B2B Buyer Signals and AI: The Implications For B2B Organizations

[00:00:00] Welcome to Around the Horn in Wholesale Distribution with Kevin Brown and Tom Burton.

[00:00:10] Sponsored each week by Leedsmart Technologies, Tom, Kevin and their guests review the news

[00:00:15] of the week and dive deep into the topics impacting manufacturers, wholesale distribution, independent

[00:00:21] sales agents, and the global wholesale supply chain.

[00:00:25] Whether it's M&A, SaaS and cloud computing, B2B e-commerce or supply chain issues, we

[00:00:31] peel back the onion with our guests into the topics that impact your business the most.

[00:00:37] How are you?

[00:00:38] Good.

[00:00:39] Good to be back.

[00:00:40] Good to be back.

[00:00:41] Yeah.

[00:00:42] Doing this for you.

[00:00:43] Six weeks in Florida and back to Santa Barbara, huh?

[00:00:45] Yeah.

[00:00:46] I'm just glad to be back doing the show.

[00:00:48] We haven't done the show for two weeks, so.

[00:00:49] I know it.

[00:00:50] Yep.

[00:00:51] We've done travel schedules and your East Coast, and I was East Coast for a few days,

[00:00:58] and then Midwest and scrambling to get back.

[00:01:02] I took a little time away.

[00:01:04] We lost our, tomorrow will be three weeks ago that we lost our biggest fan.

[00:01:09] So we, uh...

[00:01:10] Well, we still play the music in his honor.

[00:01:13] Yeah, that's right.

[00:01:14] We played today's music in his honor.

[00:01:16] I got to tell you a quick story with that.

[00:01:18] We'll move on, but your dad was almost 89 and pretty sick, and so it's good for him to go

[00:01:24] to sleep.

[00:01:25] But he'd been in the hospital for almost a month, and three weeks into the hospital,

[00:01:33] struggling with his breathing and stuff.

[00:01:35] My sister was visiting, and we were on the phone because I was going to see him the

[00:01:38] next morning.

[00:01:39] He asked about the podcast link.

[00:01:41] I wanted to hear it.

[00:01:44] And about a half hour later, my sister calls, and this was on a Friday.

[00:01:50] And she goes, I cannot believe our father.

[00:01:52] And I said, what are you talking about?

[00:01:54] And she goes, once he had me get the podcast downloaded onto his iPhone and lay it on

[00:01:58] his chest, he basically dismissed me from our visit because he wanted to listen.

[00:02:03] So my sister was not...

[00:02:06] She actually thought it was pretty cool, but she was like, he just was basically

[00:02:09] saying, okay, I'm going to listen to this now.

[00:02:11] You can go.

[00:02:12] So poor Cindy got...

[00:02:13] It's good that he got the priorities, yeah.

[00:02:16] What's that?

[00:02:17] Priorities.

[00:02:18] Good priorities, yeah.

[00:02:19] Yeah.

[00:02:20] So anyways, he was our biggest fan.

[00:02:21] We'll miss him, but life goes on and it's a struggle as we go.

[00:02:27] So onto today's stuff, huh?

[00:02:29] It's good to be back, as you said.

[00:02:31] We got a big list of guests coming up soon as well that I'm pretty excited about.

[00:02:36] So it's just us today.

[00:02:38] So we'll dive in.

[00:02:39] How about that?

[00:02:40] All right, let's do it.

[00:02:41] Good.

[00:02:42] So we're keeping them before we dive into the news.

[00:02:43] So again, Kevin Brown, Tom Burton, lifelong friends, co-founders of Leedsmart Technologies.

[00:02:51] Leedsmart is a AI enabled customer intelligence and CRM solution that looks across customer

[00:02:57] bases, across sales teams, marketing teams, e-commerce, and across your entire business

[00:03:03] to help bring deep insights into understanding not just your customer, not just your sales

[00:03:09] teams, but your overall business and gives actionable insights and accountability and

[00:03:14] visibility that companies have never had before.

[00:03:16] So Tom and I do for a living.

[00:03:20] Leedsmart is the sponsor.

[00:03:21] We couldn't do this every week.

[00:03:22] There's quite a few costs that go with putting our podcasts together.

[00:03:27] We're live on LinkedIn, YouTube, and Facebook Friday mornings at 9 a.m. Pacific Time.

[00:03:33] Happy if you're with us there.

[00:03:35] But if you're listening later in the day to the podcast on whatever your favorite

[00:03:38] podcast platform is, whether it's Spotify or Odyssey, Apple Podcast, whatever it might

[00:03:44] be, you will be seeing the newsletter that we look at.

[00:03:48] And what we do every Friday is we get together and we look at our newsletter called Around

[00:03:52] the Horn in wholesale distribution and manufacturing.

[00:03:56] That goes out to, I think it's close to 10,000 people now every Friday morning.

[00:04:01] If you don't get that and you would like two simple ways to do that, just let us

[00:04:05] know.

[00:04:06] You can pop up.

[00:04:07] Okay.

[00:04:08] I guess you could pop a note in the chat here if you've joined us live, or you can send a

[00:04:12] simple email to hello at LeedsmartTech.com or we have a website for the podcast.

[00:04:19] It's www.aroundthehornpod.com.

[00:04:23] You can send us a note through there to sign up for the newsletter.

[00:04:26] We'll get that out to you each week.

[00:04:27] So we get together, we review through the news of the week and how it relates to

[00:04:31] wholesale distribution and manufacturing.

[00:04:33] If you are with us and you like what you hear, we're at, where are we 89 today, Tom?

[00:04:40] 89.

[00:04:41] 89.

[00:04:42] So we're coming up on 100, but we've done this 89 times basically now.

[00:04:47] If you like what we're doing, follow Leedsmart Technologies on LinkedIn, subscribe on YouTube,

[00:04:55] follow and like on Facebook.

[00:04:57] Or if you were listening to any of the podcast formats, it would be phenomenal if you

[00:05:01] would subscribe as well as leave a review and that gets this information out to others.

[00:05:07] So I think I covered the housekeeping for the day, right Tom?

[00:05:11] Yeah.

[00:05:12] I'd also ask if you're on live now, please jump in, let us know you're here and where

[00:05:16] you're from.

[00:05:17] LinkedIn has been really weird the last few weeks on or maybe the streaming platforms

[00:05:23] I've noticed have been really weird the last few weeks on comments.

[00:05:26] So I would love to know you're here and jump in and say hi.

[00:05:32] Yeah, it's odd sometimes, right?

[00:05:33] We'll see a few comments come through and then later in the day or the next day I might

[00:05:37] look on LinkedIn or on YouTube and there's comments there that we never saw.

[00:05:41] So we'll do our best, right?

[00:05:43] You would think they could get this figured out, but it's definitely fickle, I guess

[00:05:49] to say the least.

[00:05:50] Well, I tell you what, what did a good chunk of our audience listens to either the recorded

[00:05:58] podcast or live on LinkedIn and what did Microsoft pay for LinkedIn, 26 billion I think it was?

[00:06:06] You'd think they'd have this figured out.

[00:06:08] But there's some holes there still, right?

[00:06:11] Yeah.

[00:06:12] All right.

[00:06:13] Well, as we dive into the news, we break things up into a bunch of different sections

[00:06:16] each week and we start with economy and supply chain.

[00:06:19] So, Tom, you want to lead us off on that first article we have about weak U.S. productivity

[00:06:24] threatening a soft landing?

[00:06:27] Yeah.

[00:06:28] I mean, we have a few economic articles here today that we're going to touch on.

[00:06:33] And hey, Tyler and Ron, great.

[00:06:35] Okay.

[00:06:36] We actually have people that LinkedIn is providing their comments.

[00:06:38] So this is great.

[00:06:39] It's good.

[00:06:40] Hey, you know what Tom, before we jump, I just wanted to say I got a chance to

[00:06:44] see Ron at ISA recently and what a great guy.

[00:06:49] We had a super conversation and really encouraging guy to chat with.

[00:06:53] So thanks for being with us, Ron.

[00:06:55] Yeah.

[00:06:56] Thanks, Ron and Tyler for checking out.

[00:06:58] Tyler as well.

[00:06:59] Yep, absolutely.

[00:07:00] So, as I said, we have a few economic articles today and you combine that with the whole

[00:07:06] job report that came out this morning.

[00:07:08] Right.

[00:07:10] We didn't quite make our news articles here, but the job market or the job number of new

[00:07:16] jobs were much less than expected and the market seems to like that a lot.

[00:07:21] But yeah, what this first article is saying is that productivity growth has been down

[00:07:26] in the first quarter.

[00:07:29] I think it's a stretch, and they even say this in the article, right?

[00:07:32] It's a stretch to say that, oh, productivity is down and that's going to potentially

[00:07:37] lead to inflation.

[00:07:39] I think when it's hard to measure and two, it kind of moves around a lot.

[00:07:43] Yeah.

[00:07:44] But I do think that again, it's another indicator in the equation that things may be slowing

[00:07:51] down a bit and the question will be is can inflation adjust enough?

[00:07:57] I'm still sticking with my one cut this year.

[00:08:00] In fact, I think you should just surrender and buy me my stake when you're here.

[00:08:05] You're done there?

[00:08:06] No chance.

[00:08:07] Because I think it's a foregone conclusion.

[00:08:09] You know what?

[00:08:10] That totally sounds like somebody that's not confident in their bet that's asking

[00:08:14] somebody else to pay off at the beginning.

[00:08:16] I would just give you a break and maybe order a cheaper stake or something.

[00:08:19] Yeah.

[00:08:20] Anyway, we've got seven months left in the year.

[00:08:24] Yes.

[00:08:25] So I'm sticking with it.

[00:08:27] I think, in fact, I think there's a meeting in September.

[00:08:30] I don't know if there's one in November, but I know there's one in September

[00:08:33] and December.

[00:08:34] I'm going to put my money on that it actually takes place in December in the last meeting

[00:08:38] of the year, and that will be the one for this year.

[00:08:43] But yeah, anyway, this article here is talking a bit about the inflation and is, in fact,

[00:08:50] the fact that we're having lower productivity and then potentially connecting the dots to

[00:08:54] lower jobs.

[00:08:55] Is that going to potentially reduce inflation and potentially go into a slowdown?

