Fed Rate Cuts: What It Means For Wholesale Distribution and Manufacturing

[00:00:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to Around the Horn in Wholesale Distribution with Kevin Brown and Tom Burton.

[00:00:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Sponsored each week by Lead Smart Technologies, Tom, Kevin and their guests review the news

[00:00:15] [SPEAKER_00]: of the week and dive deep into the topics impacting manufacturers, wholesale distribution,

[00:00:20] [SPEAKER_00]: independent sales agents and the global wholesale supply chain.

[00:00:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Whether it's M&A, SaaS and cloud computing, B2B e-commerce or supply chain issues, we

[00:00:31] [SPEAKER_00]: peel back the onion with our guests into the topics that impact your business the most.

[00:00:37] [SPEAKER_00]: How are you my friend?

[00:00:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Doing good.

[00:00:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Very good.

[00:00:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Your week's been alright?

[00:00:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Been good.

[00:00:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Or you've been busy?

[00:00:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Been good.

[00:00:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, let's dive on in.

[00:00:46] [SPEAKER_01]: My name is Kevin Brown.

[00:00:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm here with my lifelong friend and business partner Tom Burton.

[00:00:50] [SPEAKER_01]: We get together every Friday morning here on Around the Horn in Wholesale Distribution

[00:00:56] [SPEAKER_01]: and Manufacturing.

[00:00:57] [SPEAKER_01]: We try and pull together the news of the week, mostly North American news, a little

[00:01:02] [SPEAKER_01]: bit international news as well as it impacts wholesale distribution and manufacturing.

[00:01:06] [SPEAKER_01]: We put that together in a newsletter by the same title.

[00:01:09] [SPEAKER_01]: That newsletter goes out to about 10,000 plus people each week and we unpack that

[00:01:15] [SPEAKER_01]: news here on our live stream and our podcast.

[00:01:19] [SPEAKER_01]: We're here this morning.

[00:01:20] [SPEAKER_01]: You might be listening to us or watching with us on LinkedIn live, could be Facebook

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[00:01:28] [SPEAKER_01]: If you're listening that would be on one of the podcast formats.

[00:01:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Our great producer and editor John Taylor pulls all this together later in the day

[00:01:37] [SPEAKER_01]: for us to get it up on Apple and Spotify and Odyssey and all the top podcast platforms.

[00:01:43] [SPEAKER_01]: If you're listening in though, you would not be seeing the newsletter.

[00:01:46] [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to be posting that newsletter here that we walk through each day.

[00:01:49] [SPEAKER_01]: So if you would like to get the newsletter, as so many do, just send us a note.

[00:01:54] [SPEAKER_01]: You can do that at hello at leadsmarttech.com and hello again at leadsmarttech.com

[00:02:01] [SPEAKER_01]: and then you could also go to the website that we have for our live show and podcast

[00:02:06] [SPEAKER_01]: which is www.aroundthehornpod.com.

[00:02:11] [SPEAKER_01]: We're able to be here every week because the company that Tom and I work for,

[00:02:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Leadsmart Technologies, covers the costs of all of this and sponsors the show.

[00:02:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Leadsmart is an AI-enabled CRM and customer intelligence solution that's been built specifically

[00:02:25] [SPEAKER_01]: for wholesale distributions and manufacturers.

[00:02:28] [SPEAKER_01]: We have versions for both to help accelerate growth.

[00:02:31] [SPEAKER_01]: The reason it does that is because it gives never before seen insights into customers

[00:02:36] [SPEAKER_01]: and what you're doing with your customers.

[00:02:39] [SPEAKER_01]: What are you selling?

[00:02:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Are you selling the right products?

[00:02:41] [SPEAKER_01]: What should you be selling?

[00:02:42] [SPEAKER_01]: What's going on with your quotes?

[00:02:44] [SPEAKER_01]: We use AI tools with that to get a look at that data that's coming from ERP systems

[00:02:49] [SPEAKER_01]: and marketing, automation and e-commerce.

[00:02:51] [SPEAKER_01]: If you ever have an interest in learning more about that, please reach out to us

[00:02:54] [SPEAKER_01]: as well.

[00:02:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Tom, before we dive in, I looked at just some of the invites that go out.

[00:03:01] [SPEAKER_01]: The folks that have clicked the that they're coming invite to the show each week typically

[00:03:07] [SPEAKER_01]: represents somewhere between five and ten percent of the people that come on live

[00:03:12] [SPEAKER_01]: that have clicked an invitation that they've received.

[00:03:14] [SPEAKER_01]: But I saw, I think three or four different countries people are coming from today.

[00:03:18] [SPEAKER_01]: If you're listening in, whether you're in Paducah or you're in Miami or you're in

[00:03:25] [SPEAKER_01]: another country, let us know where you're from and let us know that you're here.

[00:03:29] [SPEAKER_01]: If you're listening in while you're eating lunch or whatever between bites, throw a

[00:03:33] [SPEAKER_01]: little comment in as well because it gets a little spicier and a little more fun when

[00:03:37] [SPEAKER_01]: we hear from you.

[00:03:40] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:03:40] [SPEAKER_03]: Hopefully that works.

[00:03:41] [SPEAKER_03]: We've had weirdness this week on that with LinkedIn.

[00:03:44] [SPEAKER_03]: So hopefully that's.

[00:03:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you were on another podcast earlier.

[00:03:47] [SPEAKER_01]: That's good.

[00:03:48] [SPEAKER_01]: All right.

[00:03:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Good morning, Brian.

[00:03:49] [SPEAKER_01]: There we go.

[00:03:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, we can start the show because Hoppy is here.

[00:03:54] [SPEAKER_01]: So very good.

[00:03:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:03:56] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, you another podcast that you're on, you guys were celebrating a milestone

[00:03:59] [SPEAKER_01]: and earlier in the week and that I was trying to comment and try to be supportive

[00:04:05] [SPEAKER_01]: because I can't make it to that podcast very often because somebody has to drive the

[00:04:09] [SPEAKER_01]: trip while you're there.

[00:04:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, you can see my comments.

[00:04:15] [SPEAKER_03]: So a lot of them.

[00:04:16] [SPEAKER_03]: But anyway, looks like we're good.

[00:04:18] [SPEAKER_03]: We're on our way.

[00:04:19] [SPEAKER_03]: Brian in the Queen City from Charlotte.

[00:04:21] [SPEAKER_03]: So right.

[00:04:22] [SPEAKER_03]: Welcome.

[00:04:23] [SPEAKER_03]: And I knew Duncan would be eating lunch.

[00:04:27] [SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[00:04:28] [SPEAKER_03]: Very good.

[00:04:29] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, Tom, that sounds good.

[00:04:31] [SPEAKER_03]: What are you having?

[00:04:32] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm kind of hungry.

[00:04:34] [SPEAKER_01]: I was messaging with Duncan earlier in the week.

[00:04:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Going to look forward to seeing him in October in Chicago.

[00:04:40] [SPEAKER_01]: So hey, Tom.

[00:04:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, sir.

[00:04:42] [SPEAKER_01]: You want to talk about what happened this morning in Jackson Hole?

[00:04:49] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, you mean about the Powell briefing?

[00:04:54] [SPEAKER_03]: But you know, you have to read the James.

[00:04:57] [SPEAKER_03]: James is in the house from Atlanta.

[00:05:00] [SPEAKER_03]: One of our outstanding lead smart customers.

[00:05:04] [SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[00:05:05] [SPEAKER_03]: If you need office supplies, James is your man in Atlanta for sure.

[00:05:10] [SPEAKER_03]: That's right.

[00:05:11] [SPEAKER_03]: Publix.

[00:05:12] [SPEAKER_03]: OK.

[00:05:15] [SPEAKER_03]: Anyway, I've lost my train of thought.

[00:05:16] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm thinking about that public.

[00:05:18] [SPEAKER_01]: It took me a second.

[00:05:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Publix is the grocery store.

[00:05:21] [SPEAKER_01]: That's right.

[00:05:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Mrs. Gilman will we want to tell her about that?

[00:05:27] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:05:29] [SPEAKER_03]: So, yeah, anyway, I haven't seen all the data.

[00:05:31] [SPEAKER_03]: But what I did see is Powell obviously was speaking in Jackson Hole at the economic summit.

[00:05:36] [SPEAKER_03]: Said that, you know, rate cuts are on the horizon.

[00:05:38] [SPEAKER_03]: They're coming.

[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_03]: They're coming.

[00:05:40] [SPEAKER_03]: But from what I understand, and again, I haven't seen all the details, he didn't

[00:05:44] [SPEAKER_03]: say when and he didn't say for how much or for what the rate cuts would be.

[00:05:51] [SPEAKER_03]: I looked at the market earlier.

[00:05:53] [SPEAKER_03]: It looked like the market was pleased with whatever he said.

[00:05:56] [SPEAKER_03]: I think they just validated what they probably already thought.

[00:06:01] [SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, I guess something's coming.

[00:06:03] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, as I said last week, right?

[00:06:05] [SPEAKER_03]: I think September is a foregone conclusion at this point.

[00:06:09] [SPEAKER_01]: His words, Tom, his words were the time has come for policy to adjust.

[00:06:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:06:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:06:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Is that is are you hoping that it's not September or?

[00:06:18] [SPEAKER_03]: No, I'm not.

[00:06:19] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't.

[00:06:19] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, I don't.

[00:06:20] [SPEAKER_03]: I just look, it's I think it's fine if it's September, frankly.

[00:06:24] [SPEAKER_03]: Personally, I don't stake a side.

[00:06:27] [SPEAKER_03]: I think doing a cut in September is fine.

[00:06:31] [SPEAKER_03]: I think, though, that there's.

[00:06:33] [SPEAKER_03]: There's a lot of a lot of tentacles with all of this, right?

[00:06:36] [SPEAKER_03]: If they start cutting too fast, you can spook the market.

[00:06:40] [SPEAKER_03]: You can spook business.

[00:06:42] [SPEAKER_03]: You can if they cut, you know, it's so I don't know how it's what the right

[00:06:46] [SPEAKER_03]: answer is as far as the speed or how much it would be great if they just did

[00:06:52] [SPEAKER_03]: one this year and then they waited till January to do the rest of them.

[00:06:55] [SPEAKER_03]: That way I could enjoy my stake.

[00:06:57] [SPEAKER_03]: But, you know, we'll see.

[00:06:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, you know, our our wager aside, I think the markets are screaming

[00:07:05] [SPEAKER_01]: what has to happen.

[00:07:08] [SPEAKER_01]: The Dow is up.

[00:07:11] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry.

[00:07:12] [SPEAKER_01]: The New York Stock Exchange is up one point oh six percent.

[00:07:16] [SPEAKER_01]: S&P 500 is up a half a percent.

[00:07:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And the Dow is up

[00:07:20] [SPEAKER_01]: a point six.

[00:07:24] [SPEAKER_01]: So Nasdaq is point eight three.

[00:07:27] [SPEAKER_01]: And I have action and Microsoft's down.

[00:07:31] [SPEAKER_01]: So kind of funny.

[00:07:32] [SPEAKER_01]: But what has been interesting is Treasury yields fell on Friday

[00:07:36] [SPEAKER_01]: this morning, which is an article that I looked at quickly.

[00:07:39] [SPEAKER_01]: The benchmark that would make sense.

[00:07:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Right.

[00:07:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Which which I mean, I think that just reinforces right.

[00:07:46] [SPEAKER_01]: But the big thing is there was and what he had to say

[00:07:49] [SPEAKER_01]: this morning is I grabbed a recap online real quick and said

[00:07:53] [SPEAKER_01]: he covered what four or five different areas.

[00:07:55] [SPEAKER_01]: He's policy.

[00:07:56] [SPEAKER_01]: He says the time has come to for policy to adjust.

[00:07:59] [SPEAKER_01]: The direction of the travel is clear and the timing and pace of rate

[00:08:02] [SPEAKER_01]: cuts will depend on incoming data, the evolving outlook and the balance.

[00:08:06] [SPEAKER_01]: And then he said related to inflation.

[00:08:08] [SPEAKER_01]: My confidence has grown that inflation is on the sustainable path back to two percent.

[00:08:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Again, I just the two percent thing when you look at the history

[00:08:17] [SPEAKER_01]: of where that came from with a passing comment by a politician in New Zealand

[00:08:22] [SPEAKER_01]: that the world bounces around that two percent is the number

[00:08:25] [SPEAKER_01]: just still astounds me.

[00:08:27] [SPEAKER_01]: But OK, he talked about employment.

[00:08:30] [SPEAKER_01]: He said it seems unlikely that the labor market will be a source

[00:08:33] [SPEAKER_01]: of elevated inflationary pressures any time soon.

[00:08:36] [SPEAKER_01]: We do not seek or welcome further cooling and labor market conditions.

[00:08:40] [SPEAKER_01]: To me, that's a little spark of I got to do something quick here.

[00:08:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, then the balance of risks, he said, but inflation and labor market

[00:08:48] [SPEAKER_01]: data show an evolving situation.

[00:08:50] [SPEAKER_01]: The upside risks to inflation have diminished in the downside

[00:08:53] [SPEAKER_01]: risks to employment have increased.

[00:08:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And then finally, his emphasis point was we'll do everything

[00:09:00] [SPEAKER_01]: we can to support a strong labor market as we further progress

[00:09:03] [SPEAKER_01]: towards price stability.

[00:09:05] [SPEAKER_01]: There was all kinds of in one of the articles that I read from Reuters

[00:09:08] [SPEAKER_01]: this morning, they probably had 10 different well-known

[00:09:12] [SPEAKER_01]: economists with their take on it all.

[00:09:16] [SPEAKER_01]: My view of it is I hope that they don't do half a point

[00:09:22] [SPEAKER_01]: at the end, the first cut, I think.

[00:09:25] [SPEAKER_01]: And again, let's completely forget whether it's what your thoughts

[00:09:29] [SPEAKER_01]: are about one cut or my thought about two cuts or more

[00:09:32] [SPEAKER_01]: is it's about what's best here is we can we can figure out

[00:09:36] [SPEAKER_01]: who buys the stakes. But

[00:09:39] [SPEAKER_01]: I think progressively quarter point, you know, quarter pointer,

[00:09:43] [SPEAKER_01]: 25 basis point cuts is the way to go because the markets

[00:09:47] [SPEAKER_01]: are going to get spooked regardless, you know, if they do too much.

[00:09:51] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, no, there's a lot of and you could argue, right?

[00:09:55] [SPEAKER_03]: You can you can put up a legitimate argument for

[00:09:59] [SPEAKER_03]: one cut this year, three cuts this year over, you know,

[00:10:03] [SPEAKER_03]: a half a point or more per cut.

[00:10:04] [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, you could argue probably legitimately for all kinds

[00:10:08] [SPEAKER_03]: of different scenarios here.

[00:10:09] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it'll just be interesting to see how they play it out.

[00:10:12] [SPEAKER_03]: And I do think they have a little bit of a tightrope to walk here.

[00:10:17] [SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, hey, not everyone's going to be happy about everything

[00:10:19] [SPEAKER_03]: all the time, right? The stock market is definitely,

[00:10:23] [SPEAKER_03]: let's just say, a bit overbought at the moment.

[00:10:26] [SPEAKER_03]: And I believe is looking for a reason to correct itself

[00:10:30] [SPEAKER_03]: a little bit over the next, you know, course of the next 90 to 120 days.

[00:10:35] [SPEAKER_03]: So anyway, it'll be interesting to see how this all plays out.

[00:10:39] [SPEAKER_03]: But well, a lot happening.

[00:10:41] [SPEAKER_03]: And I got anything is possible.

[00:10:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. Well, you know, if you just think back to

[00:10:46] [SPEAKER_01]: the fourth quarter of last year, this fourth quarter

[00:10:49] [SPEAKER_01]: is going to be much more interesting than the fourth quarter of last year.

[00:10:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes. Good. All right.

[00:10:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Let's kind of move ahead here and talk a little bit further.

[00:10:57] [SPEAKER_01]: We had we posted a number of articles about this morning, even.

[00:11:02] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, we do this.

[00:11:03] [SPEAKER_01]: We post starting to get our newsletter ready on Friday evenings.

[00:11:07] [SPEAKER_01]: So Thursday evenings, I should say.

[00:11:09] [SPEAKER_01]: So as we talk about our segment today, which we're in right now,

[00:11:11] [SPEAKER_01]: economy and supply chain in the newsletter.

[00:11:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And if you don't get that

[00:11:15] [SPEAKER_01]: and you would like to get the newsletter, let us know.

[00:11:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Publish an article about business activity, edges lower pricing

[00:11:21] [SPEAKER_01]: powers have a little bit further.

[00:11:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Had posted another article about jobless claims.

[00:11:26] [SPEAKER_01]: But the big article that was kind of here was

[00:11:28] [SPEAKER_01]: and you had commented on this when we were talking earlier,

[00:11:30] [SPEAKER_01]: is this new jobs data show growth has been far weaker than initially reported.

[00:11:35] [SPEAKER_01]: There was a quite a big undertaking or underestimate there, right?

[00:11:39] [SPEAKER_03]: I guess the largest and maybe forever or in a long, long time.

[00:11:43] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. I mean, grossly underestimated or overestimated

[00:11:48] [SPEAKER_03]: the job growth.

[00:11:50] [SPEAKER_03]: And I don't know, I'd like to understand the story

[00:11:53] [SPEAKER_03]: behind the story behind that a little bit more about, you know, how that happens.

[00:11:57] [SPEAKER_03]: And that's not even the final number.

[00:11:59] [SPEAKER_03]: The final number of all of this doesn't come out until February.

[00:12:03] [SPEAKER_01]: So the title is entirely the article.

[00:12:05] [SPEAKER_01]: This one was from CNN, but it was a lot of other places

[00:12:07] [SPEAKER_01]: was a new data shows US job growth has been far weaker than initially reported.

[00:12:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And eight hundred and eighteen thousand fewer jobs in March

[00:12:18] [SPEAKER_01]: than were initially reported.

[00:12:20] [SPEAKER_01]: So you know what? It's kind of just.

[00:12:25] [SPEAKER_01]: My friend, it just makes me go back to thinking,

[00:12:28] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, and since we've been doing this show

[00:12:32] [SPEAKER_01]: a couple coming up on a couple of years, I just think so much more about

[00:12:39] [SPEAKER_01]: economic factors than I probably did previously.

[00:12:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Right. I pay closer attention to a lot of these things.

