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“I’d never even taken a business class in college, but I interviewed at Walmart and got into the buyer trainee program,” Brandon said. “I started working in store four in Siloam Springs, Arkansas.”
As part of his training program, Brandon spent time getting to know every area of the store from receiving and stocking all the way to decorating cakes. “Working in the stores really lays a solid foundation. You learn everything you ever wanted to know about operations before going back to the front office to learn under a senior retail buyer before taking your own categories as a buyer,” he said.
It wasn’t digging in the dirt, but it was a lot of fun. Brandon made the most of his opportunity to engage with customers and shared their feedback with the buying team. He began to improve communications between the store and the home office, making updates that positively affected the bottom line.
“I’ve always been an entrepreneur at heart. I was attracted to this whole new world I wasn’t exposed to before and it caught,” he said.
To expand his horizons, Brandon left Walmart and began working with a Taiwanese trading company. He found he really connected with handwoven baskets.
“At the core, it was natural fibers, something I knew really well. It was a category that, at the time, never had any data to support it so, I knew I could create an opportunity there.”
Brandon set out to discover exactly what consumers were looking for in the space, so he disappeared into the Philippines and China, researching deeply, and came back with a 40-foot planogram featuring handwoven baskets that was presented with the supporting consumer research to the category buyer. They were impressed with the insights and development work that went into the presentation and ultimately awarded him the entire planogram worth of business.
“This was way more than just ‘here’s a basket.’ It was grounded in data and built around the customer. It set the tone and was my biggest win from a business development standpoint. I’m super proud of that,” he said.
Brandon worked internationally in Canada, the United Kingdom and even supported some of the buyers from South Africa, but his endeavors in Asia truly stole his heart, especially his time in Shanghai.
“I have been to Asia more than 50 times, but Shanghai became my home away from home,” he said. “I know my way around pretty well and I can speak enough Mandarin to be dangerous. I’ve got some wild tales from my travels.”
While his time in Asia was rewarding, Brandon had a relatively new family. He knew he was needed at home, so he reached out to a connection from his buying days at Walmart – Chad Bugos, today the CEO of The Barcode Group.
At the time, Chad and his wife were leading Infinity Worlds in northwest Arkansas. Chad agreed to bring Brandon on board. “There was a real opportunity there, but we needed to put our foot on the gas pedal,” said Brandon. “Chad brought me on and said, ‘How big do you want to go?’ I said, ‘Why stop?’”
In early 2024, Infinity Worlds joined five other retail and creative organizations as they integrated under one brand: The Barcode Group. The company partners with brands and manufacturers to service top-tier retailers, with products found in more than 60,000 physical stores and online at the world’s most recognizable retailers including, yes … Walmart.
Today, Brandon spends his very busy days as Chief Growth Officer at The Barcode Group and is well-known for hiring experts in their field, trusting and supporting them to get the job done.
“I’m truly an entrepreneur at heart. I love taking a brand from concept onto the shelves at big retailers – winning together. There’s nothing more satisfying than seeing an early-stage entrepreneur bring an idea to you then succeeding at retail,” Brandon said. “From start to finish it’s such a celebratory moment and so rewarding to see. I like that end result of helping people bring their dreams to life.”
While he plans to be a leader within The Barcode Group for many years to come, Brandon is already laying the foundation for the future. “We’ve created something massive and I want to invest in people and give them the tools they need to succeed. I want to train up the right people to hand over to the next generation of leaders to take it further than I could,” he said.
Somewhere down the road he envisions a day where he can sit on his dock with a cooler, fishing, maybe eating a ham sandwich, and spending a lot more time with his wife and daughters.
In the meantime, if you’re ever unable to get in touch with Brandon, it’s likely because he’s in a duck blind or deer stand. “That’s my time to completely check out, just thinking about stuff. I do my best thinking in the early morning darkness.”
Sometimes, it’s about his global adventures, like when he was in a tiny plane with the Amazing Race cast and crew in the Philippines and came so close to jumping into their action. Or when he opened the states very first self-service wine bar in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Or, possibly, how to jump start the next big retail brand we’ll all be talking about next year.
How does a kid from a small town in Arkansas with a degree in soil and water sciences end up as the chief growth officer at a retail services agency?
If you ask Brandon Warren, the answer is good timing and a willingness to say, “Why stop there?”
“I lived in the woods growing up,” Brandon said. “I’d leave at eight in the morning and not come home until night. My mom would just ring the old triangle dinner bell for us to come and eat. We spent all our time outdoors and I had a passion for nature.”
Spending summers working for a timber management company, seeing the regenerative process of forestry in action, Brandon was convinced his future was in soil and water science. However, northwest Arkansas was underdeveloped in that space at the time and there were not many career opportunities outside of governmental agencies.
As fortune would have it, his college roommate’s father worked with Walmart and approached Brandon about working at Walmart until he figured out what he was going to do.
The timing couldn’t have been better.
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