Walmart has accelerated its growth to reach more customers by showing newfound agility that the retailer didn't have several years ago. Truth is, when America needed it the most, the most American of all retailers stood up to help the country through one of its most trying times. But...is any of this newfound agility actually new?  The founder of Walmart Sam Walton once famously remarked that “If we work together, we'll lower the cost of living for everyone...we'll give the world an opportunity to see what it's like to save and have a better life.”   

What does that have to be with Walmart’s impressive COVID-19 performance, everything…  

Let’s breakdown that Walton quote into workable parts that prove Walmart might actually be reintroducing its legacy to today's consumers; 

◼️ Working Together - aka Community  

◼️ Saving Money 

◼️ Improving Lives

Have you ever been to a fitness expo and thought how much fun it would be to work for a supplement company? Maybe you haven't been lucky enough to attend a Arnold Sports Festival or Mr. Olympia weekend, but you think "gym is life" and love talking fitness, health, and supplements with your buddies. Currently, with so many Americans looking for new work, I thought it would be valuable to hear personal stories from industry professionals that all "started from the bottom" and grew into industry leaders.   

In this video, you'll hear my story of how I broke into the sports nutrition industry, but also from; 

◼️ Ryan Bucki - Founder of Fitness Informant & FIt Butters 

◼️ Eric Schwartz - VP of Marketing at Nutrabio 

◼️ Daniel Pierce - Nutraceutical Industry Consultant

On this Pivotal interview, we have an extensive chat with Mark Glazier, CEO of NutraBio. He shares his perspective on the evolution of the sports nutrition industry. With over two decades of entrepreneurship in the space, Mark tells stories that help you understand why NutraBio has consistently grown every year for over 20 years. Additionally, we discuss areas, such as product transparency not being a customer acquisition tool, influencer created sports nutrition brands, Amazon, and a number of other entrepreneurial insights from someone that has been at the top for many years.

In this episode, we cover the breaking news that Bodybuilding.com was just sold by Expedia Group, after the travel company had the supplement internet retailer for less than a year. The new owner of Bodybuilding.com is The Najafi Companies, a Phoenix-based Private Equity Firm, with the owner having ties to Phoenix Suns ownership. I will share an update on where Bodybuilding.com is today, what The Najafi Companies focuses on with their investments and their assumed plan of action. Additionally, I give details on why I believe this could end up to be a strong investment.

Can you pick a game that is more fun than guessing Amazon’s next acquisitions? I’ll wait…

With recent news of Amazon looking to buy several what I like to call “splashy” companies during and after this Great Lockdown recessionary period, it got me thinking about what exactly the internet retailer could potentially be up too.

This podcast will focus on 5 (non-technology) categories of likely interest to Amazon and the name(s) I believe would be the best fit for them.

Is it just me or does the momentum around Celsius Energy Drinks remind you of what happened 3-4 years ago with Bang Energy?

How does the saying go? Longtime listener, first time caller? If you follow me on LinkedIn, you know I have been sharing quarterly updates on Celsius Holdings for the last several years. That being said, this is my first standalone video with Celsius being the focal point. I think it will be interesting for my community to take a deeper dive into how this emerging energy beverage company is attacking the competitive energy drinks market.

Since this is the first one, I need to establish a bit of a rubric. I will borrow my flow from other publicly-traded companies and will use the recent quarterly earnings as the backdrop to talk about bigger categorical and strategic insights. Additionally, since we are still in the midst of COVID-19, I will be providing some additional thoughts on how that uncertainty is causing retailing environment.

On this podcast episode, I use the BellRing Brands 2020 FYQ2 earnings report as the backdrop to explain is Premier Protein is perfectly positioned to take advantage of the uncertain COVID-19 retailing environment. BellRing Brands is a portfolio that owns a collection of convenient nutrition businesses, such as Premier Protein, Powerbar, Joint Juice, Supreme Protein, and Dymatize Nutrition and was previously wholly-owned by Post Holdings.

I will further update you on the growth of Premier Protein RTD beverages in the face of the COVID-19 retailing environment. Alternatively, I cover how this reliance of protein RTD beverages could be a huge risk for BellRing Brands. I provide details on different sales metrics that and how new products are performing in the market. Additionally, I comment on their surge in digital sales. Finally, I chat about the Premier Protein positioning and if I think that growth will continue into the back-half of the fiscal year.

On this episode, we will use the recent 2020Q1 GNC earnings report, that was released on 5/11/2020, as the backdrop to discuss its upcoming bankruptcy "This is Sparta Kick" moment. I will breakdown the key quarterly financial data, but more importantly cover what is happening with GNC and the COVID-19 retailing environment. I also cover some details around human capital cost reduction, store optimization plans, COVID-19 store closures, and cost cutting or delaying measures with rent and vendors. Finally, I share the updated financial picture that GNC is looking at and the judgement day of 5/16/20.

This podcast episode will introduce six consumer trends that were caused or accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic, as it continues to reshape every part of our lives. There has likely never been a more volatile period for consumer behavior shifts in our lifetime and that creates massive winners and losers.  As an entrepreneur (or aspiring one), you should LOVE this time period. 

In this video, I am going to highlight a collection of accelerated trends that are happening right now, explain the underlying drivers, give some examples of impacted categories, and what the viability of their future is within the consumer market.   

Trends include;

Is the "COVID-19 Effect" slowing down the fastest growing CPG category in the U.S.? In this episode, I consider several assumptions on if packaged CBD products are following the COVID-19 market activity of general CPG products, vices like alcohol CPG, or nutritional supplements. Additionally, I give updates on the shifting sales channel activity, supply-chain, and pricing reactions within the CBD market in 2020.