[00:12:45] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's just kind of one more one more view that.

[00:12:49] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm sure there's people that are out there in academia

[00:12:52] [SPEAKER_01]: that are looking at these things.

[00:12:53] [SPEAKER_01]: But I just kind of go back to the two percent number

[00:12:56] [SPEAKER_01]: and how that kind of randomly came around.

[00:12:58] [SPEAKER_01]: And then, you know, the PCI and the tools, it's

[00:13:02] [SPEAKER_01]: maybe it's time that with the data that's available and,

[00:13:05] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, we talk so much and we will be today about AI and so forth.

[00:13:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe we're time and, you know,

[00:13:11] [SPEAKER_01]: time in history where it's a good place to review.

[00:13:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Let's put some more firm things in place

[00:13:18] [SPEAKER_01]: and some more firm numbers that we're looking at and

[00:13:21] [SPEAKER_01]: and how we're gathering those data, because if you could be that wrong.

[00:13:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Right. Of eight eight hundred and eighteen thousand fewer jobs in the US.

[00:13:32] [SPEAKER_01]: If you can be that often one of these settings,

[00:13:34] [SPEAKER_01]: there's problems with that data. Right.

[00:13:38] [SPEAKER_01]: I would suspect, yeah.

[00:13:40] [SPEAKER_01]: But I'm sure it's not easy data to get anyway.

[00:13:43] [SPEAKER_01]: But no, but maybe our data points that they make decisions off of

[00:13:47] [SPEAKER_01]: first things that are as important as we think about related to,

[00:13:51] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, our economy in the US and the largest economy in the world.

[00:13:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Right. Maybe the factors that go into how that's decided

[00:13:58] [SPEAKER_01]: and how these decisions are made.

[00:14:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe we need to rethink those data points based upon the fact that,

[00:14:05] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, just as simple as we have AI and we have,

[00:14:08] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, much more relevant pieces out there

[00:14:10] [SPEAKER_01]: that we could probably be looking at rather than the stuff that's 20,

[00:14:14] [SPEAKER_01]: 30 years old. So.

[00:14:16] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, the three legs, right.

[00:14:17] [SPEAKER_03]: The three legs, the stool right now economically that

[00:14:21] [SPEAKER_03]: most everybody tends to look at is growth, GDP,

[00:14:24] [SPEAKER_03]: gross domestic product, that kind of stuff.

[00:14:26] [SPEAKER_03]: They look at the job market and then they look at the stock market.

[00:14:30] [SPEAKER_03]: There's consumer pricing and all of these things are big factors in this.

[00:14:34] [SPEAKER_03]: But those all factor into the growth is what's happening with the growth.

[00:14:37] [SPEAKER_03]: And then you have the Fed with the inflation aspect of it

[00:14:40] [SPEAKER_03]: kind of in the middle and the inflation aspect

[00:14:42] [SPEAKER_03]: of all of those things that are there as well.

[00:14:45] [SPEAKER_03]: But there's not all of those things are not entirely dependent on each other.

[00:14:49] [SPEAKER_03]: There's a lot of interdependencies,

[00:14:50] [SPEAKER_03]: but there's a lot of things that are independent within each of those as well.

[00:14:54] [SPEAKER_03]: So I don't know.

[00:14:56] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know the right answer to it.

[00:14:57] [SPEAKER_03]: But yes, maybe there is an amazing new AI system

[00:15:00] [SPEAKER_03]: that can do a better job of it.

[00:15:03] [SPEAKER_01]: It just seems like maybe it's time to look at those things.

[00:15:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, we've got both that.

[00:15:09] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure.

[00:15:09] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not confident either presidential candidate even really understands

[00:15:12] [SPEAKER_01]: all of this stuff.

[00:15:14] [SPEAKER_01]: But one of them is saying he'd like to have an impact on what the Fed does.

[00:15:17] [SPEAKER_01]: So we'll see what plays out with all of that.

[00:15:22] [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, when as we talk about in this segment

[00:15:25] [SPEAKER_01]: that we're in today is our segment on supply chain and the economy.

[00:15:31] [SPEAKER_01]: So big rail strike started yesterday in Canada.

[00:15:35] [SPEAKER_01]: The good news is the unit it's interesting if as we talk about this,

[00:15:39] [SPEAKER_01]: we've talked about labor earlier in the year with some strikes

[00:15:42] [SPEAKER_01]: and last year with some things of the automakers and so forth.

[00:15:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Boy in Canada that the federal government wasn't

[00:15:50] [SPEAKER_01]: leery about jumping right in the mix of all of this

[00:15:53] [SPEAKER_01]: and having expectations of what should happen next.

[00:15:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I thought it was kind of interesting because that happened

[00:16:00] [SPEAKER_01]: right away. They got both sides of the table pretty quickly.

[00:16:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, it's still going to take them.

[00:16:05] [SPEAKER_01]: I think the article said it was only a one day strike basically,

[00:16:08] [SPEAKER_01]: but it's going to take them a series of days to get

[00:16:12] [SPEAKER_01]: back was I had a note about that up to a week

[00:16:15] [SPEAKER_01]: to catch up on shipments after a one day strike.

[00:16:18] [SPEAKER_01]: So kind of a big deal, but they got the labor minister in Canada

[00:16:22] [SPEAKER_01]: got them, you know, and we've got Duncan with us here.

[00:16:25] [SPEAKER_01]: That's in Canada. If he has any thoughts,

[00:16:27] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to interrupt his lunch, but if he had any thoughts on that.

[00:16:31] [SPEAKER_01]: It was kind of nice to see somebody get people back to the table

[00:16:34] [SPEAKER_01]: because we'll see, you know, in the U.S., sometimes we'll see strikes

[00:16:36] [SPEAKER_01]: go on for weeks before the government will jump in and try

[00:16:40] [SPEAKER_01]: put a little pressure on things.

[00:16:42] [SPEAKER_01]: So it's good to see that.

[00:16:45] [SPEAKER_03]: So do you have any take on why that was much maybe more efficient?

[00:16:50] [SPEAKER_03]: Is it just the culture that exists there or what do you like?

[00:16:54] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.

[00:16:55] [SPEAKER_01]: I'd like to it would be, you know,

[00:16:58] [SPEAKER_01]: not quite guessing, but educated guessing, I think, to think on that.

[00:17:02] [SPEAKER_01]: I think my belief would be the government's just willing to take a stronger

[00:17:06] [SPEAKER_01]: put a stronger pressure on that.

[00:17:08] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if Canadian unions are stronger than, you know, U.S.

[00:17:13] [SPEAKER_01]: unions or both teamsters in this in this case.

[00:17:17] [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm not aware enough about that.

[00:17:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe someone could share with us if they know or have thoughts on it.

[00:17:22] [SPEAKER_01]: But but they sure acted quicker, you know,

[00:17:27] [SPEAKER_01]: and I don't know if there's more power available.

[00:17:30] [SPEAKER_01]: The reason, you know, that's important to keep an eye on is it's more,

[00:17:33] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, just we think about, you know, you and I are both here

[00:17:36] [SPEAKER_01]: in California. You know, we think about some of these things is

[00:17:39] [SPEAKER_01]: we're trying to keep an eye on supply chain issues globally.

[00:17:43] [SPEAKER_01]: So we talk regularly about issues in the Suez Canal or the Panama Canal

[00:17:47] [SPEAKER_01]: or, you know, shipping delays out of Shanghai or whatever it might be,

[00:17:51] [SPEAKER_01]: because it impacts wholesale distribution globally as well as manufacturing

[00:17:55] [SPEAKER_01]: and getting the parts in.

[00:17:56] [SPEAKER_01]: So the amount of things, you know, there's I can't remember

[00:17:59] [SPEAKER_01]: the article quoted this, but the amount of barrels of oil

[00:18:03] [SPEAKER_01]: that come across the border every day on rail lines

[00:18:05] [SPEAKER_01]: from the oil sands in northern Canada to

[00:18:11] [SPEAKER_01]: to other drilling spots in the US was actually surprised me.

[00:18:14] [SPEAKER_01]: I wish I remember the number, but the the amount of goods

[00:18:18] [SPEAKER_01]: and service or goods that are coming across the border each day

[00:18:20] [SPEAKER_01]: in the US is substantial going to manufacturers.

[00:18:24] [SPEAKER_01]: So this is this could have been a significant supply.

[00:18:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Basically, what they're saying now is it just puts the supply chain

[00:18:31] [SPEAKER_01]: behind it, you know, a week in that setting.

[00:18:33] [SPEAKER_01]: So I will make before we jump on that, Tom, I did think something

[00:18:38] [SPEAKER_01]: something caught my eye that was interesting in this article.

[00:18:41] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's it's pretty cool phenomena of

[00:18:45] [SPEAKER_01]: of the technology in the day and where we live in the world.

[00:18:49] [SPEAKER_01]: It just it makes me think back, you know, the

[00:18:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Paul Revere riding his horse with his lantern that the British are coming

[00:18:56] [SPEAKER_01]: was getting information out just, you know, a little over two, two hundred

[00:19:00] [SPEAKER_01]: years ago. And now the the teamsters posted on Twitter

[00:19:06] [SPEAKER_01]: or X about their their update about the picket lines coming down.

[00:19:12] [SPEAKER_01]: The amount of you know, you think about what was that?

[00:19:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, what was it called in the Middle East when all the something summer?

[00:19:23] [SPEAKER_01]: A few years back, probably four or five years ago, when all when things

[00:19:27] [SPEAKER_01]: were getting news sources were getting shut down, I believe it was in Israel

[00:19:30] [SPEAKER_01]: and everything that was going on, the news that was getting out of the

[00:19:33] [SPEAKER_01]: out of the Middle East for the most part was getting out on social

[00:19:36] [SPEAKER_01]: media and mostly on Twitter.

[00:19:38] [SPEAKER_01]: So pretty interesting to see that that source.

[00:19:41] [SPEAKER_01]: And obviously there's all kinds of the the political resources

[00:19:45] [SPEAKER_01]: that are out there now as well.

[00:19:46] [SPEAKER_03]: Right. So what's the most effective channel to get the news out?

[00:19:49] [SPEAKER_03]: That's and speed.

[00:19:51] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, yeah, speed.

[00:19:53] [SPEAKER_01]: So good. Let's roll into our manufacturing distribution segment here.

[00:19:56] [SPEAKER_01]: What's first when we got there? No excuses.

[00:20:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Manufacturers must digitize now.

[00:20:05] [SPEAKER_03]: And this is a great article

[00:20:07] [SPEAKER_03]: from chief executive, really, really, I thought really well done article.

[00:20:12] [SPEAKER_03]: I hope and I know you may have them up in front of you.

[00:20:14] [SPEAKER_03]: I'd like to go through those four or five things that they talked about

[00:20:17] [SPEAKER_03]: in there about why manufacturers and I assume this would apply to

[00:20:21] [SPEAKER_03]: wholesale distributors as well are not transforming

[00:20:25] [SPEAKER_03]: at digital transforming at the pace that certainly all of us

[00:20:29] [SPEAKER_03]: service providers, vendors and in media.

[00:20:34] [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, there's just so much talk, right?

[00:20:35] [SPEAKER_03]: If you go to any show, it's all about, hey, you need to transform.

[00:20:38] [SPEAKER_03]: You need to transform. You need to transform.

[00:20:41] [SPEAKER_03]: And yet the market doesn't move at that pace.

[00:20:44] [SPEAKER_03]: And I just thought it was some really good insights.

[00:20:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Do you want to hit on those real quick?

[00:20:49] [SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of interesting.

[00:20:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Brian's with us from this morning from joined us from

[00:20:54] [SPEAKER_01]: distribution strategy group.

[00:20:57] [SPEAKER_01]: They've got had a big event.

[00:20:59] [SPEAKER_01]: They've got another big profit summit coming up.

[00:21:03] [SPEAKER_01]: They've had some good shows recently in their podcast.

[00:21:06] [SPEAKER_01]: And we've talked about this.

[00:21:08] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to play into the game on this from before I go into those.

[00:21:15] [SPEAKER_01]: These points, specific points about this, but

[00:21:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I just wanted to make a comment that the article starts out with.

[00:21:20] [SPEAKER_01]: It says, despite widespread, longstanding industry

[00:21:23] [SPEAKER_01]: understanding of the need for change, far too many companies have hesitated

[00:21:27] [SPEAKER_01]: far too long. This now threatens their very existence.

[00:21:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe their very existence might be might be a little exaggerated in that.

[00:21:36] [SPEAKER_01]: But I think the reality of it is and I talk to you, you work

[00:21:42] [SPEAKER_01]: with your team at Lead Smart with mostly with our customers

[00:21:46] [SPEAKER_01]: jump in once in a while and talking to industry folks.

[00:21:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm on the phone every day with people across, you know,

[00:21:54] [SPEAKER_01]: globally in industry, mostly in distribution and some in manufacturing.

[00:21:59] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, a simple example is we've come up with a number that it's anecdotal,

[00:22:06] [SPEAKER_01]: but 70 plus probably 75 percent

[00:22:08] [SPEAKER_01]: plus of the companies that we interact with, which is thousands

[00:22:12] [SPEAKER_01]: of them on our mailing lists,

[00:22:16] [SPEAKER_01]: well over a thousand, close to 2000, in fact, over 2000

[00:22:20] [SPEAKER_01]: within some of the buying groups that were partnered with

[00:22:23] [SPEAKER_01]: 70 plus percent of these companies have never even put a foundational tool

[00:22:27] [SPEAKER_01]: in their business like CRM. Right.

[00:22:29] [SPEAKER_01]: They have an ERP. Oftentimes it's antiquated ERP.

[00:22:33] [SPEAKER_01]: It's too tentacled out into other systems in their business

[00:22:36] [SPEAKER_01]: to easily replace.

[00:22:38] [SPEAKER_01]: And they buy these what we call spot software products

[00:22:41] [SPEAKER_01]: that, you know, are nice to have, but they're way behind

[00:22:45] [SPEAKER_01]: on foundational systems within their business.

[00:22:48] [SPEAKER_01]: I.E. and we're going to have an article here shortly as well.

[00:22:55] [SPEAKER_01]: The the foundational tools are quickly becoming

[00:22:59] [SPEAKER_01]: not just ERP and CRM, but now we're going to start looking

[00:23:02] [SPEAKER_01]: and e-commerce is going to become foundational. Right.

[00:23:05] [SPEAKER_01]: We've got marketing animation should probably become foundational

[00:23:08] [SPEAKER_01]: to this as well.

[00:23:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And now we're really getting to this point.

[00:23:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And this article talked about it's about manufacturers,

[00:23:14] [SPEAKER_01]: but I would just say, you know, for our audience,

[00:23:17] [SPEAKER_01]: it's equal with distributors as well.

[00:23:21] [SPEAKER_01]: It's crazy. You know, and you talk about any W

[00:23:24] [SPEAKER_01]: would say that the National Association of Wholesalers

[00:23:27] [SPEAKER_01]: would tell you that.

[00:23:31] [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's two thirds of the US GDP goes through wholesale

[00:23:35] [SPEAKER_01]: distribution. And this is talk article talks about three

[00:23:40] [SPEAKER_01]: quarters of global GDP or seventy five trillion dollars

[00:23:44] [SPEAKER_01]: comes from manufacture.

[00:23:46] [SPEAKER_01]: So now is the time for this.

[00:23:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And in the article talks about navigating some roadblocks.

[00:23:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that was the key points that you were talking

[00:23:55] [SPEAKER_01]: about. They talk about lack of urgency from boards

[00:23:59] [SPEAKER_01]: and investors to drive long term transformation,

[00:24:02] [SPEAKER_01]: CEOs nearing retirement who are unwilling to embark on

[00:24:05] [SPEAKER_01]: multiyear change efforts, scarcity of digital talent

[00:24:08] [SPEAKER_01]: and expertise within manufacturing organizations.

[00:24:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Again, add just distribution where you see manufacturing

[00:24:15] [SPEAKER_01]: high perceived costs and unclear ROI of large scale

[00:24:18] [SPEAKER_01]: digit digitization initiatives and perhaps most important

[00:24:25] [SPEAKER_01]: manufacturers slash distributors are reluctant to

[00:24:28] [SPEAKER_01]: disrupt or cannibalize existing profitable analog

[00:24:32] [SPEAKER_01]: businesses.

[00:24:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And I would throw out to you, my friend, I'm going to read

[00:24:36] [SPEAKER_01]: that one again, because unless you tell me different,

[00:24:38] [SPEAKER_01]: this is probably what we see the most.

[00:24:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Manufacturers and distributors are reluctant to

[00:24:44] [SPEAKER_01]: disrupt or cannibalize existing profitable analog business.

[00:24:48] [SPEAKER_01]: It's not broken yet.

[00:24:51] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. No, I mean, I thought that summary was like

[00:24:55] [SPEAKER_03]: right on the money.

[00:24:56] [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, that's everything that we hear and talk about

[00:24:59] [SPEAKER_03]: all the every day.

[00:25:00] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:25:02] [SPEAKER_03]: And you could argue, hey, if you're a family owned

[00:25:05] [SPEAKER_03]: business or, you know, you could or in a profitable

[00:25:08] [SPEAKER_03]: business, you could probably argue that those are

[00:25:10] [SPEAKER_03]: legitimate reasons not to take some of these things on.

[00:25:14] [SPEAKER_03]: I think the point, though, if you keep reading

[00:25:16] [SPEAKER_03]: the article, right, is the longer that you wait

[00:25:21] [SPEAKER_03]: for this to start looking at these things,

[00:25:24] [SPEAKER_03]: the farther and farther you're going to be behind

[00:25:27] [SPEAKER_03]: and you are going to be in a situation.

[00:25:30] [SPEAKER_03]: I would say in the last two weeks, the amount of

[00:25:34] [SPEAKER_03]: conversations I've had about the urgency of AI,

[00:25:38] [SPEAKER_03]: not just a conversation of AI, but more of an urgency

[00:25:41] [SPEAKER_03]: of how do we start incorporating that into the

[00:25:45] [SPEAKER_03]: into the business is picking up.

[00:25:47] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. Right.

[00:25:48] [SPEAKER_03]: And these are people that obviously are taking

[00:25:50] [SPEAKER_03]: the effort to do so the transformation.

[00:25:53] [SPEAKER_03]: So the longer you wait and the more you're

[00:25:56] [SPEAKER_03]: in the analog world, as they as they describe

[00:25:59] [SPEAKER_03]: their the farther you're going to have and the

[00:26:03] [SPEAKER_03]: farther behind you're going to be.

