B2B Marketplaces and AI Tools Coming Faster Than Expected

[00:00:00] Welcome to Around The Horn in Wholesale Distribution with Kevin Brown and Tom Burton. Sponsored each week by Lead Smart Technologies, Tom Kevin and their guests review the news of the week

[00:00:16] and dive deep into the topics impacting manufacturers, Wholesale Distribution, Independent Sales Agents, and the global Wholesale Supply Chain. Whether it's M&A, Sass and Cloud Computing, B2B e-commerce, or supply chain issues,

[00:00:31] we peel back the onion with our guests into the topics that impact your business the most. How are you? I'm good. Tell me about your legs and your ski trip and are you dying?

[00:00:43] No, my legs seem to be in decent shape. I have a little blister on my ankle from my boot rubbing, but other than that, I'm okay. Your shoes should be bruised from driving forward in those, from your feet.

[00:01:00] Great feet. There's definitely some stuff here on the shans, but I'll live. So, glide you got away for a few days and bird off a little energy and had a little fun. Good for you.

[00:01:14] I, on the other hand, will be doing that some of that later in the year, but I got spend a few days in Texas with some great folks at the Affiliated Distributors, E-commerce and Marketing Event and San Antonio.

[00:01:28] I had been in San Antonio 10 plus years. So it was nice. I got a little walk on the riverfront and a riverwalk there, but a great event will kind of

[00:01:38] be able to do that a little bit more as we go through the morning. But before we dive in, should we maybe talk about who we are and what we're doing here?

[00:01:46] Let's do it. Let's do it. All right. Well, I am Kevin Brown. This is my co-founder and lifelong friend Tom Burton.

[00:01:54] We are the developers of co-founders of Leedsmark Technologies, which is an AI enabled CRM and customer intelligence solution where we bring data from across an organization into a CRM platform to make

[00:02:09] Intelligible decisions across the board related to that. So we get together every Friday morning where we discuss the topics of the week and wholesale distribution.

[00:02:19] We publish a newsletter each week. It's called again around the whole Horn and wholesale distribution and manufacturing and we talk about it here live on this podcast.

[00:02:29] If you don't get this podcast, we would love to share it with you and you can get that by reaching out to us at hello at leadsmarttech.com.

[00:02:38] Simple email, ask us to send you and get you on the newsletter list or you can easily get the same information by going to the website for the podcast, which is www.aroundthehornpod.com and all of our previous episodes are there as well. Thank you so much and Tom, let's dive in.

[00:02:58] Do we have a mask on or something in the background? We do somehow Cooper got into my office the dog of the day so I'm going to push him out real quick while you get started on that first article.

[00:03:09] All right, well we're going to start as usual with a little bit of economy news and I read both of these actually there's kind of three of them here, right, that are sort of related.

[00:03:24] The inventories and the fact data and then the frigid weather and I kind of read all three of those was trying to connect the dots a little bit and once again, it kind of left a little more confused and I did. About what's happening.

[00:03:39] This is the time before you jump ahead isn't that the theme of like the last at least a year is, you know, we get ups and the midounds and we get the balancing of it all.

[00:03:49] It's I think you and Paul Kennedy both commented on that a while back in a discussion about, you know, I leave some days more confused reading reading the news.

[00:04:00] Yeah, I mean there's I don't know if you were you know, I'm interested in your take on it but I couldn't I couldn't even look if I looked at all three of those. I really couldn't connect the dots to say is there anything that's actually newsworthy there or relevant.

[00:04:13] I guess in terms of insights and to where anything's going. It just sounds like hey things move forward yeah we had some cold weather little bit more inventory a little bit more less you know act factory activity but nothing.

[00:04:26] Nothing life you know life changing one way or the other. Yeah, well so just real quick we got a couple articles there from Reuters and MDM and a couple of the other folks that we looked to regularly for info and you know with this.

[00:04:42] My kind of takeaway from it was look you know what we've got I just kind of like to go back I think you might have used this term first the early last year was simmering right.

[00:04:54] I don't remember how we got started and then but we talk about it a lot right so we're seeing this movement of slight movements up and down and I don't think slight movements up and down are going to help us in growth and wholesale distribution manufacturing.

[00:05:08] I also don't want to see these massive numbers right so if all of a sudden tomorrow interest rates went back to you know.

[00:05:14] 3% or 4% or you know sub 5% interest rates then we see these big spikes and that's not healthy either but I do think you know it's important that we stay on top and kind of.

[00:05:25] Pay attention to what's going on with some of these things from a standpoint of a following closely you know we're talking about that you know. 7% up from November and some of the instances within manufacturing a lot of things being flat within that.

[00:05:43] But you know it's it's interesting to me kind of looking at these continually to see where I guess what kind of seeing almost almost like a heart rhythm right slide ups slide down slide ups slide downs and if we could do that and more watch it like a stock curve.

[00:06:02] Where it should be going slide ups and downs but the ups or more consistent I guess is what I'm watching for as we look at all these that pieces of data right.

[00:06:10] Maybe that's my analogy for the day is not a heart rhythm but a stock cart that got some ups and downs and flows as we go, but you know I think it's important you know as we look at it you know ideally we'd like to see sales up and production up and inventory's maybe a little bit lower which means inventory's ideally really efficient.

[00:06:30] While we're growing that's what we want to be ideally I think looking for in the setting. Into your point you know there was an article in here about you know the weather.

[00:06:39] I think it's important to think about that as well you know I don't we've had a couple of big storms obviously there was one earlier this week. We've got another storm coming here in Southern California I think this weekend. So we're going to see those kind of seasonally.

[00:06:54] Or seasonality pieces with it but I think we need to continue to watch it and look for that hopefully look for that tick up. Yeah, obviously you're going it has to be a trend over a longer period of time but.

[00:07:07] Even in the last year as you said I think if you were to look at this statistic it would be kind of flat versus moving in any one direction. Yeah, anyway I guess that's better than going down or going in the right.

[00:07:19] You know and one of the articles they're talked about you know they highlighted the potential recovery in the manufacturing sector. You know it's interesting right and why do we talk about these things week after week and we talk a little bit about this.

[00:07:31] You know we always have a little bit about economic dad in with us but you know one of these articles even talked about.

[00:07:37] You know that we've had stagnation was the term they used in for 2023 and just kind of flat with things because of interest rates and so forth. But you know the relevance of all of this and paying attention to it is.

