S1E3 – The Retail Avengers & The Celebration of RetailROI

Welcome to Season 1, Episode 3, the third ever episode of The Retail Razor Show!

I’m your host, Ricardo Belmar, a RETHINK Retail Top 100 Retail Influencer, RIS News Top Movers and Shakers in Retail for 2021, advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation, and lead partner marketing advisor for retail & consumer goods at Microsoft.

And I’m your co-host, Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock and slayer of retail frankenstacks!

Together, we’re your guides on the retail transformation journey. Whether you're thinking digital and online, mobile, or brick & mortar stores, there'll be something for you!

For episode 3 we have a truly special treat in what may be the most important episode we do this season, and it’s only episode 3! We’re celebrating the history and accomplishments of industry charity organization, RetailROI, with two special guests:

·       Greg Buzek, President & Secretary of RetailROI, Inc., and Founder & President of IHL Group.

·       Vicki Cantrell, Vice President of RetailROI, Inc., and co-founder of Vendors in Partnership Awards.

These two retail legends and many more you’ll hear about in the Clubhouse recording lead one of the most important organizations in the retail ecosystem today. RetailROI’s purpose is to raise awareness and provide real solutions for the more than 400 million vulnerable children worldwide by working with other charities serving those children, such as orphans, foster kids, building schools, bringing clean water to communities, and more. Give a listen to this episode to learn what RetailROI has accomplished in its history over the past decade, what the future holds, and most importantly, what you can do to support them. You’ll hear about RetailROI’s most important fundraiser – Super Saturday, happening at NRF 2022 on January 15^th. 

For more information about RetailROI, the important work this group does for vulnerable children everywhere through all the charities they work with, to register for Super Saturday if you’re a retailer, or to learn how you can sponsor Super Saturday if you’re a solution provider, visit https://www.retailroi.org

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TRANSCRIPT

S1E3 Retail Avengers & The Celebration of RetailROI

[00:00:22] Ricardo Belmar: Hello. Good morning, good afternoon. Or good evening, whatever time of day you're listening. Welcome. Welcome. This is season one, episode three, the third ever episode of the retail razor show. I'm your host, Ricardo Belmar, RETHINK Retail top 100 influencer and one of RIS News, top 10 movers and shakers in retail for 2021. And lead partner marketing advisor for retail and consumer goods at Microsoft 

[00:00:46] Casey Golden: And I'm your co-host Casey Golden CEO of Luxlock, where I'm obsessed with the relationship between a brand and a consumer determined to slay retail, Frank enstacks 

[00:00:57] Ricardo Belmar: All right, Casey. So how many Franken stacks have you slain since last episode? Inquiring listeners want to know? 

[00:01:03] Casey Golden: Well, now that I'm counting, we've got three in the works.

[00:01:06] Ricardo Belmar: That's incredible. Can't wait to hear how many more it is next time. Let's see if our listeners start tweeting out their guesses for next time on how many that might be. 

[00:01:13] Casey Golden: I love a good tweet storm.

[00:01:15] Ricardo Belmar: Absolutely me too. Me too. So Casey, this episode is a really special one for me and a topic that I think carries [00:01:22] so much meaning for so many people in retail, I'm talking of course, about the retail ROI charity organization. That's run by Greg Buzek and supported by some incredibly thoughtful and giving people, including our second special guest this week, Vicki Cantrell. Someone with an incredibly rich history in retail.

[00:01:39] And for those that don't know, retail ROI, it's an organization that helps vulnerable children around the world, whether it might be orphans, foster kids adoptions, or just helping schools that lack running water or electricity or need just a better chance at education and bringing food to their table.

[00:01:56] Retail ROI works with a number of other charities to bring these missions to life. And they've helped hundreds of thousands of kids around the world over the last decade. I first became involved with them about five or six years ago in a project they supported in Liberia during the Ebola crisis and even a webinar to school kids in Honduras about career paths.

[00:02:15] But I'll save that story for after we listen to the session 

[00:02:18] Casey Golden: And this was an emotional clubhouse sesh, listening to [00:02:22] Greg and Vicki's stories. You just, you can't help but celebrate their massive accomplishments. 

[00:02:27] Ricardo Belmar: That is so true. Absolutely true. And actually, one of our retail avengers team, Jeff Roster, he's also had an incredibly huge role in their activities over the years.

[00:02:37] In fact, he's the one that introduced me to retail ROI all those years ago. 

[00:02:40] Casey Golden: This is such an important topic. One with such rich accomplishments. And Greg is just one of the nicest people in retail and in Vicki, she's just literally amazing. It's such a treat to have conversations like this and share the impact retail ROI is making with vulnerable communities and supporting our youth. Let's get started!

[00:03:01] Ricardo Belmar: I'm totally with you. This might just be one of the most powerful, both heartwarming and heart wrenching podcast episodes we're going to do this season . We'll let Greg and Vicky and Jeff tell us the real story behind retail ROI, all of their past accomplishments and where they're going in the future.

[00:03:17] So let's give a listen to the Retail Avengers and the Celebration of RetailROI.[00:03:22]

Clubhouse Session

[00:03:30] Ricardo Belmar: Welcome everybody to another session in the Retail Razor Club room. We've got a special one today where we're doing a celebration of one of what I feel is one of the most important organizations in retail today and that's Retail ROI. And some of you in the audience are very familiar with retail ROI and what it's accomplished and what it's done in the past.

[00:03:56] And maybe others in the audience might not be quite as familiar. You'll get to learn quite a bit about it through the course of today's session. We've got a couple of special guests with us today, Greg Buzek and Vicki Cantrell, who I probably can't think of anyone else who can do a better job of telling us everything there is to know about RetailROI

[00:04:15] and and as I say that, I'm sure Jeff is ready to, to jump in and, and raise his hand as well. Being the person that introduced me to retail ROI many years ago. So with that, why don't I ask Greg and Vicki, to give a brief introduction to yourselves. Vickie, why don't you go first?

[00:04:29] Vicki Cantrell: Hi, [00:04:30] everybody. Great to be here on a Friday afternoon at five o'clock. I will give Ricardo any grief cause everybody does, but this is a topic that's worth a Friday at five o'clock. And I've been involved with retail ROI since the beginning and, and pleased to be working alongside Greg and Randy to figure out how we increase our shop and how we make a great experience and, and divide the money and make the biggest impact.

[00:05:00] So I started 10, 11, 12. Are we 12, 11 years and have many great experiences not only traveling myself to various countries, but also taking both my children there, and the impact has been on our life and our hearts pretty impactful and happy to tell you more about it. I've been in retail for ever and ever and all sides of retail.

[00:05:28] So [00:05:30] I guess that's how I got involved because it's my fellow cohorts in retail that brought this to bear

[00:05:36] Greg?

[00:05:37] How RetailROI Began

[00:05:37] Greg Buzek: And I'm Greg Buzek I guess my day job or my first day job is being president of IHL group we're a retail analyst firm Gosh, this started because I had started a orphan care ministry at our church and we were at Oracle open world.

