74. What Every Business Leader Needs For Success | Deep Diving with Kevin Weadick, CEO of FleetPride

Karthik Chidambaram: Hello, everyone. Welcome to a brand new episode of the
Driven by DCKAP podcast. I'm joined by a very special guest today in
Washington, DC. Kevin Weadick, Chief Executive Officer of FleetPride.

Kevin, thank you so much for joining me today and great to see you.

Kevin Weadick: Thanks for having me. Really looking forward to the
conversation.

Karthik Chidambaram: So Kevin, before we get started, tell us a little bit
about FleetPride. What do you guys do?

Kevin Weadick: Sure. So at Fleet Pride, our purpose is to keep the country
running. And we do that by being the nation's largest heavy duty aftermarket
supplier of both parts and service. So we have over 4,500 team members that
are committed to helping fleets keep their vehicles maintained and on the
road so that they can fulfill the critical need for our economy.

Karthik Chidambaram: Keep the country moving. I like that. So I want to get
into FleePride more, but before we do that, you grew up in Wisconsin and
your parents, your mother moved from- She's from Ireland? She's an
immigrant?

Kevin Weadick: Yep. Absolutely.

Karthik Chidambaram: And you were the first generation to go to college
here?

Kevin Weadick: Yes. My sisters and I, you know, our parents were very
focused on us making sure that we took advantage of every opportunity that
maybe they themselves didn't have.

Karthik Chidambaram: Yeah. I can relate to being an immigrant, right?
Because, you know, coming from another country, you always want to study,
you know, there's always a drive and all that.

So tell us about your early years growing up, you know what I mean? How did
that help shape who you are today?

Kevin Weadick: Well, my early years growing up, I just think this
appreciation for putting in hard work and really thinking about how you can
actually make a difference back into your community were a couple of things
that were really important you know, to my parents and that they instilled
in myself and my sisters.

I went to the University of Wisconsin, you know, so had grown up outside
Milwaukee, proud Badger you know, had that opportunity and then was really,
that just exposed me to all sorts of different people from different
backgrounds and helped me really learn and we're, Some pretty formative
years for me.

Karthik Chidambaram: But you started your career with PWC, but then you got
into Granger. So how was the transition like, and PWC is a job you got out
of college. Is that how you ended up there, or?

Kevin Weadick: Sure. I'm a recovering CPA, so I did CPA for a while. I'm old
enough that it was actually Coopers when I joined and I was there when it
became PWC.

And my largest client when I was there was 3M. And we provided the assurance
services for 3M, and I spent a lot of time going out into their
manufacturing operations and into their distribution operations. And I was
much more intrigued and interested in that aspect of the business than I was
the accounting.

So I went back to graduate school, got my MBA with a focus in supply chain,
and then right out of my MBA program was able to join Grainger. You know,
and probably my thinking at the time was I really wanted to go to an
organization where supply chain was going to be seen as a critical strategic
element of their business.

And when you think about supply chain, that's really what distributors do is
they manage supply chains. And so it's core and central to who they are. So,
so my, you know, what I was interested in and then the type of organization
I chose, there was a lot of purpose and intent behind that.

Karthik Chidambaram: I think a lot of people, even today, you know, they
work at PWC and they get this exposure, you know, working with 3M or Granger
for that matter, right? So, you could have even gone into finance, or you
could have gone into tech, or done something else, but you chose supply
chain. Is there a reason for that?

Kevin Weadick: I think it was just the interest. Like, I was just fascinated
by operations and operational processes. How to actually think about how you
actually create value for customers.

And so, you know, I will always really enjoy the background that I had at
PwC because it helped me really learn a lot about, you know, Let's call it,
you know a certain amount of financial awareness and background. But
ultimately, I was much more interested in like, how do things get made? How
do things get delivered to customers? And so it was just where my interest
lied.

Karthik Chidambaram: And having a background in finance, right, at PwC, I'm
sure it helped a lot. Because I think that's something I struggled with,
right? I mean, again, you know, DCKAP is bootstraped. So I don't know
anything about finance and all that, you know, learn along the way, right?

But I think in your sense, you know, you always look at different companies.
You see who's doing well, who's doing not. I'm sure that really helped later
on in your career, like you said.