[00:07:52] Excuse me just the manufacturing segment not distribution side of it but 10.3% of the US economy. You know we have to be paying close attention to this stuff and know what's happening with it.

[00:08:03] They talked quite a bit about you know overcoming this stagnation though in a couple of these articles with interest rates adjusting so.

[00:08:12] And I think you know we just have to get to this place over the next you know where we are coming up on March before two longs more than the middle of February now.

[00:08:21] So we get into March and we start looking at what happens in May if assuming the Fed doesn't do anything in March then we get to May and we hopefully.

[00:08:29] And I think if we don't have any major changes with jobs and so forth and some of the factors are looking at that we get to that May first dip and then I hope we see that consistent increase.

[00:08:43] I don't know if you saw the latest news this morning but the I was a producer price index was definitely higher than expected. The CPI index was higher than expected.

[00:08:56] The 10 year note has gone up significantly so I don't know I wouldn't be banking on May at this point if the way the data is actually looking but.

[00:09:06] I think we're we've got to adjust the what what are expectations of that data are right but I don't know that the Fed is listening to your your advice on that.

[00:09:16] I just I left the voice mail for Paul last week and I haven't heard back it but you know when you look at. And you know you've always you know we've been friends forever and you've always follow the stock market stuff a lot more than I have but.

[00:09:33] I just look at this and say the stock market right and what all of the economic factors that the Fed and so forth are looking at they're not in alignment right to give us real good data right stock market is saying.

[00:09:47] I could care less about in theory right stock market is basically I don't care about what the Fed is saying and all those other things going on.

[00:09:54] I'm going to do what I'm doing and then the Fed uses these I'm going to look at jobs in the 10 year and all of these pieces and it's got to be below you know 3% before even consider things we're trying to get to 2% and.

[00:10:08] I don't know again maybe I just the stock market is driven by. I'm going to do a little bit of the way that we're going to be driven by predominantly momentum.

[00:10:22] A personal momentum of if you wanted call it greed or fear right and obviously we've had a lot of positive momentum being driven by anyway we could talk a lot about this about.

[00:10:34] Or that all comes from but the momentum in the actual data and the statistics may or may not be correlated.

[00:10:41] I think the momentum is correlated we've certainly went through that but if you look at the last even last six months or even the data and other than the one point where I think pal came out and said.

[00:10:53] You know, I've we've reached our peak or I don't know what it was it was last year I think when he did something that really kind of set things off but if you look at the data for this year.

[00:11:01] I think it's a really great way to relate that with the momentum and the market it has not been they're not correlated no and the question will be will it correlate. Don't know you know but a lot of it's being driven so.

[00:11:15] You know I think I think you're right you know with that it's just. It's interesting and we've talked about this before too is so much of the trading on Wall Street is you automated trading as well.

[00:11:27] So it's not really what happened with lift earlier this week wasn't it they you know said 500 basis points was they were they were off versus 50 and all of a sudden that trading just triggered in and things went nuts over over a typo.

[00:11:42] So it's all right should we move ahead absolutely absolutely. We got friend will quit is with us this morning our recent guests glad to have will with us in a little note there. I know it's just advancing but.

[00:11:58] I bet he was here in time I'll get a little more in later on you know you what I didn't mention Tom in our intro was that the we're live this morning it's nine o'clock or nine 13 Pacific time on Friday the 16th.

[00:12:14] But we do this every week again both on LinkedIn live YouTube live and Facebook live so lots of options to watch the live podcast and broadcast here. And then our editors take this all of this information and put it on to all the podcast formats that Apple Spotify.

[00:12:31] Odyssey all of those by middle of the afternoon today and those will be available there and I think I forgot to mention that because I had a visitor in my home office here this morning so. Good. Want to jump ahead to the sea commerce and marketing segment sure.

[00:12:45] So. I was just going to say you know there's.

[00:12:51] This is from a digital commerce 360 I always like to try and reference where articles come from but they were just they you know they have a chart in there and they show you know the doubling over the last three or four years each year. Of.

[00:13:05] And so I think we had an article a few weeks ago that talked a little bit about e-commerce in general having had some flatter spots last year this article talking more about marketplaces.

[00:13:19] But it's it's pretty astounding and I just think that you know my big takeaway was that in the next two years that we could be seeing over a thousand B to be marketplaces available.

[00:13:31] Well there's seven hundred and fifty vertical B to be played marketplaces what they said right now. Yeah, and I think they said. And I don't know if it was 2006 what what was the there was like 76 or something have them.

[00:13:44] No, it was a real yes very very small amount and now you talk about niche I assume each of those are very very niche into certain verticals. I do have a question for you and and I know you were just at an e-commerce show as well.

[00:13:59] Yeah, I just struggle and I and again maybe it's just my lack of experience in this industry.

[00:14:06] But why would why is a buyer would I try and have all of these different vertical marketplaces that I'm buying from like what's the benefit to the buyer for this what's the benefit to the customer the end user for all of these and is there a benefit to the supplier or the to into the distributor.

[00:14:28] Well, that's that's a couple of big questions so this you know one guy's take on this and is I think what we're looking at when we look at all the vertical marketplaces where there more product category vertical right so it could be medical hard goods it could be medical disposable.

[00:14:50] It could be things like that or we could get into you know there could be one solely for power tools as an example different things like that. So I think that's where these numbers are coming it's less about theirs you know 25 of them that are solely for.

[00:15:07] You know, pipe valve and fitting or something like that right and then you have the different types of them of how they work right so we could talk about you know plumbing marketplaces.

[00:15:18] Trying to use a good example his I think this might be a good one right is there could be one where hey we're we're selling. The marketplace has water heaters and and plumbing related tools and and things like that.

[00:15:32] But there's no option site for it per se or great tool for finding the best pricing for bulk PVC pipe or iron pipe or whatever it might be and there could be another one that is like hey this is a particular marketplace for lumber right or lumber and drywall in truckload quantities that could be a whole new marketplace.

[00:15:57] And it's self just doing those types of things so I think we get these unique thing pieces based upon what is it you need to accomplish and then what marketplace or you.

[00:16:07] But I even like I and I'll bring up Kelly's common here you know she said eyeballs while markets 30 million views day actually though that if there's 750 of these.

[00:16:18] A lot to spread eyeballs around and I just I don't know I did seems to me that I understand what you're saying is that the fact that you can definitely.

[00:16:27] And I think that's a very critical of the fact that you can really realize and niche these very very specifically based on what the needs are it just seems obviously it's working because they're building more and more of them if there's going to be a thousand of them.