[00:26:04] [SPEAKER_03]: And as AI really does permeate, right, which

[00:26:08] [SPEAKER_03]: it hasn't permeated, but really permeates

[00:26:10] [SPEAKER_03]: the business and the business.

[00:26:12] [SPEAKER_03]: And I think they even talk a little bit about

[00:26:13] [SPEAKER_03]: this in the article.

[00:26:14] [SPEAKER_03]: You're going to be just that much farther behind.

[00:26:17] [SPEAKER_03]: So, and it went on to go like, how do you

[00:26:19] [SPEAKER_03]: deal with it?

[00:26:20] [SPEAKER_03]: And I mean, there's some, I thought really

[00:26:22] [SPEAKER_01]: good, you know, this is this was solid.

[00:26:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:26:25] [SPEAKER_01]: But I mean, it's things we pretty much talk about,

[00:26:28] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, related to this every week.

[00:26:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's interesting.

[00:26:31] [SPEAKER_01]: We talked a couple of weeks ago, we had some

[00:26:34] [SPEAKER_01]: data, you know, we talked about, you know,

[00:26:36] [SPEAKER_01]: kind of the Gartner hype cycle.

[00:26:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[00:26:39] [SPEAKER_01]: There has been no.

[00:26:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think I think we're getting past

[00:26:44] [SPEAKER_01]: the hype of AI and there's been quite a few

[00:26:47] [SPEAKER_01]: people talking about that.

[00:26:49] [SPEAKER_01]: That now it's time to get past this.

[00:26:51] [SPEAKER_01]: OK, let me go figure out what it's about.

[00:26:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And now we need to figure it out in our

[00:26:54] [SPEAKER_01]: business. But, you know, my view of this

[00:26:57] [SPEAKER_01]: and obviously it's a little bit biased

[00:26:59] [SPEAKER_01]: from the standpoint of the product that,

[00:27:01] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, the company that you and I

[00:27:02] [SPEAKER_01]: founded make.

[00:27:04] [SPEAKER_01]: But there are so many tools out there

[00:27:07] [SPEAKER_01]: right now that are popping up that are

[00:27:10] [SPEAKER_01]: one-off tools and it's AI driven.

[00:27:14] [SPEAKER_01]: But the most part, the manufacturers

[00:27:17] [SPEAKER_01]: and distributors that we talk to

[00:27:19] [SPEAKER_01]: consistently again, I'm at show after

[00:27:21] [SPEAKER_01]: show, I've got.

[00:27:23] [SPEAKER_01]: I think I have seven or eight events in

[00:27:25] [SPEAKER_01]: the next 90 days that I'll be at.

[00:27:27] [SPEAKER_01]: In fact, less than far less than 90

[00:27:29] [SPEAKER_01]: days. And the vast majority of the

[00:27:32] [SPEAKER_01]: people that we talk to are well

[00:27:34] [SPEAKER_01]: intended. They've gone out and bought

[00:27:38] [SPEAKER_01]: all just I don't want to name any

[00:27:40] [SPEAKER_01]: of them, but they're one-off products

[00:27:41] [SPEAKER_01]: that are supposed to have their point

[00:27:44] [SPEAKER_01]: products, point products that that

[00:27:46] [SPEAKER_01]: that people don't and point products

[00:27:48] [SPEAKER_01]: is probably in our technology world a

[00:27:51] [SPEAKER_01]: little more used, but it's just a

[00:27:53] [SPEAKER_01]: solution for a singular smaller issue

[00:27:57] [SPEAKER_01]: then address the big issue of

[00:27:59] [SPEAKER_01]: digitizing their organization with

[00:28:02] [SPEAKER_01]: having a long term AI is a

[00:28:04] [SPEAKER_01]: component of all of this.

[00:28:06] [SPEAKER_01]: But they're missing foundational

[00:28:08] [SPEAKER_01]: tools in their business, not just

[00:28:10] [SPEAKER_01]: CRM, but updating and upgrading

[00:28:13] [SPEAKER_01]: ERP that are going to hold their

[00:28:15] [SPEAKER_01]: companies behind.

[00:28:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And because it doesn't when you

[00:28:19] [SPEAKER_01]: choose an industry specific

[00:28:21] [SPEAKER_01]: customer intelligence and CRM platform

[00:28:23] [SPEAKER_01]: that has AI built into it, like

[00:28:25] [SPEAKER_01]: the ones we make.

[00:28:27] [SPEAKER_01]: You're ahead of the game with

[00:28:28] [SPEAKER_01]: a foundational tool, but the

[00:28:30] [SPEAKER_01]: so you're 90 and 120

[00:28:34] [SPEAKER_01]: days later, you're starting to

[00:28:35] [SPEAKER_01]: see relevant results from that in

[00:28:37] [SPEAKER_01]: your business as you're continuing

[00:28:39] [SPEAKER_01]: to expand that a tool like ours.

[00:28:41] [SPEAKER_01]: But when you start thinking about

[00:28:42] [SPEAKER_01]: the impact of upgrading and updating

[00:28:44] [SPEAKER_01]: your ERP, which a whole lot of

[00:28:47] [SPEAKER_01]: people do need, that's a

[00:28:50] [SPEAKER_01]: multi-year project typically.

[00:28:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Right. But to your point earlier,

[00:28:54] [SPEAKER_01]: what this article is talking about

[00:28:56] [SPEAKER_01]: is, you know what the people

[00:28:58] [SPEAKER_01]: that are doing it and we mentioned

[00:28:59] [SPEAKER_01]: earlier that DSG folks and MDM

[00:29:03] [SPEAKER_01]: is doing events and lots of folks

[00:29:05] [SPEAKER_01]: out there are trying to educate

[00:29:07] [SPEAKER_01]: people, not just vendors like us

[00:29:09] [SPEAKER_01]: to move to that direction.

[00:29:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Because to your point earlier, Tom

[00:29:14] [SPEAKER_01]: is the people that are doing it

[00:29:17] [SPEAKER_01]: are going to start eating your

[00:29:18] [SPEAKER_01]: lunch, right?

[00:29:19] [SPEAKER_01]: They're going to be more

[00:29:20] [SPEAKER_01]: efficient and it's not you're

[00:29:23] [SPEAKER_01]: going to be trying to hire.

[00:29:24] [SPEAKER_01]: I was talking to manufacturer

[00:29:25] [SPEAKER_01]: recently and they're too busy

[00:29:28] [SPEAKER_01]: to work on bringing a tool in

[00:29:32] [SPEAKER_01]: like lead smart channel cloud

[00:29:34] [SPEAKER_01]: within their business that would

[00:29:36] [SPEAKER_01]: make their people exponentially

[00:29:38] [SPEAKER_01]: more efficient.

[00:29:40] [SPEAKER_01]: And they have hundreds of

[00:29:41] [SPEAKER_01]: employees around the world.

[00:29:43] [SPEAKER_01]: They're too busy hiring because

[00:29:44] [SPEAKER_01]: they've got all these open

[00:29:45] [SPEAKER_01]: spots. And I put the case

[00:29:48] [SPEAKER_01]: to them that says, you know,

[00:29:50] [SPEAKER_01]: what if you could slow down

[00:29:52] [SPEAKER_01]: on your hiring?

[00:29:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Because people you have were

[00:29:54] [SPEAKER_01]: exponentially more efficient

[00:29:55] [SPEAKER_01]: through technology.

[00:29:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Can't get that through their

[00:29:57] [SPEAKER_01]: head. Right.

[00:29:58] [SPEAKER_01]: And we're seeing that.

[00:29:59] [SPEAKER_01]: And I thought this article

[00:30:00] [SPEAKER_01]: did a nice job of kind of

[00:30:02] [SPEAKER_01]: putting the risks out there.

[00:30:04] [SPEAKER_01]: And they talked about some

[00:30:05] [SPEAKER_01]: things in there about at five

[00:30:07] [SPEAKER_01]: points about trying to help

[00:30:08] [SPEAKER_01]: put a plan together.

[00:30:09] [SPEAKER_01]: So good article.

[00:30:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Again, if you don't get our

[00:30:11] [SPEAKER_01]: newsletter and you would like

[00:30:12] [SPEAKER_01]: to it's called Around the Horn

[00:30:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Wholesale Distribution goes out

[00:30:16] [SPEAKER_01]: every Friday morning to

[00:30:17] [SPEAKER_01]: thousands of people.

[00:30:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Love to have you get it as

[00:30:20] [SPEAKER_01]: well. Just send us a note

[00:30:21] [SPEAKER_01]: at hello at lead smart tech

[00:30:24] [SPEAKER_01]: dot com and we will get that

[00:30:26] [SPEAKER_01]: out to you or you could go

[00:30:27] [SPEAKER_01]: to the podcast website,

[00:30:29] [SPEAKER_01]: which is www dot around

[00:30:30] [SPEAKER_01]: the horn pod dot com.

[00:30:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And we will get that to

[00:30:35] [SPEAKER_01]: you as well.

[00:30:36] [SPEAKER_03]: So I think we struck a

[00:30:37] [SPEAKER_03]: little bit of a chord here on

[00:30:38] [SPEAKER_03]: a couple of the couple of

[00:30:39] [SPEAKER_03]: people is I think Brian brings

[00:30:41] [SPEAKER_03]: up a good point right.

[00:30:42] [SPEAKER_03]: We see I mean I'm sure this

[00:30:43] [SPEAKER_03]: is the world right.

[00:30:45] [SPEAKER_03]: The DSG digital strategy

[00:30:46] [SPEAKER_03]: groups talks all the time,

[00:30:47] [SPEAKER_03]: but the next generation

[00:30:49] [SPEAKER_03]: is becoming way more digital,

[00:30:51] [SPEAKER_03]: which we talked a lot about

[00:30:53] [SPEAKER_03]: along the way.

[00:30:55] [SPEAKER_03]: Bob's in the house.

[00:30:56] [SPEAKER_03]: Good to see Bob.

[00:30:58] [SPEAKER_03]: As Bob says, a trick with

[00:30:59] [SPEAKER_03]: the tech is to first think

[00:31:00] [SPEAKER_03]: about how you would do it

[00:31:01] [SPEAKER_03]: without being plugged into

[00:31:02] [SPEAKER_03]: the wall or connected to a

[00:31:03] [SPEAKER_03]: battery.

[00:31:04] [SPEAKER_03]: Then think how you would

[00:31:05] [SPEAKER_03]: augment and amplify it with

[00:31:07] [SPEAKER_03]: the tech.

[00:31:07] [SPEAKER_03]: So in other words,

[00:31:09] [SPEAKER_03]: I think what he's basically

[00:31:10] [SPEAKER_03]: saying there is OK, well,

[00:31:11] [SPEAKER_03]: what are you trying to do

[00:31:12] [SPEAKER_03]: from the analog world?

[00:31:13] [SPEAKER_03]: And then how can you amplify

[00:31:15] [SPEAKER_03]: that from the digital side?

[00:31:18] [SPEAKER_03]: And Kelly also who I know

[00:31:20] [SPEAKER_03]: works a lot in the industry

[00:31:21] [SPEAKER_03]: and worked a lot of companies

[00:31:22] [SPEAKER_03]: in the industry saying,

[00:31:24] [SPEAKER_03]: you know, the same thing,

[00:31:25] [SPEAKER_03]: right?

[00:31:25] [SPEAKER_03]: Don't know where to start.

[00:31:26] [SPEAKER_03]: They don't have the one

[00:31:27] [SPEAKER_03]: that do the work.

[00:31:30] [SPEAKER_03]: AI will transfer this

[00:31:31] [SPEAKER_03]: eventually, but you know,

[00:31:33] [SPEAKER_03]: so forth and so forth.

[00:31:35] [SPEAKER_03]: So I think we all are

[00:31:37] [SPEAKER_03]: running into this.

[00:31:39] [SPEAKER_03]: But there are, you know,

[00:31:41] [SPEAKER_03]: you might believe 75 or 80

[00:31:43] [SPEAKER_03]: percent of the company

[00:31:43] [SPEAKER_03]: don't have foundational tech,

[00:31:45] [SPEAKER_03]: but the 20 percent that do.

[00:31:48] [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, just this week,

[00:31:49] [SPEAKER_03]: I know we need to move on,

[00:31:51] [SPEAKER_03]: so I'll try and keep this

[00:31:52] [SPEAKER_03]: short.

[00:31:53] [SPEAKER_03]: But just this week,

[00:31:55] [SPEAKER_03]: you know, we have a lot of

[00:31:56] [SPEAKER_03]: our customers using Eclipse

[00:31:57] [SPEAKER_03]: as their ERP, right?

[00:31:59] [SPEAKER_03]: And EpiCore product.

[00:32:01] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, EpiCore product.

[00:32:02] [SPEAKER_03]: And we worked out a kind of

[00:32:05] [SPEAKER_03]: a taxonomy with Eclipse

[00:32:07] [SPEAKER_03]: on what are the key data

[00:32:09] [SPEAKER_03]: items that are going to be

[00:32:11] [SPEAKER_03]: used to drive AI when you're

[00:32:13] [SPEAKER_03]: using Eclipse data in the

[00:32:15] [SPEAKER_03]: sales world and the sales

[00:32:16] [SPEAKER_03]: process and which data

[00:32:18] [SPEAKER_03]: points are not.

[00:32:19] [SPEAKER_03]: And as we started to look

[00:32:20] [SPEAKER_03]: through that data taxonomy

[00:32:21] [SPEAKER_03]: of a taxonomy,

[00:32:23] [SPEAKER_03]: kind of like a hierarchy

[00:32:24] [SPEAKER_03]: or the structure of that

[00:32:25] [SPEAKER_03]: data, the power that we

[00:32:27] [SPEAKER_03]: started to see of how that

[00:32:29] [SPEAKER_03]: data can be really used

[00:32:31] [SPEAKER_03]: from an AI perspective to

[00:32:32] [SPEAKER_03]: drive sales was, I mean,

[00:32:35] [SPEAKER_03]: people, you know, some of

[00:32:35] [SPEAKER_03]: the conversations were like,

[00:32:37] [SPEAKER_03]: holy crap, I had no idea.

[00:32:39] [SPEAKER_03]: Right. Right.

[00:32:40] [SPEAKER_03]: Some of these things are

[00:32:40] [SPEAKER_03]: impossible.

[00:32:41] [SPEAKER_03]: And I think we keep waiting

[00:32:43] [SPEAKER_03]: for the killer app.

[00:32:44] [SPEAKER_03]: It hasn't quite happened,

[00:32:45] [SPEAKER_03]: but it's going to happen.

[00:32:47] [SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, we're

[00:32:48] [SPEAKER_03]: even seen in our world.

[00:32:50] [SPEAKER_01]: No, absolutely.

[00:32:51] [SPEAKER_01]: And that that ties back to

[00:32:55] [SPEAKER_01]: extracting siloed data

[00:32:56] [SPEAKER_01]: from within an organization

[00:32:57] [SPEAKER_01]: and getting the right view

[00:32:59] [SPEAKER_01]: of your data.

[00:33:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Right. And, you know,

[00:33:02] [SPEAKER_01]: and I don't want to

[00:33:03] [SPEAKER_01]: belabor this too long,

[00:33:04] [SPEAKER_01]: but there are way too

[00:33:06] [SPEAKER_01]: many companies out there

[00:33:07] [SPEAKER_01]: who are have been hugely

[00:33:09] [SPEAKER_01]: successful, you know,

[00:33:11] [SPEAKER_01]: maybe multi generational

[00:33:13] [SPEAKER_01]: hundreds of millions,

[00:33:14] [SPEAKER_01]: if not close to a billion

[00:33:15] [SPEAKER_01]: dollars, you know,

[00:33:16] [SPEAKER_01]: probably the hundreds

[00:33:17] [SPEAKER_01]: of millions range

[00:33:19] [SPEAKER_01]: that are just hugely

[00:33:20] [SPEAKER_01]: successful.

[00:33:21] [SPEAKER_01]: And the idea of moving out

[00:33:23] [SPEAKER_01]: of an analog world

[00:33:24] [SPEAKER_01]: to a digital world.

[00:33:26] [SPEAKER_01]: And I don't even want

[00:33:27] [SPEAKER_01]: to say it's that

[00:33:27] [SPEAKER_01]: analog to digital.

[00:33:29] [SPEAKER_01]: It's I'll call it

[00:33:29] [SPEAKER_01]: instead of analog,

[00:33:30] [SPEAKER_01]: I'll call it antiquated

[00:33:32] [SPEAKER_01]: digital or or rudimentary

[00:33:35] [SPEAKER_01]: digital versus foundational

[00:33:37] [SPEAKER_01]: digital with a long term

[00:33:40] [SPEAKER_01]: execution plan on how

[00:33:42] [SPEAKER_01]: it's going to grow

[00:33:42] [SPEAKER_01]: the organization.

[00:33:44] [SPEAKER_01]: That's going to be

[00:33:45] [SPEAKER_01]: the quicker for people.

[00:33:46] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and it just

[00:33:47] [SPEAKER_01]: it's going to take people.

[00:33:49] [SPEAKER_01]: There are people that

[00:33:49] [SPEAKER_01]: it's just going to take

[00:33:50] [SPEAKER_01]: when they look back

[00:33:52] [SPEAKER_01]: and go, wait a minute,

[00:33:53] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, we missed

[00:33:54] [SPEAKER_01]: our numbers two years

[00:33:55] [SPEAKER_01]: in a row and we gave up

[00:33:58] [SPEAKER_01]: market share to XYZ company

[00:34:00] [SPEAKER_01]: and we lost five people

[00:34:03] [SPEAKER_01]: to XYZ company

[00:34:04] [SPEAKER_01]: and they're doing these things

[00:34:06] [SPEAKER_01]: because they're in

[00:34:07] [SPEAKER_01]: the same trade association

[00:34:08] [SPEAKER_01]: or buying group.

[00:34:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And I can see what they're doing.

[00:34:11] [SPEAKER_01]: It's unfortunate to take

[00:34:12] [SPEAKER_01]: some of that.

[00:34:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Yep, good.

[00:34:15] [SPEAKER_01]: All right, let's jump ahead here.

[00:34:16] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, they posted

[00:34:17] [SPEAKER_01]: an article here

[00:34:19] [SPEAKER_01]: as well.

