Global Trade Shifts And AI Deep Fakes: Managing Disruptions In 2024, With Guest Mike Franz

[00:00:00] Yeah, it's good morning. Mike, are you turned off already? You want to leave? I'm not. Kevin, you're a Wholesale Distribution Podcast. We're all super excited. Will Quinn's probably super excited to see dance. Will Quinn, our buddy for me, that's my dancing.

[00:01:14] He says anybody with an ounce of common sense and style in the past. Well I got to say, guys, the music being a Minnesota guy, the music reminds me of the peanuts music. And so we're seeing that. Listen to that.

[00:01:31] Alex gets me a little jazzed up to you. Well that's why it's there. And so the quick story behind that, I haven't shared in a long time is that's Vince Coraldi. The tune is called Caster Fate to the Wind. Pretty famous.

[00:01:44] You can't help but be in a good mood. You know, we're a Friday morning. He's getting ready to go into the weekend. So that was upside of it. It was a little piece of that that's sensitive to me or important to me is that

[00:01:55] there's a riff in there from the Charlie Brown or the peanuts show in there. And he wrote the music for that. My dad is named Gary, but he in his career always went by Charlie Brown. And he was in wholesale distribution for most of his career. So little.

[00:02:12] On the stage together. Very nice. He's sitting in his chair this afternoon. We'll be this afternoon as his recliner at 88 years old listen into the recording. So that's a little homage to dad and Tom knows my father as well.

[00:02:25] So Mike, great to have you with us. Mike friends with in supply. You've been with us before. Obviously it went well because we invited you back. So I'm happy with this. Mike, one of the pressure. Wow. Yeah. No, no.

[00:02:41] You don't ever want to have pressure here. This is this is for any morning fun and hopefully some good insights. But like before we dive, you're too far in and we get talking about the news

[00:02:49] and so forth. You know, time out. Hey Tom. How are you? Good to see you today. I'm doing well. I'm doing well. Mike Mike is in Minneapolis. He says he's going out to the beach

[00:02:59] after we're done here. Hey, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Usually usually going out to the beach to hop onto the ice to go ice fishing but it's strange when this year. That's odd. Good.

[00:03:12] The Tom is up to rain in Santa Barbara's that he said. It's a beautiful sunny day at the moment. Yes. Rain and outside and Laguna and a gal. So maybe this storm will pass us by in California.

[00:03:22] But let's get back to Mike. Mike tell us about you and your team and in supply and the projects you've got going on what you guys do. Yeah, to you guys. First of all, thank you for having

[00:03:33] me. I really appreciate it. It's an honor to be back, especially after Wow. Some huge lineups that you guys have had already to kick off 2024. I'm a little nervous and anxious because wow, Tup acts to follow and to proceed of what's coming next. So thank you

[00:03:57] guys for having me. I really appreciate it. Yeah, in supply, we're going to continue to grow. What it is, it's a mobile app designed to bring digital online and mobile visibility to local

[00:04:08] distribution. So we try to get in users to see the value, the services and the support that local distributions apply. So go to it'splide.com, check it out. Also you can't see it in the screen here

[00:04:24] but very happy to announce that I personally partnered up and have co-founded a company called Shop for Coffee, which is all about trying to reduce the skills gap in manufacturing and also support workforce development within the manufacturing community a little bit of the proceeds from

[00:04:47] all the coffee that we sell goes back to big national and local organizations and programs to spread the wealth a little bit across that my partner and I thought that it would be weird to

[00:04:59] try to think of ways that we could actually give back and I'm kind of a meaningful way. So we started up Shop for Coffee and it's taking off. Honestly, we've got some big announcements coming up but

[00:05:13] we've already partnered with ANT, we've partnered with Skills USA, some local organizations and we continue to grow. There's a lot of excitement around it. Thank you. Yeah, I'll take that

[00:05:24] that golf clap or coffee clap. What can I say maybe? But yeah, very exciting stuff and lots of stuff to come for that too. Good. Well we're happy to hear that we love seeing when things go back but

[00:05:37] what you guys are doing it in supply and it's just for people to go and if you want to go look it up it's iNSUPPLI.com. Correct. Yeah, thank you for that. Make sure we get that out there properly.

[00:05:50] So really what you've built as a mobile app that helps end users identify how to buy from local-yone maybe employee owned and or family health abuse and it's easy to go to the large

[00:06:06] company creating companies but be able to see how you can buy local and or read it. That is good. So yeah, exactly so the whole idea is that you log into the mobile app research for a part number

[00:06:20] you find what distributors have it locally within a 90 mile radius of where you're actually at great and identifies the inventory and we get you directly to that website that you are help for that particular part and then the end user can make that by indecision from there.

[00:06:36] One of the biggest goals that we have is to support local distribution and oftentimes, you'll go online. You'll have a hard time finding these local distributors that offer such great service and value to their customers that we just want to help highlight that.

[00:06:54] That's good. Well, we're going to jump ahead here but you may want to since you're in the twin cities as is Paul Kennedy with Dakota supply group is also there. You just made the comment

[00:07:05] do something good at a great hashtag so you may want to drop off a package of coffee off it for Paul at the DSG and he's right up the street. No problem. Great friend and a great business leader

[00:07:17] in wholesale distribution. So hey, who are we and why are we here and what are we doing? So let's before we dive into the news. Again, my name is Kevin Brown and I'm here with my

[00:07:27] lifelong friend and co-founder of Leedsmore Technologies Tom Burton, Tom and I joined together a number of years ago to bring deep technology into wholesale distribution and manufacturing historically has struggled to take off the shelf generic software and put it into use effectively

[00:07:47] within their businesses. We developed a AI enabled CRM and customer intelligence solution that helps both distributors and manufacturers accelerate growth by having deep insights into both their customers, their teams, and across their whole organization. So that's what we do.

[00:08:04] Leedsmore Technologies happens to be the sponsor of our around the Horn and Whole Sout distribution podcast. We get together every week and we talk about the news going on in the world, most specifically in North America. We let talk a little bit about the economy,

[00:08:18] about mergers and acquisitions, cybersecurity, AI, training, development of people and so forth. And we try and boil that news down into a manageable insights for you to take action on within your business. How do we get that message out? Well, every Friday morning right,

[00:08:35] nearly out goes a newsletter that newsletters called around the Horn and wholesale distribution and manufacturing. As you might imagine, if you do not get that newsletter and you would like to two ways to simply get that one you can send us an email at hello at leadsmartsteck.com.