[00:16:39] Here very soon I just it's I'm struggling myself to see from an end user perspective how that's a huge benefit especially when you get all this and how this you know you're you're actually then taking those eyeballs and you're basically scattering them over all of these different places.

[00:16:56] So yeah it's it seems like the experience could be less the point I was trying to make with that is there won't be lots of them in each vertical okay.

[00:17:07] There will be and think about it maybe a good example would be just you compare that we own your experience and I and you know you know you know a ton about wholesale distribution.

[00:17:18] But you're a technology guy who only got involved in wholesale distribution you know an understanding that more was it six seven years ago probably right so you know a lot but think about where your knowledge was where your learning curve has grown.

[00:17:33] Right in all of the segments right that we work mostly within within lead smart you know we work a lot of building materials and. Plumbing in HVAC and P. Python fitting and so forth and then you move across into I mean.

[00:17:48] You know you've got think about the verticals that you have just within something safety related is an example you can have companies that you could have one vertical just marketplace just for personal protective equipment that's high visibility.

[00:18:02] You could have another one for respiratory protection right you can have the combined ones but I don't know how this will shake out.

[00:18:09] I would be surprised if you had more than you know eight or ten different ones depending on what you do but you would do different things and there will be overlap right you can go to.

[00:18:21] Teamu or Amazon now right and there's others trying to fight into that place I obviously Walmart as well as Kelly mentioned earlier so when you start looking about those pieces.

[00:18:32] I think that's what we're going to see is you may have multiple options but it's not like you're going to have 20 to do something you might have 20 available to you in your niche vertical but they do different things.

[00:18:45] Okay so good anyways I did that was just interesting it's it's cool to see that you know this is where we're moving and you know what it's I think one of our guests when we had a big show a few weeks ago with Mike and Durkin and Ian Heller you know one of the comments was made is just you have to follow the customer where the customer wants to buy right and what we see so often right now in this setting is that you've got.

[00:19:12] Companies coming into this arena right that aren't there that I should say that have been in this arena forever that are still trying to sell the way that they've always sold and that's not a way in solution sure. All right moving ahead here on mute.

[00:19:31] Did you're Mike you found go out that was just I needed for just a second there's a printer behind me that decided to reset itself so it was like going through a cycle you know all kinds of things stuff like I am Mr.

[00:19:46] For she my phones off and I've got some not the stirps on this point of what is up in your studio or whatever.

[00:19:53] Yeah, exactly thank you for that so anyways just finalizing in the last piece on that you know is we've got to follow the buyer where the buyer wants to buy the buyer is moving online the buyer wants to live his one of the takeaways that I had for this and I heard it this week at the conference I was at is look.

[00:20:14] People are moving more and more every day and it's interesting because we didn't hear people talk about this as much. You know even early last year but the words are being said very very clearly now in lots of formats is.

[00:20:28] The buyer that buys B to be products wants a B to be experience and it's being said from the mountain tops now versus people tap dancing around it a while back right it's like look.

[00:20:42] I I ordered Uber eats for my lunch right I want to get data while I'm eating my sandwich about what I'm doing for you know a faster order. And I want to have moved to my desk and have the same information available.

[00:20:57] I want to access quickly and easily to product specs and when I want to talk to a sales guy about showing me a sample or touring my facility.

[00:21:06] I want him to be available to because that's how I live my life right I can decide do I want my groceries delivered or do I want to go to the grocery store and I want to buy B to be supplies that way again.

[00:21:18] So I mean that's the consumer experience is driving the business experience and all aspects of business not just in wholesale distribution but virtually everything so.

[00:21:29] Good. All right we got to move on to some you you're excited about so let's jump ahead you know is a reminder we updated the newsletter that we put out each week around the horn and manufacturing wholesale distribution and the.

[00:21:44] Now we have specific segments we have a segment this week that we want to talk about a few articles from about technology cybersecurity and AI got a few of each of those going on here so the first one.

[00:21:56] Open AI is developing AI agents time you've been talking about this long before the announcements was made so all to fire off on this first.

[00:22:06] Well I think it might it might be worthwhile to take a minute and take a step back and say what is an AI agent right great.

[00:22:13] And this is not anything again new but if you've used you know you've used chat GPT you've built GPT's right you built in you built your own custom GPT so if you either built those or you've actually used them built another.

[00:22:28] Yeah essentially those are quote unquote agents right the whole open AI and and if you would as an agent basically an agent is an AI tool.

[00:22:38] It's obviously based around the AI model it takes some input and it provides some output right so if you build an agent to build marketing materials.

[00:22:47] You give it some input you give it a prompt and then the on the other side it may create a blog post or a data sheet or whatever the case may be right that's an example of the agent.

[00:22:59] When they release the whole ability to create these GPT's a year or so ago or when maybe it's not that long now but a few months ago and even some of the developer tools that have came out. You know they said this was our first step in.

[00:23:13] In this sort of AI agent world. This is sort of the baby step right you talk about crawl walk around this is crawl you can build these and so forth now what their.

[00:23:25] I think hinting at because they're not available yet is that now you'll be soon you'll be able to build agents that not only.

[00:23:32] Take input and give you an output but then automate actions so rather than saying okay build me a blog post and use my GPT that has all of my company data and all of that to create a blog post it's going to be.

[00:23:47] You just set it here I want to build an agent to order me lunch on door dash and have it automatically go and do that.

[00:23:54] What is intriguing about this is that you would think well got that would be very difficult to build these automated things because you'd have to know. API code and how you link to all these applications.

[00:24:08] And what they talk about in here is that they're not going to use API these agents don't use APIs they use. They basically emulate what you would be doing if you were sitting at the keyboard.

[00:24:19] So if you were going to go order door dash for lunch you would sit down and go to your mobile app or your desktop and you would put in what you want in order your food and blah blah blah. Right.

[00:24:30] And what the agents will be able to do is be able to automate those actions almost like keystrokes emulate what you do on all of these different sites and then it will learn you know yeah you'd always order sushi for lunch or whatever the case may be right it's going to learn what you do.

[00:24:48] And then be able to automate those things as you go forward. So when you think about the number of business applications that are out there, you wouldn't have to rely on APIs and you know Kevin.

[00:25:00] The hell that we've gone through dealing with API right your systems and all of that kind of stuff and we've talked about it on the show about.

[00:25:09] And so the API is in some of the you know companies not letting you get access or charging large amounts for them.