[00:05:53] And it was the day that Lehman brothers went under September 15th, 2008. And Paul Singer of SuperValu and previously with target was there. And I knew he was an adoption advocate. So we had a meeting and said, you know, Hey, maybe we can do something in the industry. And we could call it, you know, at that time there was a lot of mergers and acquisitions and everything was focused on efficiency.

[00:06:17] And then we just call it, we'll call it ROI, a play on words which ends up being the world's geekiest name for a charity retail ROI. And we just said, we call it the retail orphan initiative and that's how we get our acronym there. [00:06:30] And that day with the help of Rose Spicer from Oracle Paul Singer basically did his OpenWorld presentation about 10 minutes on target and the rest on adoption , and we were all astounded and we came out of that meeting and said, Let's let's do something together.

[00:06:49] And I know Jeff was there Rose was there Cathy Hotka, Mark Milstein, and I think Cathy Marder were there and we said, yeah, let's do something together. Instead of just competing with each other, we all know each other. We see each other all the time. It'd be fun to do something together in the industry.

[00:07:06] So that's the start of retail ROI . And we had everybody assumed that Paul would be the guy to lead it. Paul had been the guy that took over for Dave Thomas, at Wendy's lobbying Congress for funds, for foster kids and adoption. In fact, he has started a group called the congressional coalition on adoption Institute , that he helped fund.

[00:07:25] Initially that is the only thing in Washington that has over [00:07:30] 350 members of Congress, I think in total that are on the caucus together and agree on something. Paul, was a giant for that. So we all assumed he would run it. There were three of us, myself, Paul and Mark that put up the initial seed money to get started.

[00:07:44] And we signed the paperwork. And three days after we signed the paperwork, Paul called me and said Greg, I just got a call from the neurosurgeon. I have a tumor and I have to have surgery next Monday. And unfortunately Paul, when he had surgery never regained the ability to speak clearly and, and reason and stuff.

[00:08:07] So it kind of fell, fell to me to take the leadership role for retail ROI. So that's how we started in 2008, 

[00:08:15] Ricardo Belmar: Thanks for the quick description for that, Greg. Jeff, you've got a pretty long history with retail ROI as well. why don't you give a quick introduction, 

[00:08:21] Jeff Roster: hi, Jeff roster. Let's see, what am I a co-host of a, I guess this week in innovation, on some advisory boards and try [00:08:30] to keep Ricardo out of trouble at the center for retail transformation, which we're both doing a very poor job at so lots of trouble down the road.

[00:08:40] Ricardo Belmar: We're working on that.

[00:08:41]

[00:08:41] How RetailROI Works

[00:08:41] Ricardo Belmar: So Greg Vicki, let me ask maybe a couple of questions. So with that history that Greg just gave , on how things started with RetailROI. Give us a quick overview on how retail ROI works. I always describe this to everyone as a charity group, that's basically built by the retail industry, run by people in the retail industry and that it works with other charities to do a lot of great work around the world, helping children in need, whether it's orphan children's foster care.

[00:09:09] Greg Buzek: Sure. Yeah, just to begin with, the first step we had to make is we needed to raise, Hey, we had a charity, we got to raise money.

[00:09:17] So we said how do we, how do we raise money? And we looked around the room and said, gosh, we know events. We know who all the best speakers are. And let's put on an event aligned with the timing of the NRF [00:09:30] show. We'll call it Super Saturday and we'll invite all the retailers to come for free.

[00:09:35] And we'll charge vendors that want to sell to retailers a fee, a sponsorship fee to get access. So we just basically said ladies night at a bar, so to speak was the approach. And that became our fundraiser in terms of the initial charities that we did. The first initial charities were people that I had already started working with through some other experience.

[00:09:57] And then after that, it started to blossom as other people got involved in. So we have really three criteria when it comes to working with charities. Obviously it's gotta be a 5 0 1 C3 based in the United States. They're involved with vulnerable children, orphan foster care clean water, something to do with vulnerable children in some, in some manner.

[00:10:19] Number two, it can't be a church or a synagogue or a faith. It's gotta be a separate entity altogether. So it can have a faith-based component to it. [00:10:30] But it's not something that's part of a community of faith in and of itself. And then the third piece of it is somebody in the industry has to be personally involved in the charity themselves and vouch for the integrity of that charity.

[00:10:44] And then we start really small with grants as low as $5,000. And we go up from there, we present that back to the board with the results, and then, then we grow from there. So in total, I think we've, we've teamed up with over 55 charities to date with different variety of grants and they work in 27 different countries.

[00:11:04] Ricardo Belmar: Thanks for that overview, Greg. I want to read some stats that you've given me before, just for, to kind of set the stage a bit for everyone here on what some of the accomplishments are. And to let everyone know, we recently at Microsoft had a, special giving event held to try to raise some funds for retail ROI, and Greg and Vicki were kind enough to join that session.

[00:11:22] And Greg presented , a little bit of background for the employees that were attending that event. And I just want to read some of those and see if anybody on the stage [00:11:30] has some reactions and wants to share some other info from that. So the one that kind of grabbed me a lot that you mentioned, Greg was, if orphans were a country, they would be the eighth largest country in the world.

[00:11:40] And for other one was that for foster kids that age out of the U S system within 18 months, 85% of the boys are homeless or in prison. And over 70% of the girls are pregnant, homeless, or in prison. Those stats are just astounding to me. And I'd never had thought about just how significant,, this really is.

[00:12:01] Greg Buzek: Yeah, it's a, it's a huge issue. And that's, that's part of our, our role. We see our role as three parts. One's the knowledge of this problem that you just outlined. Two is leveraging our skill, sets our networks who we know what we know to make a difference and coming alongside different organizations that are doing great work, where we can double triple or quadruple the impact.

[00:12:24] And then third is funding for projects . So you just gave some of the core stats out there[00:12:30] for things. 

[00:12:30] Accomplishments

[00:12:30] Ricardo Belmar: And then I'm going to go ahead and share some of the accomplishments stats that you shared with me before. So this is since 2010 retail, ROI has funded over 206 projects in 27 countries.

[00:12:42] Installed 26 computer labs. I think those were all in schools, correct 

[00:12:47] Greg Buzek: schools and, well, there's been a couple that have been like an after afterschool programs. 

[00:12:51] Ricardo Belmar: Oh, okay. Okay. 

[00:12:53] Yep. And then also on the, on the list of what you provided before, built or remodeled 21 school buildings in or homes and help rescue over 1400 women and children from sex trafficking through border monitoring, help support over 1500 adoptions and built 14 wells and clean water projects.

[00:13:11] I think overall you, calculated and estimated that over 252,000 children have been helped by the people of retail ROI since 2010, which I think has an amazing accomplishment worth celebrating.. 

[00:13:23] Greg Buzek: Yeah. And, to be, just to be perfectly transparent, it's our charity partners that have done this work.

[00:13:29] We've, [00:13:30] we've kind of played matchmaker at times , and lended some, funding for things. But it's the, the real benefits of retail ROI is when we take really successful people in the retail industry and connect them with these charities and then let them go just, just make the introduction turn I say, turn the light bulb on if I can turn the light bulb on and just point people in the right direction.