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[00:09:56] Most weeks we have people from five to seven countries that are joining us on the podcast so that's what we do, Tom let's get started economy and supply chain for section of the news letter

[00:10:06] what's going on there. What is going on well for the first time in two decades the US buys more from Mexico than China. I think that's actually quite remarkable and there were some good

[00:10:22] stats in there. What were some of the key stats that you kind of looked out here? Well, as I looked at it there's a couple things that hit me in the first thing before we talk

[00:10:32] about some of the stats was that it told an interesting story about a gentleman that had been a senior executive. I think it was with John Deer or Catapila maybe Catapila but he saw a number of years

[00:10:45] ago this opportunity that this could be happening bringing, you know we talk a lot here on the podcast about on-shoring and near-shoring and so forth and he saw the vision to that kind of step the way

[00:10:56] from that role and started working and putting together the first thing you did is he worked with interestingly enough a Chinese manufacturer that wanted to start doing more work here in North America and with that he partnered with the Chinese manufacturer built the $102.52 million

[00:11:15] manufacturing plant in Mexico we're seeing. So we're seeing more and more of that happening on a consistent basis. We saw that statistics you mentioned a trade deficit with China narrowed last year significantly with goods imported from China dropping 20% to $472 billion. I was right

[00:11:33] $427 billion. It's a stounding immediately amount of money that is that it had been coming in from one country and this is now being balanced out accordingly so I think it's good news as we seek

[00:11:48] global supply chain issues are fragile. Another article that we'll talk briefly about in a little bit mentions a little bit about that fragility but if you get something to pick close attention to.

[00:11:58] It's good news for the US and what we do here don't think it's very good news for China. So I think we touched on China last week about the fact that their economy is definitely down

[00:12:11] and the trend is not going back in the other direction. When you look at the tensions right Washington and Beijing are pushing and shoving a little bit already and then you look at what

[00:12:26] China's threat to Taiwan is and then you look at the manufacturing in fact specifically to chips and so forth as we talk about semiconductors and so forth that that Taiwan isn't implication

[00:12:39] brains. Then you look at the fact that if you're in Europe right now and you look at this Suez Canal issue everything is coming from China going through the Suez Canal to get to Europe. There's a lot of factors that suggest that centralizing manufacturing or finding manufacturing

[00:12:56] opportunities that are closer to where things are going to be used needs to be on everybody's radar. Before we move on and Mike you might have some thoughts of this working closer with a lot

[00:13:08] regional and local distributors as well though is you know this is got to be on the radar of everybody in wholesale distribution because no one wants to get caught again like they did during

[00:13:21] COVID right COVID was just a you know if you're if you're older you remember other times that we've struggled with shipping rates quadrupling and I think even in in the COVID times we're 20 x what they had

[00:13:33] been but these are things to be paying attention to and maybe even asking some questions might have some comments from some of the distributors that are on the show today or folks that have worked in distribution but maybe even asking some hard questions of your key manufacturers

[00:13:48] right what is it that you're doing to make sure that our supply chains protected. So yeah and just add a little bit to that guys is that later last year I was fortunate enough to do a presentation at the ASC and the Association of Supply Chain Management

[00:14:09] National Convention and one of the breakout meetings that I attended was all around top trends for supply chain professionals going into 2024 and resharing and on-sharing was within the top five there were other obviously months that were to build a bit deeper into even today but that was

[00:14:33] top of mind so understanding that they don't want to get top with I don't want to say get cotton a bad spot like they did with COVID so everybody is focused on finding alternative suppliers, local suppliers, closer suppliers, trusted suppliers they can rely on other than

[00:14:56] don't overseas. Yeah I think there might be a significant winner out of this whole concept and process might be Mexico but we're going to see a lot more of this coming to the US and

[00:15:07] you know it's interesting one of the conversations that you know we've seen for years now is that when we first started I think it was 70s or 80s to make a big push to China right there was

[00:15:19] really not much of a middle-class in China well over these years a middle class has developed in China and now wages are going up there so that barrier of cost to Mexico and or Latin

[00:15:31] America versus China that Delta has narrowed significantly and is that Delta continues to narrow and we have these other threats coming together why it really makes sense to be thinking about on-sharing or near-sharing so it's not always going to be possible but it's something to be considering

[00:15:48] well on your shipping's going to be way less as well for Mexico that it is the China so you know although we got it there there is now challenges though with shipping at getting the container and truck skating across the border based upon all the challenges happening at

[00:16:05] the border so maybe you hear her to hear her first that might be the next article or covering in the next few months is some of the challenges of getting things across with all the problems

[00:16:13] in the border so what's next let's dive ahead jobless claims we US weekly jobless claims stay low despite you know you hear all the announcements about the in the tech industry all that layoffs

[00:16:28] that occurred I doubt that any of those layoffs would have trickled through into some of the most recent statistics but overall saying you know continue to be very strong and you know the job market continues to get tighter and tighter and tighter.

[00:16:45] Well it's interesting with that right we we've talked about this and looked at the job the job layoffs and so forth and that we talked about in Silicon Valley a lot of this happened

[00:16:57] late Q3 and Q early Q4 as well last year and we didn't see even a couple months later that that had much of an impact which I wish I knew enough about the labor markets which I certainly

[00:17:08] don't to speak to why that is because you add just you know single companies were laying off 700 others with a couple of thousand I think Google's just had a major layoff in a few others so

[00:17:20] it's interesting to kind of see why those aren't going in impacting well numbers my guess is because I just had a friend good friend that got laid off from a tech company and he got a big time

[00:17:31] severance package and a lot of other things in the way he's looking at it is hey I'm going to take my time to go find it's interesting to listen to his viewpoint right is like first one I'm going

[00:17:42] to go find the right job and take my time but I've got I really want to find something where I'm not like here one day gone the next you know you was second in command that a pretty large

[00:17:53] tech company that you know didn't get their funding and all of a sudden had a cut and you know like I said literally here today I got into my house so I think there's a lot of dynamics

[00:18:04] in the tech industry that are related to people and severance packages and all that that are different that you would possibly see in other industries great quick and so we'll be going to see if it plays out that way in the next next few months there's severance that

[00:18:18] leads sport if I get fired not hurting anything about that yeah you get you get a afternoon you get an after pay for after per afternoon you're good after the after the Friday podcast I get