[00:25:15] And theory this could bypass the entire API structure right that's what I wanted to kind of talk about there's just two things that I think we should talk about with us right so.

[00:25:25] To boil this down I think you did a nice job of identifying what those are and how that what they would be right is we have different things that will say. Very easily by voice command likely do something mundane that says take this data right and maybe it's.

[00:25:43] We get to a place where we can even tell it what file that spreadsheet is in or we can take a bunch of statistics that came out of an article earlier and say take these multiple articles.

[00:25:57] And then take the data from them and by voice command and put them into a spreadsheet and send them to these three people right so that's manipulating data in that setting. Next phase of that would be.

[00:26:12] And then if John responds with these three responses, then schedule a meeting for John and I next Tuesday. But schedule it for both of us by working with his assistant to find a time that works out because but we should meet in San Diego face.

[00:26:30] And now all of those things trigger right because we would now have hotels booked potentially we've our assistant looked at John's assistance calendar.

[00:26:41] Maybe it's sent a reminder to John that says hey Kevin wants to meet with you in San Diego next week are you cool of that everything looks smooth for you and I've got flight standing by right.

[00:26:53] I think that that sounds just astounding for me, I've looked at it from away and I'm coming around using AI and this in a lot of settings is. Show me that use case and let me ease into it.

[00:27:10] Let me get comfortable with some things that I saw it.

[00:27:13] I saw it actually from a all from an analog world, I saw some digital things happening that now I have a confidence in and I can take another step closer to that on a consistent basis that's kind of my take away from this.

[00:27:29] Yeah, I think that you know I've always told you where I've been saying beating the drum right AI adoption will basically hockey stick when when you experienced that killer app.

[00:27:43] Yeah and I've been saying you have months now that the agents are going to be the foundation of those killer apps.

[00:27:51] What and I think again, obviously the devil is in the details if this works right but if it works the way that they're saying that's going to work.

[00:27:59] Where you wouldn't need to use APIs and you could basically emulate anything that you're doing through an AI and assuming our agent assuming that they even work halfway decent and they don't go off and do crazy stuff right you look at the potential.

[00:28:14] Not just a killer app but the killer applications that are possible from that and just you know in your personal life alone, but look at the business side of that.

[00:28:23] It really completely allows you to rethink a whole lot of ways that you go about everything that you do. I do believe that when that is making your life way more productive easier enjoyable opening up opportunities that you wouldn't have before.

[00:28:40] That is going to be the killer app of AI and that is going to be what I believe which will skyrocket the adoption and change it from being well let's you know stay on the sidelines and kind of watch and see how it goes to how fast can I get this into my company.

[00:28:54] So that's good I got a couple questions I want to ask you about this I wanted to hit.

[00:29:00] Will's comment there right he said a new way of saying your people talk to my people right and I see something like that and I do like that thought right I see that moving to a place where we.

[00:29:16] The groundwork is laid and I'll just use you know will's comment there and.

[00:29:22] I need to meet with will I've shared a bunch of information with will I've had all of that automated maybe I had it sent to myself as well so we could you know I could spot check things along that way but.

[00:29:35] I could get all of this groundwork done before I even do a phone call with will right so I could you know or I could send what's wheels and Chicago land area we need to meet in San Diego. Our our agents have done all the work.

[00:29:50] I could then call will because I still want to live in a human personal world right and say hey will are you cool with all of that did you get everything are you comfortable with it and we talk personally for a moment and say great.

[00:30:05] I'm going to get there hate I just heard about this new restaurant if you're cool with having this kind of food while we're in town.

[00:30:12] I'm going to have my agent book us a meal but we get to play that right all the legwork about what we're going to do got done by our agents by managing the data managing the trips all of those things and we're kind of separating the resources that it's going to use it's going to do things like preparing things for.

[00:30:31] Documents evaluations analysis making spreadsheets be able to do some of those things and then the separate piece of it that becomes more personal is it prepares us to go make that trip. Yeah and and again I.

[00:30:46] You know the trip is or the meeting is just one little sliver of the possible things that could could be automated.

[00:30:53] I mean I this is a hypothetical out of or use case out of millions of them right right but we could be with that so I really want to emphasize the api thing because.

[00:31:04] Right now integrating applications as you know and if we we live through every day is difficult even with apis right it's in its requires programming it requires a whole lot of things.

[00:31:19] You remove that barrier of the api and you look at all of the ways of connectivity potential connectivity between technology and and just anything that you do. It's really really mind boggling when you start again I.

[00:31:36] I'll have to believe it when I see it right but if you just look at where obviously a lot of billions of dollars are being invested to make this a reality. It is going to become a reality is just a matter of when versus if so.

[00:31:52] I want to unpack two things related this because this is an important topic right and I mean we could probably do in fact this will be a great conversation we've got next month.

[00:32:01] Actually I think it's an April we've got Lin Chase coming on with us and I met Leonard and a i conference last October.

[00:32:09] She was one of the key notes and Lin is you know has been in the AI world for 20 plus years she's PhD doctor Lin Chase and.

[00:32:18] She's and she's fun so it'll be a good discussion but this might be a great kind of key for us to chat about this because what I really want to do you know we're here.

[00:32:29] To help folks that are in manufacturing and wholesale distribution understand the things that are going on in the world whether it's economic or its IT or it's.

[00:32:38] People or whatever it is an AI to help them understand and unpack what this means to then moving forward we wouldn't exist we wouldn't come here every Friday if it wasn't for that.

[00:32:47] And our goal with leads more technologies is to support companies in their digital transformation in digital growth by helping accelerate their businesses growth in general. So this is important stuff because how we work could be extremely different in the coming months and certainly years.

[00:33:07] So a couple of things with that right let's take a step back we have people that. Join us regularly who maybe even an API doesn't is and clear to them right so I'm going to describe this one in you enhances that are right.

[00:33:22] I guess sure yeah because I'm the unless technical right so application protocol interface right it's a. It's a application program and I'm so program thank you.

[00:33:34] So what it allows us to do is and I use I've literally talking to my wife about this over lunch yesterday because we were talking about this article and some other things.

[00:33:43] I use the example of her calendaring app that she uses with her customers and my wife has a marketing design and print company and she uses calendar like I use right and we connect.

[00:33:55] Calamely which is a SaaS or cloud based software program that we access through a browser.

