Robert Hill is the president and CEO of Jacksonville-based Acosta Inc.
Acosta is based in Jacksonville and works with national consumer packaged goods companies to place their products on store shelves.
Hill, 51, joined Acosta in 1994 when it acquired Knoxville, Tenn.-based Siler Brokerage, where he was president.
He rose through the ranks and was named president and CEO on Jan. 1, 2009. He has led the company to record financial results with double-digit revenue growth.
With its latest acquisition, the company has grown to almost 30,000 employees, including about 450 in the Jacksonville headquarters in Southside or working among the retail outlets served by the company, and annual revenue of $1.5 billion.
Hill also serves on corporate and nonprofit boards including as chair of the JAX Chamber’s JAXUSA Partnership economic development division and chair of the Baptist Health board of directors.
One historical note: L.T. Acosta, Acosta’s founder, and St. Elmo Acosta, for whom the Downtown bridge is named, were third cousins, according to the company.
The Daily Record interviewed Hill for “First Coast Success,” a regular segment on the award-winning 89.9 FM flagship First Coast Connect program, hosted by Melissa Ross.
The interview is scheduled for broadcast this morning and the replay will be at 8 p.m. on the WJCT Arts Channel or online at www.wjctondemand.org.
Following are edited excerpts from the full transcript.
Talk about Acosta. Is it well known in town?
It is somewhat of a quiet company because our name does not actually mean anything to the shopper or the consumer. What means something are the products that we sell day in and day out.
Simply put, we’re an outsource provider of sales and marketing services to consumer product goods companies. Our clients would be companies like Proctor & Gamble and ConAgra and Coca-Cola and Nestle, just to name a few, and we have sales and marketing responsibilities for their products.
We would have responsibility in some form or fashion for 6,000 or 7,000 of the items you would see in your average grocery store or mass outlet.
We don’t take title to goods, we don’t have warehouses, we don’t have trucks. A majority of our income is commission income-based on the volume of the products that we sell.
A manufacturer has to make a key choice. Do they want to insource some of their sales and marketing activities or do they want to outsource some of the sales and marketing? When they outsource, that’s when we come into play.
How can a consumer know he or she has come in contact with Acosta?
It’s important to understand the brands that we represent and we do have a great cross section of leading CPG (consumer product goods) companies, some of which I have mentioned and others like McCormick, Heinz, Ocean Spray and Starbucks Coffee.
Our fundamental responsibility is to work with the retailers at the headquarters level, to make sure that our products are authorized (and) the key items that are the volume drivers that are important to the shoppers are found on the store shelves.
We are also responsible for merchandising so we want to sell as much of our product as possible. Those are the strategies we need to make sure we sell a lot of Heinz ketchup for Memorial Day and Fourth of July and Super Bowl, and that we sell a lot of McCormick spices for the holidays and we make sure that we work with retailers to put those merchandising plans together.
We are also responsible for price and strategy. We don’t set the price for the products but we work with the retailers and our manufacturers to make sure we’re appropriately priced on the shelves and that we are going to be at the right price point for the shopper.
Then we make sure the product is on the shelf. We have a majority of our associates at the store level day in and day out to make sure all of our products that are supposed to be on the shelf are on the shelf, are in good condition, are properly rotated and that when we have display opportunities for our products they’re out in the store as well.
Twice a year, Acosta produces a report about consumer trends. What do you do with that information and what did the latest report show?
We try to create value for our clients in many different ways and we’re putting a tremendous amount of effort into marketing these days and really bringing what I call strategic insights into what’s going on with shoppers and with consumers.
There is a difference between the shopper and the consumer because often the shopper may not be the ultimate consumer.
What we’ve worked on with this study is to really understand the habits of the shopper, how are they behaving, are they going to more outlets, are they making fewer trips, what are their spending habits.
The study gives us a lot of information in terms of what’s going on with the shopper. Today, we really see a tale of two shoppers.
You see a shopper that perhaps may be in the $40,000 or $45,000 income level and less. That’s a pretty conservative shopper. They’re watching their pennies. There could still be a lot of anxiety around job loss, around housing concerns, and they’re being very conservative in their purchases. They’re making a list before they leave home, they’re sticking to that list, and they’re not making discretionary purchases.
Then you see another shopper that perhaps could be in the $100,000 or more family income bracket. They are not shopping this conservatively. Perhaps they’re buying more premium products, upscale products, perhaps making more discretionary purchases at the shelf, not sticking to their list.
It really is a tale of two shoppers but broadly, it’s a challenging economic environment for the shoppers.
Because you are so close to that economic environment, what are you seeing? Do you have any forecasts? What are your insiders telling you?
I’m definitely not the right person to forecast, but I think what we are seeing is basically store volume is very flat in terms of dollar growth and then the unit volume is actually down.
If you look at data over the last year or in the last 12 weeks, shoppers are spending more and they’re getting less units.
You’re also seeing that the shopper continues to be very mindful of price points, what’s on promotion, and I think as you enter the back half of the year you’ll see many consumer product goods companies promote a little more aggressively.
Do you have any tips for shoppers?
Prepare at home. There’s a lot of information, whether it’s on the Internet, on the websites of specific grocery store chains or in circulars that come to their home. There’s obviously a wealth of coupon sites. Those who prepare for their shopping trip will probably get the greatest value.
How is the economy affecting Acosta and what’s next for the company?
It is a challenging economic environment and if you think of us being paid on commissions, the volume being flat does lead to a little bit of a challenge with organic growth. We’re fortunate to have great client partners and represent some of the world’s leading brand names, but our real focus is on how we continue to grow the company.
Acquisitions have historically been a big part of our growth. We’ve done 40 acquisitions in the last 10 years and we’re very focused on how we bring more services to the clients that we have and broadly grow the organization through the right channels.