[00:18:30] a third lunch and they care of us the people they don't agree not to worry about it great okay send you some coffee too thank you very much you know I get if I get

[00:18:42] blacked it at least more and I'm going to need everything free I can get so well good good discussion that you know one of the comments it was made in that article that said that the

[00:18:51] labor market resilience is the underpinning is underpinning the economy and the latest claims reading suggested that the strong economic growth momentum from the fourth quarter continued in early 24 potentially delaying anticipated interest rate cut early this year so there we go

[00:19:09] I I still believe I haven't said it in a couple weeks that we may be in better shape in the US economy if we go back and look a little closer at what are the metrics that we use

[00:19:22] and are they still the right metrics for when they were developed based upon did you watch did you watch mr. Powell on 60 minutes this week no my dad mentioned that I needed to watch

[00:19:32] it and I haven't watched it yet tell me about that I'm going to try and watch it this weekend no I mean we were he was talking there talking a lot about the 2% you know one of the questions that came up

[00:19:41] was he said I was listening to around the horn podcast and it was a guy on the show that dances I don't remember his name that's what he said yeah okay I'll take it and

[00:19:54] he was saying you they were asking him about does inflation have to hit 2% exactly for them to be feeling like they've accomplished what they need to accomplish right and he was like no that was

[00:20:06] never the objective is to hit 2% exactly but to get in that 2-ish range and even see if he he didn't I don't know if he gave an exact number but if he was like around 25 or somewhere in that

[00:20:19] area if they got into that area then they would say okay we're safe to be starting to cut rates at that point but I thought it was a good explanation but I thought the questions that they asked them were very good

[00:20:30] it was very very pointed good questions so it's very soft also yeah there were good questions yeah well you in my my thing is is it's not just whether 2% or 2.5 is the number it's more of

[00:20:44] what are all of these other other underpinnings that we use with you know is there a better way to look at job stats or manufacturing stats or all of the different pieces they used the term underpinnings

[00:20:58] all the different pieces that they used maybe that should be re-evaluated at just one guy's thoughts so all right so getting into some more interesting stuff here we have talked quite a bit in the last few

[00:21:13] months about some of the disruptions going on in both manufacturing and supply chain good article here from supply chain management about disruption keeping manufacturers on edge and it's not just all of the same stuff they shared some pretty good statistics about raw materials and commodities

[00:21:33] if you get a chance to look at this article probably well worth again it's called disruptions keep manufacturers on edge and from supply chain was that always that again supply chain management

[00:21:46] magazine so I don't know if either of you had any thoughts to add but there's a kind of they talked about you know not to expect the challenges of what we saw as the pandemic hit which was

[00:21:57] kind of a perfect store or some other challenges going on in the world of the pandemic heating where factories were closing down it's a little different right factories aren't closed right now

[00:22:07] but shipping lanes are and you know then so forth so it's interesting that the way that they went about this I mean a clog infriction is a clog infriction right regardless of what it's down

[00:22:18] it's coming from I thought it was good and Mike interested in you take a little bit here but talking about the importance of investing in technology and new strategies and you know we don't

[00:22:31] talk a lot about that is we talk a lot about technologies but especially now with AI and especially even you know what we do with lead smart you've got to rethink your strategies and your processes

[00:22:44] of the same time as you're looking at technology you know one of the things that I find myself doing more and more as we work with companies is helping them understand that as they adopt the

[00:22:54] technology you shouldn't be doing the same things necessarily that you were doing strategically or procedurally to take advantage of that technology so I thought that was a good point

[00:23:05] as well Mike do you have any idea? Yeah yeah and to your point so what I'm seeing and trying to understand is what what are the most important things for in this particular case what are the

[00:23:22] most of the important things technologies speaking for distributors and what how are they finding out about these things do you guys see that distributors have teams set up for this to understand all the new tech that's coming into the market do they they fully understand what is available

[00:23:39] in this particular article I know they mentioned that the importance of visibility and efficiency and there's tools out there that help with you know supply chain visibility and efficiency gains but I'm not sure if you know there's a focus on understanding what the technology looks like or

[00:23:59] how do you find it or do you get it how do you acknowledge about it doesn't make sense to look into it even and I'm wondering what you guys are seeing when it comes for that you're pretty tied to

[00:24:10] to a lot of different a lot of distributors so I'm curious to what you take on that. I think it's great point Tom all dive in on that first funeral mind and I to Tom's point right is

[00:24:23] is going in and moving forward with technology and having the same mindset as we've always had can be problematic I think Tom it's probably been a long time since there's been a new a new customer

[00:24:36] that's come on using our technology from Leedsmart that hasn't modified or adopted or adjusted at least the revenue side some processes and procedures that they have and systems and so forth so I think that we see that pretty regularly that as people are adopting new technology and

[00:24:57] it's really something you should look for right in a technology vendor is are they going to help me big picture with my business or are they just gonna sell me a Tom uses the phrase consistently

[00:25:09] of a point product right I bought it they'll call me back in 10 months because my contract is up to get me to resign or are they bringing some value add to help me with my business because

[00:25:20] wholesale distributors whether it doesn't matter whether you're I mean I'm consistently on the phone with half a billion dollar ear companies who have teams in place but they might not have good processes for acquiring and systems in place for acquiring technology and when I say that

[00:25:37] it's not just that they don't know how to buy it it's how does it to Tom's point I think a little bit is how does the technology that I have on my supply chain side fit with the revenue side of

[00:25:50] my business I'll call it and do I have a tech stack that I'm working on versus these point one off products so it's really having a method or a method or a methodical process of how we want to go

[00:26:04] about this in our research and we just frankly don't see it that often yeah small companies as well as large companies Tom would use the degree yeah I would tend to agree I certainly I don't think

[00:26:15] there's and certainly we can't it one size fits all but in just as a general rule we don't see a lot of strategic vision on the technology part of it and how it's going to be used or even

[00:26:27] what's available I think also on the you know we're more in the front office right we're in the front office dealing with stales and customer service and those types of things versus you

[00:26:38] know in the supply chain or on the manufacturing floor but what we do see a lot of is and the front office is the world has been geared around ERP transactions and they don't

[00:26:49] haven't thought about this beyond what leads the transaction like how do I actually get to the point where I get more transactions right just you know we get transactions okay that's great we want

[00:26:59] we want transactions but we want more transactions we want higher profitable transactions we want all that's what I mean about strategies you can look at that and say okay how do we look at this to