[00:34:01] To a desktop product called outlook in our case or Gmail or whatever and those two things can talk right and it says don't allow anybody to schedule on Kevin's calendar because the software product,

[00:34:16] Calamely can see outlook and says Kevin is not available those are APIs software not software but code that has to connect two pieces to your point earlier we see this every day where we work with customers that struggle with API's from their legacy type ERP systems that aren't easy to use and we're solving those issues day to day right now everything we want to do is a big world of APIs.

[00:34:43] To your point was when we get through AI technology that allows us to do these things because of shared and pooled connections and data without that programming interface.

[00:34:56] That's lines and lines of code lack of a better term it just kind of happens the amount of connections and things that we can see amongst not only our tools within our company but externally will change the world.

[00:35:13] I think that's a good good explanation and it's going to open up the number of permutations of communication between technology applications.

[00:35:26] And you're going to be able to train the whole idea right if I sat and watched what you did every day or I let the computer watch what you do every day as you said in your.

[00:35:37] We can look at that and then use that to train these agents as they how do we best automate or where do we want to automate the things that are being done.

[00:35:46] Every day or whatever as an individual as organization as a team as whatever the case may be and then be able to train the different scenarios not based around programming APIs like you just said connecting through the plumbing from outlook into your calendar or whatever the case may be.

[00:36:05] But actually, but to train based on the actions that you actually taken and want to be. So anyway, a very interesting they've talked about this for a while I think we're going to see.

[00:36:21] I think we're going to see the first glimpse of this it'll be very beta and very rough I'm sure but I think we're going to see the first glimpse of this probably in Q three later Q three end of the summer fall.

[00:36:33] I'm coming from open AI there's other companies that are doing this as well, but I think from the opening I perspective we're going to see this somewhere in the.

[00:36:42] Yeah, I want to go if you stick with before we move on to the next article I've got another question that goes with you to go.

[00:36:50] I can't remember the name of it quickly you sent me a link a couple of weeks ago, Barry and month ago now about a device right that would have been developed what was it called again.

[00:37:02] A rabbit yeah the rabbit right so it was it kind of looks like a smart phone but it doesn't have smartphone features it's all AI so let's before we go on talk a little bit about this from a standpoint of.

[00:37:18] Where will this take place for us right right now I go to my phone and I do you know where we at what is the smart phone 15 years old iPhone now something like that. That's late yeah okay so pretty close there.

[00:37:32] That changed our world right so most of us are thinking about okay I sit either work. On phone a tablet or my computer and I have all of these apps I have software programs as well Tom I'm asking you this is a computer scientist.

[00:37:52] How does all this take place is it on my device I know apples talking about having your whole language model for what your personal needs are on your device what does that look like from where does this stuff happen.

[00:38:05] What when you say where does it happen where do you train the agents are where do the. What's let's look at that right model has to be trained about what I use where's that happening.

[00:38:16] How do how am I going to then access that and what is that likely interface look like from what we know today it's going to be different in months and a year but from what we know today what does that look like. So.

[00:38:29] I but the training aspect of a will happen everywhere so whether you're on a phone a desktop tablet or. You know you're a R glasses or whatever the case maybe right a lot of the training I believe will occur.

[00:38:43] Omni omnipresently wherever you wherever you're dealing with and it's not just it just happens automatically you're going to have to. You know either as an individual or as a company work out how you go about the training process so the training process shouldn't be.

[00:39:00] Under estimated but it will happen everywhere yeah where it will actually run and be executed I believe will predominantly. Beyond a mobile device and I think it'll predominantly be voice driven.

[00:39:13] Also you know maybe not even entirely again once this whole thing with AR and VR actually becomes practical don't have other things that will drive it but short term it will be voice driven. So.

[00:39:26] You would just you know and if you look at what Siri is trying to do today or even Alexa and they do it very poorly.

[00:39:33] They're trying to take away what you go to this app and you go to that app they're basically trying to say you tell it what to do and then it will try and. You're out what to do it just doesn't very poorly.

[00:39:42] Yes, but if you look at that inside of that was being done very well and you just basically say order me lunch. I want sushi right that's all you have to say it then does everything else and then the sushi shows up at your.

[00:39:57] Your house right from the place that you want to order the sushi from or whatever the case may be. Or ask you do you want me to do you want me to sushi again. I today.

[00:40:08] Maybe it knows what you're lower right right right right right right yeah you know you normally order this on Friday. I don't know so those are the types of things that are going to go through I do believe it's not that the desktop will go away.

[00:40:21] I do believe there'll be a lot that will occur on the desktop but I do think more and more. The mobile device the tablet device the all of that is going to have way more capability rather than jumping around from app to actually execute on these things.

[00:40:35] And yes with the new Apple phone that's coming out I think later this year having. The ability to even have a local model having local data on your phone personal information combined with it just you start to piece connect all the dots here and you can see.

[00:40:51] Where this will go and what the capabilities will be we haven't seen it yet we have an experience to yet right so we haven't had that killer app.

[00:40:59] So it's a moment that we had in 2008 with the iPhone and with a smart phone but it's coming faster than we think. So that's great so just triggered for me in this conversation is you know I think it was Steve Jobs who had said.

[00:41:14] Your our job is not to give you what you want and create the product you want our job is to show you.

[00:41:22] You will need right and I think that's where we're headed so I do like this we're all of this is had and I think what's going to be interesting for us is you know and.

[00:41:34] And I'm sorry I'm going to take a quick step back what you talking about what Apple's doing is right now we have a large language model right that's accessing the internet and.

[00:41:43] Other pieces of data when we use chat GPT as an example right that's the world what's going to be on our phone is portions of the world but everything about Kevin.

[00:41:54] And it's going to know me which is why we're able to do that on a singular device when we're probably headed long term is the world will be available to me through my glasses that I'm reading.

[00:42:06] Through my device and those two things will be synchronizing as well as wherever I'm at my desktop and my desktop will probably launch new things when I set my phone down because my glasses see that I'm in front of a desktop right.

[00:42:20] These are the types of things that are not far away from us. That are going to be very quickly available to us. I'm going to tie this back to why we're here every week right.

[00:42:31] If women if I'm in manufacturing and I'm in wholesale distribution I have got to be thinking about how this is going to impact my my workforce.

[00:42:40] My customers and the growth and change within my organization and I need to be thinking about those things today do we have to have it figured out no but am I moving the direction we're in preparing myself.

[00:42:51] In my organization for the changes that are coming where my buyer is going to have more data available to him than we ever had right 20 years ago when I started in you know 30 plus years ago when I started in wholesale distribution.