Kevin Weadick: Yeah, I think absolutely, like, we’re here at NAW this week
for the Executive Summit and had a conversation this morning and one of the
things I talked about is like all marketing is finance.

And so I actually think that, you know, finance is the language of business
and so when you become financially literate, it's really helpful for the way
that you can think about your decision making.

Karthik Chidambaram: Tell us about your work at Grainger. You spent a lot of
time there and then you also went on to head one of the divisions, Zorro,
where you did some amazing work. Tell us about your work at Grainger.

Kevin Weadick: Sure. So, I was really fortunate to have a lot of different
experiences at Grainger. So I would say the first, you know, kind of eight
years were in the U.S. business and really core supply chain roles,
distribution operations, inventory management, purchasing. And then I had
the opportunity to actually leave the U.S. and go to our Canadian business.
Or Grainger's Canadian business. And run the whole supply chain. And while I
was there, I had, you know, call it like some, some fortuitous timing. Where
an individual that was running category management, the team that defined
the assortment that they merchandised and thought about pricing and other
things like that.

Retired, and I had the opportunity to kind of pivot from certain elements of
supply chain that were really my background to others. And that really gave
me, I think, a more commercial appetite, if you will. And so later I had
opportunities to, to take that foundation and think more commercially in
different roles across the organization.

And then, you know, ultimately landing at Zoro. I think, you know, people
might wonder, like, how did you go from supply chain to running Zoro, which
is a bit more of what I would describe as, like, an e-commerce platform. And
I think part of it was I had collected a lot of different experiences in the
business.

And I had also worked in Grainger's business in the US, in Canada, I spent
some time in Europe with Grainger. And so what I got was a lot of context.
So I didn't take a career path that went like straight up a function. I went
across and did a lot of different functions, which gave me a lot of context
and that context was really helpful to my decision making.

And I think it was having that well rounded context that allowed me to get
the role at Zorro.

Karthik Chidambaram: You worked in the US. You moved to Canada. A lot of
people don't want to do that, in terms of- sometimes, you know, moving is
hard. But I also strongly believe that the internal international exposure
teaches you a lot of things. How critical was that?

Kevin Weadick: I think it was it was really helpful because I think it's
helpful in a few different ways one was Just to have to assimilate into
different cultures and think about how different businesses actually Many
businesses operate the same way like the the principles of distribution are
very similar across those geographies But the cultural nuances is really
different So I think it helps you think about how you can adapt your style
to put Your team's in the position where they can be successful, so like,
it's building that cultural awareness, I think, that was really impactful in
the career and then you, you also get to see that.

I was in the Netherlands, England, and Canada, and, and people in the U.S.,
the Netherlands, England, and Canada all kind of want the same things. They
want to carve out a really good life for themselves and for their families,
and so, like, from an aspiration standpoint, really, there's a lot more in
common, I think, across cultures than not, but there's so many different
nuances. That it's really helpful to go and learn and really I think that
helps you think about how do I adapt my style to make sure I'm always
getting the best from a team.

Karthik Chidambaram: And how long did you spend outside the US?

Kevin Weadick: Between Canada Netherlands and England about six years six
years six years.

Karthik Chidambaram: So Grainger is a large company, I mean you obviously
have had a lot of great opportunities one after the other one thing leads to
another How do you navigate through that career path, right? Especially, you
know, if you work in a small company, it's easy, right?

Let's say there are 100 people or 200 people. You know everybody by name.
But Granger, I'm sure you'll get lost. But how did you get that opportunity?

Kevin Weadick: So, I think some of it is consistently saying yes to
opportunities. So like being willing to take risks and then I think some of
it was trying to be really intentional in seeking out opportunities in
different parts of the business.

So one way I think that you can build a reputation for yourself in a larger
organization is to make sure that You do good work in different areas, and
that you actually build a reputation that's not one leader, but across
multiple leaders in the organization. And I think that can be really helpful
as you think about your career, because, you know, a lot of companies will
do a talent review.

And you do the talent review, and someone works for, you know, Kevin, and I
say, oh, I think this person is great, and here's all the great things they
do. And if that person has never worked for anyone else in the organization
or might not have had a lot of contact, it's harder for them to see. You
know, that individual may be succeeding.