[00:27:09] improve all of those things and then do we set the process on that anyway we've tight-grace I know it's so no I think but I think that's a really good point I'll throw one last piece into that

[00:27:18] that it kind of goes with Mike's question before we move on was that I got a received a message yesterday through my LinkedIn messaging from a gentleman who's regular listens into the podcast here

[00:27:29] and he is a software salesman for a company actually that we compete with and but great we're friendly relationship with him and he he sent me a video note and I loved it because he said

[00:27:41] you know he said Kevin he said just wondered if you ever think about this and it's something he had been thinking a lot about is he said when I talk to both manufacturers and distributors

[00:27:51] he said and he sells to your point Tom front office I'll call it revenue more revenue related technology as we do and a revenue associated technology he said you know he said I talked to companies

[00:28:07] day in and day out that have spent hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars on warehouse management system supply chain management systems and a manufacturing site it might be for some robotics

[00:28:20] with high levels of technology and software that after manage all of that and that's all on the other side of the wall I'll call it right and he said there is never a challenge to get those big

[00:28:31] budgets but yet he said he talks to like like we do talks to large right this I'm not talking about you know mom paw with one shop but large wholesale distributors who don't have a text stack don't

[00:28:48] have a plan for a text stack and might be a quarter of a billion dollar your company and have never had any type of CRM or customer intelligence solution and business but they probably have a million

[00:29:00] dollar budget on the other side of the wall for the technology that manages the warehouse and the supply chain so it was just an interesting take it was great he sent me a video to talk about it

[00:29:10] and I sent him a video back and it was just an interesting thought about you know orders come in the door all day long they always have but how many more orders could if we put the same

[00:29:20] energy that we put on the supply chain side from a technology standpoint on the revenue side you guys can I add one more thing to that yeah so and I see comment there in the comments about technology rallies the logic app and anyone wants to discuss

[00:29:38] and by willing there and just kind of do that what you guys are talking about my experience and doing a small mid-sized manufacturing company it's the front of the house in the back

[00:29:51] of the house and there's a huge investment put towards the back of the house and the front of the house gets left behind a little bit especially when it comes to technology just what you just

[00:30:01] your point they're telling and I would say that us being in technology and bringing that education to the front of the house is a massive opportunity and I think it's our responsibility

[00:30:20] to help to do that because the focus is not there and if we can bring to light there's tons of technology out there but it's also getting cheaper and cheaper to get involved with that and there's

[00:30:33] so many options and so many things that just a little bit of guidance and steering in the right direction education and being able to understand what the needs are of a particular business I mean we're talking about large national industrial distribution and wholesale distribution right

[00:30:51] companies but I think about you know what Durk has Durk's run around the country talking to the smaller guys and the smaller players and they don't have to resource as time the energy to effort

[00:31:02] to put towards understanding what sort of technology solutions are out there and it's up to us to help bring that to light and provide a little bit of education to do that because I mean it's our

[00:31:13] job we sit here and we talk about technology, AI and all that and there's other tools that can be provided to these companies to push them in the right direction. I think those are great thoughts

[00:31:25] thanks Mike for that and inside you were referencing to our mutual friend Durk beverage with his we supply America tour that he does every summer I know he's gearing up for the fourth one right now

[00:31:36] he'll be back with us I think before he heads out on that and then we'll likely out of him on while he's traveling so to dive ahead we there's some good articles we want to jump into but again

[00:31:47] if you are listening on the podcast versus on our live a Friday morning broadcast you are not seeing the screen that everyone else is and on that screen is the around the horn and wholesale

[00:31:59] distribution news letter so if you're listening not hearing we're talking about a series of articles that we've brought together throughout the week and curated that we thought would be interesting for the world of wholesale distribution and manufacturing we do that every Friday morning live at

[00:32:15] 90 and Pacific on LinkedIn live YouTube live Facebook live the editors take that later in the day it goes on all the popular podcast formats if you're listening in it would like to get that

[00:32:24] newsletter simple way to get it is sent us an email at hello at leadsmarttech.com or the website for the podcast is www.aroundthehornpod.com and you can get signed up for the newsletter there as

[00:32:40] well so whichever one of those works we're happy to do that so Tom we're jumping into the section of our newsletter called manufacturing and distribution we won't spend a lot of time on this but

[00:32:50] there's some stats in there and some interesting things from an MDM bearer the MDM monitor distribution man's we came together the bearer group did some ongoing research that they do multiple times for

[00:33:02] and they talked a little bit about the outlook for 2024. I love a comment they made in here it said the strong revenue rebound years in 2021 and 22 and the air leaked out of the tires throughout

[00:33:17] 2023. Great comment I think that was from Tom Gail there so if you didn't get a chance to read this just jump onto the MDM monitor distribution management website and that article will be there

[00:33:30] you guys have any thoughts on this and it's kind of some interesting data points. No I think it's just worth reading um I think it's a good article well worth reading some good statistics on there

[00:33:42] all of that lot of the same sort of you know things that we've been talking about about sort of the confusion of the economy and what's happening and all the different things that are there but I do

[00:33:52] think it's well worth looking at. Yeah one of my takeaways was interesting is we talked so often with our audience tends to be folks in building materials each VAC plumbing by valve fitting electrical industrial safety and so forth but the whole lot of segments with

[00:34:10] wholesale distribution and this talked about that the growth possibility that it's looked at strong being an MRO safety cutting tool distributors but that they had big growth in 2023 that was seen was landscape supplies pool and spa and water works along with OEM fasteners data calm safety

[00:34:31] in general industrial so nice jump there and expecting more so let's hope that the second half of the year and I think a lot of what we're seeing is is the discussion about the second half of the

[00:34:42] year is going to be strong which is you know we're coming up on the middle of February already so let's look for what happens with that and we'll keep talking about it here each week so

[00:34:50] interesting articles we jump into our e-commerce and marketing segment from digital commerce 360 was this article B to B e-commerce lapse US business sales that's got to be tough to swallow for some folks

[00:35:05] in our embracing digital which think well with what they said in the article is that you know in general B to B was pretty flat right this overall sales we're flat but the e-commerce sales were up I believe

[00:35:17] 17% or 10 is exactly right over that same period and then they have that little chart here which I it a little light chart here if you can read this but it had a whole bunch of different