[00:13:54] Amazing things happen. So I'll give you an example. So this makes it all clear. So we had a need in Honduras, we had a school of 650 kids that literally could, they had enough money to feed the kids or to pay the teachers. They couldn't do both. So they reached out to us and we said, well what do you need?

[00:14:14] He says, well, we need corn. Cause we make 4,300 tortillas a day by hand of there to feed the kids. And so he said, we looked at it and said, well, who, where can we get corn? And we said, who's the biggest buyer of corn? Well happened to be [00:14:30] Cargill. So we placed a call to Cargill. Cargill ended up donating the two containers of corn.

[00:14:36] There was only one problem. It came in individual pieces. And they were literally, you know, comes out of the grain silo into the train car and that's how they deliver it. Well, we needed to figure out how to get it to Honduras and some sort of package. So somebody at Cargill then took it upon himself and said, you know what?

[00:14:52] I know somebody, that's got a seed packing plant, let me call them and see if they're willing to pack it for us. And so they did, they agree. Fisher seas agreed to packing in, into 50 pound bags . And then there was another lady who does shipping and logistics for a living. She ships containers all over the world

[00:15:08] every day, she came on board and she scheduled the FDA inspection, the shipping, and we had a year supply of food delivered for $7,500 for 650 people. That's just one example of a project that was there. 

[00:15:22] Vicki Cantrell: You know, Ricardo that's a, that's a great one that Greg talks about, but when we talk about [00:15:30] bringing retailers or bringing people in the industry alongside these charities, it could be in any number of ways.

[00:15:37] And it's largely based on, as his example shows what's already in their sweet spot, how their job every day, and just suddenly applying what they do every day to, to a new situation. We had a guy Bob Moncrief who developed an entire curriculum around. Kind of how kids could build their business. And what we, you know, when Greg talked about that, we go alongside our charity partners.

[00:16:08] These are people that are on the ground and understand how to, you know, get things where they need to be. But they also, what we're trying to do is give these charities or people, we work with the ability to sustain themselves, whether it be growing crops or, or whatever. And so this was a [00:16:30] situation where these kids, when they graduate, they needed to have a skill start a business, go to college, et cetera.

[00:16:37] And so he developed an entire curriculum. I think he was with Accenture at the time, Greg. And so we had this startup shark tank competition where we on our trip to Honduras, Jeff, me, Laurie Mitchell-Keller you know, several other heavy hitters in the industry. We're able to judge these and listen to their pitch as is after they had been through the whole curriculum.

[00:17:04] So I guess, you know, it really is and that has continued every year and has now expanded into Jamaica, 

[00:17:13] Greg Buzek: Jamaica, south Africa. Yeah. So four different countries that has gone. In fact, just recently in Jamaica Parker, Avery group to shout out to them. They've taken it to a whole new level with the entrepreneurial program and we had six [00:17:30] students go through an eight week course.

[00:17:32] And I'm telling you the winning presentation there. I've seen 40 year old MBAs not do as well as this 18 year old. And sharing their vision for the cosmetics business they wanted to create, basically it's a cosmetics for African or dark skin, people that have acne. And how do you, how do you provide cosmetics that heals the skin as well as provides beauty and makeup on top of it.

[00:18:01] And it was just fabulous and they invested Parker, Avery invested. I think it was close to $6,000 a us into seed funding to help get that launched there as a result. So it's, it's really special when, like I said, when we can get people connected and go and there's so many, there's so many examples of it.

[00:18:23] Sometimes it's just funding. So like in the country of Liberia, The the [00:18:30] heart over there was, Hey, you got 85% unemployment. So you've got kids in schools. We now need to get them job skills. Well, one of the great things that happened is we started funding, a vocational training program there in both construction computers computer learning what we had interior design cosmetology.

[00:18:51] And this week we got noticed that 54 kids graduated from those programs and have the opportunity to jobs. But here's where it's really exciting through the funding of Intel and HP. We built a school there. We paid for a school to be built. It cost about $35,000 to, for a K through six school. The kids in the construction on the supervised, by the the engineers over there that were teaching them.

[00:19:17] They built their duplicate of that school for middle school for $10,000. As a result of that. And they learned along the way, and they've since built a dorm for the, for the girls [00:19:30] side. And so that's, that's one there. So those are the kind of projects that we take on where we can really impact things.

[00:19:38] Vicki Cantrell: And I would think of it the way that to think about it is it's a hand up. Not a handout. 

[00:19:43] Greg Buzek: Right, right. And it's how do you change? How do you give an in South Africa as a perfect example of it? Because in South Africa is the only place where we have a continuity of care from three years old, all the way up through getting jobs through college.

[00:19:59] We have there's a school there in, for, for little three to five-year-old preschool kids that are our kids from the townships that are there. We actually help pay for for kids to go to English speaking school for about 15 to 20 kids there. And then 14 of those kids to go into a leadership high school there, which is the only mixed gender mixed mixed race school in that area.

[00:20:26] And it's like a us it's as high quality as a U S private [00:20:30] school so we have 14 there, we seed funded a small college fund , and we just two years ago had our first student come from the township and graduate from college. And I got word today that we have five more that are graduating this week. In South Africa as a result of that opportunity. So that continuity of care. And then what, so when we go there, you know, on a trip, the small kids, we've helped build the school. We, we essentially just make sure that our money's being used properly play with the kids and have fun there.

[00:21:02] But when we go to that high school, we teach class. We literally share our career trajectory. We, we give forecasts Dave Finnegan from Orvis and myself, we taught about leading, what the impact of AI and machine learning is going to be, how graphene can transform the world for things, he shared, how they've got fishing rods with graphene now that have accelerometers in there, and you can benchmark yourselves on the fishing rod compared to the best fishermen [00:21:30] in the world with doing things. So as to inspir on these things, I think Vicki's done a call. You've done a call down there, right. With the students. Did you not? 

[00:21:42] Vicki Cantrell: And, we taught marketing classes when we were in Honduras.

[00:21:46] Also, you know, there's one thing that I know we're going to probably talk about trips, but they are the heart of. How we see what we can do and how we get our reward, kind of just seeing these things, but. It's directly related to what Greg is talking about. So we've had the great fortune to take our children to many of us have taken our children on these trips.

[00:22:17] And, 

[00:22:18] The Trips

[00:22:18] Ricardo Belmar: And Vicki, can you, can you kind of describe for everyone, how the trips take form and when we say we're talking about these RetailROI trips, what does that really mean? So 

[00:22:27] Vicki Cantrell: I'll, I'll use Honduras as an example. We have [00:22:30] somebody in. In our kind of group that kind of is the leader for a particular country.

[00:22:36] And and again, remember that we're working with on the ground a charity. So they help us with the logistics. We don't have to figure a ton of this out ourselves. But we arrange to all get to the airport at about the same time flying from various and sundry places and across the U S and we try to get there around the same time and we have transportation that gets us to our final destination.

