Behind the CXO Title: Recognizing Your Potential with Beth LaBossiere

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In this episode, Beth LaBossiere, Chief of Staff at Whetstone Distribution, shares how the CXO Fellows Program helped her transition from consulting to operations. It was a transition that not only introduced her to a new career path but also to an entirely new industry. This required her to develop a new set of skills, which she accomplished with the support of her team and the CXO network. Through this journey, she uncovered her leadership potential and set her sights on becoming a CEO.

Transcript

Introduction

Anderson Williams: Welcome to Bigger. Stronger. Faster. the podcast exploring how Shore Capital Partners brings billion-dollar resources to the microcap space. This episode is part of a series in which we interview participants in Shore Capital's CXO Fellows Program about their experiences as a young executive in the microcap space and the role the CXO program has played in their growth and development.

In this episode, I talk with Beth Labossiere, Chief of Staff at Whetstone Distribution. From being the right hand to the CEO, to defining and managing strategy, to sales, to scanning inventory in the freezer. Beth offers an honest look at the variety of roles a CXO can play in their company. For her, humility is the name of the game, and success as a young executive in a new industry is all about building relationships and learning to leverage other people's expertise.

And despite the trials and the hours and the mistakes made, or perhaps because of them, Beth shares that the CXO experience has convinced her, even when she didn't previously believe she could be a CEO, that that's exactly what she aspires to be.

Well, welcome, Beth, and thanks for joining me today.

Beth LaBossiere: It's great to be here. Thanks, Anderson.

Anderson Williams: Will you just introduce yourself and say what you do and where you do it?

Beth LaBossiere: My name's Beth Labossiere. I'm Chief of Staff at Whetstone Distribution. We're based in Chicago. We're a protein distribution business.

Anderson Williams: And for those of us who aren't in that space, what does it mean to be a protein distribution business?

Beth LaBossiere: Absolutely. Um, well, one thing I love about food is everyone eats it, so I'll put it in terms relatable to everyone. When you go to a grocery store or a restaurant, Where did that food come from? How did it get there? It was on a truck and it typically doesn't go straight from the farm to the restaurant or the grocery store.

There's a whole distribution network behind that that collects all the inventory and puts it on a truck and gets it to that final destination. And a big part of that as well is a sales team that goes around and finds and sources all the right products for what that grocery store or restaurant needs.

Anderson Williams: Okay. And what does it mean to be Chief of Staff at Whetstone?

Beth LaBossiere: Chief of Staff, it's definitely one of those broad roles, right? It's, I think of Chief of Staff as the right hand to the CEO. So whatever the CEO's priorities are, those are my priorities. And that could be anything across going really deep in one particular function.

For example, doing a deep analysis on our frozen inventory. So, literally, what's in our freezer at our different facilities, our different warehouses, and how long has it been there? Is it good inventory or not good inventory? How are we going to move it? I mean, really going down to the item level could be that deep.

Or it could be really broad, which is working with folks across our four companies that we have on strategic projects and really bringing everyone together. Or working on the board materials. So that's something that I lead as well.

Anderson Williams: So will you give just a little bit more insight when you say four companies about where Whetstone is in terms of size and scale and just the growth that you guys have experienced?

Beth LaBossiere: Yeah, Whetstone is at a really exciting place right now. We doubled the size of our company in a period of three weeks in the spring. So we originally started when Shore invested with two facilities, one in Chicago and one in Kansas City. They were two operating companies with somewhat different customer focus, but both cold storage warehouses with our own fleet of trucks and drivers and warehouse associates, sales team and office staff and accounting.

So that's kind of what each of these operating companies looks like. And now, after two very exciting acquisitions that we completed in June of this year, we have four operating companies and about 250 employees across all those roles I talked about. From the truck drivers, to the salespeople to our back office accounting staff, warehouse associates.

And we also have meat cutters. So now one of the big kind of transformational parts of the two acquisitions that we just completed is adding more value add processing to what we do. So think about when you buy a beef tenderloin at Costco, um, and it's It's a big, long piece of meat, right? That has to get cut into steaks and there are all different parts of it.

And so we have a team of people that do that processing or deboning chicken, things like that. So that was something that we added. For our locations that we're in right now are Milwaukee, Chicago, and Kansas City. So really nice kind of middle of the country, vertical distribution network there where we're trying to build geographic density and overlap, but still have that broad reach of being able to reach a wide range of customers.