Whereas if that individuals work for me and also work for three of my peers,
well, now there's more voices in the room that can actually help elevate
that individual into new opportunities and leadership roles. So the advice I
generally give is be willing to take a risk on yourself. And then go and
learn the business, not just a discipline.

And if you go across the organization, you know, I've done pricing and I've
done category management and I've done, you know, distribution operations
and inventory management and marketing, e-commerce. And so, you've done all
these different things and then they help you get context. And that's what
general managers really need in order to be effective in charting a strategy
and leading a business forward.

So if you have that aspiration of general management, you want to make sure
that you're, like, collecting those experiences because they give you the
context you need to think about how you serve the customer well.

Karthik Chidambaram: Say yes to opportunities, be willing to travel. Yep.
Just take the risk.

Kevin Weadick: Yeah, yeah. Bet on yourself.

Karthik Chidambaram: Bet on yourself. Well said. So tell us about Zorro. How
did you get that opportunity and how did that come about? I'm sure, you
know, I mean, there were other people who were considered, but They end up
choosing you. So how did that opportunity come about?

Kevin Weadick: Yeah, and I think it was probably twofold. So one was I had
expressed an interest in the opportunity and let it be known that that was a
business that I thought I had a set of skills that would be helpful for when
there was a chance for a leadership transition, I had collected.

A series of relationships and experiences that made me a credible candidate,
you know, for the opportunity but I I think of like when you think of some
of those types of things that it's partly what you do it's partly who you,
who sponsors you in the organization. I was very fortunate that Granger's
current CEO DG Macpherson, saw a potential in me and advocated for me to
have the role and then In addition, there's a little bit of luck involved.

I was in England ready to repatriate back home to the US at the time that
role was becoming available. Had that kind of timing not worked out, I'm
sure I would have had a great role somewhere else within Grainger, but it
wouldn't have necessarily been that role. And so, I tend to think of, you
know, your career as a function somewhat of yourself, who you work for, and
their ability to sponsor you.

And also timing, luck, whatever you want to call it. Like, sometimes you
need the ball to bounce your way.

Karthik Chidambaram: And when you started with Zorro, what kind of revenues
were they doing? And when you left them, what was the revenue like?

Kevin Weadick: So we were over 400 million in revenue when I joined the
business. And then six years later, we had crossed over a billion dollars.
So we had an opportunity to kind of more than double the business while I
was there. It was really exciting. I think the part that was more, most
rewarding is. Being part of high growth businesses is a lot of fun because
you're creating a lot of opportunities for the team.

And so we had, you know, when I joined, we had maybe 230 team members. And
when I left, we had over 600 team members. And so there were a lot of team
members that got to grow up with that business while I was there. And so the
thing you always kind of take away is just being able to see how those team
members developed during your time and you know how they were able to
embrace new opportunities and build new skills and take on more
responsibility. And so, so that was probably the part of it that was the
most rewarding.

Karthik Chidambaram: Not everything goes as planned, right? So you become
the CEO of Zorro. And what were some of the biggest challenges, right?

You thought, you know, is it going to be an easy job or you knew it was
going to be hard? What were you thinking when you got in? And how was the
experience?

Kevin Weadick: Yeah, I would say it had helped me that I had worked in
different parts of Grainger's businesses and had learned different cultures
because Zorro ran very independently.

And it had its own rhythm and its own culture. It was much more technology
centric, much more data driven. No sales force, you know, no local branches.
So really more, You know, a website coupled to Grainger's distribution
capabilities. And so I think it was helping the business find its next path
of growth.

The business had started as maybe more of a brand merchandising, Grainger's
assortment in different channels and really, you know, over the time I was
there, we grew to being a trusted partner of many distributors and giving
them access to markets that they weren't able to tap into. And so we grew
the assortment from a little over a million items when I joined to, you
know, over 12 million items when I left.

And a lot of that assortment growth was a function of building really strong
partnerships with other distributors and having, you know, Zorro kind of be
a trusted partner for them. And so I think probably the biggest challenge
over the whole arc was, you know, at one point we were all together and then
in 2020 everyone went home and we had to figure out like, how is our
customer service team going to continue to support customers?

Like, how are we going to continue to collaborate and work? And so, I think
leading the team through this period of great uncertainty and then being
able to continue to grow through that period of uncertainty was probably the
biggest challenge. For not only myself, but for the leadership team.

