Home Depot's Strategic Move: Acquiring SRS Distribution to Meet Buyers Where They Want to Buy (B2C meets B2B)

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

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

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

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

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

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

[00:00:55] And it was astounded by the amount of out-of-offices, so good for the folks that are starting early,

[00:01:04] I guess we would say, right?

[00:01:05] Yeah. Well, it's a holiday. I know for stock market and banks and stuff like that.

[00:01:10] So yeah.

[00:01:11] Not here. Not here. Not around the Horn.

[00:01:15] No, we are.

[00:01:16] Let's go on.

[00:01:17] It says, are the banks close today?

[00:01:19] I'm not 100% sure. I just know the stock market is.

[00:01:24] Yeah, hopefully the banks aren't. I'll eat the bank today.

[00:01:27] All right. So well, we'll see.

[00:01:29] But I'm looking forward to today's show and we still got a lot of nice folks

[00:01:34] and joining us today. So we're excited about that.

[00:01:37] And let's kind of dive in.

[00:01:39] So I'm Kevin Brown. This is my lifelong friend and business partner, Tom Burton.

[00:01:45] We are the co-founders of Lead Smart Technologies.

[00:01:48] Lead Smart Technologies is the sponsor of our show every week.

[00:01:53] And we get together every Friday morning and discuss a newsletter that goes out as well

[00:01:58] every Friday.

[00:01:59] Newsletters called around the Horn and wholesale distribution and manufacturing.

[00:02:02] We try and pull all the significant news of the week

[00:02:06] and do what we call peeling back the onion

[00:02:09] or finding the story behind the story on top news articles

[00:02:14] as they relate to wholesale distribution and manufacturing.

[00:02:16] So we're appreciative of the sponsorship we have from Lead Smart.

[00:02:21] Lead Smart has developed a product called Channel Cloud

[00:02:25] and Channel Cloud is an AI-enabled CRM customer intelligence platform

[00:02:29] that's built solely for wholesale distribution and manufacturing.

[00:02:33] Don't sell into other channels and other arenas solely in this

[00:02:37] in that particular marketplace.

[00:02:39] I bring 35 years or so of experience in wholesale distribution.

[00:02:43] Tom has many, many years in wholesale distribution experience as well.

[00:02:46] But 30 plus years in technology.

[00:02:49] And we brought all that together with our team to develop a platform

[00:02:52] that helps wholesale distributors and manufacturers gain deep insights

[00:02:56] into their customers, their teams, and their overall business

[00:03:01] to accelerate growth.

[00:03:02] That's what we do.

[00:03:03] So happy to be here today as we get ready to start.

[00:03:07] As you might be with us in the live show this morning

[00:03:10] on LinkedIn, live YouTube, live, or Facebook live,

[00:03:13] we do this every Friday morning at 9 o'clock Pacific time.

[00:03:16] Well, nearly every Friday unless there's an airplane involved

[00:03:19] or something else going on.

[00:03:21] But we do that live first thing in the morning.

[00:03:24] We review the newsletter and you will see that if you're watching us live.

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[00:04:36] So enough of that, Tom.

[00:04:38] Any thoughts before we dive in?

[00:04:40] Well, and if you are live listening right now, please let us know where you're at

[00:04:44] up where you're from.

[00:04:45] Say hello.

[00:04:46] We've had some weird issues with LinkedIn the last actually a few weeks

[00:04:50] it seems like with the commenting.

[00:04:52] So it'd be great to know if it's actually working again today.

[00:04:56] So yeah, so that's a good point.

[00:04:59] You know, we use a simulcasting tool to get this out to those three formats

[00:05:04] and sometimes it doesn't work as it's supposed to on the connections.

[00:05:09] And so it'd be good to know if you're listening in today,

[00:05:12] share with us where you're at and what you're doing.

[00:05:14] Within the newsletter, we break the newsletter down into a different

[00:05:17] topical areas.

[00:05:18] The first area we talk about each week is kind of things about the economy

[00:05:21] and supply chain.

[00:05:22] So first article that we brought up this week,

[00:05:25] it's about this here in the US in the East Coast of the US there was

[00:05:30] this major bridge collapse following a container ship that lost power

[00:05:35] evidently, lost full control.

[00:05:37] Unfortunately there were some lives lost there.

[00:05:40] I think it's six is the number of people that were killed.

[00:05:43] So it was just catastrophic.

[00:05:45] You know good news is evidently the harbor pilot that was on the ship

[00:05:49] was had the fourth thought or foresight to get the made a message out and

[00:05:54] that got to police and they were able to close the bridge down.