[00:23:03] Many times the hotels that we stay at are they're certainly absolutely fine. And sometimes very nice. Greg had a very great experience with almost a resort. And then we spend the time. At the, at wherever we are, whether it's, you know, at the school or in, in my case, in Honduras, this was the place with the 600 kids [00:23:30] of various ages.

[00:23:31] And so our meals are, are handled, et cetera. And so again, you're working with a partner on the ground, so it's, we always feel safe. And our children, we say. You know, 13 is about the youngest, maybe 12, depending upon the child. But I took, I started taking my son when he was 15, I believe he's been on six or six trips and my daughter's been on two or three trips.

[00:24:01] You know, just to dovetail what Greg talked about. So here we had a panel on the stage talking to the, I guess, technically the juniors and seniors about interviewing techniques and we did role playing and we did, some mock interviews and we talked about each person's business, whether it was SAP or Gartner or IHL or whatever, we talked about the businesses and we talked about how they can, what, how they.

[00:24:29] [00:24:30] Be in a corporate environment and all of this. And I will tell you, because kids, all of you who have kids don't listen to their parents. It was, our kids got as much of an education as all of the children at that school. And I, I would honestly say that we've gotten tremendous benefit for our retail children who have listened to the people that are in our industry while they're in a foreign country.

[00:24:58] It's just one of those little side benefits, 

[00:25:01] Greg Buzek: I think Jeff would agree,. Yeah. 

[00:25:05] Jeff Roster: Yeah. I can't emphasize what Vicki just said more probably the single best amount of money I've ever spent in my life was taking my two twins to Honduras four times. I dunno, what was it? Probably 10, 10, 12 grand, for all those, all those fall, three of us for those four times, they got a better business education than they probably did at the UC system that they both went through.

[00:25:26] I mean, when you think about, you know, Vicky, when you think about what our kids [00:25:30] heard in Honduras, when they heard, when they got to hear business executives talk and, and they listened, but then they also got to see what happens. You know, if things don't work well on a country. And so they just came back better people, they just flat out, came back better people, and it just grey was a great, great investment.

[00:25:48] Greg Buzek: The most fun I have in retail ROI is going on a trip where we take our teams and I get to watch my friends. Being at the, at the things that their teams are doing. We were the handing out the Tom's shoes instead of buying the Tom's shoes and to watch the kids thrive and to watch the parents and the pride in their parents of watching their children give back was really, really special.

[00:26:17] When we do trips, we have some minor projects, but we're not, it's not like you would say with a church mission trip or somewhere, Hey, we're going to go build something and we're going to do something. I mean, that's a waste of time for, for most of us. So [00:26:30] we, we, some of us may have a skill set there, but what we do have is a lot of knowledge and a lot of networking.

[00:26:37] And so when we ask people to go on trips if we've got our students with us, certainly we got to keep them busy , but for the most part for the adults in the industry, we want you to see the work, just come experience the work, see the impact because there's literally 30 things a day that we do and take for granted that we don't even think about because we're so proficient at it that the charities we're working at, it's a real struggle..

[00:27:04] And they may not know how to do that. So most charities, for instance, they live month to month. Are we going to get enough money here to make it through the month? And then you bring somebody down and says, Hey, what's your five-year plan? Where would you like to be in five years? Let me walk you through that and put together a plan for how you can move forward and reach the goals you want to look for.

[00:27:25] Cause most times you're just too busy doing the work to [00:27:30] think through the plan of how you might get there. And so that becomes really advantageous to them. So every trip we have a brainstorming session every single night at what we saw and how we can help and whose network we can tap in to help solve that issue.

[00:27:46] And that's where the real value comes in. It's not that we go build a building or, you know things there, you know? Yes. We teach classes. Yes. We provide some things there. But the real value is when we come back after seeing the project. And put our networks and our knowledge together, John Geyerman's a perfect example.

[00:28:06] John went down there, saw the kitchen situation. And he, he was vice president of Schlotzky's franchise operations. He went back to Schlotzky's and asked all the suppliers to donate the equipment. And when he put a million dollar kitchen into that school for about $65,000 total cost but he didn't stop there because he was so touched by the kids that he was [00:28:30] serving.

[00:28:30] He said, these kids can benefit through certification. So he took the food safety course of Schlotzsky's translated it into Spanish, taught that class down there on a next trip and then gave certification to the kids so they could go get jobs at hotels, et cetera. That was all his idea.. After being down there, seeing it and working, and those are the kinds of things I haven't.

[00:28:52] Mark Haney, another one, he was installing Chromebooks with an SD card for us down in Dominican Republic. He said, there's a better way of doing this. And he came up with this concept of internet in a box using a raspberry PI, and now they've created an, their own charity called control alt delete poverty, which may be a geekier name than retail ROI, but they have now put computer labs in 27 countries.

[00:29:19] And it's literally a carry on bag that can provide first world education in three different languages anywhere in the world. At a moment's notice because it creates its own little wifi network, [00:29:30] battery powered. And those are the kinds of things that happen when people go on trips and say, there's a better way of doing this.

[00:29:37] And it's been so special to watch and be part of.

[00:29:40] Getting involved

[00:29:40] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, that seems like in such an amazing process, when you get the knowledge and skill sets from all the folks who are coming on the trip and you come up with all these new ideas. The other thing I wanted to ask, so that that's one way from the trips. How else do you have retailers? And I shouldn't just say retailers, because I know there's plenty of engagement from people throughout the industry, not just from retailers, but how do, how do people get involved to begin with, what are the inroads that, how do you reach people and how do they first get involved typically 

[00:30:12] Greg Buzek: that typically the first start for most people is the Super Saturday event. And simply coming to Super Saturday for every retailer that attends Super Saturday we generally can raise about $5,000 in sponsorship money from vendors. And that's usually the first step. [00:30:30] Now, when you think about $5,000, what does that mean?

[00:30:32] Well, that means, that means first world education for about 400 kids. That means clean water for community of 500 by just, and just attending the event. So that's the first step. The next thing is just joining your colleagues on a trip and Jeff can attest to this. I'll let Jeff share this story.

[00:30:51] Just the, the impact of the community that is built on the trip and the breakdown of barriers. When it comes to business relationships, as a result, that's a lot better than golf. So, Jeff, do you want to share your story with Lori about Lori and how, when you were at Gartner, the challenges of getting her on a call.

[00:31:09] Jeff Roster: Well, probably the most effective in let's see in 20 plus years of being an analyst is probably the single most effective time I ever spent was that those two hour bus rides in Honduras and Vicki was on those. I mean, we literally had a who's who on that, on that bus. And as an analyst being trapped with, with leaders from all the software companies was just [00:31:30]phenomenal.

[00:31:30] And so what was neat about that is, especially as an analyst and, the vendor analyst relationship can be kind of, loving like a linebacker in a, in a running back. But when you're actually working and sweating and, and out of your, your business attire, it was just phenomenal.

[00:31:43] I mean, it just was absolutely phenomenal. Now that doesn't mean there was any, I pulled back on any of the analysis I would do with any vendor, but it's just nice to be able to have that sort of underlying relationship and, and it really cool. I mean, it was really, probably easily, I think the best money I've ever spent.