[00:34:20] [SPEAKER_01]: This came from MDM,

[00:34:21] [SPEAKER_01]: but it was in the news

[00:34:22] [SPEAKER_01]: in general.

[00:34:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Toyota recalls 34,000

[00:34:25] [SPEAKER_01]: cars due to distributors

[00:34:26] [SPEAKER_01]: inaccurate stickers.

[00:34:28] [SPEAKER_01]: So here's a gig.

[00:34:29] [SPEAKER_01]: We won't spend much time on this.

[00:34:31] [SPEAKER_01]: The only reason that's here is

[00:34:32] [SPEAKER_01]: there are a lot of

[00:34:34] [SPEAKER_01]: wholesale distributors out there.

[00:34:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Specific in a handful of markets,

[00:34:39] [SPEAKER_01]: but you really see this a lot

[00:34:41] [SPEAKER_01]: and the hose and fitting world

[00:34:42] [SPEAKER_01]: and so forth where they do

[00:34:44] [SPEAKER_01]: kidding.

[00:34:46] [SPEAKER_01]: It's oftentimes termed

[00:34:47] [SPEAKER_01]: or or they'll build

[00:34:50] [SPEAKER_01]: build assemblies

[00:34:51] [SPEAKER_01]: of multiple manufacturers

[00:34:53] [SPEAKER_01]: products into a singular product.

[00:34:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe change a fitting

[00:34:56] [SPEAKER_01]: on something or doing things.

[00:34:58] [SPEAKER_01]: All this article is here

[00:34:59] [SPEAKER_01]: for is the reminder that says,

[00:35:01] [SPEAKER_01]: hey, you know what?

[00:35:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Be cautious with labeling

[00:35:05] [SPEAKER_01]: and so forth.

[00:35:06] [SPEAKER_01]: This article was about

[00:35:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Toyota had to recall

[00:35:09] [SPEAKER_01]: 34,000 cars because one

[00:35:11] [SPEAKER_01]: of their distributors

[00:35:13] [SPEAKER_01]: who did some additions

[00:35:15] [SPEAKER_01]: to the car

[00:35:16] [SPEAKER_01]: made a mistake with the labeling

[00:35:18] [SPEAKER_01]: and weights and so forth.

[00:35:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And it wasn't that nobody got hurt.

[00:35:22] [SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't a safety issue.

[00:35:24] [SPEAKER_01]: It was a labeling

[00:35:25] [SPEAKER_01]: and compliance issue

[00:35:27] [SPEAKER_01]: that went with it.

[00:35:28] [SPEAKER_01]: So because so much of that happens

[00:35:30] [SPEAKER_01]: with people repackaging things

[00:35:31] [SPEAKER_01]: or kidding things

[00:35:33] [SPEAKER_01]: and so forth.

[00:35:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Great reminder.

[00:35:34] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, make sure you're

[00:35:36] [SPEAKER_01]: you're meeting all of the standards

[00:35:37] [SPEAKER_01]: and the requirements.

[00:35:39] [SPEAKER_01]: You're insured properly.

[00:35:41] [SPEAKER_01]: You're in your in alignment

[00:35:42] [SPEAKER_01]: with the manufac

[00:35:43] [SPEAKER_01]: all of the manufacturers

[00:35:44] [SPEAKER_01]: that you're working with

[00:35:45] [SPEAKER_01]: if you're in that case.

[00:35:46] [SPEAKER_01]: So a good reminder there.

[00:35:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Pretty costly recall,

[00:35:50] [SPEAKER_01]: though, for a sticker.

[00:35:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but but there it is right.

[00:35:55] [SPEAKER_01]: So good.

[00:35:56] [SPEAKER_01]: All right.

[00:35:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Let's jump into our e-commerce

[00:35:57] [SPEAKER_01]: and marketing segments.

[00:36:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Digital Commerce 360 article here.

[00:36:03] [SPEAKER_01]: E-commerce is now part

[00:36:04] [SPEAKER_01]: of the B2B operating standard.

[00:36:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Tom, want to throw some thoughts

[00:36:09] [SPEAKER_01]: out on that one?

[00:36:09] [SPEAKER_01]: What we are kind of ties

[00:36:11] [SPEAKER_01]: into our digitalization.

[00:36:13] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I know.

[00:36:14] [SPEAKER_03]: I think it fits right

[00:36:15] [SPEAKER_03]: within your discussion

[00:36:16] [SPEAKER_03]: of the foundational products, right?

[00:36:20] [SPEAKER_03]: And I'll even go a little bit

[00:36:22] [SPEAKER_03]: kind of a little bit

[00:36:23] [SPEAKER_03]: more abstract, right?

[00:36:24] [SPEAKER_03]: What do you need to be able

[00:36:25] [SPEAKER_03]: to be thinking about

[00:36:26] [SPEAKER_03]: what e-commerce right is?

[00:36:28] [SPEAKER_03]: How do you allow your customers

[00:36:29] [SPEAKER_03]: or your prospects

[00:36:31] [SPEAKER_03]: to purchase in a self serve

[00:36:33] [SPEAKER_03]: not even necessarily purchase,

[00:36:35] [SPEAKER_03]: but start to shop

[00:36:36] [SPEAKER_03]: and go through the process

[00:36:37] [SPEAKER_03]: of research and whatever online.

[00:36:40] Right.

[00:36:41] [SPEAKER_03]: That's a foundational element

[00:36:43] [SPEAKER_03]: of any business is the ability

[00:36:45] [SPEAKER_03]: for that self serve perspective.

[00:36:47] [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, you said right.

[00:36:48] [SPEAKER_03]: A foundational element of URP is

[00:36:50] [SPEAKER_03]: I've got to be able

[00:36:51] [SPEAKER_03]: to run my transactions

[00:36:52] [SPEAKER_03]: and my orders and my quotes.

[00:36:54] [SPEAKER_03]: And the foundational element

[00:36:55] [SPEAKER_03]: of a CRM is how do I make

[00:36:57] [SPEAKER_03]: my salespeople more efficient

[00:36:59] [SPEAKER_03]: and enable the team to sell more

[00:37:01] [SPEAKER_03]: and grow and so forth.

[00:37:02] [SPEAKER_03]: So, yeah, I think, you know,

[00:37:04] [SPEAKER_03]: this is what talking about is that.

[00:37:08] It's.

[00:37:09] [SPEAKER_03]: And I guess there's still

[00:37:10] [SPEAKER_03]: a lot of companies

[00:37:10] [SPEAKER_03]: that have not embraced e-commerce.

[00:37:12] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, yeah, or not embrace self serve.

[00:37:16] [SPEAKER_03]: But again, I agree with you.

[00:37:17] [SPEAKER_03]: It's just one of those same

[00:37:18] [SPEAKER_03]: foundational elements

[00:37:19] [SPEAKER_03]: that are going to be part of any

[00:37:21] [SPEAKER_03]: sort of any sort of modern

[00:37:23] [SPEAKER_03]: and futurized business.

[00:37:24] [SPEAKER_03]: And this was a good article

[00:37:25] [SPEAKER_03]: against kind of summarizing

[00:37:26] [SPEAKER_03]: that and some of the stats.

[00:37:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Yep.

[00:37:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, one of the interesting

[00:37:29] [SPEAKER_01]: they surveyed 400 companies

[00:37:32] [SPEAKER_01]: each with more than 20 employees

[00:37:33] [SPEAKER_01]: and revenues above 20 million.

[00:37:35] [SPEAKER_01]: And it said that 70 percent

[00:37:37] [SPEAKER_01]: of B2B sellers have an e-commerce

[00:37:39] [SPEAKER_01]: site or an online portal.

[00:37:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Additionally, it said that

[00:37:43] [SPEAKER_01]: they provide.

[00:37:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Let's see.

[00:37:45] [SPEAKER_01]: What was that?

[00:37:46] [SPEAKER_01]: It said in the landscape

[00:37:47] [SPEAKER_01]: where customers expect convenience

[00:37:49] [SPEAKER_01]: and flexibility as standard,

[00:37:50] [SPEAKER_01]: the 23 percent of B2B

[00:37:52] [SPEAKER_01]: organizations not yet embracing

[00:37:53] [SPEAKER_01]: e-commerce risk getting left behind

[00:37:56] [SPEAKER_01]: while the remainder capitalize

[00:37:58] [SPEAKER_01]: on their competitive advantage.

[00:37:59] [SPEAKER_01]: I think if that study was

[00:38:04] [SPEAKER_01]: in the research that they did,

[00:38:05] [SPEAKER_01]: there was 4000 companies.

[00:38:08] [SPEAKER_01]: I think they would probably find

[00:38:10] [SPEAKER_01]: that 70 percent that do have

[00:38:12] [SPEAKER_01]: something falls to probably

[00:38:15] [SPEAKER_01]: 40 or 50 percent at the most.

[00:38:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Because we just we see a lot of

[00:38:19] [SPEAKER_01]: people that are just getting

[00:38:19] [SPEAKER_01]: started. And the other side of

[00:38:21] [SPEAKER_01]: that is what level of quality?

[00:38:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And this is this is something

[00:38:24] [SPEAKER_01]: that's I don't want to say not

[00:38:26] [SPEAKER_01]: fair because the capitalism

[00:38:28] [SPEAKER_01]: is capitalism. Right.

[00:38:29] [SPEAKER_01]: But.

[00:38:32] [SPEAKER_01]: The challenge is, and we I mean,

[00:38:34] [SPEAKER_01]: it doesn't seem like a week goes

[00:38:36] [SPEAKER_01]: by that we don't talk about this

[00:38:37] [SPEAKER_01]: at some level, is that

[00:38:40] [SPEAKER_01]: buyers now are there

[00:38:42] [SPEAKER_01]: their business life.

[00:38:44] [SPEAKER_01]: And we're going to talk about

[00:38:45] [SPEAKER_01]: this in our people

[00:38:47] [SPEAKER_01]: and leadership segment later.

[00:38:50] [SPEAKER_01]: But their digital

[00:38:52] [SPEAKER_01]: life and their business life

[00:38:54] [SPEAKER_01]: are emerging. Right.

[00:38:55] [SPEAKER_01]: So I always use the example,

[00:38:57] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, the guy that's.

[00:38:58] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, the 60

[00:39:02] [SPEAKER_01]: plus percent of B2B buyers

[00:39:03] [SPEAKER_01]: are millennials.

[00:39:04] [SPEAKER_01]: So that's the guy that, you

[00:39:06] [SPEAKER_01]: know, used

[00:39:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Apple Pay when he went to the

[00:39:10] [SPEAKER_01]: movies with his girlfriend the

[00:39:11] [SPEAKER_01]: day before or took an Uber

[00:39:14] [SPEAKER_01]: and used an app and

[00:39:16] [SPEAKER_01]: buys all of his groceries

[00:39:18] [SPEAKER_01]: through Uber Eats

[00:39:21] [SPEAKER_01]: or Amazon, you know, fresh.

[00:39:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And when he gets to work, he

[00:39:25] [SPEAKER_01]: wants that same experience

[00:39:27] [SPEAKER_01]: and is looking for that.

[00:39:29] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's a challenge for

[00:39:32] [SPEAKER_01]: smaller wholesale distributors

[00:39:34] [SPEAKER_01]: that haven't fully embraced

[00:39:35] [SPEAKER_01]: digitization in their business

[00:39:37] [SPEAKER_01]: yet, because just because

[00:39:39] [SPEAKER_01]: I have e-commerce does not

[00:39:41] [SPEAKER_01]: mean I have e-commerce at a

[00:39:43] [SPEAKER_01]: level that people are expecting.

[00:39:45] [SPEAKER_01]: There are some very generic

[00:39:47] [SPEAKER_01]: tools out there.

[00:39:48] [SPEAKER_01]: You can find them, some of

[00:39:49] [SPEAKER_01]: them through your trade

[00:39:50] [SPEAKER_01]: associations and buying groups

[00:39:52] [SPEAKER_01]: that don't give that

[00:39:54] [SPEAKER_01]: high level of experience yet.

[00:39:56] [SPEAKER_01]: So it's kind of an interesting

[00:39:57] [SPEAKER_01]: factor when you kind of put that

[00:39:59] [SPEAKER_01]: not just do I have anything,

[00:40:01] [SPEAKER_01]: but do I have something that's

[00:40:02] [SPEAKER_01]: relevant?

[00:40:02] [SPEAKER_01]: That's why I don't like to just

[00:40:04] [SPEAKER_03]: say you have e-commerce,

[00:40:05] [SPEAKER_03]: you have CRM, you have ERP.

[00:40:07] [SPEAKER_03]: That's not the right

[00:40:08] [SPEAKER_03]: that's not the right way to

[00:40:09] [SPEAKER_03]: look at it.

[00:40:10] [SPEAKER_03]: It's foundationally, do you

[00:40:11] [SPEAKER_03]: have an experience that allows

[00:40:13] [SPEAKER_03]: your customer to shop

[00:40:15] [SPEAKER_03]: and make purchases and do

[00:40:16] [SPEAKER_03]: things in a self-serve manner?

[00:40:18] [SPEAKER_03]: In their components.

[00:40:19] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm sorry, Tom, go ahead.

[00:40:20] [SPEAKER_03]: Do you have an experience that

[00:40:22] [SPEAKER_03]: enables your sales team to be

[00:40:23] [SPEAKER_03]: more effective and more

[00:40:26] [SPEAKER_03]: efficient and more, again,

[00:40:28] [SPEAKER_03]: providing a better do you have

[00:40:29] [SPEAKER_03]: an experience?

[00:40:29] [SPEAKER_03]: All of those things are

[00:40:31] [SPEAKER_03]: there's a specific outcome

[00:40:33] [SPEAKER_03]: for them versus just saying

[00:40:35] [SPEAKER_03]: e-commerce, CRM, ERP,

[00:40:38] [SPEAKER_03]: marketing automation and so

[00:40:39] [SPEAKER_03]: forth.

[00:40:41] [SPEAKER_03]: So look, I'm not saying that

[00:40:43] [SPEAKER_03]: it's easy and I want to touch

[00:40:44] [SPEAKER_03]: on a couple of these

[00:40:45] [SPEAKER_03]: comments here.

[00:40:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, before you jump

[00:40:47] [SPEAKER_01]: though, Tom, I think the

[00:40:48] [SPEAKER_01]: important point of that is,

[00:40:49] [SPEAKER_01]: and I do want to hit some

[00:40:50] [SPEAKER_01]: of these, got a couple of good

[00:40:52] [SPEAKER_01]: comments that just came into

[00:40:53] [SPEAKER_01]: that.

[00:40:53] [SPEAKER_01]: I think the important part of

[00:40:55] [SPEAKER_01]: this is we talk about those

[00:40:58] [SPEAKER_01]: foundational pieces.

[00:40:59] [SPEAKER_01]: We've talked about point

[00:40:59] [SPEAKER_01]: products and so forth that

[00:41:01] [SPEAKER_01]: are challenges out there.

[00:41:02] [SPEAKER_01]: The other side of this that I

[00:41:04] [SPEAKER_01]: think is critical is,

[00:41:07] [SPEAKER_01]: is all of this part of a

[00:41:08] [SPEAKER_01]: digital roadmap as opposed to

[00:41:11] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just going to buy things.

[00:41:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's the key that I

[00:41:15] [SPEAKER_01]: think we really want to talk

[00:41:16] [SPEAKER_01]: about is, and that's where I

[00:41:18] [SPEAKER_01]: think the consultants of the

[00:41:19] [SPEAKER_01]: world that are working with

[00:41:20] [SPEAKER_01]: these folks seem to be really

[00:41:23] [SPEAKER_01]: narrowly focused on,

[00:41:24] [SPEAKER_01]: pinpointed focus on is what's

[00:41:26] [SPEAKER_01]: the digital roadmap for the

[00:41:28] [SPEAKER_01]: organization as opposed to

[00:41:30] [SPEAKER_01]: what do I do?

[00:41:30] [SPEAKER_01]: I need to buy e-commerce now.

[00:41:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, well where does

[00:41:33] [SPEAKER_01]: e-commerce fall in my

[00:41:35] [SPEAKER_01]: digital roadmap?

[00:41:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Because if you buy

[00:41:37] [SPEAKER_01]: e-commerce and we've got a

[00:41:38] [SPEAKER_01]: comment we'll talk about

[00:41:39] [SPEAKER_01]: here in just a minute that's

[00:41:40] [SPEAKER_01]: not able to easily connect

[00:41:42] [SPEAKER_01]: in with the ERP system or I

[00:41:43] [SPEAKER_01]: don't have a foundational

[00:41:44] [SPEAKER_01]: tool like an AI enabled CRM

[00:41:47] [SPEAKER_01]: that can track e-commerce

[00:41:49] [SPEAKER_01]: data, ERP data, marketing

[00:41:51] [SPEAKER_01]: automation data, and

[00:41:52] [SPEAKER_01]: show a customer journey

[00:41:53] [SPEAKER_01]: across the board.

[00:41:55] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm missing the digital

[00:41:56] [SPEAKER_01]: roadmap by just buying

[00:41:57] [SPEAKER_01]: something single.

[00:41:59] [SPEAKER_01]: So let's jump to those

[00:42:00] [SPEAKER_01]: comments.

[00:42:01] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, well I'll get

[00:42:02] [SPEAKER_03]: Valinda's comment here

[00:42:03] [SPEAKER_03]: first.

[00:42:04] [SPEAKER_03]: What she's saying is e-commerce

[00:42:05] [SPEAKER_03]: requires integration with

[00:42:06] [SPEAKER_03]: the ERP.

[00:42:09] [SPEAKER_03]: Right?

[00:42:09] [SPEAKER_03]: And there is complexity

[00:42:11] [SPEAKER_03]: to that and she's saying

[00:42:12] [SPEAKER_03]: you know starting this

[00:42:12] [SPEAKER_03]: direction is critical for our

[00:42:13] [SPEAKER_03]: organizations.

[00:42:15] [SPEAKER_03]: Smaller business need to

[00:42:16] [SPEAKER_03]: look at this seriously as it

[00:42:17] [SPEAKER_03]: is no longer an option to

[00:42:18] [SPEAKER_03]: be in the market

[00:42:19] [SPEAKER_03]: competitively.

[00:42:20] [SPEAKER_03]: Look, I don't I am not

[00:42:23] [SPEAKER_03]: going to sit here and say

[00:42:24] [SPEAKER_03]: that this is necessarily

[00:42:25] [SPEAKER_03]: easy or a magic wand.