Anderson Williams: And did you have experience in this sector prior to joining Whetstone and just say a little bit about how you got here and why Whetstone through the CXO Fellows Program was a good match for you?

Beth LaBossiere: Yeah, I would say like most CXO Fellows, I did not have experience in the field. field before coming into the role and that can definitely be intimidating.

There are so many people who know every single cut of beef and all of the parts of the animal and they have years of experience or, you know, they know all of the DOT rules for the trucks and everything about construction of a freezer in a facility. I mean, there's so much deep knowledge. I think any CXO Fellow will tell you the same about their business, whether it's healthcare or plastic packaging, um, or food distribution like what I do.

So did not have specific experience, but I've always been passionate about the food industry. And so when I, I was working in consulting and I was thinking about what my next chapter of my career would be, big picture, and I knew that I wanted to work in operations at a company. So rather than be an advisor, I wanted to be the doer at the company.

That was, as I started thinking about, well, what kind of company would I want to do that at, food and beverage has always been a passion of mine and an industry that I love. And so that's something that I looked for and that's how I came across Shore Capital was the Food & Beverage fund, um, and that's kind of expertise and specialty.

So that ended up being a really good fit for me.

A Steep Learning Curve

Anderson Williams: And just practically speaking, how did you ramp up to step into that Chief of Staff role in an industry you weren't familiar with? Like, how did you just practically learn and catch up to all of that deep industry knowledge or start catching up, you know, I'm sure you're not there yet, but just say a little bit about that process.

Beth LaBossiere: Yeah, I like to think about the work I do in two different buckets. One of them is things that I was already good at that I was bringing the skill set to the table. Maybe the folks that were at the company already, I mean, I can tell you for sure, none of them had ever created a set of board materials or run a strategy session or done advanced Excel analysis on variety of things.

So I think about those skills as, well these are things I learned earlier in my career that I can bring and I'm more comfortable in and then on the other half of what I do that I have no industry background on, humility is the name of the game and really just getting to know people because all the people around you have that expertise.

Like you do not need to go to a farm university and learn it all from scratch. Like you have the expertise around you. And so I think it's really on building those relationships with folks. My first week I went on a ride along in a truck. I've done that a few other times to just stay close to the business, stay close to the customer and experience it firsthand.

And You'll learn so much in those few hours of sitting side by side in a truck doing deliveries with a driver that it would take weeks or months to learn in a classroom, if you will. So it's, to summarize, I would say building strong relationships with the experts in the business so that you can just walk over to their desk and ask them when you need that industry specific knowledge.

And then it's doing as much as you can hands on because you'll learn a lot faster seeing it that way.

New People, New Processes

Anderson Williams: And I have to believe that that process, that hands-on getting in a truck, and as a good example, also builds a lot of trust with the team around you that you're not somebody who comes in and because you're great at Excel, thinks the world is ruled by Excel.

You know, it seems like that in and of itself is a good relationship-building tool.

Beth LaBossiere: Yeah, I mean, there is nothing worse than to a meet salesman, then coming in with your, my little glasses, I'm always pushing up my nose. And I'm like, wait till you see what I can do in Excel with this data. And they're like, please go away.

So yeah, there's definitely a chasm to cross, I would say. And some are more open to it than others. But yeah. And so you identify those folks that you know are actually gonna absorb and be so excited about more of that data-driven mindset that you're bringing. I think that's important. But yeah, you also need to respect and understand the people that are still living their life with fax machines.

And they do think, like, I could never be a meat salesman. I would be, I've tried it, kind of. There was a time that I was selling some chicken pallets and it didn't go well. So I would say, like, recognize the things that, hey, these people are way better at this than I could ever be. And I think, yeah, that dose of humility and just a personal connection goes a long way.

One of the major projects that I have taken on as Chief of Staff is the implementation of our ERP across all of our companies. It's, first of all, it's one of the things you'll hear from and that I heard at ELA last year from private equity buyers that we'll eventually go market our business to is we want the technology already done.

We want it packaged. We do not want to get our hands dirty in implementing and standardizing all the technology. And so that's a huge part of our strategy is putting this ERP in place at all of our companies so that everyone's on a shared system. And not only does that help us with preparing the company for its next phase after the Shore Capital ownership, but it also is the enabler for everything else that we're trying to do.

I mean, you want to do cross selling, you want to do shared buying across the organizations with major procurement synergies. You need to have one platform that everybody is on, that they can see the inventory of the other company and they can all connect. And the other thing is with operational efficiency, I mean the, we now have the ops guys just calling each other directly and texting each other, facetiming each other so they can show each other the scan gun and what it's looking like. That training is just invaluable and when you have all the companies on the same system they can provide each other that support. So That was just something about our ERP.