[00:31:59] And I, I don't say that, I don't say that loosely. It. just was, it was a grand slam on, on every single level.

[00:32:05] Ricardo Belmar: Jeff, you brought up a good point about the vendor, community and supplier community in retail and how their participation is. And that's the side of the industry that I come from. And that's how I got involved with retail ROI. But, this all makes over an open question for you, Jeff Vicky, Greg, really, for any of you, how do you engage with the, the vendor community on this apart from, just as the sponsorship at the super Saturday event, that typically is what gets the part of the community [00:32:30] engaged in supporting the charities?

[00:32:31] Or are there other things that happen based on your experience?

[00:32:34] Vicki Cantrell: I would say there's two aspects of it. And the reason that that Greg talks about super Saturday is just. The exposure. Okay. It may be treated as a sponsorship, but what the real benefit is the content that happens that day and the exposure.

[00:32:50] The other thing where solution providers get involved is when people understand the need. Okay. And let's say it happens to be a retailer and they're dealing with a project or see a need, they have an entire ecosystem of solution providers that they deal with in their everyday life. And they will reach out to them to, to get involved or, or to help.

[00:33:17] So those are, you know, two ways that I would think I'm sure Greg can add on to that. 

[00:33:24] Greg Buzek: Well, they've, they've helped the vendors have also leveraged what they do. For part of this. So we've had [00:33:30] situations where people want to donate their cloud business, first things. We've had an offer. We've had an offer from a vendor before to handle the mobile devices.

[00:33:39] One of our charities has a strawberry business in Zambia and you know, right now it's still a paper-based business with delivery drivers and other things, but to set up a, you know, full on accounting system and that is, that is just like you would have for any vendor here calling on your local Kroger or Walmart associated with that and offering their solutions that way.

[00:34:03] The other thing that is funding related is, is often incorporating retail ROI in their customer events. When they've done things like for SAP, we did a food packing project Jeff was involved in that one where they filled a container worth of protein rich meals for orphans and vulnerable kids in the afternoon instead of playing golf.

[00:34:23] Jeff Roster: That was a fantastic event, actually. That was Lori. Again, cause she got so motivated from being in Honduras. She [00:34:30] actually built that into what was it? One of the SAP conferences we literally took over 

[00:34:34] Greg Buzek: a full room or something like that. Yeah. Something, it 

[00:34:37] Jeff Roster: was, it might've been bigger than that, Greg.

[00:34:38] But it was, it was a big conference and they brought in teams and what happened was like SAP sales teams from regions would come in and would compete with each other. And you know, you've got a bunch of engineers in there. So these guys are all recreating the processes while they're filling and there was hooping and hollering.

[00:34:56] Gosh, it was probably the most fun I've had in a business event in an awful long time, because Anna was, it was, you know, I don't know how many hundreds of boxes we've we, we produced, but it was a ton and literally a ton, more than a ton 

[00:35:07] Greg Buzek: and close to 25,000 meals that you guys provided. 

[00:35:12] Ricardo Belmar: Wow. 

[00:35:12] Jeff Roster: So there's ways of just, I guess the point of, of ROI is just, how do we, how do we do something impactful, but fun and, and support business.

[00:35:23] And I would argue, I'm sure more business was done inside that room than, than out in the golf course, because [00:35:30] you know, salespeople would bring their clients and it was just, it was a blast we've got, I mean, dusty and all that stuff, but just a phenomenal thing. And there's probably 15 other examples where the other executives that have adapted different, different processes inside their own business processes.

[00:35:45] And that's really the kind of magic. 

[00:35:47] Greg Buzek: Yeah, and I can't overestimate or underestimate how valuable it is when a company joins a trip and says, you know what, we want to make this part of our core belief system for our company. And that's what happened with Aptos. When they got involved, they started going to a variety of different places and decided Hey, we, we would really like to adopt the program with Lifesong and Haiti, and they've done, I think, nine different trips now and help build a school a community center like with just like a hotel, I guess there's like a hotel type thing.

[00:36:22] They brought in people from Marriott to teach you know, hospitality training there. Then Verlin got involved when he [00:36:30] was with Verizon and got satellite communications there, but the company is behind it and has made it part of everything that they do for customer events and continues to invest.

[00:36:40] And Parker, Avery is now taking over. Jamaica for us, which is really the next place where we plan on taking a lot of our youth, because we don't have the language barrier and we have a huge opportunity in the middle of Jamaica there. So it's a nice weekend trip, a long weekend where we can take our kids as well as, as other executives, and really start to have an impact on a community, providing job opportunities, providing insight training, 

[00:37:09] Finding Charities

[00:37:09] Ricardo Belmar: Greg, let me ask you, with all the examples that everyone's brought up here today, how, how do you come across the different charities? Do they come to you? Do the retailers, for example, who want to get involved, say Greg I'm, I'm working with this charity and I think they'd be a great candidate for retail ROI.

[00:37:25] How does that happen?

[00:37:26] Greg Buzek: yeah, that has happened. And that's where we love to have that where it's [00:37:30] not all on Greg Vicky and Randy to pick the charity. So we've had several charities, like Jeff has been involved with Terry with Senegal and they created a charity to reach out there. But it's, it's usually somebody who's passionately involved with the charity.

[00:37:46] So Gary Craig in Canada has been involved with a group called sunrise homes and it's the actual work is in Myanmar , which obviously has been through a lot in the past year , but it's an orphan home in Myanmar. And that's the start because they're personally involved with this charity and I didn't know anything about it when it started, but we started with a very small project.

[00:38:08] We get the video back, we get the story back. We let, Gary share about the impact and then we decide whether or not we want to invest more into that. We've done that with some charities quite a bit, because so many people have gone on trips with them that, it's just kind of like a no-brainer same thing with like free for life international John Geyerman.

[00:38:29] And I [00:38:30] mentioned earlier, Got introduced to free for life through super Saturday after doing that work in Honduras. And he's now chairman of the board of that charity. And they're the ones that did the rescue of over 1500 women, I think now and children on the border of Nepal and India as a result of that.

[00:38:50] So there are things that, you know, where do you bring the results back and say $10,000 helped rescue 1500 women this year? You know, that's, no brainer to do things. The best way is that way. And then I've had others that I've just been fortunate as I've gone through my learning curve to say, man, this really has a huge return.

[00:39:13] So I'll give you an example of two here in the United States. One's called. Say families, the other one is called together for good. What we found out through that process is over half the kids that go into foster care in the United States are not there because [00:39:30] of neglect or abuse in any way.

[00:39:32] It just meant at a point of crisis, there was no safety net for the kids that that crisis could be escaping an abusive relationship that could be drug abuse, short-term prison, sentence, somebody that has an accident and has to have a surgery. And there's no safe place for the kids, but it's tragic. Once those kids go into the foster system, they not only cost $92,000 a year for that, the average time is three years in the system.

[00:40:01] So you're talking $270,000 there. Well, if that happens to you or me , we usually have family members or somebody else that can watch our children. So what safe families and together for good is, they basically provide that safety net for that short-term care. So a family steps up and said, you know what?