[00:43:08] I got to show up in his van or in his sedan and went into the factory with a bag of samples and said this is what's your available to you.

[00:43:15] And maybe two or three other guys did the same thing and they bought based upon our recommendations this is a whole different world.

[00:43:23] Anyways, I'll get off my soap box but I thought this was a really exciting article for us. It's time for us to be preparing for this that article also said that Google had some of these capabilities to schedule appointments and things like that in 2018.

[00:43:37] But they never launched it because they thought the world would not be able to handle it. So November of 2022 chat GPT came along and now we're moving much quicker in this arena so. Good stuff. We will everybody posted as the story.

[00:43:55] Well, and so we're going to continue to talk about this right because I mean I was it was great. I talked about earlier. I was at a Savannah earlier this week and I had you know I probably met close to 10 people who I never met before.

[00:44:09] Some of them I wasn't even aware of their companies who come to the podcast every week and that's just so.

[00:44:15] I love that right. I met a gentleman a lot of part of the day on on Wednesday just before we were leaving and we had not a chance. New of his company, but we had not a chance to meet before and he's a regular coming to the show. So I think people are looking to us to bring some of this to him.

[00:44:31] So anyways, a couple other articles and our same technology session here segment article from Ink magazine Google.

[00:44:40] Had a and we'll move on this really quick Google had an article or an ad and the Super Bowl about accessibility right and it was a really neat thing what they did is they had you know a blind man was able to show it showed how he's able to like capture important moments and enhances relationship with his girlfriend.

[00:45:00] Based upon just how he uses a smartphone and we could spend a lot of time talking about that take away for me and when I thought was really cool about that was. And we have this in our technology segment here about AI and technology.

[00:45:15] This could almost be in our our people section right where we talk about about folk people out there, but I think this to me was AI and the advancement of technology is going to be a huge help to people with disabilities and with excessive.

[00:45:29] And it's going to open up more jobs and opportunities to them and folks that have those challenges that are already working and wholesale distribution and manufacturing. Are going to be able to be even more valuable to their organizations because of what's happening with this and.

[00:45:45] Dernie and I had my wife and I had dinner with some dear friends up in Newport Beach last Friday night and my good friend Paul Lane who's with us sometimes Paul's as a radio show with ABC radio and.

[00:45:59] And he works with Sony as a consultant on accessibility he's worked with Google and Samsung as on his accessibility consultant and watching how his life is enhanced by this is phenomenal so good stuff. It's there is a lot of accessibility obviously and and so forth is huge.

[00:46:23] I think you also have the same opportunity when you just think about you talk about the world being small and the internationalization of everything.

[00:46:31] Yep, is that you know language barriers and all of that stuff will really really be significantly reduced right so it's if you think about it right it's it's whether it's an accessibility issue from a handy cap perspective or just a different location or a different.

[00:46:46] It's removing barriers that have existed. Yeah, you know for eternity right and you it's it's really interesting I think the point here is really good is like at the end of the day how does it really help to people.

[00:47:01] Even stuff we talked about how does it really helped. Doesn't matter if it doesn't bring value to our life right I heard that in a minute share something with you real quick because we're in a few minutes will have another article about you know.

[00:47:14] People's jobs are really in the loose jobs we're going to gain jobs. What's going to happen from AI and there's all this worry and one of the panels I was listening to the other days.

[00:47:23] Chris Bond from APR Supply large HVAC and plumbing distributor that's affiliated distributors member in. Pennsylvania Chris was and and I got had a chance to talk to before session but didn't get to talk to them in depth afterwards, but.

[00:47:40] Chris made this great comment because people were talking about replacing jobs and so forth and he said look he said everybody said that about computers right and you know in the in the 80s we had you know big terminal green screens on desks but when PCs came around it was supposed to just change everything.

[00:47:58] Well, is anybody any less busy. Are we have do we have less jobs because we have computers probably not we probably actually have more jobs and Chris made that kind of correlation between this we'll see what's going on.

[00:48:09] Between this we'll see what plays out but I love that he. Betty brought that up so. Tom was jump ahead we have an article in this segment as well and by the way just as a caveat.

[00:48:20] As we're doing this show each week if you're listening in on the podcast Apple Spotify whatever platform it might be.

[00:48:27] What you're not seeing is a Tom and I are looking through a series of articles that are up on the screen that come from the newsletter we put out every week around the hoarding wholesale distribution and manufacturing.

[00:48:38] We do that on Friday mornings where we review that newsletter the newsletter goes out on Fridays if you would like a copy of that because you're not seeing it here.

[00:48:46] Just email us at hello at leadsmartek.com or go to the website for our show here which is www dot around the hoard pod.com and lots of information about the show there as well as you can sign up for the newsletter so.

[00:49:01] article here about scammers using generative AI to improve scale of fishing attacks. We've talked about this quite a bit already take away is that they did a large survey 65% of organizations experience attempted or actual payment fraud in 2022 with 71% of those companies have lost money or compromised through email.

[00:49:27] The challenge that we have here is that distinguishing between what's real in the world right now is going to get harder and harder and we're going to need to be diligent in our organizations about figuring that out.

[00:49:39] Yeah, and it's I actually believe what we just talked about with the agents can ultimately end up helping this quite a bit and helping avoid some of this situation.

[00:49:51] Anyway, we will see about that but yes, we've talked about this a lot but I do think that on the on the bright side of it there's a lot of things that are coming that are going to make this.

[00:50:00] Yeah, we're difficult right yes there the criminals are using generative AI to their advantage but there's also ways to use AI to actually counteract that. I'm glad you brought that because I think we're going to see a lot about that that cast who spoke at the.

[00:50:17] Distribution strategy groups AI event in Chicago last October, I think he's speaking at it again in June and looking forward to seeing him again, in fact you're supposed to be getting together with him, he'd ask me to connect you guys because he's in Santa Barbara where you are as well, but Zach who was one of the.

[00:50:33] Early team members at open AI makers of chat, GPT he was part of the original team that. The lead a big part of the team that got it ready for prime time to introduce it into the world and commercialize it but.

[00:50:49] Zach just made the comment at that event which I did just really resonates with me.

[00:50:53] He said there are this too much good in the work and the use of AI for the world that the in business that that will overcome the challenges just like you know, and I think he used the term right your.

[00:51:07] The prince from Nigeria's emails we figured that out pretty quick that those weren't real and we shouldn't send money so we get more money later to the guy in Nigeria okay no offense to anybody in Nigeria, we just all remember those scam emails right.