Karthik Chidambaram: Absolutely. It was a challenge for the world as well,
right?

Kevin Weadick: Yep.

Karthik Chidambaram: Yeah. So, from zero, you've become the CEO of
FleetPride, which is very interesting, you have lots of branches, lots of
people, and how do you approach that, right? So what are your key priorities
as a CEO of Fleet Pride today?

Kevin Weadick: Sure, so I think like some of this goes back to like being, I
was really attracted to an organization that has a great purpose, right?

So you know, I said at the beginning, like FleetPride keeps the country
running, you know. And that's our purpose. Grainger had a purpose for its
businesses, which was, we keep the world working. So there was a lot of
commonality and purpose that was really attractive. And then also, when we
think of our team members and the customer focused ethos that our team
members have you know, there was a lot of parallels between the two
businesses.

So, that was partly what attracted me to the business. And then I think, for
us, it's how do we create the right kind of clarity for our team about, You
know what our customers value. So we have two business units. We have a
parts business unit and a service business unit. And they play with each
other and work together.

But our parts business unit is really about providing the parts that fleets
need in order to keep their vehicles maintained and on the road, whether
that's an entrepreneur with a single truck all the way up to some of the
largest fleets in the U.S. And then, the service side actually does the
actual work to maintain those vehicles.

And so, what we're trying to do is one is create awareness across our
customer base of all the ways that we can help them. And really lean into
that and and part of that is to make sure that we have the best assortment
in the industry. So making sure that we have all the products that our
customers need and then listen, like our customers have revenue generating
assets. That if the truck is broken it's down and they can't make money.

You can't take an uber to work because your car didn't start. It's like if
the truck is down you actually aren't generating revenue, and so it's
critically important that they can get back up and running and so product
availability and the availability of our service technicians to help get
those trucks back on the road are really central to the ethos of who we are.

So, we try and just focus on doing those three things really well, which is
make sure that we're top of mind with our customers whenever they have parts
or service needs, make sure we have the best assortment to serve them and
make sure that we have a lot of availability, whether it's the parts that
they need or the availability in terms of the service capabilities that they
need so that we can put them in a position to keep the country running.

Karthik Chidambaram: Keep the country running. I love that.

So, but, I mean, providing a consistent service could be hard, right? So,
for example, right, so in the hotel I'm staying at today, as soon as I got
in, I checked in a couple of days ago, and the Wi Fi wasn't working. And it
was not just for me, I think a couple of other people also had the same
problem and we had to go down, go to the front desk and get that issue
sorted out, right?

So that's a service issue and maybe there's also a technology issue there.
In your business, I would think it's even more harder, you know, because You
know, services, you know, you have to service the trucks. Sometimes, you
know, you charge more, sometimes you charge less, and the expertise becomes
very critical.

How are you ensuring that customers get a consistent service experience?

Kevin Weadick: Sure, so, on the parts side this is where actually our
e-commerce capabilities really differentiates us. We're the largest national
provider with over 300 branches across the country, supported by five
distribution centers.

And with our e-commerce capabilities comes with the ability to think about
where do we have that inventory in our network and how do we get it to our
customer as quickly as possible. And our customers, again, generally same
day need. So having that capabilities means that we can invest
differentially in that local availability in order to make sure that we're
there for our customer because if we are willing to take the risk of, of
sale.

And say it doesn't sell. Well, we know we can pick it up and ship it to a
customer outside that local branch using our e-commerce platform. And so we
have a lot of options that some of our competitors don't. On the service
side diesel technicians like many of the trades is a really highly sought
after job category.

So what we try and do is make sure that we're always actively recruiting and
that we're really focused on retention of those team members. And we do that
by helping, we have FleetPride University that helps them come either
virtually or in person to learn new skills so they can grow their
capabilities, grow their you know grow their, their compensation package as
they become more valuable and the types of things that they can do.

And so we really are really pushing on, like, how do we have high
availability so we can say yes? And how do we make sure we have the right
technician base? And we're training them very well so that again, we can, we
can win. Now here's the thing though, you're all, you're, you're not always
going to win.