[00:40:19] I watched these children for 45 days, 60 days, mom and dad still have, they still have legal responsibility for them, but in this point of crisis, [00:40:30] we're going to come alongside and be that safety net for this family in that cost about a thousand dollars per family. So that thousand dollars covers , all the things related to social workers, transportation, medical care, all that stuff for the children that saves a family, saves the the government $270,000 on average for a thousand dollars.

[00:40:55] So we look at that ROI and say, that makes sense. To do. So we've had over 22,000 kids now, 22,000 families that have been preserved through those programs as a result of this. And so those are things that, you know through my education, I just personally found and said, this makes sense for what we're doing and this, this needs to increase because it has a big societal impact.

[00:41:20] Ricardo Belmar:

[00:41:21] A little goes a long way to make a difference

[00:41:21] Ricardo Belmar: One of the things that I've always been both surprised and impressed with when I listened to all the different charities at super Saturday is how effective, [00:41:30] what seems on the surface, like a relatively small amount of funding, but the amount of impact that can have you know, one, one example.

[00:41:38] I always remember, cause it was, I think one of the first ones that it got involved in that first year that that we sponsored super Saturday Greg and it was with more than me in Liberia. And I think this was when they through some of the sponsorship dollars, right. They bought the first ambulance in that area, I remember.

[00:41:53] And I remember you telling me afterwards that, the impact was, and this for everyone listening was during the Ebola crisis at that time. And if you remember when the year, the time magazine labeled the Ebola warriors there, person of the year it was that timeframe. And I remember you telling me the impact of the ambulance meant that doctors visits in that town went from what otherwise could take a day's trip just to get to four days, four days.

[00:42:19] But it went down to like 45 minutes. Right. Right. Which is 

[00:42:23] just such a massive impact. 

[00:42:25] Greg Buzek: Yeah. Yeah. With Ebola first day, you feel like you got the cold or the flu second [00:42:30] day, it gets a little more serious, but it still feels like malaria or the flu things that you normally have. But the third day is when the really bad stuff happens.

[00:42:40] And by day four you're dead. So when you can imagine that in the largest slum in Liberia, which is an area about the size of your normal large mall in the United States in a hundred thousand people live there, ebola's in the middle of it. And if you touch a person that's infected with Ebola, you get Ebola. And that's how many people are in that area.

[00:43:03] And it was taking four days for an ambulance to come. And so when Katie, she, when she asked me for money for an ambulance, it was pretty much a no brainer for me. And so, and here was the other part, there were only four ambulances in the entire country, which is the size of New Jersey. Yeah. So you can imagine how, how tough that would be, but yeah, they were able to get the call rate down to less than an hour.[00:43:30]

[00:43:30] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, that that was just an amazing impact for what, and ultimately is not that great a spend, just to pay for that ambulance compared to what I think the expectation that a lot of people probably have before they learn about what you're doing and what all the charities are doing is that, you know, how can I raise enough money to have an impact?

[00:43:46] And I think the biggest takeaway from all the work it's ROI does is that at any amount, can be put to good use. 

[00:43:55] Yeah. And that's an example. Yeah. I'm sorry. I just wanted to say that's an example of where all we did was provide money period, and it had that impact. Go ahead. 

[00:44:04] Vicki Cantrell: You know, let's talk about the money for a minute because, as we all reach a point in our lives where we really feel like we want to be doing more and giving back, and I remember when it felt that way, and there's always this strange feeling when you hit that point in your life of.

[00:44:21] How can I make an impact? Yes. I could write a check to something, and, but it didn't have, [00:44:30] it didn't feel like it was something I was connected to because you really do want to make an impact beyond being able to donate. And so I have learned a hundred times over that. It. And you think whatever I, as a single person would do is not going to have enough of an impact.

[00:44:50] And what I've learned and seen a hundred times is all you have to do is impact one person, literally one person, because that person gets such a benefit. It is such a, circle of, it just ripples out from there, you help one person, they got a leg up or they, it you've meant something to them at that moment in their life.

[00:45:17] They help somebody else. They help somebody else. Your impact is astounding just by helping one person. And we help a [00:45:30] lot of people and we help them a lot of, you know, just the interaction. Listening to these kids' stories and, sponsoring them, which is minimal money impact, but it makes a huge difference to their life.

[00:45:45] So you will make a huge difference with just the smallest amount of effort because of the ripple effect that you will create. 

[00:45:56] Greg Buzek: Yeah. So I'll give you an I'm sorry, I give you one example with a real live person . When we went in 2016 to Liberia, we met a young lady named Grace who was going into the 12th grade.

[00:46:13] And this is prior to Mark creating these raspberry PI computer labs. She was in the 11th grade. She lost both of her parents to Ebola and she got placed in this orphanage. And she had potential and we gave her a Chromebook, a $250 Chromebook, [00:46:30] and she not only graduated from high school, she went on to graduate college and is now a school teacher because we were able to give her a Chromebook with Khan academy to help her learn and finish her education for 250 bucks.

[00:46:46] Ricardo Belmar: That's fantastic. remember at each year at each super Saturday event, , you've always got one, at least one of those stories of how that, impact has affected that one person. They've been on onstage at super saturday and told their story from, everything about their story from where, where the low point was and how everything's changed for them once these, what you might otherwise think are very small impacts, but they have such a major change in someone's life it happens. I think these are just amazing stories. 

[00:47:17] Greg Buzek: Yeah. We have a special reprised edition of a young man named Demetrius Napolitano. Demetrius is coming back to share an update on his life. And for the listeners here, [00:47:30] Demetrius is a young man who grew up in 32 different foster homes in Harlem growing up and he had one social worker that believed in him.

[00:47:39] He should have been a statistic. He should have been dead. And he was on that path and that social worker believed in him. And he has since graduated from NYU. He was an intern in Congress. There, he got to work for the Robin hood foundation in New York city with John Paul Tudor Jones .

[00:47:59] And he's now impacting youth in his region there, but I don't want to give the whole story. He's an amazing young man who happened to get adopted when he was 24 by a 32 year old, a couple there, and then, so now he has the name Demetrius and the Napolitano. So he's a young black man that looks like Eddie Murphy with an Italian last name.

[00:48:21] And it's, it's a really special story and we're going to be catching up with him at super Saturday. 

[00:48:27] Fundraising

[00:48:27] Ricardo Belmar: That's fantastic. That's fantastic. So, [00:48:30] Greg Vicki, let me ask you, and we've kind of talked about how some of the retailers get involved. We talked about how a solution providers in retail have helped but both from their sponsorship and, and resources.

[00:48:41] How do other people, you know, let's broaden kind of the retail ecosystem, if you will, and how do other people get involved? Maybe they're not a retailer, they may not work for a tech company providing retail solutions, but how, how does one get involved with retail ROI? 

[00:48:55] Greg Buzek: Well, I guess I said attending, coming to super Saturday, being a part of that, we also have a fundraiser each year related to the March madness.