[00:51:20] We figured that stuff out we're going to figure this out again in that setting so. Good piece there a good good article that just good to be paying attention to.

[00:51:31] So another article we just intercales an M&A segment there's a spot there from the electrical distributor magazine Ted magazine. They're publisher will be on with us in the next few weeks as a guest as well.

[00:51:44] They talk about affiliated distributors we've mentioned earlier about the growth and revenue. Huge sales record 70 almost 79 billion dollars in sales through their organization of their memorizations it's crazy so need to see that.

[00:52:01] Another article that was published that we referenced here today is about seizing opportunities for growth and innovation in 2022 24 and beyond.

[00:52:10] That's an article from industrial distribution magazine it talks about you know the challenges that we've seen in the economy in the world over the last few years through the pandemic and so forth.

[00:52:21] But it paints a nice picture we won't go into it a lot of topics there because we've talked about so many of them today right data data analytics moving our businesses ahead and thinking about how we what you know it's kind of the ultimate what got us here won't get us there mode I was talking to a large distributor.

[00:52:41] This earlier this week and company that's looking apart ring with us at least smart is I won't use the numbers but family owned company that's third generation.

[00:52:53] What they've accomplished in sales growth over the last say 50 years they're planning on doubling in the next five right you can't do that without the right technology and the right mindset so i thought that was pretty neat to to kind of compare those things so that article was great.

[00:53:09] about sharing some good spots about you know managing tradition with technology local businesses having an opportunity to go broke local growth globally through e-commerce great examples of that in there.

[00:53:24] Agreed yep all right let's hit on this a little bit another article and our people and leadership segment about. what we've talked about is a general in a device threat out there about job opportunities versus layoffs.

[00:53:39] And we've talked about this a lot already today but this was an interesting piece right it talked about in the tech segment of the market or the economy there's been 33 thousand layoffs this year right.

[00:53:51] But it was interesting it was talking about it's not tied to AI right it's tied to wall street typically or companies that just haven't been able to scale and make it that are closing down so i whatever your takes on some of this some of this piece about.

[00:54:07] Yeah I mean there's i have a lot of takes on the layoffs and everything else which we can save for another day but i think is a relates to this article.

[00:54:15] What i would i think is very interesting and it kind of ties into everything that we've been talking about today. And it's the job postings and the skills and the criteria that companies are looking for right our.

[00:54:29] Very different than they would have been maybe even six months ago and if you think about just what we just talked about about all those agents and training agents and all of that stuff and i mean just think about.

[00:54:42] And you don't it's assuming that that type of scenario exists you don't need to hire people to do those things you need to hire people that can facilitate those things right and that's a very different.

[00:54:55] Skill set it's a very different job if you want to call it that then what we're used to hiring where we are whole life right we've been hiring people that can do stuff.

[00:55:05] Now we need to hire people that can facilitate stuff and and that's a very different set of skills to facilitate versus actually do.

[00:55:17] And that's what you're seeing in these job postings right it's sector inspectors prone to automation labor market experts are seeing evidence of a notable shift toward hiring fewer employees.

[00:55:28] Yes, you are generally going to hire it's you're going to have to hire fewer right because you don't need the same number of people to do the things you can have one person facilitating what 20 people or 50 people are 100 people were potentially doing before and obviously in certain industries and certain situations is going to be different but even in software programming we're seeing that now.

[00:55:48] Right you don't need to hire a hundred developers to. Right to do the you know writing code you can hire maybe three developers or five developers or 10 developers but you're more facilitating that through the process that they're using AI so anyway it's just a very different mindset.

[00:56:08] I like like the article made a comment here right generative AI is a new form of offshore outsourcing but instead of jobs going to India China this time they're going into the machine right yeah, but the you know the takeaway for this right is.

[00:56:23] I think we're going to see this very quickly and and I think our friend Dirk Beverage is he talks about people regularly talks about the was he called the non desk employees right the warehouse workers and so forth that's what somebody.

[00:56:38] And and so what comes to my mind about that is those people are going to become really valuable because when all of a sudden they're smart phone right and this can be happening later this year to your comment earlier apple releases an iPhone.

[00:56:52] That's got a language model built into it on my personal device I am going to become very.

[00:57:00] Conversant in using AI tools and it doesn't matter whether I drive a forklift or I'm running IT at a manufacturing planner distributor we're all going to become more conversant in this what I loved about it is it talked about.

[00:57:14] It's changes coming where people will be getting what they called micro credentials right so you don't need to go be an AI expert to work in a manufacturing plant.

[00:57:24] About everything AI does you might be become a micro credentialed in ERP and AI or micro credentialed in warehouse management and AI and I thought that was really unique point so I think we're going to you know we're going to see changes.

[00:57:41] I don't know that you know it'll be interesting to go back and see net net what we end up with.

[00:57:46] But I don't think it's going to my opinion is I don't think we're going to see the because just because I need fewer workers in my business does not mean there's not a spot for those people right those people that have those skills will find somewhere else to be just because there's new businesses starting every day.

[00:58:04] And this is going to be the generative AI is going to help more and more businesses get started as well so. Yeah, I mean there's you again you're going to have. The micro credential thing I think is really interesting but I we've talked about this before.

[00:58:21] As as an employee right you're going to have to be able to a really be able to understand the business. Mm-hmm. A lot of times employees don't really understand the business they understand their job right they don't understand their business.

[00:58:34] So you're going to have to really understand the business whether that's in the sales marketing whatever production, whatever part operations, whatever part of. And then you're going to have to know again as I said how to facilitate that.

[00:58:47] And what we're trying to accomplish in that business. So the skills and the things it has an employee you're going to have to be able to do, which makes sense on the micro credentials because you can't be.

[00:58:58] It's it's unrealistic think you're going to know every part of the business but you might be expert in the sales and marketing aspect of it or the customer service aspect of it or the whatever the case may be and then there are going to be people that are going to have to have that more holistic view of everything that's there.

[00:59:12] So. And that's where big the big salaries I think are going to end up getting paid. Well very much you could be, you know in the last thing about you know, telling me to comment here and the chat about, you know,

[00:59:22] In this is something that you've you've mentioned right I think you big what is is the term that we've used right going to our smartphone to use an app and check on whatever it might be has just become part of our life.