Like sometimes something might go wrong and I think there's a lot of
research that says that what you need to do in that situation is stand
behind your, your service and so make it right. Really stand behind Your,
your organization's commitment to make it right for the customer. We have,
you know, thousands of team members that do an amazing job of that for us.

They make it right for the customer in the situation where we might have
stubbed our toe. And so it's really important to have that ethos of customer
service. And that's, that's our focus and we don't always get it perfect,
but it's something that we can aspire towards.

Karthik Chidambaram: You talked about technology investments in e commerce.

Do you find a lot of truck drivers using e commerce?

Kevin Weadick: So it's not always the driver. In many cases, it's a
technician. It's a fleet manager. So, so it could be the owner operator that
might be doing their own repair. It could be a small mobile repair
individual that literally is just a diesel technician that goes out and they
have their own small entrepreneurial business, all the way up to national
fleets that have their own pool of technicians.

And so, what I would say is, what technology lets us do is- as an example,
our website is designed mobile first. and the reason for that is because
many of our customers aren't in one location we have the ability to see what
a customer has bought across many locations. So that one of the values that
we can provide to the larger fleets is that consistency of experience in
pricing, in parts that we use, in quality of service repairs across the
nation.

And so it makes it easier for them to have trust because they don't need to
manage a large supply base of. But everyone, they can leverage our scale and
structure to get that consistency of experience. So we try and focus on it
whether you're the smallest kind of fleet in what we design for or a very
large fleet, make sure our value proposition resonates across the spectrum.

Karthik Chidambaram: Talking about technology, e-commerce investments,
right? We work with a lot of distributors, and one common challenge I hear
when I interact with distributors is the adoption is not there.

You guys at FleetPride have a bigger customer base, so maybe it's a little
more easier.

Kevin Weadick: Yep.

Karthik Chidambaram: But then, you know, what do you say for a small
distributor, right? Because I've worked with a lot of distributors. We tell
them, hey, you know, we need to make technology investments, and they also
know that they need to make technology investments.

Kevin Weadick: Right.

Karthik Chidambaram: But they invest. It's not that they're not investing.
But they don't really find customer adoption.

Kevin Weadick: So, I think part of it is you want to create solutions that
your customers will find value in. And so, you know, FleetPride really
started its e-commerce journey before I joined in, call it 2021, was when,
when really the company hit the gas on the investment.

Some of that was in response to what was going on at the time with the
pandemic and how it was changing patterns of work and things like that. But,
but a lot of it was, how do we help our team understand like the value that
this can create for the customer and how do we arm our team with the ability
to actually do that?

So we have something that we still have today, which is every Friday, we
have. You know, like Fleet Pride University sorry, like a digital like like
a digital digest where like we give people the opportunity to learn about
the different things that we've built and the different capabilities that
we're offering to customers.

Sometimes we build, you know, different navigation experiences on the
website, as an example, that are designed to help solve customer pain
points. But often they also help solve team member pain points. So we can
get a lot of like goodwill and generate a lot of excitement in our team by
demonstrating how those different features can actually solve customer pain
points and help them be successful.

Some distributors treat their e commerce as a different channel. We don't
see that. We think e commerce is just another way for us to make sure that
we're there for our customers, however they want. So if our customer wants
to come into a branch and pick up a product, that's great. If they want to
call us and place an order for shipment, that's great.

If they want to use our website, that's great. We want to be, we want to
meet our customers wherever they're looking. I think, I think the risk that
a distributor would have if they don't make these investments in advance of,
you know, kind of where we're going today or where we're going is there's a
whole generation that's coming up that has grown up like with a phone
basically since birth.

And they expect certain experiences and if you don't create that as
generations change and our older customer base leaves the workforce. Newer
customers that enter will expect these experiences, and so maybe it's
unrealistic to expect 100 percent adoption, and that's okay. Like, even at
Zorro, which was a large e commerce platform, there are a number of
customers that would call and place orders as opposed to placing them on the
website.

And so it's about, like, whatever business you're in, meet your customer
where they want. In order to actually build trust.

Karthik Chidambaram: Yeah, it's not one or the other, it is everything
together.

Kevin Weadick: Correct.

Karthik Chidambaram: And let's talk a little bit about the greenhouse gas
emissions and all that, right? Climate change and all that. You guys deal
with heavy duty vehicles. What are you doing in that regard? How are you
addressing those challenges?