[00:05:57] But unfortunately, I think there were people already working on the bridge

[00:06:00] before one of the uprights on this bridge span got hit.

[00:06:03] And now you've got this major artery that goes into the port of Baltimore

[00:06:09] that now has a ship container ship with 4,700 containers on it.

[00:06:15] 56 of them are containing hazardous materials and inbound and outbound

[00:06:20] traffic for these ships is now stalled.

[00:06:23] So kind of a big headache there.

[00:06:25] Yeah.

[00:06:28] You know, it's maybe you have more details about how this actually happened.

[00:06:34] But they also said I believe that the bridge itself was not constructed really

[00:06:39] up to the level of how you do things today.

[00:06:41] So as a result of the collision it obviously, you know, catastrophic with

[00:06:46] being the right word here, right?

[00:06:47] The whole thing ended up going down.

[00:06:52] Yeah, I mean, it's you know, they say this isn't going to be a big problem.

[00:06:56] I guess maybe that's true unless it's your stuff on those on those containers

[00:07:00] and stuff that are there.

[00:07:03] And or you're waiting, they said there's a lot of, you know, Baltimore is

[00:07:05] a very, very big port with a lot of vehicles and cars and things like that

[00:07:11] that go into a lot of areas.

[00:07:12] So well, it may not be a macro level crisis but I think there'll certainly be

[00:07:17] some micro level.

[00:07:18] Well, that's the story behind the story here.

[00:07:21] And you can and yell that their time right is, you know, it's nice to get

[00:07:25] Janet Yellen's comment that that, you know, the Fed is going to the Treasury

[00:07:29] Secretary there that they're going to look at this supply chain issue

[00:07:33] and we'll do everything we can.

[00:07:35] The Biden administration says to open it as quickly as possible but

[00:07:38] you know, it pause here for a second because one of the other comments that

[00:07:43] they said was they don't expect it to impact GDP.

[00:07:46] Okay.

[00:07:47] But to your point earlier, right?

[00:07:50] 4700 containers on a container ship that can hold 10,000.

[00:07:56] That is the bow of that ship is at the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay there

[00:08:03] on that inlet.

[00:08:03] Right?

[00:08:04] They I think the number I heard yesterday was $60 million.

[00:08:09] It was going to take just in cleanup and offloading the ship and

[00:08:16] everything that's going to go along with that.

[00:08:19] That's not including the cost of the bridge to rebuild.

[00:08:22] So, you know, now and I don't know how long before they'll find a way to

[00:08:26] get traffic moving around that but stop and think, right?

[00:08:30] Let's let's magnify what is going on with this based upon your comment,

[00:08:35] right, about if it's, you know, it's not maybe it's not as big of a deal

[00:08:39] unless it's your stuff on the ship.

[00:08:42] Well, I think this is really being highly under reported because

[00:08:46] as to your comment earlier as well is that there is a this is a major

[00:08:51] offboarding for cars coming in from overseas.

[00:08:54] It's one of the major ports in the US that that happens at.

[00:08:58] And secondly, it is the largest port for incoming agriculture equipment,

[00:09:03] tractors and harvesters and things like that.

[00:09:06] Can they go around that?

[00:09:07] Sure, they talk about that, right?

[00:09:08] They can get to up to New York.

[00:09:12] They can go down as far as into Georgia.

[00:09:15] They've been talking about it.

[00:09:17] There's a new port news in Virginia.

[00:09:19] They can bring things into but that's a big disruption and a big delay, right?

[00:09:24] So now you've got a ship sitting out waiting to come in that can't get past

[00:09:28] that bridge to come into Baltimore that now we're going into verdict.

[00:09:32] You've got ships that were already in port waiting to get out that we're

[00:09:36] going to because this happened at I think one thirty or two in the morning,

[00:09:40] you know, Tuesday morning when this happened.

[00:09:42] So the other ships that were scheduled to come out that are stuck there,

[00:09:45] I was going to look at AIS when they ship and boat tracking tools

[00:09:51] that globally.

[00:09:52] And so virtually all not virtue all ships have an AIS tracker on them

[00:09:57] and you can use some free apps and so forth to see what's where I had planned

[00:10:01] you I'm trying to do that later in the day looking at an AIS as how many ships

[00:10:05] are actually sitting in that port right now.

[00:10:07] So there's going to be a disruption here but the big picture

[00:10:11] about all of this really ties to what we've been talking about so much for the last,

[00:10:15] you know, I don't know we've got a year now right as we had some potential

[00:10:21] disruptions in the West Coast ports.

[00:10:24] Then we did have disruption in the Western Canadian ports.

