balanced approach to what we’re doing. And then I think there’s a lot of training involved, right? You’ve got to start upscaling talent. So you might have this small scrappy e-commerce digital team that understands this well, but I don’t need all my sales, talent and all my marketing talent to be e-commerce experts, but they’ve got to be in the boat rowing together. And so there’s a lot of upscaling that has to happen. And I think sometimes when you look at some of the leaders where the P&Gs are and the Unilevers and the Mills are, they’ve had pretty significant org restructuring relative to those commercial organizations. And so I firmly believe, I think long-term competitive advantage in this space is going to be, do you have the right technology, the right access to data and how you’re leveraging that data to drive insights and action? And fundamentally, are you effectively integrated from a commercial perspective? I think those are going to be the areas of lasting competitive advantage for CPGs.

Dave: Turning to how the brand then works with the retailer partners and other partners in this space, will you talk a little about joint business planning? It seemed like we had a couple of years there where maybe it wasn’t quite as in focus as I had remembered. And now when we meet with the customer, it’s top of mind, very right up there. And so I’d love to hear what do you see brands and retailers do in some of the partnerships and collaborations that they’re working on?

Matt: Yeah, I think a couple of areas, David, in this space, and I was fortunate early on in my e-commerce journey with Mills to work with the Amazon Fresh team and the Instacart team and the Kroger and Walmart team. The Amazon team and the Instacart team, they were technology plays. They didn’t understand food. And so they were looking for partners early on to help us help them navigate food and grocery and categories. And so we were able to have an oversized seat at the table because of that. 

I would say right now, I think there’s a couple of areas that are important. One is as you start seeing more and more investment from a retailer media perspective, those dollars are getting pretty large. And that investment is relatively sticky. It’s hard to go to Amazon or Walmart and say, “Hey, I invested with the X and now I’m going to pull some off the table.” So that has to be baked into some kind of a joint business plan with them. And I think the smart CPGs are looking at and saying, “Hey, I’m willing to invest more, but I also want X and Z for you.” You know, can we talk about access to better data? Can we talk about more experimentation and planning that we can do together to drive, join in innovation to find win-win opportunities? Can we talk more about category leadership in terms of where that category is going to go and how we can work together to find category growth stories? So I think that the smart CPGs are really starting to drive wins there. And obviously, you know, the big scale CPGs have been doing category planning and joint business planning with retailers for a long time. I think the online world, gives a lot of smaller CPGs, I think opportunities to kind of crossover the aisle and be more aggressive and play bigger than their weight from a partnership perspective. 

Dave: Great insights. What do you think that’s different now? We went through pre-COVID, we had COVID, of course, and now markets changing a little bit, been a bit up and down recently, hopefully back up. But tell us about Walmart, Amazon, what do you think change and kind of be different than what we’ve seen in the past? 

Matt: Yeah, I think a couple things that are changing. Obviously, I think we’re seeing a little bit of slowing growth. And so I think overall across kind of the CPG industry. And so I think as growth slows, I think budget dollars become tighter. And I think we’re going to be a little bit more rigorous in terms of how we’re evaluating where our investments are. And so I think clearly, we’re seeing that. And I think, you know, retailer media is going to be at the forefront of how do we better evaluate the return we’re getting there and be able to take that return against what we are seeing from a trade or a brand side of the equation? So I think that’s one element that we’re seeing. I also think what I am seeing, especially in the grocery space, when I look at the commerce world, I think of two very different models. I think of what I would call a full basket model and a spear fishing model. So on those full basket models, again, the Instacarts, the Amazons of the world, I think a lot of those retailers early on were focused on kind of their back of house. How do I pick it? How do I pack it? How do I deliver it? How do I get it out to you? How do I essentially make the online experience look just like the in store and replicate that experience? I think where we’re going now is to say, hey, that’s great. And that was the first start, but there’s huge innovation to be had on that from a front of house user experience perspective. And I think in that full basket landscape where the average consumer is buying 30 to 40 items on a trip, the search is great and predominantly we’ve got a lot of search driving volume, but we’ve got a lot of past purchase history and we’re going to see a lot more browse. And I think ultimately the smart retailer is going to drive more of a solution orientation. I’m not buying 30 to 40 items. I’m buying five dinners and I’m buying a game day party and I’m buying lunch for the kids and I’m buying a picnic. And so I think we’re going to see more of a solution orientation online where it’s not just item replicating in store, but how do I think about what’s for dinner? How do I think about game day? How do I think about spring cleaning? How do I think about cold and cough season? How do I think about allergy season? How do I think about party planning? So I think we’re going to see a lot more of that. I think we’re just starting to scratch the surface of that. And I think in order to get there, that says, hey retailers and brands and CPGs at the category level are going to have to partner more effectively to make those conversions. 

Dave: How does that then translate into the creative and the content and the storytelling that the brands and the retailers need to do to engage with the shopper?

Matt: Absolutely. And so obviously the way that consumer journey online in terms of how they’re looking at product detail pages and creative looks a little different full basket vs. spear fishing. And so obviously I think that will continue to evolve, but I think what will evolve is more content at the category level. So buying guides, solution guides, more orientations there. Think about if you’re going to go online, David and you want to buy tacos. Right now you have to go to eight different aisles to get what shells do I want, what protein do I want, what kind of salsa do I want, what veggies do I need, what cheese do I want, where if that could be more of a curated experience for you. With then some content to boot to inspire you in terms of, hey what are some of the trends? What are we seeing? Hey-  here’s what you typically buy. Let me inspire you in some other ways in terms of other things you can think about adding to your cart. So I think that’s where we’re going to go. It’s going to be a little bit of a slower journey there. But I think the only way we get there is, I think effective partnerships between retailers and CPGs at the category by category level, because every category is different. 