Kevin Weadick: Sure. So, we support the aftermarket. And today there isn't a
significant concentration in heavy duty. So class eight, that's probably the
last area that we'll see electrification. So when we think about being in
the aftermarket, typically during the first few years of a truck's life,
it's under warranty and served by the dealer groups.

And we tend to come in after that. And so what we would say is we're, we're
watching very closely. A lot of our customers are over the road. That's
probably the area that we'll see the slowest adoption because of things like
the weight of the batteries what it does to the capability. But there are
certainly use cases, whether it's, you know, yard spotters or you know,
imports where, you know, Or, or where a vehicle is doing a daily route and
coming back, a lot of the vocational vehicles, you know, garbage trucks,
school buses, things like that, where there will be some electrification
that, that makes a lot of sense.

And so then what we'll do is make sure that we're leading with building our
product assortment so that as those vehicles leave warranty and come into
our market, we're prepared to be able to serve them. But it's probably not
happening in that part of the industry as fast as it is on, say, the The
consumer adoption side in automotive vehicles.

Karthik Chidambaram: And what does a typical day look like for Kevin?

Kevin Weadick: A typical day? I wouldn't say there is a typical day. You
know, we do try and make sure that like every Monday afternoon the executive
team can come together and really understand what's going on in the business
and really make sure that we're focused.

We have, we try and we've spent a lot of time over the last couple years
trying to really simplify our focus to make sure we have. Simple, clearly
understood KPIs that help us understand how we're doing relative to the
outcomes that we're doing. I would say it's important to focus on sales, but
sales is a result, it's a result of a series of choices that you make.

And so we try and focus on the driver metrics that will result in sales
growth, you know, or us operating effectively, or us having an engaged team.
Like we try and focus on the driver metrics as opposed to, you know, really
looking at just the result metrics. And so we'll focus on that. I try and
get out in the field and be with the team to make sure that ideas that we're
creating are actually resonating with our team members and landing in a way
that we think is going to be helpful to our customer.

We try and spend a lot of time seeking feedback from customers to make sure
we know that we're staying where we need to be. And then a lot of it is
also, you know, just like evangelizing FleetPride’s story and how we can
help customers win in the marketplace. And so, you know, I think that one of
the great parts about my job is we probably don't have a typical day, but
those are some of the kinds of things that we spend time focusing on.

Karthik Chidambaram: And what are some things you do outside of work, Kevin?

Kevin Weadick: Outside of work. So I have, I've been married for a little
over 25 years. You know, I have two wonderful daughters and so we try and
spend a lot of time together as a family bit of a foodie, so we like to cook
or, or go out and then actually both my daughters and my wife play golf, I
play golf, and so, so we like spending time together as a family doing that,
and traveling, like we were very fortunate that when the kids were We got to
live in Canada, we got to live in Europe and in England, and so we got to
travel all around, and so to this day, when we have time together, we like
to get out, and we've been, you know, since we've been back, and the kids
are a little older, we've been focused on, like, exploring America and
making sure, like, we're, we're learning more and more about the great
country that we live in.

Karthik Chidambaram: I would like to end with this question. Is there a
podcast you're listening to or any book you're reading which you would like
to share with our audience?

Kevin Weadick: Sure. I listen to a few different podcasts. Like, so Freight
Vines is one that comes out of MIT. And they talk a lot about what's going
on in the freight industry.

And it's a really great way for me to kind of keep up on what's going on
and, and understand like what's happening in the market relative to our Our
customer set. I, I really enjoy technology. So I listen to Hard Fork, which
is New York Times. And I'm forgetting the other, the other, but like there's
a couple of folks, one from the New York Times and one from platformer. And
they come together and talk about technology. And so I'm listening to that
one and you know, so those are a couple things that when I'm have some
windshield time I'm listening to.

Karthik Chidambaram: There's this nice podcast called the Remarkable People
by Guy Kawasaki. Have you listened to him?

Kevin Weadick: I have not.

Karthik Chidambaram: That's a great podcast. I listen to it when I drive.

But Kevin thank you so much. I really enjoyed this conversation. Thanks for
spending time with us today.

Kevin Weadick: Thank you. Appreciate it. Be well.