[00:59:35] Our life will just be a little bit different where co pilot's are doing different things for us. And I mean it'll be interesting in five years for us to go back and play through some of these episodes as we've been talking about that to see where we talked about things were and where we actually have come right we're going to be giggling about it because you know,

[00:59:53] I could be sitting on the beach this morning doing the podcast from there and getting fed information into my glasses and that's just part of life.

[01:00:02] Good. All right, so kind of jump in ahead we've got our industry scuttle about section we do each week couple of good articles there about friends at various Nepal noble and his team getting involved deeper with both AWS and this is this is really an interesting thing because.

[01:00:20] Well, thank you Kelly Kelly Kelly made the comment that leads smart will be the driver of some of this we hope so that's the intention. So. Paul's company, Verus and works with with with manufacturers on both automation AI tools and so forth about driving results.

[01:00:37] Works with automakers and so forth great guy there now partnered deeper with with AWS which is cool westgo and reconcile both both competitive companies both announced some results. That's available there we have a special feature that we do each week.

[01:00:53] We do it most weeks we don't always have something we want to put in there but this week there's a great article in heller with the distribution strategy group in companies sponsors the.

[01:01:05] AI distribution session last October they had a great when they've got another one coming up in June we'll be participating that again in wrote a great article about why AI holds more potential for distributors than for retailers.

[01:01:20] Interesting thought process work a read you can find that a distribution strategy group dot com.

[01:01:26] We also have a second look if we've segment of our newsletter each week we've talked about something before we talked about four last week and their losses based upon the UAW strike now they're rethinking where they're going to make their cars.

[01:01:40] And they called it a watershed moment that they're at right now about labor people and where they're going to make their cars so I think that'll be an interesting thing finally closing out today we had an article that we try and post each week we call it good reads.

[01:01:57] Sometimes is about executive health that might be about leadership it might be about organizational development or just might be something fun. Nice article from ink magazine seven examples of poor leadership behavior that limits business success if you're running a team I thought that was a good article.

[01:02:16] Again, if you don't get the newsletter reach out to us at hello at leads smart tech.com we'll get the newsletter that article was from ink magazine seven examples of poor leadership behavior that limit business success so that's it I covered the newsletter for the week.

[01:02:31] Yeah, you know and I do you just mentioned the leadership piece I think that. And maybe we should go back and post some of this from from the conversation we had with dirt couple weeks ago.

[01:02:44] If I look if I was to look ahead and kind of be futuristic here in business that really the three legs of the stool are going to be for business success is that culture and leadership is going to be critical.

[01:02:58] You combine that culture and leadership that dirt was talking about you talk about the AI adoption and in the use of AI.

[01:03:07] Intelligently and productively and then you look at just how you are hiring that we just went through if you look at all three of those things there they all are interrelated and if I and I think, you know we're trying to do this on our own business right that it's not just this isn't just about.

[01:03:22] No, so I'm not really efficient. I think any business that three things that you've got to be thinking about is your culture and leadership. How you're going to incorporate AI into the business and the way that we've talked about it.

[01:03:34] And what are the types of people that you need to be bringing on to facilitate what you're going to be doing in there again with the right leadership and the right culture the two three all feed on each other so.

[01:03:45] It's it's to me becoming very, very clear those are the three legs of the stool that are going to be critical and business that I think of often been overlooked right and that's what one of the things jerks big points is you know this is being recorded right.

[01:04:00] Oh it is yeah because you coming I will say this with all due respect right having we're we're both older than then most and so we had an early career where people just got stuff done.

[01:04:14] Right and so you you sub-tab we were in a meeting a couple weeks and you're like culture just not what I think about all the time right it's not necessarily. No, it's it's not your thing.

[01:04:25] I'm not immune to this new world right it's like it's it's some it's but it's the fact of the matter is it is very important because think about it you don't want to be bringing in people that you're really going to.

[01:04:39] To ask to really learn a lot your about your business and become fluent about your business and how to facilitate your business and then have a crappy culture.

[01:04:48] In poor leadership and have them running and jumping from job to job I mean that becomes untenable so I do believe that actually.

[01:04:55] The job hopping part of this we're going off on a tangent and I know we need to wrap up that the job hopping part of this.

[01:05:03] Which we've seen over the years I think the idea of a career is actually going to come back you're going to get people that are going to spend longer times in a job and so if you're going to try and create that environment the leadership and the culture.

[01:05:15] Is very important it's not an area that I've certainly have been very good at I don't believe in my career but it doesn't mean that it's not relevant or super important as we move ahead so.

[01:05:26] And I made that comment that you would you know about that not being your thing but the reality of it is is you.

[01:05:34] You build the culture within your team and help me within our organization that is just by being a good person right I think where you might I don't want to put words in your mouth that you're disconnect on culture is the concept of I have to go work on.

[01:05:48] What is culture look like and things like that right as opposed to you you develop on your own a good culture of a good.

[01:05:56] I look at my first job right what I walked into a first tech job they handle me a pile of manuals and they said figure this out and go do your job right which made sense because I was hired to do a job.

[01:06:08] I wasn't hired to facilitate doing something in the organization so.

[01:06:13] I'd been hired for a different purpose the culture and the leadership and you know it took me probably I worked for that company my first company with 11 years you're probably took me three years to figure out what they really did.

[01:06:26] Right because that wasn't that wasn't what I was trained on I was trained to do my job or asked to do a job versus understanding what the business was actually trying to do. So anyway I know we're going off on a.

[01:06:40] That's good enough right but but I think that is I think it's a phenomenal point you made right is maybe by having the right culture right in the right culture is not ping pong.

[01:06:51] You know what I made a quick little video the other day that some might on my. Link then you know about people this event I was at it doesn't matter which association or buying group that you know I travel to a visit with is.

[01:07:12] You know dirt beverage calls at the noble calling of distribution right there these are good people out there right and. And when I'm on the tech side of the world and the conferences and events related to tech it's not that they're bad people.

[01:07:26] It's a different feel than there is that when I visit a customer and I'm getting ready to get to the East Coast and visit a bunch of customers next couple weeks and.

[01:07:36] It's a different it's a different feeling a different take so cultures is an important piece of the so it's good. Let's wrap up on that right. Yeah, good Tom thank you for today.

[01:07:46] Thank you for the comments thank you for those that were we're here with us we're appreciative of that and. Anything exciting for the weekend or just recovering from your.

[01:07:56] Yeah, we're a little bit of recovery and some catch up so get to the gym and getting the choosy this afternoon. So be good all right well Kevin Brown here Tom Burton co founders of leads smart technologies.

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