[00:09:00] Like I said, I think that's a little bit of a stretch, but some good data in there.

[00:09:03] Well, I think that's a great recap.

[00:09:06] I think you did with that.

[00:09:08] It's interesting for me with this though as I look at this is I'm going to go back

[00:09:12] to and again, I think the caveat here is you studied computer science.

[00:09:17] I studied business.

[00:09:18] None of that would suggest we're economists.

[00:09:22] But I'm looking at this right?

[00:09:25] And we've watched these wavering up and down signals that we have.

[00:09:29] I'll just call these all the things we're looking at PMI, consumer pricing information that we

[00:09:37] see as well.

[00:09:38] This is what's going on in the manufacturers.

[00:09:40] All these signals that are there, right?

[00:09:43] They've been going up and down, but one of the things and you've commented on this a

[00:09:46] lot that we've continued to see though is the consumer spending is still through the

[00:09:53] roof and you comment regularly about the consumer debt and so forth.

[00:09:58] That's kind of stayed constant.

[00:10:01] And then we've had a number of other things that have been kind of bouncing up and down

[00:10:04] with jobs and then we've watched the market and the market has kind of said, maybe there's

[00:10:10] been a few times where it's carried, but in general, the market has just kept pushing

[00:10:14] forward.

[00:10:16] Had some hiccups earlier in the week, strong morning today so far, but I think this

[00:10:21] goes back to and again, this is just an opinion, but I still question, are we

[00:10:27] using all the right metrics in 2024 to look at these things?

[00:10:32] And I think when we come out of this and things get balanced back, right?

[00:10:35] Because we don't want to go from Fed's rate five to five and a quarter or five and a

[00:10:41] quarter to five and a half, whatever the number is.

[00:10:43] We don't want to go from that down to zero to a half a point, but finding that

[00:10:47] balance in there, when we get to that place that we hopefully do, I just wonder if

[00:10:52] it's a time to kind of restructure what we're looking at for those numbers.

[00:11:00] Yeah, I don't think that's going to happen.

[00:11:02] In fact, even in the last meeting, he reiterated, Powell reiterated that 2%, 2%, 2%.

[00:11:08] Sure.

[00:11:09] So that seems to be the...

[00:11:11] That's all he knows.

[00:11:13] What would you expect him to say?

[00:11:15] Well, yeah, but I don't think they're going to change anything.

[00:11:19] Yeah, you're probably right.

[00:11:22] I'm not confident we're looking at things the right way anymore.

[00:11:25] And maybe we're trying to look for signals or expecting signals.

[00:11:31] And this actually ties to something you were going to talk about later

[00:11:35] about technology and distribution, right?

[00:11:38] Is the signals that are out there, maybe the signals need to be adjusted

[00:11:42] a little bit to things.

[00:11:44] Anyways, we'll see what happens.

[00:11:45] I think we're...

[00:11:46] I don't disagree with you.

[00:11:47] And I think you have to...

[00:11:49] Right.

[00:11:50] That's why I think it's responsible as a business owner or just person living in the U.S.,

[00:11:57] is to kind of look at a lot of this different data

[00:12:00] and try and connect the dots a little bit for yourself.

[00:12:03] Yeah, because I do think it's one benchmark metric of inflation of 2%.

[00:12:10] That just tells one little piece of the story.

[00:12:13] And so I think you have to look at some of these things and try and connect some of the dots

[00:12:18] and not just listen to the sound bites that come along the way.

[00:12:23] Yeah, I think you're right.

[00:12:24] I mean, that kind of ties into the second article, right?

[00:12:27] We have here about confidence of U.S. consumers continues to decline

[00:12:31] as Americans worry about the future.

[00:12:33] That's an AP news story from earlier in the week.

[00:12:36] I think this is gonna...

[00:12:38] You're going to...

[00:12:40] You might be getting your one compliment of the month here early in May,

[00:12:45] is it's almost pointing to me right now that we're gonna have to see this consumer confidence fall off

[00:12:55] and some spending falling off on the consumer side to maybe bring these things in line

[00:13:00] because that's gonna be a significant factor

[00:13:04] because every time we've looked at this over the last two years now

[00:13:09] is consumer spending, consumer confidence.

[00:13:12] It just seems to stay there.

[00:13:14] So this article talks about that falling off a little bit.

[00:13:18] People starting to pay attention to things and not running out and buying.

[00:13:21] And it almost feels like it's a COVID hangover, right?

[00:13:26] The Amazon trucks that were delivering everything possible have still been...

[00:13:32] They still can...

[00:13:34] During COVID and the spending that went up, it seems to have kind of held

[00:13:37] but now people at the court in this article are starting to take a look

[00:13:40] with a little bit less confidence there.

[00:13:42] Yeah, it's funny.

[00:13:44] I was in Las Vegas last weekend with some college buddies or old college buddies, I guess now

[00:13:51] and it was really interesting, I found, to observe and do a little mini survey.

[00:13:55] First of all, there was tons of people, tons of people in Las Vegas

[00:14:00] spending money like you wouldn't believe.

[00:14:02] I'm not just talking about gambling, I'm talking about food

[00:14:05] and we went to the sphere for a show there

[00:14:10] and I think there was 10,000 people there for one showing for one movie

[00:14:15] at 100 bucks a person, right?

[00:14:18] It's like people were spending money left and right

[00:14:22] and I did a little survey with some of my older college friends

[00:14:26] and...

[00:14:27] Older than you?

[00:14:29] Not quite, no, but in the same ballpark

[00:14:32] and it was interesting to listen to them is that there is still a very strong wealth effect

[00:14:38] especially I think with maybe older, relatively older people

[00:14:41] because of the stock market, right?

[00:14:43] A lot of talking about how great their 401Ks are, how great their portfolio is doing

[00:14:51] and there's that wealth effect, I believe, that comes from that stock market

[00:14:54] that gives confidence in people spending.

[00:14:57] I do think that especially with younger people

[00:15:00] that may not have that same portfolio, right?

[00:15:04] A lot of the credit card and credit things that have been taking place

[00:15:07] have maybe getting to the point where they're being saturated

[00:15:10] and there was a lot of, like I said, a lot of younger people

[00:15:13] in Las Vegas spending money just left and right, left and right, left and right

[00:15:18] and it's got to be going somewhere

[00:15:21] and I think though, then fortune, I think this article reflects that, right?

[00:15:25] As kind of credit cards and home equity loans

[00:15:29] and all of that start to get saturated, job worries, all of that

[00:15:33] is like, okay, what's happening here?

[00:15:35] And then maybe things aren't changing quite as fast

[00:15:38] but anyway, that's my informal survey data from a week ago.

[00:15:43] Well, no, I think that's an interesting data point too.

[00:15:46] You won't find me in Las Vegas unless I'm there for work or for conference

[00:15:50] but just not a fan, but I know you math guys are out there doing

[00:15:55] your gambling with your skill sets that you have

[00:15:59] with that that I don't possess.

[00:16:01] But every time I'm there, I'm paying attention to how little

[00:16:09] I spend because of how expensive it is there

[00:16:13] and I look at the people just flooding at me in and out of the stores

[00:16:18] and the shops and the big bags and the big fancy, you know,

[00:16:23] boat drink cocktails, the daiquiris or whatever that are like $25 each

[00:16:28] and I'm upset because a Diet Coke's four bucks

[00:16:31] and everybody gets to decide how they want to spend their money

[00:16:35] but the consumption that goes on in that city

[00:16:38] and sometimes people that are spending those dollars

[00:16:41] don't necessarily look like they have them.

[00:16:43] You can't judge it quick by its cover per se

[00:16:46] but it astounds me every time I'm there.

[00:16:49] So I think what a lot of this plays out to is we're going to have to see

[00:16:53] an easing on that consumer side, it's probably tied in.

[00:16:57] So anyway, let's show you.

[00:16:59] I do think that's coming.

[00:17:00] I think that the consumer, we're running out of places

[00:17:03] where that money is actually coming from.

[00:17:05] Well, you know, the good news right at that is

[00:17:08] as we loop this all back around to wholesale distribution

[00:17:13] which is why we're here, right?

[00:17:15] As we get these things balanced out, maybe some balancing

[00:17:17] and interest rates, it's going to allow distributors

[00:17:20] and manufacturers to invest more in their business.

[00:17:22] Cost of money is a little bit easier on them

[00:17:25] and they've got eyesight to a more stabilized economy.

[00:17:29] So good.

[00:17:30] All right.

[00:17:31] Next one, Logistics Supply Chain shows steadiness

[00:17:34] amid rough waters which I thought was kind of interesting.

[00:17:39] You know, this talked about, you know, the lessons learned

[00:17:43] during the pandemic period and so forth, what was going on.

[00:17:48] I thought it was kind of unique take on this

[00:17:51] because it was a mix of kind of manufacturers

[00:17:54] and some distribute more retail distribution

[00:17:57] on the side of this particular article

[00:17:59] but it talked about and it will lead into what we're talking about

[00:18:02] and we talk about regularly about near-shoring

[00:18:04] and reshoring as well.

[00:18:05] So any specific takeaways on this?

[00:18:08] No, nothing really.

[00:18:09] A lot of stuff that we've kind of touched on already seems,

[00:18:12] like I said, the supply chain is being resilient

[00:18:15] despite all the different things

[00:18:17] that tends to want to get thrown at it.

[00:18:19] Yeah.

[00:18:20] There's two takeaways from me from this particular article

[00:18:22] and again, this is from transporttopics.com.

[00:18:26] Logistics supply chains show steadiness amid rough waters.

[00:18:30] Two things that stuck out for me in this one was one,

[00:18:34] you know, sometimes we don't think about this

[00:18:36] and we're moving more and more to a technology

[00:18:39] or tech-enabled products out there as well.

[00:18:43] A simple example, whether it's RFID

[00:18:48] or it's scanning systems or whatever it might be

[00:18:52] in a warehouse or a manufacturing plant

[00:18:55] or you know, it's if you go to a lot of the industrial shows now

[00:19:00] or industrial safety related shows,

[00:19:02] you're starting to see both power tools and equipment

[00:19:07] as well as even safety equipment

[00:19:09] that now has monitoring chips inside of them.

[00:19:12] Literally some of them monitoring worker health,

[00:19:15] heart rates, body temperatures, things like that.