[00:42:27] [SPEAKER_03]: No, no.

[00:42:28] [SPEAKER_03]: But I you know I mean

[00:42:29] [SPEAKER_03]: Kevin you've been in this

[00:42:30] [SPEAKER_03]: industry way longer than

[00:42:31] [SPEAKER_03]: I have.

[00:42:32] [SPEAKER_03]: It wasn't easy for these

[00:42:34] [SPEAKER_03]: companies to build the

[00:42:35] [SPEAKER_03]: businesses that they had

[00:42:36] [SPEAKER_03]: right?

[00:42:37] [SPEAKER_03]: Nothing's easy.

[00:42:38] [SPEAKER_03]: Right?

[00:42:39] [SPEAKER_03]: So it's just now a matter

[00:42:40] [SPEAKER_03]: of going through the

[00:42:41] [SPEAKER_03]: process and I agree with

[00:42:42] [SPEAKER_03]: the roadmap perspective.

[00:42:44] [SPEAKER_03]: I also want to hit Bob's

[00:42:45] [SPEAKER_03]: comment because there's

[00:42:47] [SPEAKER_03]: also an organizational

[00:42:49] [SPEAKER_03]: aspect to things as well.

[00:42:50] [SPEAKER_03]: Like who has it?

[00:42:51] [SPEAKER_03]: And you know he says the

[00:42:52] [SPEAKER_03]: problem with B2B e-commerce

[00:42:53] [SPEAKER_03]: who owns it?

[00:42:54] [SPEAKER_03]: Marketing owns it, sales

[00:42:55] [SPEAKER_03]: owns it, IT owns it.

[00:42:57] [SPEAKER_03]: But sale you know there's

[00:42:58] [SPEAKER_03]: a lot of different

[00:42:59] [SPEAKER_03]: stakeholders that need to

[00:43:00] [SPEAKER_03]: go into the mix here.

[00:43:01] [SPEAKER_03]: Again not saying this

[00:43:02] [SPEAKER_03]: is easy these are just

[00:43:03] [SPEAKER_03]: things that are all kind

[00:43:07] [SPEAKER_03]: of have to be taken

[00:43:08] [SPEAKER_03]: into account on that

[00:43:09] [SPEAKER_03]: bigger picture.

[00:43:10] [SPEAKER_03]: We seem to be on our

[00:43:10] [SPEAKER_03]: team today about this.

[00:43:13] [SPEAKER_01]: So this is important

[00:43:15] [SPEAKER_01]: stuff right?

[00:43:15] [SPEAKER_01]: This is this is where

[00:43:16] [SPEAKER_01]: things are headed and

[00:43:18] [SPEAKER_01]: you made an interesting

[00:43:19] [SPEAKER_01]: point a few minutes

[00:43:20] [SPEAKER_01]: ago that I'm appreciative.

[00:43:21] [SPEAKER_01]: And by the way thank you

[00:43:21] [SPEAKER_01]: everybody for your

[00:43:22] [SPEAKER_01]: comments.

[00:43:23] [SPEAKER_01]: The more the better

[00:43:24] [SPEAKER_01]: comments just make

[00:43:25] [SPEAKER_01]: the show better right?

[00:43:26] [SPEAKER_01]: And Belinda thank you

[00:43:27] [SPEAKER_01]: for you.

[00:43:28] [SPEAKER_01]: I love hearing that.

[00:43:28] [SPEAKER_03]: I love hearing the

[00:43:30] [SPEAKER_03]: viewpoints right?

[00:43:31] [SPEAKER_01]: That's good.

[00:43:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And you know what by

[00:43:32] [SPEAKER_01]: the way don't hesitate

[00:43:33] [SPEAKER_01]: to disagree with us

[00:43:34] [SPEAKER_01]: as well because Tom and

[00:43:36] [SPEAKER_01]: I disagree with each

[00:43:36] [SPEAKER_01]: other here and there

[00:43:37] [SPEAKER_01]: also.

[00:43:39] [SPEAKER_01]: So the Mrs.

[00:43:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Brown thinks that the

[00:43:41] [SPEAKER_01]: more I disagree or argue

[00:43:45] [SPEAKER_01]: with Tom the less I'll

[00:43:46] [SPEAKER_01]: cause her headaches.

[00:43:47] [SPEAKER_01]: So works good that

[00:43:49] [SPEAKER_01]: way.

[00:43:50] [SPEAKER_01]: But you know.

[00:43:51] [SPEAKER_01]: She usually agrees with

[00:43:51] [SPEAKER_01]: me so that's you know.

[00:43:52] [SPEAKER_01]: She usually agrees

[00:43:53] [SPEAKER_01]: with you.

[00:43:54] [SPEAKER_01]: That's funny.

[00:43:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah yes.

[00:43:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for that.

[00:43:57] [SPEAKER_01]: That's that's just

[00:43:58] [SPEAKER_01]: what I need.

[00:44:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Threw me off there.

[00:44:02] [SPEAKER_01]: The you made it you

[00:44:03] [SPEAKER_01]: made a good comment

[00:44:04] [SPEAKER_01]: earlier.

[00:44:05] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm appreciative of it

[00:44:06] [SPEAKER_01]: not just one many

[00:44:06] [SPEAKER_01]: but in particular you

[00:44:08] [SPEAKER_01]: made a comment about

[00:44:10] [SPEAKER_01]: how the hard work

[00:44:11] [SPEAKER_01]: that went into some

[00:44:12] [SPEAKER_01]: of these companies

[00:44:12] [SPEAKER_01]: getting there whether

[00:44:13] [SPEAKER_01]: you're a manufacturer

[00:44:14] [SPEAKER_01]: or distributor.

[00:44:16] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think about

[00:44:17] [SPEAKER_01]: that a lot specifically.

[00:44:20] [SPEAKER_01]: You know we meet

[00:44:22] [SPEAKER_01]: wholesale distributors

[00:44:23] [SPEAKER_01]: every day and I had

[00:44:26] [SPEAKER_01]: a great meeting at

[00:44:27] [SPEAKER_01]: the affiliated distributors.

[00:44:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Very power transmission

[00:44:33] [SPEAKER_01]: national meeting a

[00:44:34] [SPEAKER_01]: couple of weeks ago.

[00:44:35] [SPEAKER_01]: I guess it was last week.

[00:44:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Just great people right.

[00:44:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Just good human beings.

[00:44:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was meeting

[00:44:43] [SPEAKER_01]: with a gentleman and

[00:44:45] [SPEAKER_01]: he was there with his

[00:44:46] [SPEAKER_01]: daughter and won't

[00:44:48] [SPEAKER_01]: mention the company.

[00:44:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Don't know their ages.

[00:44:50] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to say he's

[00:44:52] [SPEAKER_01]: late 60s and she's

[00:44:53] [SPEAKER_01]: probably mid 40s

[00:44:56] [SPEAKER_01]: and she had never

[00:44:57] [SPEAKER_01]: thought she wanted to

[00:44:58] [SPEAKER_01]: work in the family business

[00:45:01] [SPEAKER_01]: and now she's going

[00:45:03] [SPEAKER_01]: to come in and take

[00:45:04] [SPEAKER_01]: over and run the company

[00:45:05] [SPEAKER_01]: and they're figuring

[00:45:05] [SPEAKER_01]: out their digital

[00:45:06] [SPEAKER_01]: roadmap.

[00:45:07] [SPEAKER_01]: But you know when I

[00:45:08] [SPEAKER_01]: asked him how he

[00:45:09] [SPEAKER_01]: started the business

[00:45:10] [SPEAKER_01]: I think there are 14

[00:45:11] [SPEAKER_01]: or 15 branches

[00:45:12] [SPEAKER_01]: and his comment was

[00:45:14] [SPEAKER_01]: such and such a company

[00:45:15] [SPEAKER_01]: looked like they were

[00:45:16] [SPEAKER_01]: going to fire me.

[00:45:17] [SPEAKER_01]: So I went out and figured

[00:45:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I could do it on my own

[00:45:19] [SPEAKER_01]: and the work that

[00:45:20] [SPEAKER_01]: went into building

[00:45:21] [SPEAKER_01]: that company.

[00:45:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Now you think about

[00:45:23] [SPEAKER_01]: that when we talk

[00:45:23] [SPEAKER_01]: about companies that

[00:45:24] [SPEAKER_01]: are third and fourth

[00:45:25] [SPEAKER_01]: generation we see all

[00:45:26] [SPEAKER_01]: the time.

[00:45:27] [SPEAKER_01]: So let's just say

[00:45:28] [SPEAKER_01]: let's just say

[00:45:28] [SPEAKER_01]: they're a hundred

[00:45:29] [SPEAKER_01]: million dollar a year

[00:45:30] [SPEAKER_01]: company with five

[00:45:31] [SPEAKER_01]: branches.

[00:45:33] [SPEAKER_01]: What took you

[00:45:35] [SPEAKER_01]: say 50 years to get

[00:45:37] [SPEAKER_01]: from zero to from

[00:45:39] [SPEAKER_01]: one to five branches

[00:45:41] [SPEAKER_01]: in 100 million dollars

[00:45:42] [SPEAKER_01]: with the right digital

[00:45:46] [SPEAKER_01]: roadmap ahead for

[00:45:47] [SPEAKER_01]: your organization

[00:45:48] [SPEAKER_01]: that's well planned

[00:45:50] [SPEAKER_01]: going from a hundred

[00:45:51] [SPEAKER_01]: million dollars

[00:45:52] [SPEAKER_01]: to two million dollars

[00:45:53] [SPEAKER_01]: is probably two

[00:45:54] [SPEAKER_01]: hundred million dollars

[00:45:54] [SPEAKER_01]: could probably be five

[00:45:56] [SPEAKER_01]: years for organizations

[00:45:58] [SPEAKER_01]: versus 50 years.

[00:45:59] [SPEAKER_01]: So the exponential

[00:46:00] [SPEAKER_01]: growth opportunity

[00:46:01] [SPEAKER_01]: that's there from

[00:46:02] [SPEAKER_01]: these investments

[00:46:03] [SPEAKER_01]: but it's not from

[00:46:04] [SPEAKER_01]: just saying I just

[00:46:04] [SPEAKER_01]: went and bought

[00:46:05] [SPEAKER_01]: something.

[00:46:05] [SPEAKER_01]: It's from having that

[00:46:07] [SPEAKER_01]: plan and the roadmap

[00:46:08] [SPEAKER_01]: ahead of how

[00:46:08] [SPEAKER_01]: we're going to get

[00:46:09] there.

[00:46:11] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah no I agree

[00:46:12] [SPEAKER_03]: completely and I think

[00:46:14] [SPEAKER_03]: that it's a good

[00:46:15] [SPEAKER_03]: point right because

[00:46:16] [SPEAKER_03]: there's a lot of

[00:46:16] [SPEAKER_03]: blood sweat and tears

[00:46:17] [SPEAKER_03]: that have taken place

[00:46:18] [SPEAKER_03]: to get to the

[00:46:19] [SPEAKER_03]: point where these

[00:46:20] [SPEAKER_03]: companies are at.

[00:46:21] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah and yes they

[00:46:22] [SPEAKER_03]: can go to a whole

[00:46:22] [SPEAKER_03]: not just a whole

[00:46:23] [SPEAKER_03]: another level of growth

[00:46:24] [SPEAKER_03]: but a whole

[00:46:25] [SPEAKER_03]: another level of

[00:46:26] [SPEAKER_03]: of experience customer

[00:46:27] [SPEAKER_03]: experience a lot of

[00:46:28] [SPEAKER_03]: comments in here

[00:46:28] [SPEAKER_03]: about the importance

[00:46:29] [SPEAKER_03]: of customer experience

[00:46:32] [SPEAKER_03]: and just you know

[00:46:33] [SPEAKER_03]: a lot of companies

[00:46:34] [SPEAKER_03]: are concerned about

[00:46:35] [SPEAKER_03]: succession planning

[00:46:35] [SPEAKER_03]: and all of that.

[00:46:36] [SPEAKER_03]: It just opens up

[00:46:37] [SPEAKER_03]: the door to that

[00:46:38] [SPEAKER_03]: being having less

[00:46:39] [SPEAKER_03]: friction and more

[00:46:41] [SPEAKER_03]: opportunity.

[00:46:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Two great comments

[00:46:43] [SPEAKER_01]: here we don't need

[00:46:44] [SPEAKER_01]: to highlight them

[00:46:45] [SPEAKER_01]: or whatever I'll hit

[00:46:45] [SPEAKER_01]: them really quickly

[00:46:46] [SPEAKER_01]: though that align

[00:46:47] [SPEAKER_01]: right.

[00:46:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Bob was talking

[00:46:49] [SPEAKER_01]: about companies

[00:46:50] [SPEAKER_01]: need when companies

[00:46:52] [SPEAKER_01]: adapt to tech

[00:46:53] [SPEAKER_01]: sometimes they lose

[00:46:54] [SPEAKER_01]: touch with the

[00:46:54] [SPEAKER_01]: care or competencies

[00:46:56] [SPEAKER_01]: that give them a

[00:46:57] [SPEAKER_01]: competitive advantage

[00:46:58] [SPEAKER_01]: and he's talking

[00:46:58] [SPEAKER_01]: about that tech

[00:47:00] [SPEAKER_01]: needs to adapt

[00:47:01] [SPEAKER_01]: to the company

[00:47:01] [SPEAKER_01]: and Volenda was

[00:47:02] [SPEAKER_01]: saying something similar

[00:47:04] [SPEAKER_01]: about delivering

[00:47:05] [SPEAKER_01]: fast revenue

[00:47:05] [SPEAKER_01]: results.

[00:47:07] [SPEAKER_01]: That's something

[00:47:08] [SPEAKER_01]: for people to

[00:47:09] [SPEAKER_01]: really be thinking

[00:47:09] [SPEAKER_01]: about is you know

[00:47:11] [SPEAKER_01]: when you buy off

[00:47:12] [SPEAKER_01]: the shelf software

[00:47:13] [SPEAKER_01]: whether it's an

[00:47:14] [SPEAKER_01]: ERP system or a CRM

[00:47:16] [SPEAKER_01]: or customer intelligence

[00:47:17] [SPEAKER_01]: solution.

[00:47:18] [SPEAKER_01]: It should be

[00:47:20] [SPEAKER_01]: either already

[00:47:22] [SPEAKER_01]: prepared or out of the box

[00:47:23] [SPEAKER_01]: ready to work in your industry

[00:47:25] [SPEAKER_01]: or it should be

[00:47:27] [SPEAKER_01]: and in our case

[00:47:28] [SPEAKER_01]: we'll give a good example

[00:47:29] [SPEAKER_01]: is we talk about

[00:47:30] [SPEAKER_01]: leads more channel

[00:47:31] [SPEAKER_01]: cloud is 70%

[00:47:32] [SPEAKER_01]: ready for most

[00:47:33] [SPEAKER_01]: distributors

[00:47:34] [SPEAKER_01]: right out of the box

[00:47:35] [SPEAKER_01]: but that last 30%

[00:47:37] [SPEAKER_01]: is when we hit

[00:47:37] [SPEAKER_01]: what Volenda

[00:47:39] [SPEAKER_01]: and Bob were just

[00:47:40] [SPEAKER_01]: talking about

[00:47:41] [SPEAKER_01]: is that now we bring

[00:47:42] [SPEAKER_01]: core competencies

[00:47:43] [SPEAKER_01]: of the company

[00:47:44] [SPEAKER_01]: and sales processes

[00:47:45] [SPEAKER_01]: and I've never met yet

[00:47:48] [SPEAKER_01]: and Tom you work

[00:47:49] [SPEAKER_01]: closer on this than I do

[00:47:50] [SPEAKER_01]: but I have yet to meet

[00:47:52] [SPEAKER_01]: a company that uses

[00:47:53] [SPEAKER_01]: our software

[00:47:54] [SPEAKER_01]: that has not refined

[00:47:56] [SPEAKER_01]: and enhanced

[00:47:57] [SPEAKER_01]: and or developed

[00:47:58] [SPEAKER_01]: new processes

[00:47:59] [SPEAKER_01]: for how they manage leads

[00:48:00] [SPEAKER_01]: how they work with quotes

[00:48:02] [SPEAKER_01]: and so forth.

[00:48:04] [SPEAKER_01]: When you have a plan

[00:48:06] [SPEAKER_01]: and a roadmap in place

[00:48:07] [SPEAKER_01]: to adopt technology

[00:48:08] [SPEAKER_01]: and you're working

[00:48:09] [SPEAKER_01]: with the right partners

[00:48:10] [SPEAKER_01]: whether it's us

[00:48:11] [SPEAKER_01]: or somebody else

[00:48:12] [SPEAKER_01]: on a related product

[00:48:14] [SPEAKER_01]: is the understanding

[00:48:15] [SPEAKER_01]: of your business

[00:48:16] [SPEAKER_01]: so that your business

[00:48:17] [SPEAKER_01]: isn't trying to get stuck

[00:48:19] [SPEAKER_01]: with having to change

[00:48:20] [SPEAKER_01]: everything because

[00:48:21] [SPEAKER_01]: of the technology

[00:48:22] [SPEAKER_01]: but the technology

[00:48:23] [SPEAKER_01]: aligns and meshes

[00:48:24] [SPEAKER_01]: and integrates

[00:48:25] [SPEAKER_01]: with your business

[00:48:26] [SPEAKER_01]: to make it better is key.

[00:48:28] [SPEAKER_03]: So yeah,

[00:48:28] [SPEAKER_03]: and I also want to just quickly

[00:48:30] [SPEAKER_03]: touch on Kelly's comment here

[00:48:32] [SPEAKER_03]: in particular,

[00:48:33] [SPEAKER_03]: which he says we want

[00:48:34] [SPEAKER_03]: as a buyer

[00:48:35] [SPEAKER_03]: experience today.

[00:48:37] [SPEAKER_03]: This is our

[00:48:38] [SPEAKER_03]: fire.

[00:48:39] [SPEAKER_03]: But we want as a buying

[00:48:41] [SPEAKER_03]: experience,

[00:48:41] [SPEAKER_03]: not a transactional one.

[00:48:43] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:48:43] [SPEAKER_03]: And I think we talked a lot

[00:48:45] [SPEAKER_03]: about these point products

[00:48:46] [SPEAKER_03]: or these again,

[00:48:47] [SPEAKER_03]: there's no way you can really.