[00:35:28] statistics about you know the different months and the different channels and all that kind of stuff in there I still you know this is we've talked about this before I would love to have a little bit more

[00:35:40] understanding of what people consider to be a true e-commerce transaction maybe when we get Brian back back on again we can chat about this a bit more because I you know in the

[00:35:51] customers that we work with I see a lot of omnichannel right where people may request you know go online they may request a quote they may do some shopping online then they purchase actually

[00:36:02] through a P.O. or through a more manual process so I wonder often how much this is as influence versus actual transaction yeah but either way the bottom line is is right the technology is driving and facilitating the way people want to buy and

[00:36:20] clearly at a much higher rate than the more traditional sales channel yeah so I just think go ahead Mike I finish you thought please get I want to hear where you have to say because I'm

[00:36:32] going to shift years a little bit and I think you're on a ton there so go ahead yeah no just to bring up something that we're personally working on so we're working with Texas A&M and a capstone project right

[00:36:41] now to understand a little bit more around the buyer behavior so one of the we call it great data so we collect data between the end user that is actually going to distribution to their

[00:36:57] websites to try to understand what that that I think about journey but I'll use it in this case so the buying journey of how an end user is acting to make those digital purchases or

[00:37:14] e-commerce purchases and the data that we're collecting is I think going to be a great tool and a great resource for distributors to understand what that actually that buying experience kind of looks like for their customers cap and Tom to to your point the

[00:37:39] where does that how does that really impact or what is that experience that what is the true B2B online buying experience look like I think to me it's not so much the actual

[00:37:57] buying experience but it's before that where does it start how are people looking for things what is their what's their go to as an end user and you know we've talked with Ian Heller and the

[00:38:11] team over at DSG as far as what their statistics are showing and they've been saying this forever you know everybody goes the numbers I don't have any exact stats but it's something like 70 percent of people go online first to research and to start their buying journey or experience

[00:38:32] and we know that trend we understand it and it's just a matter of how do we kind of capture some of that data to make that experience better for the end user which will ultimately impact the

[00:38:42] distributed crisis well I think that's that's well said Mike and you know Ian is commented over and I've heard this and with DSG and I've heard it other places as well but you know the challenge is

[00:38:56] when you're if your wholesale distributor and you're venturing into e-commerce is one we don't do a good job of tracking that so I'm the channel journey right I'm going to make a little plug for

[00:39:09] something here in a moment as well but um we don't do that and so we use what it called I'd call it veiled or false statistics on the impact of our e-commerce on the business because

[00:39:25] somebody might quickly look at that and say well we only did x amount of dollars but we are return on investment is you know this number and we spent this this was a bad investment

[00:39:36] because we can't see that you know oftentimes in marketing these days we're using because of you know so called dark social and things like that we're using self-attribution we need to figure that out within e-commerce right because there's so much more to that

[00:39:51] transaction and the article here says that business fires today use anywhere between three and ten channels to research negotiate and purchase goods and services from sellers they can include online e-commerce and apps be to be marketplaces e-percurement and offline including

[00:40:08] branches and manual orders and advice sales rep. Tom's talked about this forever he talks about it and his book the revenues own right the buyers habits are changing we know from research now that

[00:40:21] 60 plus percent I think it is of B2B buyers or millennials and they are going to choose how they're going to buy and we need to meet them there right and so this e-commerce piece is interesting so

[00:40:35] Tom any other thoughts on that? No no I think that's gonna again another article worth definitely digging into. Well I'm gonna go back before we jump ahead and we'll just spend a moment on this next e-commerce right in our article right is one of the biggest challenges that

[00:40:49] wholesale distributors are seeing is they've got a whole ecosystem over here related to e-commerce and they've got the bigger part of their business between branch sales and phone sales and insights sales and outside sales and none of those things are connecting well and the best place we

[00:41:05] can be to serve our customer the best is where everybody in the company I always use the term if your customer facing which includes your website and your e-commerce solution the data needs

[00:41:17] to move between those and some companies are doing a good job of that most aren't my quick little plug for our sponsor and the company Tom and I work for will be making a very large announcement

[00:41:28] next week about a global partnership where we bring e-commerce data together right into where we visualized data which in the right setting is always gonna be through your CRM so excited to announce that next week we'll be publishing that while we're attending affiliated distributors e-commerce

[00:41:45] and marketing summit. All right so grazers these stronger sales ahead for its online businesses as well as next article that's also from digital commerce 360 so you know I'll throw my first couple

[00:42:00] two cents out for this and then I have some comments before we close on it but people talk all the time right now about Amazon business started as Amazon supply Amazon supply flat-out set it when

[00:42:13] they launched they were coming after grazers online business because grazer was doing already at the time I think three billion on online sales and grazers just continues to see that that is a

[00:42:25] bigger part of their business as is almost all of the big big national players. So can I add something there? You can add yeah I'm like we're very... No that article was very interesting because one of the business units is in his overseas and

[00:42:47] they're contributing quite a bit to that number which is good but then also the Zoroth actors in there as well which is their online marketplaces contributes to that too. Which they announced that they added something to be effective now they they're up to 13 million part numbers

[00:43:04] within their system which is a which is a hefty amount so you can go on these platforms and pretty much buy whatever you need that said yes that's growing but there's there's also a huge need for

[00:43:21] for people out in the street I mean the al reference the ASM event that I went to then conference earlier too where a huge sentiment was based on that okay we can go online and find what we need

[00:43:38] and make that purchase but we still need experts out in the field to comment and provide those solutions to us so it's not I mean whales talk kind of about doom and gloom of the sales person

[00:43:49] within distribution what's that gonna look like moving forward but there is a buyers want that experience that digital buy and experience win necessary but then there's times especially in the markets that we serve that expertise in that knowledge and that service that are provided by

[00:44:10] the distributors and their sales teams is that's not going away so which is great and it's encouraging for those distributors and if you can provide that value people can see that you provide that value by going to your online your website and your online stores and it's

[00:44:28] surely often that you truly have that's makes a huge difference so here I go it has too much coffee and I'm starting to babble now. Now it's good appreciate and the value is even in my opinion

[00:44:39] as you get more technology and you get more channels and you got more buying ways that you can research in more ways you can buy the value of that sales person as you just talked about becomes even

[00:44:50] more valuable because they help you that guide otherwise you end up in you end up more with more confusion than you end up with results so yeah and I mean Paul just Paul Kennedy just said in the