[00:19:19] Respiratory protection that's monitoring

[00:19:21] when the filtration media needs to be changed,

[00:19:24] tools when they need to be reworked.

[00:19:27] We don't think about this all the time

[00:19:30] in wholesale distribution and manufacturing.

[00:19:32] But the reality of it is, is we see all the stuff on the news

[00:19:35] about the semiconductor challenges, right?

[00:19:38] And the geopolitical impact of Taiwan and China's

[00:19:42] frustrations there.

[00:19:44] But those chips that we typically think about going into

[00:19:47] computers and technology and so forth outside

[00:19:50] of day-to-day wholesale distribution,

[00:19:52] those chips are dropping more and more and more

[00:19:54] into the products of wholesale distributors sell.

[00:19:56] And now we've got two issues.

[00:19:58] We've got not only the regular supply chain issues

[00:20:01] that go with all of that normally,

[00:20:04] but now we've got that chip factor in the technology

[00:20:06] mixing in.

[00:20:08] So kind of a single take away from me on that.

[00:20:11] But there was a quote that I really appreciated

[00:20:14] and I think this is the big takeaway for our audience.

[00:20:17] The comment was that companies once envisioned

[00:20:20] supply chain networks as fixed unchanged assets

[00:20:23] that only rarely changed configuration.

[00:20:26] Now companies have shifted from annual or biannual

[00:20:30] review of networks to reviews monthly or even weekly.

[00:20:34] And that ties into this being, we had this discussion

[00:20:39] a month or two ago, Mike Mortensen from ARG was with us

[00:20:42] and we talked about that and Mike was talking about

[00:20:46] as a large distributor the conversations have changed

[00:20:50] with what they're having with their vendor.

[00:20:52] They care now on that hose or coupling supplier

[00:20:56] where they're making the product.

[00:20:58] They care about their supply chain

[00:21:00] and they're asking different and harder questions.

[00:21:03] So monthly and weekly reviews of supply chain

[00:21:06] when it used to be, they call it an unchanging asset

[00:21:09] that rarely changes configuration.

[00:21:11] Things are happening daily now that we need to stay on top of.

[00:21:14] So I think a weekly review is not a smart thing to do.

[00:21:20] Yeah, it's still one of those things too.

[00:21:22] Where does that fit in?

[00:21:24] We're already busy.

[00:21:26] Now it's just another thing that's got to be watched

[00:21:28] and managed there.

[00:21:29] Good.

[00:21:30] So rolling into our manufacturing and distribution segment,

[00:21:33] CNN article on manufacturing in Mexico is having its moment.

[00:21:38] The US is buying in but so is China.

[00:21:41] Takeaways on that?

[00:21:43] Well I thought there was an interesting point in here.

[00:21:45] I didn't realize this is that it's,

[00:21:47] I think it said in 2023 Mexico passed China

[00:21:52] as the number one exporter into the US,

[00:21:56] which I didn't realize.

[00:21:58] You should listen to the Around the Horn

[00:22:00] and Wholesale Distribution podcast.

[00:22:02] I just need to read these articles a bit more.

[00:22:04] It's really good.

[00:22:05] Yeah.

[00:22:06] They talked about this about three months ago.

[00:22:08] We did.

[00:22:09] Okay.

[00:22:10] Well, you know, I'm old.

[00:22:11] I can't remember that far back.

[00:22:13] So I thought that was an interesting point.

[00:22:16] It's astounding.

[00:22:17] It's huge.

[00:22:18] And also just, you know, I think we did talk about this a week

[00:22:21] or two ago about just the amount of manufacturing from Mexico

[00:22:25] to support the auto industry and the automobile industry

[00:22:28] and the number of parts and things that are coming from there.

[00:22:31] But yeah, I think, you know what?

[00:22:33] It's clear in there is Mexico is running with us.

[00:22:35] Right.

[00:22:36] They're really trying to really run with it

[00:22:39] and take advantage of it.

[00:22:41] I think it's going to continue to grow.

[00:22:43] There's no doubt about that.

[00:22:44] Yeah.

[00:22:45] Well, it's important.

[00:22:48] There's this China factor that plays into this as well though.

[00:22:51] And it's going to, it's interesting because it's a concern

[00:22:54] for both of the political candidates right now.

[00:22:57] You know, there's a comment in this article about,

[00:23:00] I guess Biden made a comment recently to the steel workers,

[00:23:04] I think in Pennsylvania about the potential of tripling

[00:23:08] the tariffs on Chinese steel.

[00:23:10] And so now what this article is kind of describing is,

[00:23:13] all right, great.

[00:23:15] We're reshoring a lot of things to Mexico to get away from,

[00:23:19] you know, there's kind of two key factors, right?

[00:23:22] There's the supply chain issues of getting things from China

[00:23:26] to the US, North America or any other part of the world.

[00:23:29] Right.

[00:23:30] And we have issues with Panama Canal, the Suez Canal,

[00:23:33] West Coast port issues, whatever it might be.

[00:23:35] And then there's just the time.

[00:23:37] There's that factor.

[00:23:38] Then you have the geopolitical tension, China, Taiwan,

[00:23:42] China, US pricing tariffs.

[00:23:45] US is pressure on China not to invade Taiwan.

[00:23:49] You have all of these things going on.

[00:23:51] Well, what China is now doing is they're moving a lot

[00:23:54] of their own products and some of their manufacturing

[00:23:57] to Mexico.

[00:23:58] So I think the big factor that's going to have to be

[00:24:01] watched here is we can take care of, and again,

[00:24:05] this is not a geopolitical expert.

[00:24:08] I'm not an economist, but my view of all of this

[00:24:11] is that the big takeaway is what we need to be watching out

[00:24:15] for in wholesale distribution and manufacturing on things

[00:24:19] is watching the US government's response to what China

[00:24:23] is doing in Mexico and how Mexico may embrace China

[00:24:28] while trying to embrace the US through all of this.

[00:24:31] And there can be some rubs that go with all of this

[00:24:34] because a good chunk of this article,

[00:24:36] which is from CNN, was about China trying to get around

[00:24:41] tariffs by moving goods through Mexico coming here.

[00:24:45] I think this time I'm going to go out on a limb here.

[00:24:49] I think we're going to be talking about this more and more

[00:24:52] over the next 12 to 18 months because as more and more near,

[00:24:56] this is nearshoring, not reshoring, nearshoring,

[00:24:59] as this is happening in this nearshoring,

[00:25:02] there's a lot of factors that are going to come into play

[00:25:06] That's an interesting one.

[00:25:07] And I agree completely.

[00:25:09] I think this is just starting.

[00:25:11] This conversation is just starting.

[00:25:13] If China is manufacturing in Mexico,

[00:25:16] is it made in Mexico or is it made in China?

[00:25:19] It's like that's an interesting one.

[00:25:22] You talk about the tariffs, that's another point as well.

[00:25:26] Yeah, no, I think this is a really interesting area

[00:25:29] and an area that is definitely going to have a lot of relevance

[00:25:33] over the next, you know, not just 12 to 18 months,

[00:25:36] but over the next few years.

[00:25:38] I think that's right and it's very important because

[00:25:42] done correctly and this managed properly in the proper partnership.

[00:25:47] And we had Lynn Cheson that are going to call her

[00:25:53] our resident global AI expert that was with us

[00:25:57] and she had just been on a tour of a couple

[00:26:01] of manufacturing pockets within Mexico when she was with us

[00:26:05] last month and was talking about how astounded she was

[00:26:08] about what she saw from rail and air freight

[00:26:12] and so forth.

[00:26:13] I mean, the article talks quite a bit about Monterey,

[00:26:16] Mexico.

[00:26:17] I've been there a couple of times on business

[00:26:20] and I mean that is just a hustling,

[00:26:23] booming location for manufacturing big with the auto industry.

[00:26:27] I happen to have been down there doing some work with Granger

[00:26:30] at the time and phenomenal to watch that hub going

[00:26:35] and that's just going to be growing.

[00:26:37] What I'm interested to see is if we're looking at some other

[00:26:40] Latin American countries trying to jump into this bandwagon,

[00:26:44] it'll be, you know, Mexico and Central America

[00:26:49] probably be a little bit tougher for South America

[00:26:52] to have some involvement at the same level.

[00:26:54] But when you have a truck route that can come through

[00:26:57] and potentially a rail route or even short shipping routes,

[00:27:02] whole different news that piece there.

[00:27:05] What I'm intrigued with with this and I don't want to spend

[00:27:08] too much time on this because what I'm describing now

[00:27:10] is a lot of what ifs but there is that factor of smaller

[00:27:15] countries wanting to embrace China more for what China

[00:27:19] might be willing to do for them or other Southeast Asian

[00:27:22] countries that manufacturing is shifting out of where the

[00:27:26] US has some pretty good ties and some leverage more with

[00:27:30] Mexico than they might with Guatemala or, you know,

[00:27:34] another country like that that could be looking to surge.

[00:27:38] Right? And then you even take that inside of it as you

[00:27:41] look at in now we're getting into South America,

[00:27:43] but you look at the struggles going on economically

[00:27:46] in Brazil. It could be some factors there.

[00:27:49] So something to watch right good for us to be paying

[00:27:51] attention to.

[00:27:52] Absolutely no. We'll definitely keep an eye on this

[00:27:54] over the period of time.

[00:27:55] All right, my friend, why don't you take us into our next

[00:27:57] section which is our e-commerce and marketing section about

[00:27:59] buying signals?

[00:28:02] Yeah, this was a good article from Forrester.

[00:28:04] Buying signals help B2B organizations reignite revenue

[00:28:07] interactions and kind of the summary here from their

[00:28:11] consumer interactions, digitally savvy B2B buyers are aware

[00:28:15] that they're signaling their interest through their

[00:28:17] behavior, content consumption and social interactions.

[00:28:21] So, you know, the first question is what that was a buying

[00:28:24] signal?

[00:28:25] Right.

[00:28:26] What do we mean by a buying signal?

[00:28:27] You know, a buying signal, right?

[00:28:30] If you've been in marketing and stuff,

[00:28:32] you probably heard of the concept of lead scoring or

[00:28:34] even tracking who's on your website or opening your,

[00:28:38] you know, emails or reading your emails or attending

[00:28:41] your live show or whatever the case may be, right?