But the other thing through the ERP implementation, and I would recommend this hands down to any CXO Fellow as a core project to work on. Why? Because it touches every single function in the business. If you have a good ERP that's truly integrated, you get to learn the general ledger and accounts payable, accounts receivable, paying checks, and how you deal with vendor terms and aged accounts receivable balances from your customers. I mean, all of these things that are critical to the accounting function. You also are learning financial reporting because that's then what you're using to report out to Shore, report to the board, and understand the business as an executive team.

You're then understanding operations, I mean, it's, our ERP is a warehouse management system for us. It's, It's barcode scanning, you know, slot locations for all of our inventory, looking at lots and, uh, pack dates so that we know when our perishable goods need to be sold. I mean, it's all the inventory management with the scan guns, so you have to understand operations and then you have to understand sales as well because that's where all the orders are being put into the system.

That's where all of your customer data is stored. You can look at, you know, Sales by customer. You talk about commissions. All the commissions are in the ERP, right? So as you take on that project, you have the chance as a CXO to learn every function of the business and get that interconnected view of how it all works.

Anderson Williams: I have to believe, Beth, given what you just described, that that's also a massive amount of change for your partner companies, the people who are, who have chosen to partner with Whetstone, and they've partnered for a reason, but how do you approach that with your partners?

Beth LaBossiere: Yeah, if you want to prepare yourself to do change management at an organization in the future, I would recommend going through the bootcamp, I'll call it, of an ERP implementation.

It is all the change all at once for everyone and definitely an immense challenge. There are many, many businesses that start ERP implementations and give up and they just abandon after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to launch it and they get into it and they realize we can't do this and they just halt the entire thing and reverse it. And then the next year, they try again.

And I have heard those stories. And so I think first you have to, with the change management, it's important. I tend to be very optimistic and high energy. And I love to just believe in the people. And I think that energy definitely helps me, um, in the job, but you have to balance that with a dose of realism as to this may not work.

And so, how do you de risk the entire thing? I mean, that's the name of the game. Michael Burcham gave this advice on our last CXO call, actually. We had this, uh, CXO catch up and we were talking about leading change and I asked the question of, okay, I'm heading into this other ERP implementation. Do you think it's best to focus on your stars of the people that you know are going to be culture carriers for that change?

And so you want to lean into them and you know it'll trickle down from them to others and you need those leaders or should you focus on the ones that are really behind and you know are going to be these big problems where they are just so resistant to change. They really don't want to do it. They're not doing any of their practice homework that you gave them. They're not attending the sessions.

I mean, we had so many people show up to the trainings without their laptops. I'm like, this is a software program. You need your laptop. Um, So, and Michael's answer was amazing, he said, neither, you need to focus on the messy middle. And that was such an amazing lesson for me to take into these next change management projects is often the loudest voice in the room, whether it's the one that's most excited or the one that is super resistant, you're going to pay attention to those.

But it's that messy middle of folks that are actually doing the lion's share of the work. If you could just by sheer numbers, most people are in that messy middle. And if those people do not know. What buttons to click to do their job your whole operation is going to come to a screeching halt and we work in a just in time business I mean we are delivering day of to our customers every single day if we lose a sale if we shut down our operations for a day That restaurant doesn't get what they needed that grocery store does not get their beef and they're not gonna say sure I'll take it three days from now.

So we actually went live in both of our businesses with this ERP implementation with no business closure to our operations, which is maybe crazy to do, but that's the kind of business that we're in. And so if you don't pay attention to that messy middle, you're really going to have major gaps in your operation through the change management.

And so I thought that was a really good lesson learned from Michael Burcham.

The CXO Experience

Anderson Williams: Yeah, I'm curious just to hear as you reflected on the call with Michael and the CXO Fellows, how have you leaned on, what have you learned from other fellows in the program? How has that worked to support you during this transition to a new industry, this transition to a new company, working with a new C suite, getting out in the trucks and learning how people are actually executing the business day to day. How has being a part of the Fellows Program supported that growth?

Beth LaBossiere: There are two reasons I really love the CXO Fellows Program. I think the first one is when you first join one of these companies, particularly a lot of folks are coming from consulting, finance, corporate roles where they had a community of peers. You had your class. I mean, it's all people like you. You have tons of people to lean on and ask questions. And suddenly you're being foisted into this small business where people don't typically work with folks like you and vice versa.