[00:10:28] Now there's some discussion about East Coast and Gulf Coast labor disruptions.

[00:10:34] There's the article mentioned there's two thousand workers that work unloading ships

[00:10:40] in the port of Baltimore.

[00:10:41] Well, they're day laborers right?

[00:10:44] They get paid by the day that they work so they're talking about this being up to $2 million

[00:10:50] a day and lost wages once the ships that are already in the harbor are fully unloaded

[00:10:55] which is you know within a week.

[00:10:58] So this is you know hundreds of thousands of jobs tied to this there's two thousand workers

[00:11:04] just unloading but there's a lot of impact that goes with this with the laid shipments

[00:11:09] and so forth.

[00:11:10] And you know I've been on the manufacturing side of things before with a small manufacturer

[00:11:15] and you know what we got a container, you know because we were getting you know a couple

[00:11:21] of containers a month not hundreds of containers a month.

[00:11:24] One of our containers gets delayed by a couple weeks.

[00:11:27] We might not have been shipping Granger right on time.

[00:11:31] Those are no I mean they're absolutely you know local micro whatever you want to call

[00:11:37] it impact right.

[00:11:38] I think the news is all reporting at the GDP level and the macro impact or whatever exactly

[00:11:45] the rules are coming to an end for at a macro level but at a micro or even local or even

[00:11:51] semi regional level there can be a very massive impact and we'll see how long it's going

[00:11:57] to take them to actually clean up the mess.

[00:11:59] You know if they said it's actually very difficult to get some of the stuff off the bottom

[00:12:05] of the bay there and you know it's not it's just not a quick and easy cleanup I don't

[00:12:09] think is along the way.

[00:12:11] So ships ship stone load quickly in the harbor when everything's perfect.

[00:12:15] So now you're thinking right you're bringing another ship out or big barges you're bringing

[00:12:21] cranes out that aren't probably aren't the right ones to offload the crane the containers

[00:12:27] perfectly.

[00:12:28] It's going to be slow and arduous so I I don't know I mean maybe they've got away I've

[00:12:33] not looked at a map or whatever to see how wide it is could they get ships in another

[00:12:37] part but I'm guessing until they get that offloaded and moving nothing's coming.

[00:12:42] So you rebuild the bridge over a period of time right but I think the port issues going

[00:12:47] me a long time and when you put that together with you know and this is nothing compared

[00:12:52] to what's going on to Suez Canal but when you put this together right with a major U.S.

[00:12:56] port closed basically now the Suez Canal issues and the Panama Canal issues as well

[00:13:04] with a slow down there and the safety issues in the Suez Canal you know now all of a sudden

[00:13:10] this cold global supply chain just has another chink in the arm or so to speak and it just

[00:13:15] goes back to the broader discussion that we've been having regularly here is about the

[00:13:21] resiliency that's needed in supply chain right and understanding and consistently monitoring

[00:13:27] what's going on versus you know yeah on a occasional basis.

[00:13:32] And you probably can't make this one up or this isn't something obvious but again it's

[00:13:36] just having those contingencies in general.

[00:13:38] Yeah no exactly exactly right so good.

[00:13:41] We want to jump ahead what's next here?

[00:13:44] Yep.

[00:13:45] So you had some good orders rebounded in February after a sharpest one month decline in

[00:13:52] January since April 2020 so the roller coaster continues.

[00:13:57] Yep that's that's it you know I was thinking about that though because I think the

[00:14:03] CPE numbers were reported this morning and I think they were better than had been planned so

[00:14:09] I think that couple of news alerts that I heard and I usually don't look too closely at the

[00:14:15] national or global news too close on Friday mornings because I'm preparing for what we're doing

[00:14:20] right here with yesterday's articles but I think those numbers were better these numbers are better

[00:14:27] you know my hope is and I think we prognosticated a little bit was it last week that we did that

[00:14:34] of the week before I think it was a week before last as we kind of said I think you were pushing

[00:14:40] Q4 before any rate cuts and I was I said Q3 and that we're going to get three this year

[00:14:48] if I remember that correctly.