[00:28:44] In theory, all of those things are signals.

[00:28:46] Now, what a lot of tech companies have been doing

[00:28:50] for years is using those signals to ideally,

[00:28:55] you know, basically build their forecast and try

[00:28:58] and build pipeline off of that.

[00:29:00] Right.

[00:29:01] And a lot of B2C have been doing this for years as

[00:29:04] well, but tech companies in the B2B space.

[00:29:06] What this article is saying that this is,

[00:29:09] this concept of signals is starting to expand into

[00:29:12] other industries more and more.

[00:29:14] I see it a little bit in the people we're talking to

[00:29:17] day in and day out.

[00:29:18] I certainly am not seeing this widespread.

[00:29:20] What I do find though, interesting is,

[00:29:23] and this is good, right?

[00:29:24] Is that companies are finally starting to realize

[00:29:27] that the buyer is in control of their journey.

[00:29:30] And so you need to be able to use signals

[00:29:35] to at least understand where they sit in that buyer

[00:29:38] journey, not using signals as a way to control

[00:29:41] the buyer journey, which is a futile effort.

[00:29:44] And yeah, I think that's,

[00:29:46] that's the key thing is using these buying signals,

[00:29:49] not as a way to either false forecast or false control,

[00:29:53] but really have visibility on that buyer journey.

[00:29:57] Great, great points.

[00:29:59] I think there's a book that talks quite a bit about this too.

[00:30:02] I don't know if you've read it.

[00:30:03] It's called The Revenue Zone.

[00:30:05] I've heard of it and I've heard it's an amazing book.

[00:30:07] I just haven't gotten to it yet.

[00:30:09] Okay. Yeah. Try that.

[00:30:10] I'll listen to it.

[00:30:11] All joking aside, Tom, my co-host here

[00:30:14] is wrote the book called The Revenue Zone.

[00:30:17] If you've not had a chance to look at that,

[00:30:19] that's a great, Tom, is it audio book now as well?

[00:30:22] Yeah, it's audio and paperback.

[00:30:24] I just assumed it wasn't because you hadn't asked me

[00:30:27] to be the narrator or the reader.

[00:30:29] But yeah, great.

[00:30:31] And we, you talk about a lot about this in the book,

[00:30:35] but a couple takeaways for me in this, right?

[00:30:38] I'm going to read a quote from the article.

[00:30:40] And again, this is from Forrester Research.

[00:30:43] It said, B2B buyers are aware that they're signaling

[00:30:46] their interests through their behavior.

[00:30:48] Content consumption and social interactions.

[00:30:51] In a past digital world, these buyers expect the providers

[00:30:54] will use that information to deliver relevant content

[00:30:56] experiences.

[00:30:58] I love the first part of that.

[00:31:00] The second part of it is, I don't think necessarily

[00:31:03] the traditional buyer in the B2B world has any idea

[00:31:09] about the signals that they're providing.

[00:31:11] But now what we know is, and the article even mentions this,

[00:31:14] right?

[00:31:15] That well over half of B2B buyers are millennials.

[00:31:18] And what's next?

[00:31:20] Gen Z after that, I think?

[00:31:22] I believe so, yeah.

[00:31:24] Yeah.

[00:31:25] And so those are coming more into play now.

[00:31:27] They get it.

[00:31:28] When they're having a digital journey, they know,

[00:31:31] and you talk about this in the revenue zone as well,

[00:31:34] is that people find their workarounds for that, right?

[00:31:38] And so these signals become more and more important.

[00:31:41] My, go ahead if you want to add something to that.

[00:31:44] No, I was going to say though, I think it's important to note

[00:31:46] that, and again, they talk about consumer interactions, right?

[00:31:50] Mm-hmm.

[00:31:51] I know I've done this as you go on a website or you go

[00:31:56] to Amazon or somewhere like that and you search for

[00:31:59] something and then you start getting ads for display ads

[00:32:04] for similar things.

[00:32:06] And a lot of times those display ads are,

[00:32:08] and this is from a consumer perspective,

[00:32:10] offering a better deal, an alternative you

[00:32:12] weren't aware of.

[00:32:14] You do it purposely, right?

[00:32:16] What's a great way to do discovery has used some of that.

[00:32:19] Now you try and do that in the digital or in the business

[00:32:21] world, right?

[00:32:22] I do think younger buyers are realizing that their

[00:32:25] signals, they're signaling things,

[00:32:27] but they expect then the B2B company to actually

[00:32:31] provide something valuable or relevant as the fact

[00:32:35] that they're waving this signal, right?

[00:32:37] I'm waving my hand and going, not just using this as a

[00:32:40] way to have 15 salespeople try and call me or

[00:32:43] email me or pressure me as a result of that, right?

[00:32:46] And I think that's the key is using the signals to

[00:32:49] facilitate the buyer journey.

[00:32:51] Don't use the signals as a way to basically swarm

[00:32:54] somebody and put a high-pressure sales pitch

[00:32:57] which will cause everybody to, you know,

[00:32:59] will not result in a successful help.

[00:33:02] So the other big takeaway for me for this, Tom,

[00:33:05] is, and we've talked about this a little bit.

[00:33:07] I have strong opinions on this.

[00:33:10] I don't want to say the MQL is dead,

[00:33:14] but it is a single factor.

[00:33:17] And this talks about, and when I say MQL's

[00:33:20] marketing qualified lead, very common term in

[00:33:23] the marketing world, not necessarily on the sale

[00:33:25] side of things in our market of wholesale

[00:33:28] distribution manufacturing, but it said signals

[00:33:30] accelerate revenue process transformation title.

[00:33:34] B2B marketing and sales teams must transition away

[00:33:37] from the marketing qualified lead as the only

[00:33:40] indicator for propensity to buy and leverage

[00:33:43] as many signals as possible to identify target

[00:33:46] accounts in the market and to engage with them.

[00:33:49] And, you know, we just see day in and day out

[00:33:53] still that, you know, sponsor this and you're

[00:33:56] going to get a bunch of leads and you're going

[00:33:58] to get a bunch of leads and that.

[00:34:00] And the MQL is, I don't want to say dead, but it

[00:34:03] has now become a component of watching that journey

[00:34:07] as opposed to the only source.

[00:34:09] And I think the folks that are trying to stick

[00:34:12] with that being their really key only source are

[00:34:15] going the way of the Dodo bird.

[00:34:17] Well, the problem with the MQL, it's, if

[00:34:20] anything, it's a super weak signal, right?

[00:34:23] And it's a misleading signal.

[00:34:25] And it's a very, very, very, very, very

[00:34:27] complicated signal.

[00:34:29] And I think that's what we're going to do.

[00:34:31] We're going to go back into wholesale distribution.

[00:34:34] And this is an area that we're working on quite

[00:34:37] a bit is how do we use even, you know, there's

[00:34:40] all signals can be all over the place, right?

[00:34:43] It doesn't have to be somebody coming to your

[00:34:45] website or opening your email, but you can

[00:34:47] look at information about quotes.

[00:34:49] You can look at order history.

[00:34:51] You can look at, you know, a number of

[00:34:53] customers that use those signals to actually

[00:34:56] have, again, provide a better customer

[00:34:59] experience, but understand the customer better

[00:35:02] understand and then facilitate that buyer

[00:35:05] journey better even with existing customers.

[00:35:08] So this doesn't have to be only for prospects.

[00:35:11] This can be with your existing customers.

[00:35:13] And as you know, in wholesale distribution,

[00:35:15] right?

[00:35:16] Majority of sales come from existing

[00:35:18] customers.

[00:35:19] So how do we get more out of that?

[00:35:21] Great point, right?

[00:35:23] And I think that the reality of it is because

[00:35:26] somebody listened to a webinar and filled out

[00:35:29] a form that goes back to a sponsor or

[00:35:32] somebody went to your website and was

[00:35:35] willing to download a white paper does not

[00:35:38] mean that they're ready to become, you have

[00:35:40] you be their sole source vendor, right?

[00:35:42] There's so many other signals and that's

[00:35:44] really what this is related to.

[00:35:46] And getting tracking and managing those signals

[00:35:49] and it does tie back a lot to we're getting

[00:35:52] ready to make an announcement soon here about

[00:35:55] a new partnership that we've developed at

[00:35:58] Leedsmart and tying back to gathering data

[00:36:01] from e-commerce, right?

[00:36:03] And we have signals throughout our

[00:36:05] organization as wholesale distributors

[00:36:07] and manufacturers, especially the folks

[00:36:10] that are on the distribution side of

[00:36:14] things, right?

[00:36:15] We've got signals from our marketing

[00:36:17] services.

[00:36:18] We've got signals from our events that we

[00:36:20] host, whether it's a barbecue, a lunch and

[00:36:23] learn or a webinar.

[00:36:25] We've got signals from our e-commerce

[00:36:28] site and the journey that people are

[00:36:30] taking online.

[00:36:32] We've got signals from how they place

[00:36:34] their orders.

[00:36:35] We've got signals from our sales teams

[00:36:38] interaction with them that should be

[00:36:40] data should be coming back into a CRM

[00:36:43] related system.

[00:36:44] And so when we start putting all of

[00:36:46] our signals together, which I think a

[00:36:48] core of this article was about now we've

[00:36:50] got these deep insights and to your point

[00:36:53] about some of the things that your team

[00:36:55] are building within our company at Leedsmart

[00:36:57] is these tools that now can use our

[00:37:00] Genius Feed, GPS slash radar that

[00:37:03] looks at all of these things and

[00:37:06] provides actionable insights.

[00:37:08] The Genius Feed is a perfect example

[00:37:10] of looking for signals but if we wrap

[00:37:13] up because I know we need to move on,

[00:37:15] I would love to talk about this for another

[00:37:17] half hour by the way, but is

[00:37:19] maybe we'll record our dinner on

[00:37:21] Monday night when I'm up at your office

[00:37:23] visiting.

[00:37:24] You mean eating the steak you're buying me?

[00:37:26] So the

[00:37:28] it's May.

[00:37:30] Okay.

[00:37:32] We have till the end of the year.

[00:37:34] Okay.

[00:37:35] So you have data, right?

[00:37:37] We talk a lot about data.

