CEO Wiley Jones recently joined Lisa Johnson on CGT's Tech Transformation podcast to talk about what's actually holding back mid-sized CPG brands. Here are the takeaways from that conversation.

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Uncertainty is just business now

Remember when "disruption" was a buzzword and not your Tuesday morning? Yeah, those days are gone.

Today, entire business models can evaporate based on a policy decision or algorithm change. Wiley shared a perfect example: "We were working with a company evaluating TikTok as one of their large sales channels. They'll have to completely transform their business depending on a few policy makers' changes."

That's not unusual anymore, it's just Tuesday.

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The people problem nobody wants to talk about

The uncomfortable truth Wiley laid out is that "there is a shortage of talented, hardworking, competent people who really want to go and solve these hard problems every day."

Talk to any founder who's scaling a CPG brand and they'll tell you the same thing. Finding people who care as much as you do feels impossible.

But the solution isn't just "hire better people" (good luck with that in this market). It's creating systems where your existing team can thrive without needing to be superhuman.

"Put systems in place that allow people to make fewer judgments about things outside their domain," Wiley explained. "They can put the system on rails and follow a well-structured process."

Translation: Stop expecting every hire to be a founder-level polymath who lives and breathes your brand at 2am.

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The invisible prison of "how things are done"

One pattern we see constantly: brands designing their entire operation around someone else's limitations.

"Our 3PL does things this way."

"That's just how EDI works."

"Our retail partners require this process."

Before you know it, you've built your entire company around other people's constraints. We spend a lot of time just asking: "Why do you actually do this? Do you need to do it this way?"

The answers are often eye-opening.

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The "best practices" trap

Nothing kills innovation faster than "best practices." Wiley put it bluntly:

"It's really easy for scaling CPG brands to fall into 'tried and true' advice instead of following what got them through the initial stages of growth."

The systems and processes that work for P&G will probably suffocate your 30-person brand. Yet consultants keep pushing enterprise playbooks onto growth-stage companies.

"The average advice is very bad for your company," Wiley said. "You should be rejecting most advice. Because you know your brand, you know your business, and you obsess over it."

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You'll know when it's time to change

There's a moment every founder experiences—that sinking feeling when things that used to be simple suddenly aren't.

"It's when the founders, operators, this tight, consolidated management team who controls the vision and execution in their head—lose the ability for a small group of people to do it all themselves."

This transition happens at predictable moments:

• When you can't manage every sales channel personally
• When you've got inventory in multiple locations
• When you're launching new product lines
• When you're managing multiple manufacturer relationships

Suddenly the team that built everything can't keep up anymore. "New people don't have that obsession because they're not the founders," Wiley explained. "That's a very hard transition to make."

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The most dangerous inefficiency is invisible

We talk a lot about operational inefficiencies, but the worst ones aren't in your processes—they're in your thinking.

"The quiet inefficiency is this fear and anxiety that people feel about doing something new," Wiley noted. "That anxiety introduces friction, and that friction usually separates you from a new channel or a new opportunity."

It's the "we would love to..." followed by "...but we won't" conversation.

"We would love to sell on Amazon, but...""We would love to enter Canada, but...""We would love to bring on another 3PL, but..."

This invisible friction keeps you playing small when you should be expanding. You end up focusing only on what seems easy instead of what might actually move the needle.

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Why change management usually fails

Most change initiatives fail because they focus on processes instead of people. Wiley cut through the BS:

"Change management is a really nice way of saying 'getting people to change their minds about something or try a new thing that's scary.'"

The fix? "Sell them on the vision of the future."

Show people how their lives will actually improve after the change. The accounts payable team that can finally take vacations. The operations team that stops working weekends. The sales team that can onboard new accounts without fear.

"If you can really get someone excited about how much better their life is going to be, you get buy-in."

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Making it actionable

When asked about misconceptions in operational transformation, Wiley didn't hold back:

"People will vent about the state of the world but be less constructive about what to do about it. A lot of people rail against the status quo, but when pushed for what the alternative is, they say 'I really don't know.'"

The challenge for scaling brands isn't recognizing problems—it's having the courage to actually fix them. "The bar, I have found, is shockingly low," Wiley noted.

CPG brands that constantly innovate with products somehow accept prehistoric operations, software, and supply chain practices as "just how things work."

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The way forward

For mid-sized CPG brands caught in today's chaos, surviving requires both courage and pragmatism. Build systems that bend with changing conditions. Create processes that make average employees perform like rockstars. And most importantly, question everything about "how things are done."

The companies that thrive won't be the ones with the best products or the biggest budgets. They'll be the ones that can move fastest when everything changes—again.

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A thousand orders per month or a million, Doss can handle it and grow with your business. Questions? sales@doss.com

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