[00:45:03] comments frictionless experience for the customer no matter how they interact with us. I mean there's going to be in Tom I know AI is near and dear to your heart so there's you know with thoughts

[00:45:15] and with assisted sales assistance and things that are coming through the pipeline and technology that's happening it's only going to make that experience better for the end user but to coordinate

[00:45:26] that to your point Kevin with the data and the knowledge and the things that can be put towards that it's just going to be that much more valuable to the end user as a distributor to kind of harness

[00:45:38] that and make that communication process internally visible to the customer it's going to be I think it's a it's a it's a cool new way to provide solutions to the to the end user into the customer

[00:45:53] That's great great point there I appreciate that before we kind of jump ahead to a next article we're going to move into our technology cybersecurity in the AI section but I just have a separate

[00:46:07] screen here with our LinkedIn feed going and seeing some comments there so that we're not seeing on our simultaneous tool here so if you've made any comments down LinkedIn and we've missed you

[00:46:18] we're sorry about that but we'll try to if you have any comments or questions in a relevant that you're seeing go ahead and bring them up Kevin we have a few halos and so forth that we didn't

[00:46:26] get but we can do that certainly I want to jump ahead and kind of and we're going to continue these e-commerce conversations as time goes on but you know the the next article that we're going to

[00:46:36] talk about Tom is about scammers and videos and so forth but we had I'm going to say this is a you heard it here first moment Tom when you play this little clip real quick before we jump ahead

[00:46:49] this is from a couple of weeks ago here on our on our pod. But I think one of the the big challenges is going to be adjusting to AI enabled cyber crime in 20 minutes. Yep so right now you can be

[00:47:04] a electrical distributor you can get a call from a customer that you worked with for a long time recognized that person always how they could you know say hey I need 20 thousand dollars worth of

[00:47:15] copper wire and power tools sent to this address for job I'm starting you know this person you recognize their voice and they send you an email that came from them and the whole things

[00:47:26] a crime right I mean that's that's happening right now I wrote an article about this and there's a Japanese company the lost 35 million dollars because someone posed as a director of the board

[00:47:38] and asked them to transfer money for an acquisition and it was gone so I mean there are whole new ways of cyber crime that sure need to adjust to and they really need to get training on that now.

[00:47:51] There we go Ian Heller brought this up there's some this is a similar story if not the same one I think this is a different one but company out 35 million dollars plus after scammer stage video call

[00:48:04] with the deep fake of their CFO so you know why does this matter if we were to just post this about you know this happening to this one company who cares right that's not my company it's in

[00:48:21] another country but Ian really nailed it right there these are the types of things we're going to talk about another article here as well we could kind of even almost combine these in the

[00:48:29] discussion is the tools are out there now for literally in this case right we had this deep fake that was built that was literally the faces and the words and the the voices were perfect

[00:48:46] of a group of executives from a company that we're in a video call telling someone to make some transactions scary stuff right yeah no I believe it from what I in the article and it's quite

[00:48:59] an intricate process they went through is there was an email and then that led to a zoom meeting or an online meeting where they that was supposed to be the CFO on there directing them

[00:49:10] and money to different places it looked and sound exactly like the CFO plus they said there were other workers or other staff members on there that also were that all so it all looked very legitimate

[00:49:22] until it wasn't and yeah I do think unfortunately this is one of the scary things you know in the personal world right you hear a lot make sure you have a code word like if you you know get a

[00:49:35] phone call from your child or your family member or whatever and you're not sure how that code word like you know make sure that you have a as a family or as a friends and family you have a code

[00:49:46] that you can do I think that there's ways to also incorporate that into some of these things in business as well right you could simply ask a question that every that the only way that it would know is

[00:49:57] if you got into those things I don't think that's certainly the full solution to it but there are things that I think immediately we need to be start preparing for because unfortunately for the

[00:50:09] for the criminals of the world this is too too good to be true at this point you know in terms of possible good to be talking hang on for one second yes yeah okay good um apparently I just got

[00:50:21] word we actually had enough of mics voice and video that we've actually just acquired a controlling interest of in supply so okay thanks for the latest today Mike yeah you bet hey now you guys can retire

[00:50:36] to the islands very good I'm ready I'm ready yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I was just gonna say that you know the point of this right is

[00:50:51] this person wasn't a dumb person within this organization right they they even comment that they originally thought that the first email was a fishing scam and then things went on from there

[00:51:03] then they got them to transfer the money and then they continued in interaction with them on going for I think it mentions the article I think mentions over a week so it wasn't you know like

[00:51:15] we've got you know a large organization in fact we have another article that we posted today about a $10 million reward from US government over the high ransomware leaders out there this is not

[00:51:26] what doesn't need to be a big organization anymore full of uh you know 100 people in a room in Russia trying to you know pull these fishing scams off this was very different and with the technology that's there now it's it's pretty significant we also have another article today

[00:51:42] that talks about it's from tech target and techtarget.com and it talks about AI in the 2024 election and the spread of this information these are one in the same of this scam piece that we saw

[00:51:56] and what we can be faced with and forget about the political side of it you know whether we see you know in that particular article it talked about this information and um it uh it uh it

[00:52:09] talked about I think it was before the new hamster primaries that some robocalls went out with Biden's voice saying don't bother to vote you know the point of this and why we bring the stuff

[00:52:20] up and bring into our audiences that if you don't have some things internally for this right that uh whether I mean to Ian's comment about somebody calling up a branch the voice sounds the same

[00:52:32] right do we still in this day and age take phone orders without some other type of confirmation from the organization right um do we only deliver in this maybe stretching too far but do we only

[00:52:46] deliver to known job sites related to I don't know what the fixes right but within wholesale distribution and even manufacturing could happen just as easy to manufacture where you know all of

[00:52:58] this sudden we've got you know that the buyer from banger that they know that or the buyer from ghost supplier whatever it might be that they believe they know and all of a sudden they're shipping

[00:53:09] all kinds of stuff to different location these deep fakes right they don't need huge operations anymore it can be done with one or two people to complete these things together and to that guys I mean there's

[00:53:23] there's larger locations too and just for audience members to be aware there's going to be cyber security through the DOD with publicly traded companies and there's a list at the bottom of the newsletter but the references to public distributors and there's a list from

[00:53:44] DST that's included with that but data sharing and integration with these large public we try to companies there's going to be cybersecurity implication for regulations and concerns and policies that are going to be coming through the pipeline they're already starting