[00:37:39] Data together, different data points

[00:37:42] can be used to

[00:37:44] identify or create signals.

[00:37:46] Right?

[00:37:47] So that data then determines the signals

[00:37:49] and then when you start thinking about

[00:37:51] AI and where we're talking about with

[00:37:53] AI, these signals can really be used

[00:37:55] as a way to fuel some

[00:37:57] AI capabilities as well.

[00:37:59] So I think there's what we're seeing is

[00:38:01] multiple layers, right?

[00:38:02] Of data, then how does that

[00:38:04] data translate to signals?

[00:38:06] How does those signals then use to

[00:38:08] translate to AI, automation,

[00:38:10] analytics, insights, all of that kind of

[00:38:12] stuff.

[00:38:13] Those are really the layers that we're

[00:38:15] seeing and again as long as that's

[00:38:17] being done to facilitate

[00:38:19] the buyer journey and not as a way

[00:38:21] to believe that you're going to control

[00:38:23] the buyer journey which is generally

[00:38:25] a bad strategy.

[00:38:27] I think this will be very, very fruitful.

[00:38:29] Good.

[00:38:31] Good recap before we go.

[00:38:33] Comment was there.

[00:38:35] It says LinkedIn user.

[00:38:37] Aim into that with a smiley face.

[00:38:39] That came in when I was talking,

[00:38:41] not when you were talking.

[00:38:43] That was actually, I'm looking

[00:38:45] at my phone.

[00:38:47] That was from our friend, Lindsay

[00:38:49] Young at Three Aspins

[00:38:51] Media.

[00:38:52] She will be with us as a guest soon

[00:38:54] and I'm really looking forward to

[00:38:56] her insights coming because she is

[00:38:58] a marketing

[00:39:00] and content whiz so she was in

[00:39:02] alignment with our discussion.

[00:39:04] I think it was tied a lot to the MQL

[00:39:06] side of things which again since

[00:39:08] we're plugging people here.

[00:39:10] Tom's book, the revenue zone,

[00:39:12] Lindsay Three Aspins

[00:39:14] Media, all good

[00:39:16] sources for wholesale distribution

[00:39:18] and manufacturers in their

[00:39:20] marketing journeys.

[00:39:22] All right. There's my, nobody

[00:39:24] pays me for this stuff.

[00:39:26] Promoting your book and

[00:39:28] all right.

[00:39:30] That's who's buying. You're going to sell

[00:39:32] a bunch of books this week.

[00:39:34] That's right. Well if I get a bunch

[00:39:36] of books, I'm going to sell them.

[00:39:38] That's pretty good. All right.

[00:39:40] So a few months ago we

[00:39:42] restructured the newsletter.

[00:39:44] It's the time in the show where we need

[00:39:46] to talk about that. We now have the

[00:39:48] newsletter broken out into quite a few

[00:39:50] sections. We're getting ready to jump

[00:39:52] into our technology, cybersecurity

[00:39:54] and AI. It's pretty rare that we

[00:39:56] talk about AI on this show.

[00:39:58] Joking there.

[00:40:00] But we publish this newsletter

[00:40:02] every Friday so if you're listening

[00:40:04] to us in the future, you're not

[00:40:06] seeing the newsletter that we have up

[00:40:08] on the screen that friends that we have

[00:40:10] with us that are live are able to see.

[00:40:12] We publish this newsletter every Friday

[00:40:14] morning. It goes out to close to, I think

[00:40:16] it's actually over 10,000 people now

[00:40:18] and

[00:40:20] it is called Around the Horn in

[00:40:22] Wholesale Distribution and Manufacturing

[00:40:24] and we try and take the news of the week.

[00:40:26] We break that down in the newsletter

[00:40:28] where we publish it on our podcast

[00:40:30] here where we discuss those topics.

[00:40:32] We publish the newsletter and you don't currently.

[00:40:34] A couple simple ways.

[00:40:36] Hello at LeedsmartTek.com

[00:40:38] we will get you on that list

[00:40:40] or just stop by the website

[00:40:42] that we have for our podcast

[00:40:44] www.AroundtheHornPod.com

[00:40:46] and we will get you on that

[00:40:48] list. So Tom into this

[00:40:50] technology, cybersecurity and AI

[00:40:52] U.S. Homeland Security

[00:40:54] Names AI Safety

[00:40:56] Security Advisory Board article from

[00:40:58] Reuters of course Wall Street Journal

[00:41:00] and everybody else covered that article. Any initial

[00:41:02] thoughts on that?

[00:41:04] Yeah, I think it's quite a coup but from

[00:41:06] those big players right open AI

[00:41:08] Microsoft, Google, NVIDIA

[00:41:10] I mean basically they're

[00:41:12] going to be able to go in and to a large

[00:41:14] degree write their own ticket

[00:41:16] on how in this

[00:41:18] case U.S. Homeland Security but I assume

[00:41:20] that a lot of that will trickle into other areas

[00:41:22] of the government on

[00:41:24] how they should be using AI

[00:41:26] and I don't know

[00:41:28] if that's a good thing actually

[00:41:30] I obviously

[00:41:32] they're going to have

[00:41:34] undue influence on that

[00:41:36] but if you look at most of those

[00:41:38] Facebook isn't in there so

[00:41:40] all of those companies

[00:41:42] are all building closed

[00:41:44] source models not open source

[00:41:46] but closed source models

[00:41:48] they all have sort of a very specific business

[00:41:50] philosophy of how they're going about AI

[00:41:52] and I think there could be big winners

[00:41:54] as it relates to the government

[00:41:56] influencing how the government not only how the government

[00:41:58] implements AI but

[00:42:00] potentially they're upcoming any regulations

[00:42:02] that are

[00:42:04] so it's a real good thing.