And it's maybe your age. For me, it's my gender, um, as well as my age, right? And so you kind of are a bit on an island when you join. And the CXO Fellows Program gives you that community of peers. And that, I cannot emphasize enough how amazing that has been. I think, for example, a lot of people are looking at doing a search fund.

And when I thought about that, I thought, well, what resources, you know, I'm gonna have to build my own group of people to talk to. I mean, there is no, you don't have those resources. And so, I mean, a lot of people I think are really good at building those networks themselves. I felt that wasn't where I wanted to spend my time and effort.

I wanted to spend my time and effort on operating the business and really adding value in the company I was at. And so having that pre made group of peers through the CXO Fellow Program is really amazing. But when you just want to talk to someone that speaks your language and bounce an idea off of them.

Anderson Williams: Yeah, it kind of goes back to what you were describing before of this idea of de-risking, right? I mean, to have that group of colleagues around you. You know, I think everybody goes in. As a CXO Fellow and you're young and hungry and every, most people have come from consulting. Most people have said, I want to get into operations.

And then you go on your own to a small company that's growing.

Beth LaBossiere: Oh, wait. This is operations?

Anderson Williams: What did I say I wanted?

Beth LaBossiere: I'm confused. They told me it would be fun. Yeah.

Anderson Williams: Well, I think that's. part of the story of this, right? Like I think there's there are certain myths about entrepreneurship that when you get in and you're an operator and you get into these young companies, even when they're private equity backed, like we're acquiring good companies with good founders, it's still messy and it's still confusing and it's still stressful.

And so I think it's profound to one have that network, but also see how That truth can be the same for someone who's in a healthcare startup and someone who's in a food and beverage startup and someone who's in an industrial startup and so forth.

Beth LaBossiere: Yeah, and so that's the second thing on the CXO Fellows that's been so valuable.

The first one is having that network of peers that really understand you, that, You can pick up the phone and just talk to them and immediately relate, which is amazing. And the second one is more of those tactical tips that you learn from people. I mean, there's, everybody is building out something similar at their company.

There's going to be somebody that's looked at a CRM. We don't have a CRM yet. That's on our roadmap for the future. I've already had some good conversations with people about Oh, you used HubSpot. Well, what was that like for you? What was implementing that like for you? Are you guys glad that you did it?

How did you get your sales team from pen and paper into HubSpot? And so there's so many of those very tactical questions that you have the resources to go to immediately. Tons of examples just across different projects, whether it's sales and collecting prospect information, sales training. We've done something with marketing and brochures.

I mean, we've, we've just, there are so many projects that we've done that other CXO Fellows have done something similar, and they can immediately give you a reference to a vendor to work with, or simply just talk through what they did. And you can learn those lessons from them without having to make the mistakes yourself.

Anderson Williams: Yeah, and I imagine that. It provides a little confidence to the companies as well to know that you're not just a single operator but that you're backed by this group that's having regular meetings, that's doing learning together, that's having reflection together. It's got to de-risk it on the company side too.

Beth LaBossiere: Of course. And for the Shore Capital investing team, I mean, again, we're young professionals coming in without, typically not only are we young in our careers in terms of years of experience, but we also are young or really newborns to the industry. So we don't have the industry and we don't have all those years of leadership experience.

So when you're talking to the Shore Capital Investing team or your board of directors or your CEO and you can say, here's my idea, here's the vendor I think we should go with, the approach I think we should use. By the way, a CXO Fellow at another portco is using this vendor or doing it this way. And this is how it's worked for them.

That's a huge vote of confidence. That there's someone else that's actually done it and you're not just coming up with it out of thin air.

Lessons from Operations

Anderson Williams: Yeah, I want to dig a little further into that because I think, um, I would go back to this. Most CXOs have stepped into this opportunity because they want to become operators.

We've talked about some of your experiences there. But if you had to summarize things you know about being an operator now that you didn't know before a CXO program when you said, I want to get into operations, what are some things you've learned pretty quickly about what it actually means to be an operator?

Beth LaBossiere: Yeah, the things that I've learned about operating are simultaneously frustrating and incredibly invigorating and energizing and gave me so much validation that this was the right move for me to go from consulting into operating. I think on change management, you can make as many PowerPoint slides about change management as you want, but really the name of the game is understanding who you're working with and what are they motivated by.