[00:54:04] right as probably aware of them but just a couple to mention NIST cybersecurity you can check there for some some information ISO 27001 is another one that you can and I can send out a link to this

[00:54:20] and then obviously we know about GDPR okay everybody knows that acronym but being aware of that information and just being able to to reference that and being getting up to speed on those

[00:54:32] those policies and regulations it's going to help everybody out from the wrong room but that's good 20 you mentioned that Mike I heard the it's not me my think it was and it was talking about

[00:54:47] GDPR and all kinds of cybersecurity and so forth and email security and it said remember the day when somebody used to put a 4 inch thick book on your doorstep that had everybody in towns

[00:55:00] name address and phone number in a book that they gave you for free so I kind of got to got to check a lot of that but point being right take away is if you're wholesale distribution

[00:55:14] and manufacturing be thinking with your teams right because most companies don't have chief security officer or so forth in their IT departments but be thinking about what do we do internally to protect ourselves against this because this stuff it's just going to be more and more prolific closing

[00:55:33] point on this and you you guys may have a thought to go with this as well the this is great Tom we hit that Ted Stark's comment there because this is this is key to this right so as I know

[00:55:46] a distributor that now requires an in-person sight visit by the sales rep before delivering to a new customer that's a good step right those are I don't know if that works in everybody's business

[00:55:57] that's a great great point so um real positive the last piece is this article out of tech target again that talked about all of the cyber deep fakes and so forth that can go on within

[00:56:09] the election and Tom I'm interested before we move ahead here quickly on your thoughts on this but my belief is that coming out of this election cycle we're going to learn a whole lot more about

[00:56:21] what can be done and we're going to see a lot more examples that we can start protecting against more that can be done about the deep the deep fake situation or well we're going to see more

[00:56:32] examples of what people are doing and how they're doing it and the opportunity to guard against it will have a final guest yes no I unfortunately I think Ian was had had exactly right

[00:56:44] is 2024 from a security perspective is going to be the year of the deep fake and the fake things that are going on whether that's in our business life personal life you know political life

[00:56:56] whatever the case may be and yes we're going to you know understand and look at ways on how this will be able to be addressed but yeah right now it's a bit of the wild west that's for sure

[00:57:07] and again even if you don't have to go visit us I think having some key words or things like that something that you can use that can validate that again that somebody else would only

[00:57:19] they would only be the real person would only know I think is really important to be keeping that you know and honestly not to doubt you know to self promote but another reason why

[00:57:32] CRM I think is really important for companies as you got to know who you're working with you got to know what you're dealing with you got to know the different contacts that are there

[00:57:40] and so forth and a lot of people don't know you know they just call up and they say I'm so and so from such in such a place they don't know and the inside sales doesn't know they don't

[00:57:49] have that data there's no way of really cross referencing any of that I think all of that is you know going to end up being a very important point as we come out of the year.

[00:58:00] Good, well great points from both of you thanks Jeff Brown for your comment as well about Mike's comments about local and in-person service and expertise important stuff and we're going to continue this conversation the two might too take away from Q4, a lot of part of Q4

[00:58:16] in the beginning of this year are two areas that we've not talked a lot about in the past year plus but where are we at today's time is 76 or 77 episodes 7? 7 times we've done this. Raboorne. What's that Mike? Raboorne. Raboorne.

[00:58:32] Yeah, that's a lot of talking fans out there. Okay very good. I don't get it but I should learn at that stuff but you know we didn't in the historically we've not talked a lot about cybersecurity

[00:58:46] which is a major threat and could have a major impact on manufacturing wholesale distribution and dirt beverage helped us realize on our early January episode that we had an all-star cast on that we don't talk enough about people so we've kind of restructured the newsletter that

[00:59:03] we send out each week we're in a jump and time if you want just because of time I'll kind of scroll through a few little bit of these additional articles and you guys can kind of dive in if you

[00:59:14] stop there at the sales and M&A section we saw that sonopars Crawford division restructured following an acquisition as well that they have there so there's good read there that's from MDM

[00:59:29] but one of the things I wanted to hit on it's a great piece and it's from a number of years ago from Forbes we added into the sales and M&A section is we it's called the 12 essential steps

[00:59:42] win-win negotiations so least Steinberg the famous sports agent that the movie Tom Cruise is character in the movie Jerry McWire was patterned after he's a local guy lives about 15 minutes up the road here Lee wrote a book called negotiating with integrity and in that he talks about

[01:00:01] 12 essential steps of a win-win negotiation and it just you know our life as negotiations no matter wet right Tom you were in town this week and you know we're co-founders of a company

[01:00:12] and we sat in a room for two days working on stuff that we had to find we had different opinions on some things right we deal with it in our marriages with our children life is a negotiation

[01:00:23] at some level right so those 12 steps are there this article this link is two Forbes I would just throw it out there if you've never read those 12 steps they're great for business and life you could google them least Steinberg 12 essential steps of win-win so love that

[01:00:39] we put each week now a people and leadership section in a good article there about developing leadership soft skills right and especially with growing organizations in the field there if you have any thoughts or comments on this throw them in there but this is from ink magazine but

[01:00:57] you know people are different today than they were Tom we had this discussion on Tuesday I think you made the comment was why can't people just get their job done right people are different

[01:01:09] than they were when you know our generation I hate to say it that way was young right and and leadership skills are more and more important so nice short article there any thoughts for me there young that

[01:01:21] yeah I mean I think it plays into I think we've mentioned this on the show before I do believe as an AI as AI becomes more prevalent in organizations that the culture of the organization is going as well become more important and

[01:01:36] it's because it's going to be the way that we work is very different than the way that we've worked in the past and the way that we need to be you know and it says here right it's about

[01:01:46] exuding confidence and authenticity not playing in the politics or fear so I think we have an opportunity to really through AI provide another level of ability that people have but we also have

[01:01:59] an opportunity to really change the culture a bit because the AI is going to level the playing field it's going to potentially make more you know instead of having ABCD players you're

[01:02:10] going to have more A and B players that are being you know anyway we could we could go on an on about this but I do think culture is going to be a big deal hey Tom before we jump on we might have

[01:02:20] just had a top comment of the year coming yeah I know I realize when I will that I definitely need to use my stuff I'll try to show a better pre you know I haven't keep saying our culture