[00:42:06] I think there's a lot behind this

[00:42:08] I'm

[00:42:11] glad to see it

[00:42:13] I expected your comments

[00:42:15] as they were about cautioning

[00:42:17] whether it's a good thing excuse me

[00:42:19] and I'm with you on that

[00:42:21] but

[00:42:23] I think it's important and what we didn't

[00:42:25] mention is the other people on this

[00:42:27] are on this board

[00:42:29] are executives from Delta Airlines

[00:42:31] Oxen, El Petroleum

[00:42:33] Northrop Grumman

[00:42:35] and some

[00:42:37] regional government people

[00:42:39] Governor of Maryland

[00:42:41] some other folks like that

[00:42:43] so I think this is

[00:42:45] the value that I see and I agree with you

[00:42:47] that it's kind of maybe it's

[00:42:49] maybe it's a little bit of

[00:42:51] letting the inmates run the asylum

[00:42:53] but I do think

[00:42:55] that

[00:42:57] the risk here and what the government's looking at

[00:42:59] with this is trying to figure out

[00:43:01] look there's bad actors out there

[00:43:03] and we know that there's risks with bad

[00:43:05] actors related

[00:43:07] to AI

[00:43:09] you know just

[00:43:11] the simple fastest example

[00:43:13] and I just think about this all the time

[00:43:15] it was just a great comment

[00:43:17] on our January we call it the legends

[00:43:19] show with

[00:43:21] Mike Marks and Dirk Bevergene and

[00:43:23] Ian use that example

[00:43:25] of a real world example

[00:43:27] of an AI bot

[00:43:29] we've learned in the last month or so

[00:43:31] within what was it 15 seconds

[00:43:33] there are AI tools that can learn to mimic

[00:43:35] your voice that is

[00:43:37] Joe Smith from Joe's Construction

[00:43:39] a bot is calling

[00:43:41] a distributor and ordering

[00:43:43] $50,000 worth

[00:43:45] of wire that's cable

[00:43:47] you know is a copper wiring

[00:43:49] going to a fictitious job site

[00:43:51] you just deliver it

[00:43:53] because you do that all the time

[00:43:55] and it's now being sold for the value

[00:43:57] of the copper those things

[00:43:59] that's the small issue

[00:44:01] now we're talking about power grids

[00:44:03] that could be impacted

[00:44:05] manufacturing plants shut down

[00:44:07] power to the White House

[00:44:09] you know whatever it might be

[00:44:11] that's I think

[00:44:13] a big part of what's behind this is

[00:44:15] what's the big threat to infrastructure

[00:44:17] and what's not going to be

[00:44:19] coming forward

[00:44:21] so I do

[00:44:23] think it's good to have this

[00:44:25] I think there's going to be

[00:44:27] definitely some needs on some

[00:44:29] checks and balances

[00:44:31] with the

[00:44:33] intent and desire

[00:44:35] of some of the people on the panel

[00:44:37] I don't I'm not at all

[00:44:39] against the concept of it

[00:44:41] I don't I think the concept is good

[00:44:43] I just think that

[00:44:45] we have intelligent

[00:44:47] sharp people out there

[00:44:49] that are not part of Microsoft or open AI

[00:44:51] or Google that could add a lot

[00:44:53] of value to something like this

[00:44:55] and

[00:44:57] like I said I think they're going to have

[00:44:59] probably a lot of undue influence

[00:45:01] on how they move forward and the technology

[00:45:03] that they end up incorporating into

[00:45:05] you know the Homeland Security

[00:45:07] the government and other things but

[00:45:09] we'll see

[00:45:11] yeah no it's I think we're in alignment

[00:45:13] it's important to get a view of these

[00:45:15] things and

[00:45:17] and I think there's

[00:45:19] you know

[00:45:21] the Microsoft, the Google's, the Amazons

[00:45:23] I think are

[00:45:25] there's a risk there

[00:45:27] of maybe being self-serving

[00:45:29] probably a little less

[00:45:31] when you start thinking about the

[00:45:33] NVIDIA, AMD, Cisco

[00:45:35] some of the other hardware

[00:45:37] providers maybe a little bit less

[00:45:39] risk of how this could

[00:45:41] be self-serving to them they're going to power this

[00:45:43] regardless right

[00:45:45] so I think it's good we'll watch it, we'll continue

[00:45:47] to talk about it but it is good as

[00:45:49] we

[00:45:51] and as we go back right all roads

[00:45:53] for this podcast

[00:45:55] go back to wholesale distribution and manufacturing

[00:45:57] getting some controls

[00:45:59] around what's next

[00:46:01] for them so that they can

[00:46:03] see the roadmap will be beneficial

[00:46:05] mm-hmm

[00:46:07] very good

[00:46:11] we'll go off to

[00:46:13] what we have next there

[00:46:15] AI lawsuits explained who's getting sued

[00:46:17] the people that we just

[00:46:19] talked about those are the people

[00:46:21] right so

[00:46:23] I guess there's a double-edged sword there

[00:46:25] that's right

[00:46:27] yeah a lot of lawsuits

[00:46:29] this is a really

[00:46:31] I think this will ultimately end up going

[00:46:33] to the Supreme Court and I don't know

[00:46:35] how this will even how they will

[00:46:37] decide some of this

[00:46:39] tremendous number of lawsuits coming from

[00:46:41] artists media organizations content

[00:46:43] providers that are

[00:46:45] you know they have their

[00:46:47] content on the web

[00:46:49] so these big models are grabbing

[00:46:51] their content

[00:46:53] even a YouTube video right if you have a

[00:46:55] YouTube video on the web or whatever that you've

[00:46:57] created or

[00:46:59] whatever the case may be

[00:47:01] these big models

[00:47:03] are grabbing that data

[00:47:05] and they're using that to drive

[00:47:07] the output of those models

[00:47:09] and what's happening in some cases

[00:47:11] right because

[00:47:13] and this is what

[00:47:15] you know the people say well wait a minute

[00:47:17] you're taking let's say I wrote a blog article

[00:47:19] it's not like somebody's taking that blog

[00:47:21] article and throwing it directly into their model

[00:47:23] they're breaking apart that blog article

[00:47:25] and they're using it in the

[00:47:27] in the big vector databases there

[00:47:29] but what's actually happening sometimes

[00:47:31] is when somebody's running

[00:47:33] a chat GPT or running AI

[00:47:35] the output of it is almost

[00:47:37] identical to what would be

[00:47:39] in some cases on the actual blog

[00:47:41] or the music or the right whatever

[00:47:43] and then the authors are going wait a minute that looks

[00:47:45] exactly like what I

[00:47:47] have over here even though it was a derivative work

[00:47:49] right so let's

[00:47:51] break that down for a second because this is important

[00:47:53] and let's just use what you were talking about

[00:47:55] your book earlier today right

[00:47:57] so you've probably got snippets

[00:47:59] of your book

[00:48:01] in different places throughout the internet

[00:48:03] that you've put out there

[00:48:05] for marketing purposes about your

[00:48:07] right I think there's a full PDF version

[00:48:09] out there on the internet if somebody

[00:48:11] wanted to find it for sure

[00:48:13] but that's not even

[00:48:15] necessary per se because as we

[00:48:17] talk about generative AI that's predictive

[00:48:19] it can go grab

[00:48:21] enough pieces of data

[00:48:23] that you've purposely put out there for

[00:48:25] marketing

[00:48:27] purposes and

[00:48:29] compare that to other things that are

[00:48:31] similar about to your

[00:48:33] book on the internet

[00:48:35] and now basically put out a document

[00:48:37] or a new

[00:48:39] book that reduces

[00:48:41] the value of somebody paying full

[00:48:43] price for your book and

[00:48:45] it's coming from the fact that you put

[00:48:47] some things out there which my

[00:48:49] view of all of this is

[00:48:51] I'm struggling

[00:48:53] that we're going to be able to go backwards

[00:48:55] on things and

[00:48:57] I think it's intriguing I hadn't thought of this when I was reading the article