Dave: You’ve nailed it. I will tell you a quick story which is that we have this partnership with Instacard and we’re seeing more and more media where two or three brands will work together and the content in the banners really is the solution that you just talked about. They put all the ingredients together for you if you will and you can look at the ad and go yeah I do need those items to come together for me to make a great taco meal. 

Matt: It’s really hard to do that in store right? Yeah. Different temperature states and different aisles and so it’s nearly impossible to put that together in store but online, I think that’s where we go from I would say a slightly sub-optimal experience right now to potentially a better experience than in-store. 

Dave: Yeah. 

Matt: And then I think of opportunities ultimately if we think about some filtering – hey whether my filter is I’ve got health issues and so what don’t I want to buy? Or I’ve got value constraints and so what don’t you know help me understand that or I’ve got you know a cooking ability or time constraints so help me kind of understand you know put those filters on that shopping experience drive more of a solution orientation to me and I think ultimately we’re going to have a very different shopping experience. So I think that’s really exciting. I think a great space to innovate a great space to partner and I think the retailers that get there first are going to drive an awful significant amount of traffic and loyalty because I think it will just be a significantly better shopping experience. 

Dave: Well Matt this has been a great conversation, we’ve covered a lot of ground all the way from your years at Mills to building great teams to store and online and all of that has been great. I have a couple of wrap-up questions if you’re up for it then I’d love to ask you. 

Matt: Absolutely. Fire away. 

Dave: This first one I know it’s hard to pick only two but which two people have influenced or impacted you the most in your professional career?

Matt: Yeah I know, great question and not an easy question because there’s hundreds of folks along my career that have been helpful to my journey. Let me give two. I was fortunate with 28 years at Mills that worked for so many great leaders and as I tell my kids, listen you’re going to learn from your best and your worst bosses. You’re going to learn what to do and you’re going to learn what not to do. And I had two bosses that I was fortunate to work with over the years. One was Mark Attics. Mark eventually led our marketing organization – he was our CMO and he taught me to be an authentic leader. He taught me to, you know, with all your quirks and wants, that’s who you are and lead authentically with folks and then he’s just a world class brand builder and marketer and so hopefully some of that rubbed off on me kind of along the way. Then second was Sean O’Grady who I worked with early in my career. Sean went on to run our sales organization and our away from home food organization and he taught me really how to navigate the organization. Right, when you’ve got a large organization you’ve got different functions, sometimes things are stalemate. He really taught me how to think about others needs and where they’re coming from and kind of navigate and influence the organization. And that was paramount when I got to that e-commerce level that I needed to influence across the organization. And then he was just best in class in terms of coaching teams and getting the most that he could out of teams. Even more than, you know, you’d come into a role you’d have a team and what you thought you could do and ultimately what you could achieve with his kind of pushing and prodding and counseling was just magical so hopefully that’s rubbed off along the way.  And I’m going to apologize but I’m going to add a third. I’m a big fan of Scott Galloway, I’ve got a quote in my office that’s “See what everyone sees but think what no one else thinks,” and I think in such a high change world right now I look at him and he just sees the world very differently and I think he’s able to take that vision and drive it into action and thoughts in terms of where things need to go. And I think that’s critically important for organizations right now.

Dave: Well it definitely has rubbed off on you from all three of those mentors that you mentioned and individuals so those are those are amazing. If you do get some time away from work, when you’re not with the family, favorite hobbies, how do you like to spend your time?

Matt: Great question, I’d say as my career starts to wind down and my kids are out of the house and there’s no more coaching duties and not as much parenting you have a little bit more time on your hands. And listen, I’m a firm believer that the less time I spend thinking about me, the happier I am. So I think there’s two areas that I’m spending a lot of my time outside of work. I was fortunate enough when I was a kid, if you ever saw the movie Caddy Shack, so that was me. So I was a caddy and got a scholarship to go to college. And so I’ve spent a lot of time giving back to that organization and really enjoyed kind of being on that journey and trying to mentor younger kids right now. And then I was introduced to the game of wheelchair basketball. My son started playing wheelchair basketball in first grade about 15 years ago, and I’ve taken on the role and lead the board of directors for the National Wheelchair Basketball Association. So really trying to grow that game here in the U.S. We’ve got kids, you know, as young as five years old starting to play and be on their first team, and adults as old as 80, whether they’re playing our women’s league or military or adult leagues. I’d say super excited as we look at where we are in terms of the Olympic and Paralympic season. So we’ve got our men’s and women’s high performance teams off to Paris, and I think we’re excited about their chances. So I think those are two areas where a lot of work but a lot of fun giving back and taking some of the skills and talents that I’ve been able to develop over my career and apply those to things that you feel really good about.

Dave: Matt – you seem like a natural coach whether it’s with these teams or with the team at work so I commend you on it.  It’s very inspiring so thanks for sharing, those are amazing. If our listeners want to find you online, what’s the best way for them to reach you? 

Matt: Yeah David I’m a little bit more old school despite being an e-commerce guy, so the best way typically to get a hold of me is probably through LinkedIn and all my contact information can be found there. 

Dave: Wonderful, I’ve really enjoyed our conversation. I learned a ton, I hope you’ll come back. Thanks so much for taking the time.Matt: Yeah absolutely David, great to speak with you today and enjoyed the conversation as well. All the best to you.