[00:48:50] [SPEAKER_03]: Create an experience

[00:48:52] [SPEAKER_03]: without having that roadmap

[00:48:53] [SPEAKER_03]: in that structure.

[00:48:54] [SPEAKER_03]: That's the error along the way.

[00:48:56] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm very intrigued

[00:48:57] [SPEAKER_03]: with the amount of

[00:48:58] [SPEAKER_03]: you can tell there's

[00:48:59] [SPEAKER_03]: a lot of emotion behind this.

[00:49:00] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, passion.

[00:49:02] [SPEAKER_03]: That's out there

[00:49:03] [SPEAKER_03]: and you probably see this

[00:49:04] [SPEAKER_03]: even in the shows

[00:49:04] [SPEAKER_03]: that you're going to work.

[00:49:06] [SPEAKER_03]: You may meet people

[00:49:07] [SPEAKER_03]: within the company

[00:49:07] [SPEAKER_03]: that are frustrated

[00:49:08] [SPEAKER_03]: that they haven't been able to

[00:49:10] [SPEAKER_03]: push more modernization

[00:49:12] [SPEAKER_03]: and technology forward.

[00:49:14] [SPEAKER_03]: And there certainly seems

[00:49:15] [SPEAKER_03]: to be a lot of emotion

[00:49:16] [SPEAKER_03]: in the subject and the area.

[00:49:17] [SPEAKER_01]: No, no, they're absolutely.

[00:49:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think what I think

[00:49:20] [SPEAKER_01]: where you see that

[00:49:21] [SPEAKER_01]: the challenge here is,

[00:49:23] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, and we've got some

[00:49:24] [SPEAKER_01]: folks that are with us today

[00:49:25] [SPEAKER_01]: that are distributors themselves.

[00:49:28] [SPEAKER_01]: I think the challenge happens is.

[00:49:31] [SPEAKER_01]: I know I need to do this.

[00:49:34] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know where to start.

[00:49:36] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to the I go

[00:49:37] [SPEAKER_01]: to the AI event for distribution.

[00:49:40] [SPEAKER_01]: I go to the this

[00:49:41] [SPEAKER_01]: I go to my buying groups.

[00:49:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Whatever it might be is the

[00:49:45] [SPEAKER_01]: I do all these things

[00:49:47] [SPEAKER_01]: and I go get educated on it,

[00:49:50] [SPEAKER_01]: but I'm stuck, right?

[00:49:51] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm stuck with where to start.

[00:49:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe I don't have the budgets yet,

[00:49:55] [SPEAKER_01]: whatever it might be.

[00:49:56] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's

[00:49:57] [SPEAKER_01]: the issue here is

[00:49:59] [SPEAKER_01]: get started with something

[00:50:00] [SPEAKER_01]: but have a plan of how you're going

[00:50:02] [SPEAKER_01]: to move down the path.

[00:50:05] [SPEAKER_03]: All right.

[00:50:06] [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, we're like way behind here.

[00:50:08] [SPEAKER_03]: So where do you want to

[00:50:10] [SPEAKER_03]: where do you want to go here

[00:50:10] [SPEAKER_03]: so we don't make this

[00:50:11] [SPEAKER_03]: a three hour event?

[00:50:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Let's see.

[00:50:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, the next article

[00:50:16] [SPEAKER_01]: we were talking about was why AI

[00:50:17] [SPEAKER_01]: and B2B marketing is essential

[00:50:19] [SPEAKER_01]: for survival and success.

[00:50:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Talked about AI quite a bit already.

[00:50:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Why don't we jump ahead

[00:50:25] [SPEAKER_01]: to you right now?

[00:50:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Real quick, if we don't have

[00:50:27] [SPEAKER_01]: to be in, we can't.

[00:50:28] [SPEAKER_01]: If you want to make

[00:50:29] [SPEAKER_01]: a couple of comments on

[00:50:30] [SPEAKER_03]: let's make some comments

[00:50:31] [SPEAKER_03]: we can move on right

[00:50:32] [SPEAKER_03]: because they use the word right.

[00:50:34] [SPEAKER_03]: One of the biggest

[00:50:35] [SPEAKER_03]: and most significant

[00:50:35] [SPEAKER_03]: benefit this is from the article.

[00:50:37] [SPEAKER_03]: One of the most significant

[00:50:38] [SPEAKER_03]: and benefits of AI

[00:50:39] [SPEAKER_03]: and B2B marketing

[00:50:40] [SPEAKER_03]: is increased level of personalization

[00:50:44] [SPEAKER_03]: allows business to create

[00:50:45] [SPEAKER_03]: highly targeted and personalized

[00:50:48] [SPEAKER_03]: content, improve customer engagement

[00:50:49] [SPEAKER_03]: and conversion.

[00:50:51] [SPEAKER_03]: I just wanted to touch

[00:50:53] [SPEAKER_03]: on that word personalization

[00:50:54] [SPEAKER_03]: because it's come up a lot

[00:50:55] [SPEAKER_03]: actually or fairly frequently

[00:50:57] [SPEAKER_03]: right in conversations I've had.

[00:50:59] [SPEAKER_03]: Personalization isn't like,

[00:51:01] [SPEAKER_03]: hey, just hi, Kevin.

[00:51:03] [SPEAKER_03]: I put your name in the email

[00:51:05] [SPEAKER_03]: or something on those lines.

[00:51:08] [SPEAKER_03]: Personalization comes from

[00:51:10] [SPEAKER_03]: really knowing who it is

[00:51:12] [SPEAKER_03]: that you're talking to

[00:51:13] [SPEAKER_03]: and then having the most

[00:51:15] [SPEAKER_03]: relevant conversation

[00:51:17] [SPEAKER_03]: that you can with that person

[00:51:20] [SPEAKER_03]: based on or that company

[00:51:21] [SPEAKER_03]: based on their needs.

[00:51:23] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I do agree.

[00:51:24] [SPEAKER_03]: I see it all the time.

[00:51:25] [SPEAKER_03]: I see it every day

[00:51:27] [SPEAKER_03]: and some of the stuff

[00:51:28] [SPEAKER_03]: that even we're doing is

[00:51:30] [SPEAKER_03]: AI really makes it a whole

[00:51:32] [SPEAKER_03]: heck of a lot easier

[00:51:33] [SPEAKER_03]: to do that research

[00:51:34] [SPEAKER_03]: and to understand things about

[00:51:37] [SPEAKER_03]: your customer and their business

[00:51:39] [SPEAKER_03]: and what's going on with them,

[00:51:41] [SPEAKER_03]: which then provides the foundation

[00:51:43] [SPEAKER_03]: for that personalization.

[00:51:45] [SPEAKER_03]: So I just wanted to clarify that

[00:51:46] [SPEAKER_03]: because that word personalization

[00:51:48] [SPEAKER_03]: has come up quite a bit

[00:51:49] [SPEAKER_03]: in conversation

[00:51:50] [SPEAKER_03]: and it's way more than

[00:51:52] [SPEAKER_03]: hey, I put your name

[00:51:53] [SPEAKER_03]: and your company name

[00:51:54] [SPEAKER_03]: in the email

[00:51:55] [SPEAKER_03]: and so it's personalized.

[00:51:59] [SPEAKER_01]: That's good.

[00:52:00] [SPEAKER_01]: All right.

[00:52:01] [SPEAKER_01]: We've been trying to expand

[00:52:02] [SPEAKER_01]: a little bit more

[00:52:03] [SPEAKER_01]: on some more marketing tools

[00:52:04] [SPEAKER_01]: and so forth with that.

[00:52:06] [SPEAKER_01]: So we're going to continue

[00:52:08] [SPEAKER_01]: to add to that.

[00:52:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And I've expanded

[00:52:10] [SPEAKER_01]: where we get some of our data

[00:52:11] [SPEAKER_01]: from recently too.

[00:52:13] [SPEAKER_01]: So this marketing profs.com

[00:52:14] [SPEAKER_01]: or marketing professionals

[00:52:15] [SPEAKER_01]: is got some pretty solid data.

[00:52:17] [SPEAKER_01]: There's another article

[00:52:18] [SPEAKER_01]: that we're going to jump over today

[00:52:20] [SPEAKER_01]: in the newsletter again,

[00:52:21] [SPEAKER_01]: if you'd like to get the newsletter,

[00:52:23] [SPEAKER_01]: just let us know

[00:52:24] [SPEAKER_01]: AI business strategies,

[00:52:26] [SPEAKER_01]: five ways brands and agencies

[00:52:28] [SPEAKER_01]: can properly use tech

[00:52:29] [SPEAKER_01]: that comes from AdAge.com,

[00:52:32] [SPEAKER_01]: which is a good one as well.

[00:52:33] [SPEAKER_01]: But jumping into our technology,

[00:52:35] [SPEAKER_01]: cybersecurity and AI segment

[00:52:38] [SPEAKER_01]: 47% of US firms

[00:52:41] [SPEAKER_01]: suffer data breaches

[00:52:42] [SPEAKER_01]: resulting in severe financial loss.

[00:52:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Any quick takeaways from that one, Tom?

[00:52:49] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, you know, and it's

[00:52:51] [SPEAKER_03]: this isn't directly

[00:52:52] [SPEAKER_03]: associated with the article,

[00:52:53] [SPEAKER_03]: but we were chatting about this earlier.

[00:52:55] [SPEAKER_03]: As you know,

[00:52:57] [SPEAKER_03]: we talk a lot about

[00:52:58] [SPEAKER_03]: the silo data

[00:52:59] [SPEAKER_03]: and that we need to consolidate data

[00:53:01] [SPEAKER_03]: and all of that.

[00:53:02] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, ironically, right,

[00:53:04] [SPEAKER_03]: silo data is actually more difficult

[00:53:06] [SPEAKER_03]: from a security standpoint

[00:53:08] [SPEAKER_03]: for or more difficult

[00:53:09] [SPEAKER_03]: for hackers and other people

[00:53:11] [SPEAKER_03]: to really get into

[00:53:13] [SPEAKER_03]: because everything siloed, right?

[00:53:14] [SPEAKER_03]: You have this over here

[00:53:15] [SPEAKER_03]: and that over here.

[00:53:16] [SPEAKER_03]: As you start consolidating your data

[00:53:18] [SPEAKER_03]: and consolidating your systems

[00:53:19] [SPEAKER_03]: into more integrated systems,

[00:53:23] [SPEAKER_03]: it in some ways opens the door

[00:53:25] [SPEAKER_03]: to opens the door

[00:53:26] [SPEAKER_03]: to making it easier

[00:53:27] [SPEAKER_03]: for more sophisticated

[00:53:29] [SPEAKER_03]: hacks, ransomware and so forth.

[00:53:32] [SPEAKER_03]: The reason I bring that up

[00:53:33] [SPEAKER_03]: is consolidation is not going to go away

[00:53:35] [SPEAKER_03]: or holistic data

[00:53:37] [SPEAKER_03]: are not going to go away.

[00:53:39] [SPEAKER_03]: And this article is pointing out

[00:53:40] [SPEAKER_03]: is that and even the both

[00:53:41] [SPEAKER_03]: these articles, right, is

[00:53:42] [SPEAKER_03]: you really can't ignore

[00:53:44] [SPEAKER_03]: the cyber or the security aspect of that.

[00:53:47] [SPEAKER_03]: And to me, that just factors

[00:53:49] [SPEAKER_03]: right into the roadmap

[00:53:50] [SPEAKER_03]: that you were talking about is,

[00:53:52] [SPEAKER_03]: OK, as I start to put

[00:53:53] [SPEAKER_03]: these things together,

[00:53:54] [SPEAKER_03]: what are the things that I have to be

[00:53:57] [SPEAKER_03]: again aware of

[00:53:57] [SPEAKER_03]: or be thinking about anyway

[00:53:59] [SPEAKER_03]: from a security perspective

[00:54:00] [SPEAKER_03]: to make sure I'm doing

[00:54:01] [SPEAKER_03]: the best possible way

[00:54:03] [SPEAKER_03]: of preventing those attacks?

[00:54:04] [SPEAKER_03]: Because that's half companies

[00:54:06] [SPEAKER_03]: and I guess it's even higher

[00:54:07] [SPEAKER_03]: because a lot of people don't report

[00:54:09] [SPEAKER_03]: that they've had these things, right?

[00:54:10] [SPEAKER_03]: Not everybody talks about

[00:54:12] [SPEAKER_03]: what they've had happen in those areas.

[00:54:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Yep. Yeah, the

[00:54:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's important,

[00:54:19] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, when it's interesting,

[00:54:20] [SPEAKER_01]: we kind of think about this.

[00:54:22] [SPEAKER_01]: I think most people do is

[00:54:26] [SPEAKER_01]: that's big company stuff, right?

[00:54:28] [SPEAKER_01]: That's going to happen to Microsoft

[00:54:29] [SPEAKER_01]: or that's going to happen to,

[00:54:31] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, a pharmaceutical company

[00:54:33] [SPEAKER_01]: or whatever it might be.

[00:54:34] [SPEAKER_01]: But the reality of it is

[00:54:35] [SPEAKER_01]: and my takeaway kind of was this is

[00:54:38] [SPEAKER_01]: he said from this research

[00:54:40] [SPEAKER_01]: that was done, said

[00:54:40] [SPEAKER_01]: the global average cost of a breach

[00:54:43] [SPEAKER_01]: has hit nearly four point

[00:54:44] [SPEAKER_01]: nine million dollars this year.

[00:54:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, OK, that's great.

[00:54:51] [SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, when you think about that,

[00:54:53] [SPEAKER_01]: OK, four point nine million,

[00:54:54] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, that's a huge number.

[00:54:57] [SPEAKER_01]: It can it can impact companies.

[00:54:58] [SPEAKER_01]: And part of the article said this as well

[00:55:00] [SPEAKER_01]: said if you're

[00:55:01] [SPEAKER_01]: if you're focused on growth

[00:55:03] [SPEAKER_01]: in your company and you get hit

[00:55:04] [SPEAKER_01]: with a four point nine million dollar,

[00:55:06] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, hit to your company.

[00:55:10] [SPEAKER_01]: That changes what a board meeting

[00:55:11] [SPEAKER_01]: looks like pretty quickly, right?

[00:55:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Not just about the breach,

[00:55:14] [SPEAKER_01]: it's about the cost.

[00:55:15] [SPEAKER_01]: But I think what's interesting

[00:55:16] [SPEAKER_01]: about that is if you think

[00:55:19] [SPEAKER_01]: about that four point

[00:55:20] [SPEAKER_01]: nine million dollars,

[00:55:23] [SPEAKER_01]: if I'm a distributor,

[00:55:25] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, the average size family

[00:55:27] [SPEAKER_01]: owned distributor or employee

[00:55:28] [SPEAKER_01]: owned distributor out there,

[00:55:30] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, and probably,

[00:55:32] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, just as well

[00:55:33] [SPEAKER_01]: if I'm P.E.

[00:55:34] [SPEAKER_01]: owned the same thing,

[00:55:35] [SPEAKER_01]: it's like P.E.'s are looking to

[00:55:37] [SPEAKER_01]: drive those dollars

[00:55:39] [SPEAKER_01]: and profits out of those opportunities

[00:55:41] [SPEAKER_01]: or those organizations

[00:55:42] [SPEAKER_01]: is I think about that big number is

[00:55:45] [SPEAKER_01]: well, XYZ pharmaceutical

[00:55:47] [SPEAKER_01]: company, their overall cost,

[00:55:49] [SPEAKER_01]: not just what they paid out,

[00:55:51] [SPEAKER_01]: but their costs related to it

[00:55:53] [SPEAKER_01]: were billions of dollars.

[00:55:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And this happening

[00:55:57] [SPEAKER_01]: more and more every day,

[00:55:58] [SPEAKER_01]: that four point nine

[00:55:59] [SPEAKER_01]: million being the average,

[00:56:01] [SPEAKER_01]: it's going to keep going up.

[00:56:04] [SPEAKER_01]: And so now if I'm thinking about

[00:56:06] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm a small potatoes distributor,

[00:56:08] [SPEAKER_01]: but I get hit with it,

[00:56:09] [SPEAKER_01]: maybe I'm a 20 million dollar

[00:56:11] [SPEAKER_01]: or 15 million dollar

[00:56:12] [SPEAKER_01]: a year distributor.

[00:56:14] [SPEAKER_01]: That number, when it climbs

[00:56:15] [SPEAKER_01]: on the average,

[00:56:16] [SPEAKER_01]: it's going to impact my business as well.

[00:56:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's going to go along with that.

[00:56:21] [SPEAKER_01]: So now all of a sudden,

[00:56:22] [SPEAKER_01]: maybe it only impacts my business by

[00:56:24] [SPEAKER_01]: a couple of hundred thousand dollars.

[00:56:26] [SPEAKER_01]: But what does that

[00:56:26] [SPEAKER_01]: couple of hundred thousand dollars

[00:56:28] [SPEAKER_01]: mean to me in the time away

[00:56:29] [SPEAKER_01]: and and so forth?

[00:56:30] [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, the time of

[00:56:32] [SPEAKER_01]: the importance of taking advantage

[00:56:34] [SPEAKER_01]: of the tools that are available

[00:56:37] [SPEAKER_01]: to protect our data is key.

[00:56:41] [SPEAKER_01]: So it's crazy.

[00:56:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And the last thing I'll hit on this

[00:56:45] [SPEAKER_01]: from this article was that

[00:56:46] [SPEAKER_01]: said 30 percent of respondents

[00:56:47] [SPEAKER_01]: to this survey

[00:56:49] [SPEAKER_01]: had data that could not be recovered

[00:56:51] [SPEAKER_01]: after a successful ransomware attack.

[00:56:54] [SPEAKER_01]: So just because, you know,

[00:56:56] [SPEAKER_01]: whether you pay the ransomware or not,

[00:56:58] [SPEAKER_01]: the cost that go with that

[00:56:59] [SPEAKER_01]: and the challenges

[00:57:01] [SPEAKER_01]: that happen in your business

[00:57:03] [SPEAKER_01]: are important.

[00:57:04] [SPEAKER_01]: So, well, it's not just

[00:57:06] [SPEAKER_03]: the cost of the ransomware, right?

[00:57:07] [SPEAKER_03]: There's a lot of other costs

[00:57:08] [SPEAKER_03]: that go along with this.

[00:57:09] [SPEAKER_03]: That's the tip of the iceberg.

[00:57:11] [SPEAKER_03]: Remediation that you have to.