Talk about the acquisitions. I’ve heard you speak to a chamber group and you talk about integrating corporate cultures. What have you found?
What’s really important is having a strong corporate culture. Our values center on people, integrity, trust, teamwork, results, innovation and balance. It’s a culture that we try to emphasize as we interact with each other at Acosta, as we interact with our clients and as we interact with our retail partners out in the field.
As we look at doing an acquisition, the most important piece is the culture of the company that we’re getting together with because regardless of the capabilities they may have, or the assets they may have, ultimately what’s important is, are you going to have a common culture? Are you going to have a strong value set that you’re going to demonstrate?
Once you have that common culture, it makes the integration much easier to do.
What happens if there are players who really don’t want to be part of the team?
You have to cut it out. If someone doesn’t want to be there, is not demonstrating they want to be a part of the company, is going to be a cancer to the organization, if they are going to be negative, it’s hard for them to have a place at Acosta. We really want people that demonstrate the values and are excited about the future.
We’re blessed with incredible associates across North America and that is our asset.
Talk a little about the history of Acosta.
It was started in Jacksonville in 1927 by the Acosta family. If you go back in our industry, a typical manufacturer would have as many as 50 or 60 different sales agencies, and they would have one in every city.
If you go back to Florida in the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s, there would be a sales agency for a manufacturer, such as Clorox, in Tampa, Orlando, Miami and Jacksonville.
Acosta was a Jacksonville-only company from 1927 to 1974. In 1974, we opened an office in Tampa, built out Florida during the ‘70s and early ‘80s, and then from the ‘80s up until the late ‘90s we built out a Southeastern company and we were essentially in 1998 a company doing about $140 million with about 2,000 associates here in the Southeast.
Our former CEO, Gary Chartrand (now executive chairman), had a vision and excelled at it and built a national business. In 18 months we moved from a Southeastern-only company to a company across the U.S., acquiring four regional agencies.
In 2001 we had that total platform across the U.S. and in 2002 we moved into Canada by acquiring four companies. Today we run a North American business model.
That’s a lot of growth.
What’s really made the differences is we brought people together. We spent a lot of time talking about the culture, the values, because we were bringing a lot of people together that had come from very good companies, had their own values, their own mission statements. Becoming one company with people that had a strong commitment and strong passion for what we were doing has made a difference. People make a difference at Acosta.
You also have a lot of leadership roles in the community. You chair the JAXUSA Partnership and you are involved in the nonprofit world. You and your wife have supported and named the Hill Breast Center at Baptist Health. How do you see the Jacksonville community and the economy?
It’s a wonderful community. I’m excited about the future of Jacksonville and excited that this is Acosta’s headquarters and that we’ll continue to be growing in the community.
The chamber is doing terrific work and the JAXUSA piece has a responsibility to make sure we’re notifying companies around the world about Jacksonville.
Any insights about what sort of companies might be calling Jacksonville home soon?
There’s a lot of work going on. (JAXUSA Partnership President) Jerry Mallot is a tremendous asset to our community and he’s constantly mining the data.
What led to your support at Baptist Health?
The Jacksonville community is really fortunate to have wonderful health care and I have a real passion about what’s going on at Baptist. There’s a tremendous leadership team there. While our family had not directly experienced individuals that had breast cancer, it was an opportunity for us to give back.
What advice do you have for small business owners and others who might wonder about the factors of effective leadership?
Having a common culture is really important, what are you going to stand for, what are the values you are going to demonstrate in good times as well as bad times. A lot is the importance of emotional intelligence and I think we probably all know individuals that may have had the highest educational opportunities but perhaps do not excel in the workplace. We probably also know individuals that are not afforded wonderful educational opportunities and that have delivered extraordinary results.
Often, that difference is the emotional intelligence of demonstrating social skill and demonstrating respect for individuals.
I’ve heard a lot of discussion over the past year about leadership. Are leaders generally aware that their employees are watching all that they do?
You really have to be careful of what you say, how you interact, what your attitude is. A positive attitude is the greatest asset that each and every one of us can bring to work each and every day.
As a leader it’s also important to really communicate. We work hard at Acosta to do that, whether through town hall meetings, regular videos to our associates or voice mails going out to our associates.
One of the real responsibilities for a leader is to be out there communicating day in and day out with the associates. That’s an important part of what we do at Acosta.
Can you talk about your latest large acquisition, Mosaic Sales Solutions?
We just completed the largest acquisition in the company history of a company called Mosaic. Mosaic is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and is a significant factor in Canada. The reason we did the acquisition was twofold.
It will help us to continue to grow our core business relative to providing in-store solutions for manufacturers and it also helps us to build out our marketing capabilities.
Part of what Mosaic does, which is a new capability for us, is around what we call experiential marketing. It’s really about using people as media as you think there are different ways to reach specific shoppers and consumers.
Using people as a media can be a very effective way of do it. For example, some of our larger clients are now Microsoft and Samsung and Disney. When Samsung perhaps is introducing a new phone or when Microsoft is introducing new technology, how do we create events, whether in-store or out in the marketplace, to interface with those prospective shoppers, demonstrate the technology, show them what it’s all about? It’s really a different way to reach the shopper than what’s typically been done.
We actually closed on the acquisition in early July. It will increase the size of our company by about 25 percent. It will add about 8,000 or 9,000 associates to our company. About 1,500 of those will be full time and it brings new capabilities to our organization.
It’s all about another way to provide services to the existing clients we have. We’re working hard on the integration and looking forward to bringing a lot of new associates into our organization.
Some might be in Jacksonville, some are going to be spread throughout the North America.
We anticipate being about a $1.5 billion company and the associate head count will be close to 30,000 associates. We’re excited about the future.
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