I mean, the best class I took in business school was called Motivation and Incentives. And it's all about sales commissions as one example. I mean, a lot of business schools, it's very lofty, you know, big picture leadership discussions. And a lot of that I really, really loved. But in addition to that, taking this class where it was banging us over the head as HBS students with the message of, other people are not motivated by the same things that motivate you.

And that is the number one thing that you have to know about operating, is people don't care about the same things that you care about. And they don't even care about the same things that each other cares about, right? Each person or department or, you know, You know, group is going to have different motivating factors.

And so you have to understand why is it that they show up every day. And I mean, you're coming in and you mentioned Anderson, how these businesses, they are really good businesses, um, at the same time, they're, they're somewhat messy. And I would argue, I mean, a lot of the, your perfect acquisition as part of your Shore Portfolio Company that you're building is a company that would actually do really well if you just didn't touch it, but it wouldn't grow as much.

And so it's a well oiled machine. It has good people, a good culture. It has a customer base. They're smoothly operating and they've demonstrated that over years, which is why you look in diligence at their previous year's financials and you see that.

But you're coming in and saying, actually, I'm going to change these things. things. And so that's where a lot of the mess comes from is it's actually imposed by you. And you kind of need to admit that to folks, I think, and understand, put yourself in their shoes and what does that mean for them. So, that's a huge part of operating that doesn't really come out in a consulting or advisor role. And, um.

Anderson Williams: Just to jump in there, I think as you're describing that, I can't help but think that I suspect for someone who's really bright, really driven, done consulting, gone to business school, is whiz-bang with Excel, can make anything happen in PowerPoint, has a whole language around all of that stuff, that then as you become an operator, you're like, oh.

It's really mostly about the people and getting them aligned to where we are going and they don't speak those languages. They don't speak the language of PowerPoint or Excel or board decks or whatever. That works one direction, but not so much the other direction.

Beth LaBossiere: I mean, this is my favorite part of the Chief of Staff role is I'm interacting in all directions with all people. You are this kind of, you know, central focal point where you are using the skills that you had from your past career to be able to speak intelligently to the board and, you know, work with a private equity team. A lot of people, maybe that's new to them, but similar to what they've done in the past, right?

It's a more of a comfort zone, I would say, and but in a more stepped-up way where it's maybe higher stakes and. But you, you do get to continue learning and growing in that role. I mean, presenting in front of our board is a huge privilege for me and I learn something every single time that I do it. And as well as learning from the deal team.

I also get to interact with all the other people in the organization that really don't care that I have a board meeting next week. Like that, okay, Beth, you have to work on PowerPoint slides, but you know, I'm trying to fix this, this PO receipt that you know the inventory got loaded under the wrong code and how do I go back and change it or this commission calculation one of my salespeople is questioning it how do I build trust and show him how it was done and all of these questions that come up day to day.

So I really love that about the Chief of Staff role in particular because you are working across So many different things with exposure to the Shore Capital team, exposure to your board, as well as constantly being on the ground. You're, you're not an employee of Shore. You're an employee, I'm an employee of Whetstone and, you know, I am part of your company.

I'm on your same benefits plan, you know, I get the same paycheck. And I think that's a huge advantage and something really special. I mean, you can find either one or the other in a lot of roles, but to find both I think is really unique.

CEO Aspirations

Anderson Williams: Is it accurate and fair to say that you aspire at some point to be a CEO?

Beth LaBossiere: Anderson, when I came into this, I did not know that I could be a CEO.

Um, I wasn't sure. I thought maybe one day I'll be a Chief Operating Officer, but I feel like the team around me has built my confidence so much over the past couple of years. So now I absolutely do want to do that as my next step. And, you I think it could be so rewarding and just such an amazing opportunity to have a huge impact on a business and even on an industry.

Anderson Williams: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure and check out our other Bigger. Stronger. Faster. episodes specifically highlighting the CXO Fellows Program, as well as other CXO Fellows profiles at www.shorecp.university/podcasts or anywhere you get your podcasts.

This podcast was produced by Shore Capital Partners, with story and narration by Anderson Williams, recording and editing by Austin Johnson, editing by Reel Audiobooks, sound design, mixing, and mastering by Mark Galup of Reel Audiobooks.

Special thanks to Beth Labossiere.

This podcast is the property of Shore Capital Partners, LLC. None of the content herein is investment advice, an offer of investment advisory services, nor a recommendation or offer relating to any security. See the Terms of Use page on the Shore Capital website for other important information.