[00:48:59] initially but it does

[00:49:01] really does tie to you as an author so I'm interested

[00:49:03] in your feedback I have to look at this

[00:49:05] and say hey look

[00:49:07] XYZ

[00:49:09] author

[00:49:11] company whoever it might be

[00:49:13] and let's boil this down

[00:49:15] and take this back to our audience is

[00:49:17] all of the content

[00:49:19] that maybe you developed as a distributor

[00:49:21] or you paid somebody to come

[00:49:23] in and help you develop content and you've got

[00:49:25] great blog content

[00:49:27] and you've got all of these different things

[00:49:29] that now through these tools

[00:49:31] that upstart new distributor

[00:49:33] down the street that has a new innovative

[00:49:35] model could use

[00:49:37] these tools to go replicate and do

[00:49:39] even more than what you've done

[00:49:41] I think

[00:49:43] my gut tells me and I'm looking for anybody's

[00:49:45] comments here and yours if

[00:49:47] you disagree is we're probably

[00:49:49] going to see something that says okay

[00:49:51] from a date and point forward

[00:49:53] this is what you have to pay

[00:49:55] for or this is how this works

[00:49:57] but to go back

[00:49:59] it's kind of a double edged sword

[00:50:01] if I look at a music

[00:50:03] musician

[00:50:05] or an author and you took full

[00:50:07] advantage of the internet

[00:50:09] and you knew that the internet was evolving every day

[00:50:11] right and getting better

[00:50:13] and now you don't like an outcome from

[00:50:15] something that was free for you to use

[00:50:17] right now I mean

[00:50:19] you have to separate out gated content

[00:50:21] I think that whole New York times

[00:50:23] deal or whatever that was

[00:50:25] that was gated content

[00:50:27] so that was content that was behind a

[00:50:29] paywall and you were supposed to pay

[00:50:31] that's a different story

[00:50:33] we're talking about publicly available

[00:50:35] information

[00:50:37] that is out there on the internet

[00:50:39] and there's a lot of it

[00:50:41] and there's

[00:50:43] even music

[00:50:45] if you take music and stuff

[00:50:47] that's out there and video and any of these things

[00:50:49] so that's where the really

[00:50:51] difficult

[00:50:53] and what's happening again is that

[00:50:55] all of this data or all this information

[00:50:57] on the internet being put into these models

[00:50:59] and then they're creating what are called derivative works

[00:51:01] which are derivatives of

[00:51:03] using that data that are there

[00:51:05] sometimes those derivative works look a lot

[00:51:07] like what's out there

[00:51:09] sometimes they don't look a lot about

[00:51:11] what's out there but they're still based on that

[00:51:13] derivative work

[00:51:15] I think that frankly I'll just say it as an author

[00:51:17] I think

[00:51:19] whether it's right or wrong if I'm putting something

[00:51:21] out there on the internet

[00:51:23] and the public domain then I have to

[00:51:25] be expecting that

[00:51:27] that is going to be used for derivative

[00:51:29] works and I don't I should not

[00:51:31] necessarily expect to be compensated

[00:51:33] for that

[00:51:35] if I'm doing something where it is

[00:51:37] behind a paywall or it is

[00:51:39] a copyrighted

[00:51:41] something that is actually being charged

[00:51:43] for that's a different story I don't know

[00:51:45] even the right answer on how to do it

[00:51:47] because if we're putting stuff out there

[00:51:49] unfortunately or fortunately there's going to be

[00:51:51] derivative works and

[00:51:53] I don't it's never going to go back

[00:51:55] the other way

[00:51:57] I think that's the key and I think the risk

[00:51:59] right it's a risk reward

[00:52:01] it doesn't matter right we're talking

[00:52:03] today about here this article talks

[00:52:05] about authors and musicians

[00:52:07] and things like that but this is any

[00:52:09] business that's putting information out there

[00:52:11] on the open internet

[00:52:13] that we're going to and it's going to

[00:52:15] impact our

[00:52:17] typical audience here as well

[00:52:19] it made me think about

[00:52:21] a good example might be and this is

[00:52:23] a risk right you

[00:52:25] you're a musician and you've got

[00:52:27] I know there's boatloads of

[00:52:29] websites about indie music

[00:52:31] and things like that where you can either

[00:52:33] post songs or

[00:52:35] snippets of songs

[00:52:37] and now you're

[00:52:39] taking a risk in that

[00:52:41] that

[00:52:43] you could have somebody take your work

[00:52:47] and make it better and claim it as

[00:52:49] theirs right or take

[00:52:51] that's stuff that we've seen lawsuits

[00:52:53] about forever long before

[00:52:55] the internet even that says

[00:52:57] somebody wrote a song and published it and now

[00:52:59] somebody's got a hit over here that has

[00:53:01] unique

[00:53:03] keys or notes

[00:53:05] or things similar to all now

[00:53:07] this generative stuff can be doing that more

[00:53:09] every day so

[00:53:11] well I think we even

[00:53:13] two or three weeks ago there was an article

[00:53:15] we talked about the importance of

[00:53:17] wholesale distributors building content and high quality content

[00:53:19] right

[00:53:21] so that's all content that is likely

[00:53:23] going to be on the public domain

[00:53:25] and available for all of that

[00:53:27] and so again I

[00:53:29] think the solution to all of this right if I'm

[00:53:31] a business or an author or anything else

[00:53:33] I just have to maintain the quality

[00:53:35] of what I'm doing right quality

[00:53:37] is always going to

[00:53:39] Trump quantity

[00:53:41] and so providing the quality

[00:53:43] but know that

[00:53:45] just not worry about it

[00:53:47] just go do what you do every day

[00:53:49] and do a good job

[00:53:51] and don't worry about the other stuff

[00:53:53] well stay

[00:53:55] and I think good comment here

[00:53:57] from Mike about

[00:53:59] I think this is from the keynote

[00:54:01] from the

[00:54:03] what last summer or last October

[00:54:05] no this was this week

[00:54:07] in San Diego Mike was there

[00:54:09] okay the comment that

[00:54:11] copyright or copyright is dead

[00:54:13] with AI I think that's

[00:54:15] probably

[00:54:17] pretty true

[00:54:19] Zach is one of those other smart

[00:54:21] guys in Santa Barbara like you

[00:54:23] so he just lives down the street from you

[00:54:25] so

[00:54:27] let's invite him to dinner

[00:54:29] he had asked me when I met him

[00:54:31] to have you reach out to him when I told him you were there

[00:54:33] so I don't know if you've done that or not

[00:54:35] but yeah we can do that

[00:54:37] and he's speaking as well at

[00:54:39] distribution strategy groups

[00:54:41] AI event in June

[00:54:43] in Chicago so

[00:54:45] Mike will see you there as well

[00:54:47] hopefully it's a little twist

[00:54:49] or a different presentation

[00:54:51] that Zach is doing. Zach Cass was

[00:54:53] I believe he was one of the

[00:54:55] earliest employees at open AI

[00:54:57] makers of chat GPT

[00:54:59] and I think his title was like

[00:55:01] the head of go to market or head of commercialization

[00:55:03] somebody a sharp sharp guy

[00:55:05] and I enjoyed listening to him

[00:55:07] what sticks in my mind about

[00:55:09] Zach's presentation at DSG's event

[00:55:11] from last year was

[00:55:13] about the need and we've talked about this

[00:55:15] on the show and we'll be talking about a lot more

[00:55:17] is the struggle

[00:55:19] for us to get to AGI

[00:55:21] and all of the possibilities that we want

[00:55:23] to solving medical

[00:55:25] issues and things like that with AI

[00:55:27] is we need a source

[00:55:29] to power it because our current power grid

[00:55:31] won't support that

[00:55:33] so anyways good stuff thanks Mike

[00:55:35] so let's jump ahead Tom

[00:55:37] training

[00:55:41] we're jumping into our sales and a

[00:55:43] M&A section here

[00:55:45] I thought this was a really interesting article

[00:55:47] and it was

[00:55:49] from sales and marketing management magazine

[00:55:51] it's called where

[00:55:53] to begin sales training

[00:55:55] ask those being trained and this is

[00:55:57] a little bit different take

[00:55:59] on things you know so often

[00:56:01] we've had some folks on the show

[00:56:03] and talk regularly with folks

[00:56:05] you know there's just no shortage

[00:56:07] of sales training companies that have a model

[00:56:09] and they'll come in

[00:56:11] and train your people on this model

[00:56:13] and

[00:56:15] the

[00:56:17] unique thing for me about this and this article

[00:56:19] we don't need to spend a lot of time on it

[00:56:21] but it just talked about doing things from the bottom up

[00:56:23] and getting the impact

[00:56:25] and the feedback

[00:56:27] from those that are being trained

[00:56:29] so I'm going to just because we're trying to run in short

[00:56:31] time and a few other things to discuss Tom

[00:56:33] but they talked about doing

[00:56:35] getting the content

[00:56:37] developed for your training

[00:56:39] by using the people that are going to be trained

[00:56:41] so they talk about surveys and questionnaires

[00:56:43] asking what skills they want to learn

[00:56:45] and develop interviews

[00:56:47] managers digging deeper in one-on-one meetings

[00:56:49] to catch nuances from

[00:56:51] conversations that surveys missed

[00:56:53] job task analysis right

[00:56:55] what am I doing am I an inside sales person

[00:56:57] what does that look like can we make

[00:56:59] that better focus groups

[00:57:01] and performance metrics

[00:57:03] numbers don't lie but sometimes

[00:57:05] the people can help us

[00:57:07] which what would a better metric be

[00:57:09] then it might be bring

[00:57:11] in some training models

[00:57:13] from third parties that really work well

[00:57:15] I really liked this article

[00:57:17] because they said you know

[00:57:19] you can't teach people everything that they need to know

[00:57:21] the best you can do is position

[00:57:23] them where they can find what they need

[00:57:25] to know when they need to know it

[00:57:27] there's a whole conversation about

[00:57:29] AI that goes with this as well

[00:57:31] we'll do that another day but good article

[00:57:33] yeah no I completely agree

[00:57:35] and I think what this talks about

[00:57:37] is how do you enable the individual

[00:57:39] based on what the individual needs

[00:57:41] versus coming in and saying okay here's

[00:57:43] a new sales methodology or a sales process

[00:57:45] or whatever

[00:57:47] and not really it's not that those are bad

[00:57:49] but you have to take into account

[00:57:51] especially in this day and age because sales

[00:57:53] is fricking hard right it's harder

[00:57:55] it's getting harder every day

[00:57:57] with all the things that we're dealing with so yeah

[00:57:59] let's talk to the people in the trenches

[00:58:01] find out what they need help with

[00:58:03] and then build your curriculum as you said

[00:58:05] bottom up so I think it's a very good article

[00:58:07] that's good it's great

[00:58:09] so jumping ahead MDM analytics

[00:58:11] launches their new release

[00:58:13] of their market profiler app

[00:58:15] MDM now part

[00:58:17] of National Association of Wholesalers

[00:58:19] I was back

[00:58:21] two weeks ago

[00:58:23] at NAW and we talked

[00:58:25] quite a bit about this tool

[00:58:27] really cool this market profiler app

[00:58:29] and it cracks

[00:58:31] this is a great article Tom Gale wrote it

[00:58:33] about their updates to this tool

[00:58:35] it's version 4.0 but it's

[00:58:37] really deep into market statistics

[00:58:39] that are very relevant

[00:58:41] that are developed from

[00:58:43] the resources

[00:58:45] that MDM has versus

[00:58:47] a third party resource

[00:58:49] that's just saying hey we think this is

[00:58:51] based upon bureau labor statistics

[00:58:53] or whatever it is we think this is this

[00:58:55] MDM's tool

[00:58:57] with this market profiler app goes

[00:58:59] really really in a deep dive

[00:59:01] into what's

[00:59:03] really happening in specific verticals

[00:59:05] their focus right now

[00:59:07] is they've got 200 subcategories

[00:59:09] for US, Canada and Mexico

[00:59:11] so if I'm a distributor

[00:59:13] I think I'm wanting to look at this

[00:59:15] pretty cool tool

[00:59:17] yeah well I think this is great

[00:59:19] this is a good sign of

[00:59:21] the move of NAW

[00:59:23] and MDM together

[00:59:25] providing more resources

[00:59:27] NAW has a much broader

[00:59:29] membership that they can start getting some of this data

[00:59:31] from as well and providing it

[00:59:33] back to them so good tool

[00:59:35] good reach, good job Tom Gale

[00:59:37] and the MDM team as well

[00:59:39] as the NAW folks

[00:59:41] so people leadership

[00:59:43] moving ahead

[00:59:45] number of Americans applying for jobless claims

[00:59:47] remains historically low

[00:59:49] we talked a little bit about job claims

[00:59:51] and stuff earlier in the day

[00:59:53] we try and get something in here about people

[00:59:55] and leadership and hiring each week

[00:59:57] any thoughts on that one Tom?