[00:49:03] We call it March gladness, where we do small things where people donate gift cards that we have as prizes and we play brackets. And so we built a school in Haiti that by playing brackets and winning prizes, so that's, that's a real simple way broader than that is just joining a trip, get involved, join a trip.

[00:49:24] I will tell you one way you can impact it has nothing to do with retail ROI, but has an amazing [00:49:30] impact go to our YouTube channel retail, ROI, YouTube channel, and look up Nicole Taylor and the social life program that is right in your community. What Nicole found out is that social workers Are some of the people with the highest turnover in the country because of the burnout and the emotional impact of that.

[00:49:50] They found is children that go into the foster care system. If they have one social worker, 74% of the time, they find permanence and find a family to live in. 74% of the time. When that social worker changes, it's only 26% of the time. So they created a program called socialite, which was just adopting a social worker, encouraging a social worker, providing a gift card and note of thank you, flowers on their birthday, inviting them to lunch and just telling them that they mattered in their one county.

[00:50:24] They dropped the turnover rate from 69% to 29% in [00:50:30] one year. Just by people being appreciated for what they do. And that's something we can do in every one of our communities is, find out from our local foster care. Can we get a list of folks in and leverage our networks in our area? Maybe it's your community of faith that wants to come and be a part of that, but just adopting those folks encouraging those folks, telling them that they matter.

[00:50:54] They're making a difference in, in that has such a dramatic impact on the potential for children that they serve. It's just, it's hard to quantify it because it's so impactful.

[00:51:06] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. That one is just amazing to me, the level of impact and effect it can have just by doing something so simple, right. To just thank someone for what 

[00:51:17] Greg Buzek: Right. And there's a saying in this, this foster care adoption community is, is not, everybody's called to adopt. Not every person is called to be a foster care, but we can all do something to assist that [00:51:30] can be respite care for an adoptive family that can be just providing a dinner.

[00:51:34] They're providing a night out for a foster family . But just coming alongside of those folks in that community to make a difference. , 

[00:51:42] More Great Work

[00:51:42] Ricardo Belmar: so one question for you given the different charities you're working with today, are there any of those that maybe we haven't touched on yet that you want to highlight that maybe anybody listening or someone that catches on the replay might want to get involved with?

[00:51:56] Greg Buzek: Well, gosh, I don't want to pick, I don't want to pick favorites. There I've mentioned several, I think there's opportunities with control alt delete poverty. If you want to sponsor a computer lab. And first world education. There's one called the Fergus Simpson foundation that we're working with in Jamaica.

[00:52:12] That is really a grassroots just getting started there. But an opportunity to completely impact, the community of Chappleton in Jamaica with job opportunities and with you know, one of the things that happens is that, you have give a man a [00:52:30] fish versus teach a man to fish.

[00:52:31] Well, what happens if there's no pond? And that's what we're doing is helping create a pond in that part of Jamaica. I will give you actually one it's a for-profit company that I think retailers and anybody on this call may be interested in. Then there's a group called tide rise. If you look up tide rise, I think it's tide rise.co co, but look it up.

[00:52:54] Behind it is the organization that created the app called flip that is digitized as retail circulars. So you can see deals. They the CEO of that company went to Malawi and was working with an orphanage and came up with that same problem. How do you, if there's no pond, how do you teach a man to fish?

[00:53:14] So they created a technology business incubator there that cleans data for artificial intelligence and they took their lead sales guy for flip. And he's now leading this organization and they're looking for projects from retailers [00:53:30] and companies that want to have clean data and tag data for artificial intelligence.

[00:53:35] And that's what the folks there do in this community now. And it's building up jobs in that community as a result.

[00:53:41] So tide rise, Ferguson, some foundation control, alt delete poverty are some of those.. 

[00:53:47] Vicki Cantrell: There's also Kasita Copan in Honduras, which is a different place than we used to go there. And they have been able to purchase a big section of property during very recently in the last six months. And so they are going to be able to serve many more kids and have them have a family environment.

[00:54:11] And so they, that's another kind of enclosed thing that people can really see the impact of their involvement. 

[00:54:19] Greg Buzek: And one last one comes to mind for impact in the United States, as well as Dominican Republic to the thrive and joy foundation was started by Mary , [00:54:30] who used to be with chain store, age magazine Jay and Mary tragically lost their son, Nick.

[00:54:35] When he was 19 years old by a freak lightening strike. in Southern California. He was washing his feet off in the ocean and got struck by lightning. We encouraged him. He had a passion for Dominican Republic for some reason, and they started going down there and that's been common life mission for them.

[00:54:53] They started a US-based version called C 11 that's underneath them, which is 11 character traits. And they're teaching them in public high schools here in the United States and it's become clubs. So just like you have the, the singing club and the chess club or the fellowship of Christian athletes or whatever, they now have a club called C 11.

[00:55:17] That's now in the LA county schools where the kids meet with Jay and Mary and other folks that become leaders to teach character qualities that they may not be getting at home or, at [00:55:30] school. And they were about two years into that one. So that's a, that's a charity as well that I would encourage people to get involved with.

[00:55:37] Ricardo Belmar: All of those are absolutely wonderful ones. Thanks for sharing all those Greg. Before we close out the room, as we're coming to the top of the hour here, any last thing you want to mention about the upcoming super Saturday event? 

[00:55:52] Greg Buzek: Well, it's, it's the the Saturday before NRF January 15th.

[00:55:56] It's going to be right in times square. You can find out more information, the agenda at retail, roi.org, and there'll be a link right on the homepage there. We have former special agents of the FBI sharing the latest ransomware techniques and things coming in and sharing how to protect yourself and your family and your companies as a result of that. We have, Andy Laudato is going to talk about his, new book and share some things on how to build a world-class IT organization, , and how to build innovation , even during a point of crisis[00:56:30] , and then we're going to share our latest data from consumer study what's going on with all these digital journeys.

[00:56:36] And then finally our annual store study that we do with RIS news. So that's all part of the content that day. And then you get to meet a lot of the charities right there. 

[00:56:45] Ricardo Belmar: This is always the best event during NRF week. 

[00:56:48] Greg Buzek: Thank you,

[00:56:49] Ricardo Belmar: Vicki. Any, final comments you want to share just in general about ROI or about the super Saturday or how everyone can support them 

[00:56:57] Vicki Cantrell: No, I, you know, I think that we covered all the different aspects. Again, there is no substitute for seeing it feeling it. We always say and it's true in super Saturday, too, a little bit, but when you go on a trip, you experience everything with all five senses and that's what really makes the impact.

[00:57:18] Ricardo Belmar: Wonderful. know I haven't been fortunate enough to go on one of the trips, but I hope that at some point I'll have a chance to do that. But I always make a point of getting super Saturday on my agenda. Cause I wouldn't miss that for [00:57:30] anything. Both for the content and just to learn about what all the charities are doing and do anything I can to, help with that.

[00:57:35] Jeff, any final thoughts from you? 

[00:57:37] Jeff Roster: Gosh, it's just such an amazing thing. When you can put your business skills to work. I think we've said it again and again and again, when you get into Senegal or Congo or Honduras or any of the places I've been, it doesn't take much. It just, any anybody that's an assistant manager.