[00:57:12] [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, there's just a lot of things

[00:57:13] [SPEAKER_03]: that have to take

[00:57:15] [SPEAKER_03]: off and go over it.

[00:57:16] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:57:17] [SPEAKER_03]: So let's jump into this next article

[00:57:19] [SPEAKER_03]: because it ties together really well.

[00:57:22] [SPEAKER_03]: No, it's the same.

[00:57:23] [SPEAKER_03]: This is an interesting one

[00:57:24] [SPEAKER_03]: is that after a wave

[00:57:26] [SPEAKER_03]: of attacks, snowflakes.

[00:57:27] [SPEAKER_03]: So I guess from what I understand

[00:57:29] [SPEAKER_03]: is that there was a wave of attacks,

[00:57:31] [SPEAKER_03]: security attacks into snowflakes.

[00:57:33] [SPEAKER_03]: Snowflake is a data warehouse,

[00:57:35] [SPEAKER_03]: data lake environment.

[00:57:37] [SPEAKER_03]: A lot of companies use,

[00:57:38] [SPEAKER_03]: especially in the tech world

[00:57:39] [SPEAKER_03]: and a lot of Fortune 500 companies.

[00:57:40] [SPEAKER_03]: And we have some customers

[00:57:41] [SPEAKER_03]: that have been using it.

[00:57:42] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we have some, yeah,

[00:57:44] [SPEAKER_03]: that have used snowflake.

[00:57:46] [SPEAKER_03]: And so but they just happened

[00:57:48] [SPEAKER_03]: to attack the snowflake

[00:57:50] [SPEAKER_03]: repository again.

[00:57:51] [SPEAKER_03]: Snowflake is a is a tool

[00:57:53] [SPEAKER_03]: for integrating data

[00:57:55] [SPEAKER_03]: into a central source,

[00:57:56] [SPEAKER_03]: like I was saying, saying earlier.

[00:57:59] [SPEAKER_03]: Snowflake, to agree,

[00:58:01] [SPEAKER_03]: looks like they were blamed

[00:58:02] [SPEAKER_03]: a lot for this, but.

[00:58:04] [SPEAKER_03]: It doesn't look like it really was

[00:58:06] [SPEAKER_03]: so much a snowflake problem

[00:58:07] [SPEAKER_03]: as it was more of the fact

[00:58:09] [SPEAKER_03]: that the customers

[00:58:11] [SPEAKER_03]: that were using snowflake

[00:58:12] [SPEAKER_03]: didn't have the proper

[00:58:14] [SPEAKER_03]: security infrastructure in place

[00:58:15] [SPEAKER_03]: right to support that.

[00:58:17] [SPEAKER_03]: Again, I just want to reiterate

[00:58:19] [SPEAKER_03]: on this is that as you as you as you

[00:58:21] [SPEAKER_03]: in we're putting a lot of emphasis

[00:58:23] [SPEAKER_03]: on this and we do work a lot

[00:58:25] [SPEAKER_03]: on our platform is

[00:58:27] [SPEAKER_03]: how to make sure that when you start

[00:58:29] [SPEAKER_03]: to be with these foundational

[00:58:32] [SPEAKER_03]: technology pieces in there

[00:58:33] [SPEAKER_03]: that are consolidating data

[00:58:34] [SPEAKER_03]: and are going to be things

[00:58:35] [SPEAKER_03]: are going to bring things together

[00:58:37] [SPEAKER_03]: is that it's a constant,

[00:58:40] [SPEAKER_03]: I guess, vigilance on that platform.

[00:58:43] [SPEAKER_03]: And what are the security protocols

[00:58:45] [SPEAKER_03]: that can be put in place

[00:58:46] [SPEAKER_03]: with that plan?

[00:58:48] [SPEAKER_03]: And what is the risk of it?

[00:58:50] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, I think Bob said

[00:58:51] [SPEAKER_03]: I think a couple minutes ago, right?

[00:58:53] [SPEAKER_03]: Assume a breach will occur.

[00:58:54] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, then extend.

[00:58:56] [SPEAKER_03]: Look at how long can I survive

[00:58:57] [SPEAKER_03]: without that data

[00:58:58] [SPEAKER_03]: before without access to be in there?

[00:59:00] [SPEAKER_03]: Just assume that it's going to occur

[00:59:02] [SPEAKER_03]: and then do everything

[00:59:03] [SPEAKER_03]: you can to prevent that.

[00:59:05] [SPEAKER_03]: And I think that's all

[00:59:06] [SPEAKER_03]: that happened here is that

[00:59:07] [SPEAKER_03]: it didn't quite get prevented as well.

[00:59:09] [SPEAKER_03]: And so, you know, the common

[00:59:11] [SPEAKER_03]: denominator was using through snowflake,

[00:59:13] [SPEAKER_03]: but it wasn't necessarily there.

[00:59:15] [SPEAKER_01]: There it goes.

[00:59:15] [SPEAKER_01]: It goes back and we were talking

[00:59:17] [SPEAKER_01]: before we went live today,

[00:59:18] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, that back to

[00:59:20] [SPEAKER_01]: we use that term foundational tools.

[00:59:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[00:59:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think when we

[00:59:26] [SPEAKER_01]: we talk about a lot of distributors

[00:59:28] [SPEAKER_01]: this could be your private equity

[00:59:30] [SPEAKER_01]: owned, you're independently

[00:59:31] [SPEAKER_01]: and it doesn't matter who you are.

[00:59:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Is that in that setting?

[00:59:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Is that I'm just going to buy

[00:59:40] [SPEAKER_01]: some software and make an assumption

[00:59:42] [SPEAKER_01]: that this company's safe.

[00:59:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[00:59:45] [SPEAKER_01]: And I tell people all the time

[00:59:47] [SPEAKER_01]: that, you know, especially

[00:59:48] [SPEAKER_01]: if you're looking for that term

[00:59:49] [SPEAKER_01]: you used earlier, Tom,

[00:59:50] [SPEAKER_01]: being point software,

[00:59:52] [SPEAKER_01]: you're kind of one off tools

[00:59:53] [SPEAKER_01]: that are getting bought by departments.

[00:59:56] [SPEAKER_01]: So a good, you know, good example

[00:59:58] [SPEAKER_01]: is I might be the CEO of a of

[01:00:02] [SPEAKER_01]: a, you know, we just got

[01:00:03] [SPEAKER_01]: the highlight comment of the daytime.

[01:00:05] [SPEAKER_01]: You should probably hit that.

[01:00:08] [SPEAKER_01]: So there we go.

[01:00:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Joanne says you're looking good.

[01:00:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[01:00:11] [SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know who Joanne is,

[01:00:13] [SPEAKER_01]: but that's Joanne and Scott's wife

[01:00:15] [SPEAKER_01]: and Scott is a former business

[01:00:16] [SPEAKER_01]: part of mine and partner of mine

[01:00:18] [SPEAKER_01]: in a project we did years ago.

[01:00:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And before that, he was a customer.

[01:00:21] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, you and Scott need to meet

[01:00:24] [SPEAKER_01]: because he's probably

[01:00:25] [SPEAKER_01]: one of the smartest guys I know.

[01:00:27] [SPEAKER_01]: And his golf game is

[01:00:29] [SPEAKER_01]: matches his intellect as well.

[01:00:31] [SPEAKER_01]: But that's funny.

[01:00:32] [SPEAKER_01]: So I'll take the compliment.

[01:00:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks, Joanne.

[01:00:35] [SPEAKER_01]: But Tom, back to my point is

[01:00:37] [SPEAKER_01]: we think about this again

[01:00:38] [SPEAKER_01]: and we have the the the privilege

[01:00:41] [SPEAKER_01]: I think it is to be in the inner

[01:00:43] [SPEAKER_01]: workings of companies every day.

[01:00:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[01:00:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Of distributors and

[01:00:47] [SPEAKER_01]: and manufacturers, both we

[01:00:49] [SPEAKER_01]: we know their leadership team.

[01:00:50] [SPEAKER_01]: We might even break bread with them

[01:00:52] [SPEAKER_01]: and so forth as well.

[01:00:53] [SPEAKER_01]: But the issue that comes

[01:00:56] [SPEAKER_01]: from all of this is

[01:00:57] [SPEAKER_01]: if I'm a CEO,

[01:01:00] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't it doesn't matter

[01:01:01] [SPEAKER_01]: if you're a 10 million dollar

[01:01:02] [SPEAKER_01]: a year company or you're a three

[01:01:03] [SPEAKER_01]: quarter of a billion

[01:01:04] [SPEAKER_01]: dollar a year company.

[01:01:06] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to start having

[01:01:07] [SPEAKER_01]: responsibility for all of this,

[01:01:08] [SPEAKER_01]: one because it's happening

[01:01:09] [SPEAKER_01]: in my in my organization

[01:01:11] [SPEAKER_01]: under my watch.

[01:01:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Two, it's there's huge impacts

[01:01:16] [SPEAKER_01]: to the financials of the company

[01:01:18] [SPEAKER_01]: with when we start

[01:01:19] [SPEAKER_01]: thinking about cybersecurity.

[01:01:21] [SPEAKER_01]: But I've got a marketing department

[01:01:23] [SPEAKER_01]: that found an AI tool

[01:01:24] [SPEAKER_01]: that seems interesting.

[01:01:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Or I have my finance

[01:01:29] [SPEAKER_01]: people found another or, you know,

[01:01:31] [SPEAKER_01]: or my procurement people

[01:01:32] [SPEAKER_01]: found another tool

[01:01:33] [SPEAKER_01]: that works great related

[01:01:35] [SPEAKER_01]: to supply chain issues.

[01:01:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Or I found this hot

[01:01:39] [SPEAKER_01]: newfangled CRM solution,

[01:01:41] [SPEAKER_01]: whatever it is right.

[01:01:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I tell people this in the events

[01:01:45] [SPEAKER_01]: that I'm at all the time is

[01:01:46] [SPEAKER_01]: you need to ask about

[01:01:48] [SPEAKER_01]: the safety of your data.

[01:01:50] [SPEAKER_01]: You need to understand

[01:01:52] [SPEAKER_01]: what platform that is built on.

[01:01:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And what does that mean to your company?

[01:01:57] [SPEAKER_01]: You need to understand

[01:01:58] [SPEAKER_01]: how will they support you

[01:02:00] [SPEAKER_01]: and help you if there was an issue,

[01:02:01] [SPEAKER_01]: because whether it's a company

[01:02:03] [SPEAKER_01]: like ours or somebody else's,

[01:02:04] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, when you look

[01:02:05] [SPEAKER_01]: at this snowflake issue,

[01:02:08] [SPEAKER_01]: they didn't.

[01:02:09] [SPEAKER_01]: So it wasn't necessarily

[01:02:10] [SPEAKER_01]: since snowflake is saying

[01:02:11] [SPEAKER_01]: this wasn't my fault.

[01:02:12] [SPEAKER_01]: This was your organization's fault.

[01:02:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And now you want me to solve it

[01:02:15] [SPEAKER_01]: because we were part of what

[01:02:17] [SPEAKER_01]: was addressed or accessed here.

[01:02:20] [SPEAKER_01]: So important questions.

[01:02:21] [SPEAKER_01]: People got to be on top of things.

[01:02:23] [SPEAKER_03]: So, as I said before,

[01:02:25] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm not by no means saying

[01:02:26] [SPEAKER_03]: any of this is easy, but no.

[01:02:28] [SPEAKER_03]: And become easier

[01:02:29] [SPEAKER_03]: with the right road map.

[01:02:32] [SPEAKER_03]: And we certainly spend a lot of time

[01:02:33] [SPEAKER_03]: helping people make it easier.

[01:02:35] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it doesn't have to be

[01:02:36] [SPEAKER_03]: maybe as hard as overwhelming

[01:02:37] [SPEAKER_03]: as it looks at first glance.

[01:02:40] [SPEAKER_01]: So the platform

[01:02:41] [SPEAKER_01]: and security is important,

[01:02:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I think is absolutely right.

[01:02:45] [SPEAKER_01]: So Tom, we'll move along

[01:02:47] [SPEAKER_01]: a little bit here and

[01:02:49] [SPEAKER_01]: as we move into our sales

[01:02:51] [SPEAKER_01]: and M&A segment that we do each week,

[01:02:53] [SPEAKER_01]: there's a really solid article here

[01:02:55] [SPEAKER_01]: from Industrial

[01:02:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Distribution magazine

[01:02:57] [SPEAKER_01]: about understanding

[01:02:58] [SPEAKER_01]: what a good retention rate

[01:02:59] [SPEAKER_01]: looks like in your industry.

[01:03:01] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, we talk about,

[01:03:03] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, NRR,

[01:03:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Net Revenue Retention,

[01:03:05] [SPEAKER_01]: and it's a, you know,

[01:03:07] [SPEAKER_01]: as a SaaS software company,

[01:03:08] [SPEAKER_01]: that's a major technology

[01:03:10] [SPEAKER_01]: and SaaS metric

[01:03:11] [SPEAKER_01]: that people look at.

[01:03:12] [SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, this just breaks down

[01:03:15] [SPEAKER_01]: quite a bit for us,

[01:03:16] [SPEAKER_01]: the importance of that in,

[01:03:17] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, belly to belly,

[01:03:19] [SPEAKER_01]: as Mike Marks calls it,

[01:03:21] [SPEAKER_01]: selling out there, right?

[01:03:23] [SPEAKER_01]: What we're doing

[01:03:23] [SPEAKER_01]: and what are we doing

[01:03:24] [SPEAKER_01]: to keep our existing customers,

[01:03:27] [SPEAKER_01]: grow our wallet share

[01:03:28] [SPEAKER_01]: with our existing customers.

[01:03:30] [SPEAKER_01]: So if you get a chance,

[01:03:32] [SPEAKER_01]: take a look at that again.

[01:03:33] [SPEAKER_01]: It's called understanding

[01:03:33] [SPEAKER_01]: what a good retention rate

[01:03:34] [SPEAKER_01]: looks like in your industry

[01:03:36] [SPEAKER_01]: and from Industrial

[01:03:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Distribution magazine.

[01:03:38] [SPEAKER_01]: I thought it was super to

[01:03:39] [SPEAKER_01]: it was in a reference

[01:03:41] [SPEAKER_01]: that how they do this

[01:03:42] [SPEAKER_01]: in the technology world

[01:03:43] [SPEAKER_01]: and what we need to be thinking about

[01:03:45] [SPEAKER_01]: when we're in the distribution world.

[01:03:47] [SPEAKER_01]: It's pretty funny.

[01:03:48] [SPEAKER_03]: Yesterday, I just set up

[01:03:50] [SPEAKER_03]: where one of our customers

[01:03:51] [SPEAKER_03]: helped them set up a system

[01:03:53] [SPEAKER_03]: that is this uses our GeniusFeed

[01:03:56] [SPEAKER_03]: to automatically identify

[01:03:58] [SPEAKER_03]: customers that are showing

[01:04:01] [SPEAKER_03]: potential evidence of going away.

[01:04:04] [SPEAKER_03]: Some signals?

[01:04:05] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, signals of

[01:04:06] [SPEAKER_03]: potentially their risk

[01:04:08] [SPEAKER_03]: and then setting up a system

[01:04:10] [SPEAKER_03]: so that as quickly as possible,

[01:04:13] [SPEAKER_03]: the sales team can go

[01:04:14] [SPEAKER_03]: and find out if there truly is a risk

[01:04:16] [SPEAKER_03]: and what needs to be done

[01:04:18] [SPEAKER_03]: to actually retain that customer.

[01:04:20] [SPEAKER_03]: And we just did some

[01:04:21] [SPEAKER_03]: back of the envelope math in

[01:04:23] [SPEAKER_03]: and this isn't the hugest

[01:04:24] [SPEAKER_03]: company in the world,

[01:04:25] [SPEAKER_03]: but they're decent size.

[01:04:27] [SPEAKER_03]: Just some minor improvements

[01:04:29] [SPEAKER_03]: are going to have major results

[01:04:31] [SPEAKER_03]: to their bottom line

[01:04:32] [SPEAKER_03]: and to what they're

[01:04:33] [SPEAKER_03]: what they're doing

[01:04:34] [SPEAKER_03]: with their with their sales teams

[01:04:35] [SPEAKER_03]: and even the, you know,

[01:04:37] [SPEAKER_03]: the money that the sales teams

[01:04:38] [SPEAKER_03]: are going to be able to make

[01:04:39] [SPEAKER_03]: through commissions and otherwise

[01:04:40] [SPEAKER_03]: just by not losing

[01:04:42] [SPEAKER_03]: customers along the way.

[01:04:43] [SPEAKER_03]: So retention is a big, big deal.

[01:04:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:04:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, this article talks about,

[01:04:47] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, customer acquisition

[01:04:49] [SPEAKER_01]: is typically what we talk about first.

[01:04:51] [SPEAKER_01]: But but retention, right?

[01:04:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Keeping them first

[01:04:54] [SPEAKER_01]: and then expanding wallet share,

[01:04:56] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, or white space

[01:04:57] [SPEAKER_01]: there is important as well.

[01:04:59] [SPEAKER_03]: So, but in this industry, right?

[01:05:00] [SPEAKER_03]: And this is what we talked

[01:05:01] [SPEAKER_03]: a lot about is, you know,

[01:05:02] [SPEAKER_03]: they've already gone through the effort

[01:05:04] [SPEAKER_03]: of doing their credit checks.

[01:05:06] [SPEAKER_03]: A lot of them have good credit lines.

[01:05:08] [SPEAKER_03]: A lot of them, right?

[01:05:09] [SPEAKER_03]: It's like all that work,

[01:05:10] [SPEAKER_03]: which you have to do with a new customer

[01:05:11] [SPEAKER_03]: you're not doing here.

[01:05:13] [SPEAKER_03]: You already know a little bit

[01:05:14] [SPEAKER_03]: of their AR history.

[01:05:15] [SPEAKER_03]: You know all of those things.

[01:05:17] [SPEAKER_03]: So putting more emphasis

[01:05:18] [SPEAKER_03]: on that retention

[01:05:19] [SPEAKER_03]: from a profitability standpoint

[01:05:22] [SPEAKER_03]: is probably even more important

[01:05:23] [SPEAKER_03]: than the acquisition side,

[01:05:24] [SPEAKER_03]: or at least is equally important.

[01:05:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, very good.

[01:05:29] [SPEAKER_01]: All right.