[00:59:59] No I think you have to go back

[01:00:01] I'd like to re-read that again

[01:00:03] go look at some of the data that came out this morning

[01:00:05] but yeah bottom line

[01:00:07] it's saying not a lot of people are

[01:00:09] which I think is

[01:00:11] I think there's fewer people quitting

[01:00:13] I think there's people right now

[01:00:15] I think there's great resignation as they called it

[01:00:17] I think that there's

[01:00:19] people are realizing that hey I better get back to work

[01:00:21] and maybe stay to work because I don't know

[01:00:23] exactly what's coming kind of comes to line

[01:00:25] with that consumer piece that's there

[01:00:27] so I think again

[01:00:29] this is just reading between the lines

[01:00:31] I think there are people that are

[01:00:33] sticking with jobs maybe not quitting

[01:00:35] as fast as they would have before

[01:00:37] I don't know how this changed with

[01:00:39] or if any of this data was even announced today

[01:00:41] but

[01:00:43] interesting overall

[01:00:45] well and I think that one of the comments it made here

[01:00:47] which I think is interesting is

[01:00:49] we hear and read a lot about layoffs

[01:00:51] but most of that is tied to technology

[01:00:53] and

[01:00:55] it's technology companies trying to pacify

[01:00:57] their boards in Wall Street

[01:00:59] right

[01:01:01] lay a bunch of people off, push some margins up

[01:01:03] hire some people back

[01:01:05] that's not what we see in

[01:01:07] manufacturing and wholesale distribution

[01:01:09] typically it's the stability

[01:01:11] is definitely there but to your

[01:01:13] point earlier out of this article I think what's great

[01:01:15] about that is the idea

[01:01:17] of people getting

[01:01:19] back to work because

[01:01:21] most of when I get out on the road

[01:01:23] or I'm on the phone

[01:01:25] with wholesale distributors and manufacturers

[01:01:27] daily is

[01:01:29] it's still tough to hire people

[01:01:31] so

[01:01:33] anyways let's jump into our industry

[01:01:35] Scuttlebud each week we talk about

[01:01:37] some very specific

[01:01:39] things that are happening in M&A or new

[01:01:41] activity so

[01:01:43] WESCO international reports their first quarter

[01:01:45] results could read there

[01:01:47] WESCO

[01:01:49] divested their integrated supply group to

[01:01:51] Valen last month

[01:01:53] that deals all closed

[01:01:55] in fact MDM Mike Hockett is our good friend

[01:01:57] of the show here it's been with us

[01:01:59] Mike did a good podcast earlier in the week

[01:02:01] with the president and CEO of Valen

[01:02:03] and talked a lot about their acquisition

[01:02:05] of that integrated supply group from WESCO

[01:02:07] jump it ahead

[01:02:09] ARG we just had a comment here on the show

[01:02:11] from Mike Mortensen the president and CEO

[01:02:13] there at ARG they have

[01:02:15] just added to their executive leadership

[01:02:17] team by promoting Mike

[01:02:19] Powers to chief digital and technology

[01:02:21] officer

[01:02:23] couple of things with that one is Mike's

[01:02:25] been on the show with us a few times

[01:02:27] and is a friend of our show

[01:02:29] and runs a great

[01:02:31] organization there but Mike Powers

[01:02:33] really sharp guy had an opportunity

[01:02:35] to spend a little bit of time with Mike

[01:02:37] at the

[01:02:39] DSG event last October

[01:02:41] in Chicago looking forward to seeing him

[01:02:43] at some upcoming events as well

[01:02:45] but it shows the shift and we're

[01:02:47] starting to see this

[01:02:49] I think this is the third or fourth time now

[01:02:51] we're seeing this

[01:02:53] and good on the guys

[01:02:55] at ARG for seeing this

[01:02:57] they're not as big as some of the other

[01:02:59] companies that have done this

[01:03:01] but seeing the value of technology

[01:03:03] and ARG as

[01:03:05] an employee owned company sees technology

[01:03:07] as the core of their future

[01:03:09] but other companies

[01:03:11] Dakota supply group hired

[01:03:13] Stefan Fulop a while back

[01:03:15] Stefan's great guy as their chief digital

[01:03:17] officer so we're starting to see in some

[01:03:19] of these organizations is we have our chief

[01:03:21] technology or chief information officer

[01:03:23] but he's partnered with a chief digital

[01:03:25] officer and that is a great

[01:03:27] move I think moving forward because

[01:03:29] all roads and you made the comment earlier

[01:03:31] in our discussion right is it's going to be

[01:03:33] hard to survive in wholesale distribution

[01:03:35] and manufacturing if you're not

[01:03:37] thinking digital first moving forward

[01:03:39] so well as I said

[01:03:41] I think I said this before the show right

[01:03:43] I think we're at this money ball moment

[01:03:45] yeah where if you remember

[01:03:47] the movie money ball where you know it went

[01:03:49] from in the baseball world it went

[01:03:51] from the instinctive scout

[01:03:53] to using data and information to make

[01:03:55] player decisions and personnel decisions

[01:03:57] I think we're

[01:03:59] I think that the shift that we're going to see

[01:04:01] in wholesale distribution manufacturing especially

[01:04:03] in the quote unquote front office

[01:04:05] sales marketing operations

[01:04:07] and so forth is going to be the largest

[01:04:09] shift that we've seen in a long time

[01:04:11] over or maybe ever and

[01:04:13] technology obviously is going to drive that

[01:04:15] shift from you know the to using

[01:04:17] data using signals using the things that

[01:04:19] we've talked about so yeah this is a very

[01:04:21] I think a very

[01:04:23] smart move as companies are doing this

[01:04:25] and very different than the CIO

[01:04:27] very different role very different

[01:04:29] set of responsibilities but

[01:04:31] obviously then work arm and arm

[01:04:33] yep very good

[01:04:35] so in the last piece of that

[01:04:37] before we jump ahead is

[01:04:39] the good folks at DSG

[01:04:41] to go to supply

[01:04:43] supply group they rebranded last

[01:04:45] month their organization a lot of hard work

[01:04:47] and they just opened another location

[01:04:49] so they just

[01:04:51] are continuing the growth spur I don't remember

[01:04:53] if the article says I think this puts them

[01:04:55] at like

[01:04:57] once a 56 or 57

[01:04:59] branch locations

[01:05:01] which is phenomenal as they continue their growth

[01:05:03] so good for

[01:05:05] our friend Paul Kennedy and his executive

[01:05:07] team over there so Tom

[01:05:09] kind of been closing on the day let's

[01:05:11] break down this article

[01:05:13] briefly and each week we have a section

[01:05:15] called a good read it's a little different

[01:05:17] each week sometimes it's on leadership

[01:05:19] sometimes it's on sales sometimes it's on

[01:05:21] you know executive health and

[01:05:23] it's just it varies but this week

[01:05:25] we've got an article here

[01:05:27] that we put in it's from Mark

[01:05:29] Dancer and Mark refers

[01:05:31] to himself if you don't know Mark

[01:05:33] he's phenomenal writer

[01:05:35] describes

[01:05:37] his work as a

[01:05:39] distribution supply chain futurist

[01:05:41] he's an author he's a fellow

[01:05:43] with NAW

[01:05:45] done so just some phenomenal work over

[01:05:47] the years but his writing is pretty solid

[01:05:49] stuff and he wrote an article

[01:05:51] here about tech that drives

[01:05:53] true change and I what I

[01:05:55] liked about this Tom is we

[01:05:57] dive into a little bit of the topics there but

[01:05:59] it's like sometimes

[01:06:01] we get in I'd say we're guilty of it

[01:06:03] here too is we talk

[01:06:05] kind of about and I'll say

[01:06:07] globally

[01:06:09] AI technology and distribution

[01:06:11] is talked about we can talk about some of

[01:06:13] the same stuff over and over again

[01:06:15] and

[01:06:17] and Mark hit some really interesting points in this article

[01:06:19] before I dive into some of his key points

[01:06:21] do you have any thoughts?

[01:06:23] why don't you just hit a couple of key points we can touch on those here

[01:06:25] but I do agree it's

[01:06:27] in fact I want to read it again it's a pretty

[01:06:29] media article

[01:06:31] so definitely one of those

[01:06:33] that you could read a couple of times

[01:06:35] yeah and he has a substack

[01:06:37] that he does this in that he does all of his posts

[01:06:39] which is great and I think it's just

[01:06:41] if I remember correctly

[01:06:43] it's markdancer.substack

[01:06:45] so that would be good

[01:06:47] he talks about three key topics

[01:06:49] he said see your customers

[01:06:51] he said today distributors

[01:06:53] apply AI to better see and use the data

[01:06:55] inside their systems

[01:06:57] and I love it how he breaks this down

[01:06:59] I need to send mark a note about this

[01:07:01] because he does a bunch of what ifs

[01:07:03] he says what if AI could help them better

[01:07:05] see customers needs

[01:07:07] aspiration purpose

[01:07:09] values and perhaps by connecting

[01:07:11] their systems or by listening to spoken words as well

[01:07:13] I love this

[01:07:15] right I mean let's

[01:07:17] start using these tools to deeper

[01:07:19] understand

[01:07:21] the needs and then his next

[01:07:23] point is let the customer see you

[01:07:25] he said trust workflows

[01:07:27] and overall flows from transparency

[01:07:29] again a what if what if AI could help

[01:07:31] customers see into your business

[01:07:33] from their viewpoint a vision that goes

[01:07:35] beyond seeing solution prices and delivery

[01:07:37] dates that's what we talk about

[01:07:39] right in wholesale distribution

[01:07:41] we think everybody just wants to know

[01:07:43] what he's talking he says what I'm talking about

[01:07:45] is a human line of sight that sees

[01:07:47] your business the way it is powered

[01:07:49] by people with passions who succeed

[01:07:51] and fail every day

[01:07:53] could AI help with that

[01:07:55] we think about it right

[01:07:57] the counter guy

[01:07:59] in your company

[01:08:01] as a distribution company

[01:08:03] has a relationship with

[01:08:05] Joe

[01:08:07] that is getting equipment to a job site

[01:08:09] they might even go to a ballgame

[01:08:11] grab a burger

[01:08:13] go to the same church whatever it is

[01:08:15] we don't have a line of sight to that

[01:08:17] especially in large organizations

[01:08:19] our sales guy is talking to three layers

[01:08:21] above the guy that comes into the counter

[01:08:23] to have our business relationship

[01:08:25] I love this about letting a customer

[01:08:27] have deeper insight into our company

[01:08:29] and the last thing he says is

[01:08:31] together see the future

[01:08:33] he said what if AI could paint holistic

[01:08:35] future states that include your services

[01:08:37] he even says and profits

[01:08:39] and the customers initiatives

[01:08:41] and profits perhaps in a collaborative

[01:08:43] multi-layer game environment

[01:08:45] could such an AI help your people

[01:08:47] and customers slay day to day problems

[01:08:49] as gamified villains while

[01:08:51] aiming to build a previously unimagined

[01:08:53] world of shared purpose

[01:08:55] and mutual benefit in the long term

[01:08:57] wow

[01:08:59] that last one I think in particular

[01:09:01] and all of them actually reflect this

[01:09:03] is moving from

[01:09:05] transactional information

[01:09:07] into

[01:09:09] consultative and relationship driven

[01:09:11] information shared growth opportunity

[01:09:13] right and

[01:09:15] we've talked about this is the big advantage

[01:09:17] even the smaller distributor

[01:09:19] has or the more localized regional

[01:09:21] distributor is being able to provide

[01:09:23] that level of

[01:09:25] going beyond the transactional

[01:09:27] information but going into that

[01:09:29] and using technology

[01:09:31] and AI to actually

[01:09:33] provide that experience

[01:09:35] that is

[01:09:37] gamified but

[01:09:39] I do think gamified experiences

[01:09:41] are going to

[01:09:43] take hold more and more and more

[01:09:45] to some degree

[01:09:47] and I think it's not

[01:09:49] because I want a game

[01:09:51] gamified experience can be adopted

[01:09:53] easier understood easier

[01:09:55] and then used to accomplish like what you said

[01:09:57] there sort of a collaborative business plan

[01:09:59] strategy and so forth

[01:10:01] and how we partner and work together

[01:10:03] so

[01:10:05] I see more of that in our own business

[01:10:07] as we move ahead

[01:10:09] I think you're spot on

[01:10:11] and I kind of

[01:10:13] wish there was a different term for gamified

[01:10:15] because I think sometimes

[01:10:17] people if you're not thinking about the technology

[01:10:19] side of that it's

[01:10:21] and where that maybe even more comes from

[01:10:23] it's

[01:10:25] maybe something gets poo pooed pretty quick

[01:10:27] but I think the idea

[01:10:29] with this is

[01:10:31] engaging

[01:10:33] engaging more

[01:10:35] with our people and our

[01:10:37] customers in a way

[01:10:39] by using tools that make them want to

[01:10:41] engage

[01:10:43] would you agree that's a reasonable explanation

[01:10:45] of gamification?

[01:10:47] Gamification is not

[01:10:49] because hey I want to have a

[01:10:51] poker game or an online chess game

[01:10:53] or whatever it's how do we

[01:10:55] attract attention and retain

[01:10:57] attention and then use that

[01:10:59] as a way to actually

[01:11:01] get the outcome

[01:11:03] if the gamification aspect provides that outcome

[01:11:05] and we can keep the attention

[01:11:07] and attract the attention that it's

[01:11:09] a strategy it's not

[01:11:11] just be a game

[01:11:13] great example of that thanks for doing that

[01:11:15] good okay well

[01:11:17] you know what we covered it we got through it

[01:11:19] yeah for a week back

[01:11:21] a little rusty we'll have to

[01:11:23] stay on track and keep

[01:11:25] going with things so

[01:11:27] we'll get there

[01:11:29] alright well let's wrap up thanks everybody

[01:11:31] appreciate everybody listening

[01:11:33] have a great weekend and

[01:11:35] see you next Friday

[01:11:37] yeah well again if you

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[01:12:47] I will see you Monday in Santa Barbara

[01:12:49] I'm looking forward to that it's been

[01:12:51] couple months since we've been face to face

[01:12:53] so wish everybody a

[01:12:55] fantastic weekend

[01:12:57] be kind

[01:12:59] be safe and do great things

[01:13:01] thanks everyone

[01:13:19] we're looking forward to bringing you next week's session

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