[01:02:33] needs to be more like TikTok and it's like that and I just haven't appreciated it well enough well your beer very right very good all right can I make one comment that guys yeah okay so

[01:02:46] when when you sent us out to me pre show kind of prep stuff I was looking at the last article and then this particular one and I kind of combined them in my head as far as culture and

[01:02:57] one thing came in mind it was a podcast I was listening to not this one unfortunately it was a different one but it was a lesson rather podcast I believe they're not believe they're not sorry

[01:03:07] I'm very well the best way to be your last guest appearance yeah trader anyway it was there's there's again you started it's called Absumo anyway he was talking about chart is the culture within his company and one of the things that he noticed especially on a sales team

[01:03:27] was working and negotiating with his sales team about hitting attainable goals and hitting attainable goals and creating those with his team pumped up morale it gave them really goals that they were

[01:03:47] that they felt confident they could hit but then also it propelled them to think about the next goal and then the next goal and how they wanted to do that and that was just from a sales team perspective

[01:03:59] that was one of the things that I really thought was relevant to kind of this article in a tactical kind of way to look at Brelin Moral and looking at how you know the culture within a company can

[01:04:16] improved sometimes it's as simple as doing to others and have a culture like that in an organization so that I like those thoughts you know and I was just thinking going back to our

[01:04:26] our negotiation article that we had earlier and then some of this HR and people stuff is I think Will Quinn's actually doing a little bit of that right now he's kind of behind the scenes

[01:04:38] using soft skills to negotiate his next appearance on the show you know so good job Will so each week we have a section called industry scuddle but we talk there about some typically

[01:04:51] it's some acquisitions as a news point and we have three of those each week their acquisitions maybe sales results and so forth so good stuff there if you get a chance to look at it again

[01:05:02] if you don't get our newsletter it's called around the horn and wholesale distribution manufacturing you can get that by sending an email to hello at leadsmarttech.com or visiting the website for the podcast

[01:05:14] www.aroundthehornpod.com the last couple things we'll talk about today is we've also added a section called a second look and that's where we might post articles about things that we've talked about maybe multiple times in the past article here about Ford Motor Company posting a 523

[01:05:32] million dollar Q4 net loss and almost all of that is tied to labor and the strike so we talked about that when we were talking about the out of strike and it's trickle down effect had some great

[01:05:45] comments from a lot of folks about that so finally we try and add a section in each week called a good read we usually make that about personal development leadership and so forth but this week

[01:05:55] through it in there about what it takes to give a great presentation all of us consistently give presentations whether we know it or not and if we have some skills to do that it's better this

[01:06:05] a Harvard Business Review article I really enjoyed that so again a lot of we covered today from the newsletter as well as other news topics Mike has been great to have you with us

[01:06:19] we just got a note that Jerry and Jerry and Germany is hoppin off and thank Jerry for being with us as well and Jerry works in the wholesale distribution or sorry the representing manufacturer

[01:06:31] in the medical market through distribution and Germany so like haven't him with us great comments today Mike any takeaways any closing thoughts of course closing thoughts for sure no thank you guys

[01:06:43] so much for having me I really appreciate it just a couple of quick bullet points about what we've got going on so in supplies got a lot going on in the first second first and second quarter

[01:06:53] very cool stuff specifically with the one thing is with the Texas A&M industrial wholesale distribution program the capstone project we're going to have some cool stuff around that shop floor coffee is making waves and if any distributors out there want to put it on their

[01:07:09] website fantastic we'd love to do that and the third thing is as far as this podcast you guys do a fantastic job and I really appreciate the opportunity to hang out with the crew and Ted I appreciate

[01:07:27] the comment there Minnesota guys joining in and joining the conversation for sure so thank you guys appreciate it very much it's an honor to be on with you guys and thanks again thanks again

[01:07:38] thanks for the thanks for the compliments we appreciate it when you're with us even even when you're not on as a guest when you're making comments we appreciate the comments because this isn't about

[01:07:48] time or Kevin this is about wholesale distribution and the more people share the the podcast with their friends the better the comments we've got we had a broad group of comments from multiple

[01:07:58] countries today which is great Mike I was thinking though wouldn't it be rather than making waves wouldn't it be better that things are really brewing at shop floor coffee did the smartest man

[01:08:11] I know just just one of them you're really brewing all right well since since our deep fakes in supply business so we got to really make sure you've got your coffee business going so good stuff always enjoy our time together mr. Burton any closing thoughts on the day

[01:08:31] no have a good weekend I'm torn I'm gonna watch the superbow but I really have no idea who I'm going to root for it's like can they both lose if they both could lose I would think that would be

[01:08:41] the my idea allowed but I don't think I can I make one other comment okay so I was a little disappointed we didn't talk a whole lot about AI stuff today I'm wondering to kind of think what

[01:08:53] that is Kevin's all that's Kevin so yeah we touched on a few things but you're right you're right they're not we didn't we didn't we have a lengthy discussion about deep fakes yes for sure

[01:09:05] what one thing one thing I will mention is that the device field I've created a whole bunch of customized GPTs that I'm gonna be launching over the weekend on an online din post so

[01:09:18] I think there has been a lot of things in case I miss it forward to me I know that you do a lot of work build on some cool GPTs which if you're not aware what that is it's using a tool

[01:09:31] like chat GPT to not just ask it questions but program it so it has specific types of information that will it'll look to on a consistent basis we use that for some of our marketing

[01:09:45] at Leeds Smart as well so that's cool Mike I'll look forward to seeing it what I wasn't gonna mention is if you follow me or we're connected on LinkedIn if not you can just

[01:09:54] look for me Kevin Brown it on LinkedIn I post a repost at a post from a friend of mine Sean Dubre back this morning and Sean is a futurist he's the former chief economist at the Consumer

[01:10:09] Technology Association formerly CEA that sponsors yes Sean's gonna be on the program with us later in the year but he gave a heads up about some of the Super Bowl ads that will be about AI so there's I think

[01:10:25] four of them so I reposted Sean's post this morning about that you may want to take a look at that all of a sudden there might be a reason to watch the Super Bowl for me so that's it let's

[01:10:36] call it a day we'll wrap this up Mike thank you again Tom my dear friend and colleague thank you for everything everybody that joins us each week we appreciate you if you weren't coming back we

[01:10:47] wouldn't be doing this from Tom Burton Kevin Brown and Mike friends we'll wish everyone a happy weekend a safe weekend and please be kind to others thank you thanks everyone