[00:57:53] 22 year old system manager in a store can just crush it. When you go into, into emerging economies, our skills are our ability to schedule or just absorb information. Those are all just the skills. These are all they're all crying for. And by the way, a lot of the charities could use that skill just as much. 

[00:58:10] Gosh, the charities folks are, you know, the heart's two sizes too big, but sometimes their business experiences two sizes too small, and that is a perfect match for what any retailer could do. It's really, really worth the effort. Take your kids, get them involved. You'll never, you'll never regret it.

[00:58:25] It's just a huge, huge opportunity that you think you're doing good. And [00:58:30] guess what you end up getting more than you'll ever give guarantee in that? 

[00:58:33] Ricardo Belmar: I think that's a great point. Great point. So I think on that note, we will go ahead and close out the room. .

[00:58:38] I know I recognize a lot of names down there and a lot of great supporters for retail, ROI and hope to see some of you at the super Saturday and thanks everyone for joining us. We want to thank Greg Vicki. It's been wonderful hearing all the stories today. I always enjoy talking about retail ROI and trying to find new ways to support all the great work that's being done.

[00:58:58] So thank you so much for joining us today and everyone have a great weekend and we hope to see you the next time in the retail razor room. Thanks everyone. Bye. 

[00:59:08] Greg Buzek: Thank you.

Welcome Back

[00:59:13] Ricardo Belmar: Welcome back everybody. We hope that was as memorable and inspiring a session for all of our listeners as it was for the two of us.. 

[00:59:25] Casey Golden: I think it's important for us to remember how much our supply chains and network can be leveraged for more than clothes. How'd you get involved with retail ROI Ricardo. 

[00:59:34] Ricardo Belmar: I mentioned earlier that Jeff Roster was the one who introduced me to ROI.

[00:59:38] We were actually at a retail conference back in. I want to say it was probably 2015 or so. And I was talking with Jeff and one of the other retailers at the conference came up and started asking Jeff about an upcoming Retail ROI activity.

[00:59:52] So I asked Jeff what he was talking about because it was new to me. I didn't really know the details or the specifics. So Jeff explained it to me. He talked about one of the projects he was involved in, in Honduras, which I think I think Greg mentioned that one during the clubhouse with the kids at the school there, and they didn't like that shark tank activity, they talked about that Vicky mentioned that was so cool.[01:00:13]

[01:00:13] So Jeff at the time was looking for someone who could. Get on a webinar with the kids in the school and kind of talk about career paths in business and technology. He said to me, he had noticed that the kids in the school really didn't have a good sense for what that was like. And in their minds, they had all these, different visions of how you know, that the kid in this chair next to them might one day, be working against them in some way, or that they'd all be competing for the same job.

[01:00:36] And he felt like they all had the wrong impression. But his challenge, it turns out was that he didn't speak Spanish. So he couldn't give that session . And as he's explaining this to me, I said, well, Jeff, I can do that in Spanish. You want me to join a webinar with you? I'm happy to do it. So he was excited and you know, we set that up a couple of weeks later, I talked for an hour to the kids in the school.

[01:00:54] So it was really great. And I can see how all of this really worked together with all the things that Vicki talked about in that project.

[01:00:59] And then after that, he told me a little bit more about what Super Saturday was like and introduced me to Greg. So I made sure the company I was at, we became a sponsor that following Super Saturday. And it turns out that was the project mentioned in the clubhouse [01:01:13] where the money we raised it also as a sponsor, right?

[01:01:16] Help get retailers to come to our booth, but that money held by the ambulance in Liberia that made such a difference by making the response time, go from four days down to less than an hour in the middle of that crisis. And like Greg explained by the time somebody got to the fourth day of being sick with that, they were likely not going to make it .

[01:01:33] So it was such a huge deal. And in that organization More Than Me , when they got up. And she started talking about her history and how she created that charity and what they were doing in Liberia. That was one of those where everyone sitting in the audience starts wondering, you know what, somebody please pass around a tissue box because this story is just so heart-wrenching and so unbelievable to see the people who are talking to us, where they've been and how they got to where they are now and the amazing things they're accomplishing.

[01:02:01] All because retail ROI was there to raise the money that they needed . And as they mentioned in the clubhouse, we're not talking huge dollar amounts every little bit actually has a huge impact. 

[01:02:10] Casey Golden: Yeah. It's magic happens at [01:02:13] NRF and I mean, we are really a family when it comes to retail, no matter where we work, our paths always cross.

[01:02:19] So we should definitely be kicking off NRF with Super Saturday 

[01:02:25] Ricardo Belmar: it's so absolutely is the best way to get an NRF started. And you're right. It really shows how, no matter how big an industry, this is, when you hear analysts put dollar numbers to the size of this retail, market and commerce around the world.

[01:02:38] But it really ends up being a small community. When you look at the people that are involved, you're in retail long enough, and everybody knows each other. And Super Saturday is just such a great way to do that. So for any retailers out there listening to this episode, it's not too late now to sign up to the 2022 Super Saturday at NRF on January 15th.

[01:02:57] And if you're in on the vendor side of the community and, you've heard this story and you're saying to yourself, wow, how do I get involved? Or like you heard Greg and Vicki talk about in the clubhouse, just go to the retail ROI website. You'll find the link in the show notes. And [01:03:13]it's not too late to sign up as a sponsor.

[01:03:15] You get the benefit of retailers showing more interest in what you do and how you support them. All because you're participating now and you're helping to fund all of these activities that retailers are trying to drive impact for all around the world. So please do get involved. We really hope that as many people as possible that are listening, run out there and join the cause with retail ROI.

[01:03:37] Casey Golden: I'm really excited for this year.

[01:03:39] Ricardo Belmar: Me too. Me too. I'm looking forward to, it's always the best event of every NRF. And I think this year, Greg has something special planned where there's gonna be someone from I think it's a, former FBI agent is going to talk about cybersecurity and the retail world . So it should be a really magical session at this year. I hope everybody participates. 

[01:03:56] So Casey, I think with that, it is time to bring our third episode of the show to an end.

Show Closing

[01:03:59] Casey Golden: If you enjoyed the show, please consider giving us a five star rating and review on apple podcast. Remember to smash that subscribe button in your favorite podcast player. So you don't miss a minute. Want to know more about what we talked about? Take a look at our show notes for handy links and more deets.

[01:04:15] I'm your cohost Casey Golden. 

[01:04:17] Ricardo Belmar: If you'd like to connect with us, follow us on Twitter at caseycgolden and Ricardo_Belmar, or find us on LinkedIn. Be sure to follow the show on Twitter at Retail Razor on LinkedIn and on our YouTube channel for video versions of each episode and bonus content. 

[01:04:32] I'm your host Ricardo Belmar.

[01:04:34] Casey Golden: Thanks for joining us.

[01:04:38] Ricardo Belmar: And remember, there's never been a better time to be in retail. IF you cut through the clutter. Until next time, THIS is the Retail Razor Show.