[01:05:29] [SPEAKER_01]: So dropping down into our

[01:05:31] [SPEAKER_01]: people and leadership segment.

[01:05:34] [SPEAKER_01]: This was this was something

[01:05:35] [SPEAKER_01]: from HRdive.com.

[01:05:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Half of workers have considered

[01:05:39] [SPEAKER_01]: or taken a quiet vacation.

[01:05:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I had never heard the term before,

[01:05:45] [SPEAKER_01]: so did you thought about

[01:05:46] [SPEAKER_01]: or heard that term before?

[01:05:48] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'd heard the term.

[01:05:51] [SPEAKER_03]: What what was interesting here,

[01:05:53] [SPEAKER_03]: it wasn't like people were just

[01:05:54] [SPEAKER_03]: like taking off two weeks

[01:05:55] [SPEAKER_03]: or something, and no, no,

[01:05:57] [SPEAKER_03]: it's like taking a day off here,

[01:05:59] [SPEAKER_03]: a day off there

[01:06:00] [SPEAKER_03]: and not telling.

[01:06:02] [SPEAKER_03]: Obviously, this is probably

[01:06:03] [SPEAKER_03]: with remote work, obviously,

[01:06:04] [SPEAKER_03]: and not telling their managers

[01:06:06] [SPEAKER_03]: or anybody else

[01:06:07] [SPEAKER_03]: that they were actually gone.

[01:06:09] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[01:06:10] [SPEAKER_03]: I think actually the high

[01:06:12] [SPEAKER_03]: if you're depending upon

[01:06:13] [SPEAKER_03]: what you define as a quiet vacation,

[01:06:16] [SPEAKER_03]: whether that's a half day,

[01:06:17] [SPEAKER_03]: a whole day or whatever.

[01:06:19] [SPEAKER_03]: My guess is those are happening

[01:06:21] [SPEAKER_03]: more often even than

[01:06:22] [SPEAKER_03]: what's in there,

[01:06:24] [SPEAKER_03]: especially with remote work.

[01:06:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:06:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I mean,

[01:06:26] [SPEAKER_01]: and I think this is a little

[01:06:28] [SPEAKER_01]: different to then

[01:06:33] [SPEAKER_01]: then the idea of I'm

[01:06:35] [SPEAKER_01]: take I'm leaving for the holiday

[01:06:36] [SPEAKER_01]: weekend at noon on Friday

[01:06:38] [SPEAKER_01]: and no one will know

[01:06:39] [SPEAKER_01]: versus, you know, this is it says

[01:06:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I just got a couple of stats, right?

[01:06:47] [SPEAKER_01]: They call they describe

[01:06:48] [SPEAKER_01]: it as a secret vacation time

[01:06:51] [SPEAKER_01]: without use of paid time off.

[01:06:54] [SPEAKER_01]: 14 percent have lied

[01:06:55] [SPEAKER_01]: to their managers

[01:06:55] [SPEAKER_01]: about their whereabouts

[01:06:56] [SPEAKER_01]: during this time.

[01:06:58] [SPEAKER_01]: This is why the workers do it.

[01:07:00] [SPEAKER_01]: 26 percent worked remotely

[01:07:02] [SPEAKER_01]: and didn't think it mattered.

[01:07:04] [SPEAKER_01]: 20 percent were overwhelmed

[01:07:05] [SPEAKER_01]: and needed a break.

[01:07:07] [SPEAKER_01]: 15 percent didn't want to lose out

[01:07:09] [SPEAKER_01]: on pay by officially taking a PTO.

[01:07:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And 11 percent didn't think

[01:07:13] [SPEAKER_01]: their managers would notice.

[01:07:17] [SPEAKER_03]: I think those numbers

[01:07:18] [SPEAKER_03]: are like the job market,

[01:07:19] [SPEAKER_03]: that the job numbers

[01:07:20] [SPEAKER_03]: they're underestimated.

[01:07:22] [SPEAKER_01]: No, I think you're probably right.

[01:07:24] [SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, a lot of this is

[01:07:25] [SPEAKER_01]: like literally people are,

[01:07:27] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, well,

[01:07:28] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm doing my work

[01:07:29] [SPEAKER_01]: so it doesn't matter where I am,

[01:07:30] [SPEAKER_01]: which, you know,

[01:07:31] [SPEAKER_01]: and I think this is a big deal.

[01:07:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And we'll probably talk

[01:07:34] [SPEAKER_01]: about this more over time

[01:07:36] [SPEAKER_01]: because at least for me,

[01:07:37] [SPEAKER_01]: as I look at this,

[01:07:38] [SPEAKER_01]: especially as our organization

[01:07:40] [SPEAKER_01]: is growing, we're just hiring

[01:07:41] [SPEAKER_01]: more people, is,

[01:07:43] [SPEAKER_01]: is, you know,

[01:07:44] [SPEAKER_01]: we did some work

[01:07:45] [SPEAKER_01]: before Lead Smart per se,

[01:07:47] [SPEAKER_01]: or just as we were

[01:07:48] [SPEAKER_01]: kind of starting to work.

[01:07:49] [SPEAKER_01]: We, you and I did some consulting

[01:07:50] [SPEAKER_01]: work with an organization

[01:07:52] [SPEAKER_01]: and, you know,

[01:07:53] [SPEAKER_01]: they had keyboard trackers.

[01:07:56] [SPEAKER_01]: They had all the different

[01:07:58] [SPEAKER_01]: I want to call it spyware,

[01:08:01] [SPEAKER_01]: employer, employer spyware

[01:08:03] [SPEAKER_01]: of productivity and,

[01:08:04] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, where your browser was going.

[01:08:07] [SPEAKER_01]: One of the tools took

[01:08:08] [SPEAKER_01]: the screenshot of your browser

[01:08:10] [SPEAKER_01]: and, you know, all of that stuff.

[01:08:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's like,

[01:08:12] [SPEAKER_01]: that's just not who I want to be

[01:08:14] [SPEAKER_01]: in an organization,

[01:08:15] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, nor do I want people

[01:08:16] [SPEAKER_01]: to think that's who we are.

[01:08:18] [SPEAKER_01]: But at the same time,

[01:08:19] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, when you look

[01:08:20] [SPEAKER_01]: at the productivity loss

[01:08:21] [SPEAKER_01]: to a company

[01:08:22] [SPEAKER_01]: that's paying somebody

[01:08:23] [SPEAKER_01]: through some of this,

[01:08:24] [SPEAKER_01]: it's astounding, right?

[01:08:26] [SPEAKER_01]: When it comes together.

[01:08:27] [SPEAKER_01]: So anyways,

[01:08:29] [SPEAKER_01]: get your work done, people

[01:08:30] [SPEAKER_01]: and guys like me

[01:08:31] [SPEAKER_01]: don't have to worry about

[01:08:32] [SPEAKER_01]: if we're monitoring you or not,

[01:08:34] [SPEAKER_01]: because I don't like

[01:08:35] [SPEAKER_01]: the big brother idea.

[01:08:37] [SPEAKER_01]: So next next article here,

[01:08:39] [SPEAKER_01]: we won't spend a lot of time on this,

[01:08:41] [SPEAKER_01]: but this is a good article.

[01:08:41] [SPEAKER_01]: This is also from H.R.

[01:08:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Dive, how to train new leaders

[01:08:45] [SPEAKER_01]: and ethical decision making.

[01:08:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And I thought this one

[01:08:47] [SPEAKER_01]: was important time

[01:08:48] [SPEAKER_01]: and I wish we had more time,

[01:08:50] [SPEAKER_01]: but it was great.

[01:08:51] [SPEAKER_01]: The time we spent on those other topics

[01:08:54] [SPEAKER_01]: with the the

[01:08:56] [SPEAKER_01]: participation of the audience today

[01:08:58] [SPEAKER_01]: was just made me feel really good.

[01:09:00] [SPEAKER_01]: We spent extra time there.

[01:09:01] [SPEAKER_01]: But, you know,

[01:09:04] [SPEAKER_01]: I've spent you coming in on early.

[01:09:06] [SPEAKER_01]: I've spent 30 plus years

[01:09:07] [SPEAKER_01]: of my career in manufacturing

[01:09:09] [SPEAKER_01]: and wholesale distribution.

[01:09:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And the vast majority

[01:09:12] [SPEAKER_01]: of sales leaders,

[01:09:13] [SPEAKER_01]: just I'll use as an example,

[01:09:15] [SPEAKER_01]: are he sold good.

[01:09:17] [SPEAKER_01]: So let's make him the manager.

[01:09:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[01:09:20] [SPEAKER_01]: He ran his territory well,

[01:09:22] [SPEAKER_01]: so let's make him

[01:09:23] [SPEAKER_01]: a give him a branch.

[01:09:26] [SPEAKER_01]: That's not building leaders.

[01:09:27] [SPEAKER_01]: And the beauty of it is

[01:09:29] [SPEAKER_01]: the trade associations out there,

[01:09:31] [SPEAKER_01]: ASA, Hardy,

[01:09:33] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, there's countless of them.

[01:09:35] [SPEAKER_01]: I can't mention enough of them.

[01:09:37] [SPEAKER_01]: ISA and the buying groups out there.

[01:09:40] [SPEAKER_01]: These guys are all working on,

[01:09:42] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, programs for emerging leaders.

[01:09:46] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, if you're listening to us today,

[01:09:48] [SPEAKER_01]: check in with your buying group,

[01:09:49] [SPEAKER_01]: your trade association.

[01:09:50] [SPEAKER_01]: If you don't have a formal program

[01:09:53] [SPEAKER_01]: for training new leaders

[01:09:55] [SPEAKER_01]: and especially for helping them

[01:09:56] [SPEAKER_01]: with ethics and understanding

[01:09:58] [SPEAKER_01]: what it means to be a leader.

[01:10:01] [SPEAKER_01]: So any thoughts on that

[01:10:02] [SPEAKER_01]: before we jump?

[01:10:04] [SPEAKER_01]: No, I think, you know, there's.

[01:10:07] [SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[01:10:07] [SPEAKER_03]: And it's interesting.

[01:10:08] [SPEAKER_03]: It kind of goes arm and arm

[01:10:09] [SPEAKER_03]: with the previous conversation.

[01:10:11] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[01:10:12] [SPEAKER_03]: The fact that people are doing

[01:10:13] [SPEAKER_03]: secret vacations and all that stuff.

[01:10:15] [SPEAKER_03]: It's not so much ethical,

[01:10:17] [SPEAKER_03]: but it's just it's all kind of leadership.

[01:10:19] [SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[01:10:19] [SPEAKER_03]: There's something.

[01:10:20] [SPEAKER_03]: There's some issue with the leadership

[01:10:22] [SPEAKER_03]: that would cause that to occur.

[01:10:24] [SPEAKER_03]: And we know it's hard again.

[01:10:25] [SPEAKER_03]: It's not an easy thing

[01:10:26] [SPEAKER_03]: necessarily to do,

[01:10:27] [SPEAKER_03]: but they both go kind of arm and arm.

[01:10:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:10:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, the

[01:10:32] [SPEAKER_01]: it's a challenge, right, for everybody.

[01:10:34] [SPEAKER_01]: I it's funny.

[01:10:35] [SPEAKER_01]: I read those articles and I'm like,

[01:10:37] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm the reverse of that.

[01:10:38] [SPEAKER_01]: I think any entrepreneurs

[01:10:39] [SPEAKER_01]: or anybody in a in an executive leadership

[01:10:43] [SPEAKER_01]: role finds themselves sometimes.

[01:10:44] [SPEAKER_01]: And this is that

[01:10:45] [SPEAKER_01]: you're the reverse is like

[01:10:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I've said I'm on vacation,

[01:10:49] [SPEAKER_01]: but I'm really at work.

[01:10:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[01:10:51] [SPEAKER_01]: It's the opposite.

[01:10:53] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, so the my my wife

[01:10:55] [SPEAKER_01]: and I were talking yesterday

[01:10:56] [SPEAKER_01]: about Starbucks new CEO.

[01:10:58] [SPEAKER_01]: He lives 20 minutes from us.

[01:11:01] [SPEAKER_01]: And he's going to be

[01:11:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Starbucks is is giving him

[01:11:05] [SPEAKER_01]: full use and access to one of the jets

[01:11:07] [SPEAKER_01]: so he can commute from here,

[01:11:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Southern California to to Seattle.

[01:11:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And and Darlene

[01:11:14] [SPEAKER_01]: and I were talking about that yesterday.

[01:11:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And they said, you know, that guy is

[01:11:17] [SPEAKER_01]: he's on 24 seven in that role.

[01:11:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[01:11:20] [SPEAKER_01]: He's he could be he could be

[01:11:22] [SPEAKER_01]: in the French Riviera,

[01:11:23] [SPEAKER_01]: but he's on the phone

[01:11:25] [SPEAKER_01]: with his lieutenants all day.

[01:11:27] [SPEAKER_01]: So jump into our industry scuttlebutt

[01:11:29] [SPEAKER_01]: well before we head out for the day,

[01:11:31] [SPEAKER_01]: just some good news for Ferguson

[01:11:34] [SPEAKER_01]: closed the year,

[01:11:35] [SPEAKER_01]: their fiscal year with 10 acquisitions.

[01:11:39] [SPEAKER_01]: BSC an article here

[01:11:41] [SPEAKER_01]: from distribution strategy group BSC

[01:11:42] [SPEAKER_01]: industry acquires Warren Pike.

[01:11:44] [SPEAKER_01]: That's two folks in the bearings

[01:11:46] [SPEAKER_01]: of power transmission world.

[01:11:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And then our friends at

[01:11:50] [SPEAKER_01]: DSG to go to supply group

[01:11:51] [SPEAKER_01]: have brought in a new chief supply

[01:11:53] [SPEAKER_01]: officer or chief supply chain officer,

[01:11:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Dan Klepack.

[01:11:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Congrats to Paul

[01:11:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Kennedy and your team there.

[01:11:59] [SPEAKER_01]: You guys are just

[01:12:01] [SPEAKER_01]: where the hiring that they're doing

[01:12:02] [SPEAKER_01]: to for growth there is phenomenal.

[01:12:05] [SPEAKER_01]: So good, good for our friends there.

[01:12:06] [SPEAKER_01]: I like their new logo too.

[01:12:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, they've done.

[01:12:09] [SPEAKER_01]: They've rebranded new website,

[01:12:11] [SPEAKER_01]: all kinds of stuff going on.

[01:12:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I was text messaging last week

[01:12:14] [SPEAKER_01]: with their chief digital officer

[01:12:16] [SPEAKER_01]: and chicken with his head cut off

[01:12:18] [SPEAKER_01]: is an understatement for stuff in there.

[01:12:20] [SPEAKER_01]: So good.

[01:12:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, we have a good good

[01:12:22] [SPEAKER_01]: reads every week.

[01:12:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Good example there.

[01:12:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Olympic gold medalist Kristen Faulkner,

[01:12:27] [SPEAKER_01]: another example of people

[01:12:29] [SPEAKER_01]: embracing the Navy SEAL 40% rule.

[01:12:32] [SPEAKER_01]: That's doing the best I can

[01:12:34] [SPEAKER_01]: with what I've got going on right now.

[01:12:36] [SPEAKER_01]: I think that was kind of cool.

[01:12:38] [SPEAKER_01]: So any thoughts on these things

[01:12:40] [SPEAKER_01]: before we jump for the day, Tom?

[01:12:41] [SPEAKER_01]: We kind of behind schedule,

[01:12:43] [SPEAKER_01]: like you mentioned,

[01:12:44] [SPEAKER_01]: I think we're good there.

[01:12:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Great comment today, huh?

[01:12:48] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, good comments.

[01:12:50] [SPEAKER_03]: Really good conversation.

[01:12:53] [SPEAKER_03]: And yeah, hopefully we get

[01:12:55] [SPEAKER_03]: more and more companies

[01:12:57] [SPEAKER_03]: thinking about transformation

[01:12:58] [SPEAKER_03]: as we in the year here.

[01:13:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Yep, but we're here to help.

[01:13:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Your trade associations are here to help.

[01:13:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Buying groups are here to help

[01:13:08] [SPEAKER_01]: and peer network groups are.

[01:13:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And you know, we talked about

[01:13:12] [SPEAKER_01]: and I probably focus a lot on,

[01:13:14] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, how many people we talk to

[01:13:16] [SPEAKER_01]: that aren't doing well.

[01:13:17] [SPEAKER_01]: But there's a whole lot of companies

[01:13:19] [SPEAKER_01]: that are doing great stuff.

[01:13:21] [SPEAKER_01]: And we've met a number of companies recently

[01:13:23] [SPEAKER_01]: we working with all mention these folks

[01:13:26] [SPEAKER_01]: that are a new customer of ours

[01:13:28] [SPEAKER_01]: at APR Supply in Pennsylvania.

[01:13:31] [SPEAKER_01]: They are doing the stuff at APR

[01:13:34] [SPEAKER_01]: that we have been talking about today.

[01:13:36] [SPEAKER_01]: They've got a digital roadmap.

[01:13:38] [SPEAKER_01]: They've just moved from one of the most well-known

[01:13:41] [SPEAKER_01]: CRM platforms globally,

[01:13:44] [SPEAKER_01]: probably the market leader globally to our platform

[01:13:46] [SPEAKER_01]: because some things we can do in partnership.

[01:13:49] [SPEAKER_01]: There are people out there

[01:13:49] [SPEAKER_01]: that are really, really great stuff.

[01:13:51] [SPEAKER_01]: We just need to pull everybody together

[01:13:53] [SPEAKER_01]: so everybody's doing it

[01:13:55] [SPEAKER_01]: because it's, you know, rising tide lifts all boats, right?

[01:13:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Never been more valuable than that.

[01:14:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Let's wrap it.

[01:14:02] [SPEAKER_01]: That's it.

[01:14:03] [SPEAKER_01]: We got another meeting to be to in 15 minutes.

[01:14:06] [SPEAKER_01]: We do need to wrap up.

[01:14:07] [SPEAKER_01]: All right.

[01:14:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'm Kevin Brown.

[01:14:09] [SPEAKER_01]: That's my friend Tom Burton.

[01:14:10] [SPEAKER_01]: We do this every Friday.

[01:14:12] [SPEAKER_01]: If you like what you heard today

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[01:14:49] [SPEAKER_01]: So thanks for being with us, Tom.

[01:14:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you. Appreciate you.

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[01:14:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Have a good weekend.

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