[00:14:50] Yeah we might need to get made me to get I think you said three and I said one um

[00:14:57] and even though the our friends came out I think um the fed came out in the last

[00:15:02] meeting and said there's still on track for three um I'm still sticking with my one

[00:15:10] and maybe two okay so oh now it's maybe two well I'm gonna stick with my one I'll just stick

[00:15:17] with my one how's that all right I'm not gonna hedge I'm not gonna hedge all right so let's let's see if

[00:15:22] um if it's if it's four um the um if it's four Tom I get a stake at Chuck's in Santa Barbara

[00:15:38] that's fine I think you already owe me a few so yeah we can it'll be leveled out

[00:15:42] oh you few I thought that we were good all right anyways if I only one that will be will be

[00:15:47] will be even on that but um I think I might get I'm sticking with with my guns on this I think

[00:15:53] there's gonna there's too much pressure that I think there's too much pressure to do them and

[00:15:58] some of it's already baked into the stock market uh already that for them coming right and we're

[00:16:03] seeing that that there's going to be too much pressure to if things stay like they are now in

[00:16:09] that two eight I think was the range right now that they've got to do it right um now we'll see what

[00:16:16] the election pressure has on that too I was interested I was just looking here at the data that came

[00:16:22] out today is yeah I would increase point three so it's 2.8 percent year over year which is good

[00:16:29] or an alignment but consumers spending jumped again 0.8 percent um which they said was one of

[00:16:36] the largest consumer jumps in a while we've talked a lot about this where is that money coming

[00:16:41] from a lot of it's going on to credit card and debt and sure I'm sure the stock market is you

[00:16:46] know creating that wealth effect as well for people are spending but it's hard to really

[00:16:53] reduce inflation when people keep spending and keep spending a lot and I think that's where the

[00:16:59] you spending money in order have yeah I think to me that's where the

[00:17:04] the you know if spending was dropping then I would be completely agree with you that the three

[00:17:10] you know the three um rate cuts make total sense but if expanding keeps that then I think they have

[00:17:16] to think twice about it and if the numbers start to end ship in the other way so I don't know it's

[00:17:21] honestly I'm dunk either way that's for sure so we'll just keep an eye on this we do it on a

[00:17:26] consistent basis this was an article from a modern distribution management it's written by uh my

[00:17:32] cocket Mike I think might be with us today Mike if you're here throw us a thumbs up uh he's with

[00:17:37] us most weeks Mike is termed a term that I'm in a coin today right here right now 917

[00:17:46] pacific time on the 29th of March Mike is a faux-aff friend of around the horn

[00:17:56] that's that's a new thing just Mike well there's another one who just made a comment we're going to

[00:18:01] talk about in just a second but there's a lot of them out there but that's my new term there's

[00:18:06] got to be some t-shirts coming at some time and I get that because uh the yacht racing sailing buddy

[00:18:12] in mind Tom Eman's got a phenomenal Facebook online show it's on Facebook in YouTube twice a week

[00:18:20] uh it's called sailing illustrated it's a phenomenal if you've been to ever enjoyed watching

[00:18:24] the America's Cup or a yacht race Tom picks it apart like like never before each week and uh

[00:18:31] programs it's like three years old now the phenomenal program and uh it's called sailing illustrated

[00:18:37] so he calls them foesies uh and so that's that's what hit for me so we've got faux-aff

[00:18:43] to have another faux-aff with us here uh our friend Lars from 3M made a great comment

[00:18:49] I've been trying to get Lars to join us on the show for a year plus and eventually I'm gonna break him

[00:18:55] down but he just should have been with us today because Lars' comment really breaks down our whole

[00:19:01] first article right he nailed it in a couple sentences uh you know really each of these

[00:19:08] port issues in isolation maybe manageable but the some some of the issues is a big issue so

[00:19:13] we could say thanks Lars we always appreciate when you're with us I'm hoping to see Lars in a

[00:19:17] couple weeks at the Industrial Supply Association event we'll be talking about a little bit later

[00:19:23] and the first beer's on me Lars if uh if you're in town so let's jump ahead Tom it's kind of talk

[00:19:28] about what's next and um we kind of jump to uh into our manufacturing distribution segment here

[00:19:36] David Gordon that publishes electrical trends magazine newsletter David's been on the show with

[00:19:42] us before we got to get him back uh wrote a great article about and I thought about it kind of

[00:19:48] as as trading dollars but interesting you know last week between border states electrical

[00:19:55] and sonopar they picked up between the two of them a number of I think it was four different

[00:20:00] independently owned groups and brought them into these larger groups as well but 600 million

[00:20:07] dollars of uh independent distributors smaller family owned distributors have now been absorbed

[00:20:13] you know in border states has you know started kind of in the north central part of the country

[00:20:18] is really a national company now so it's really interesting to watch that kind of happen

[00:20:24] you know border states as uh as he mentions in the in the article there's over five billion and

[00:20:30] this is really kind of one of the last major stepping stones for them into getting the presence that

[00:20:35] they're looking at and they saying they want to be in every state by 2030 I really though

[00:20:41] appreciated someone with David was talking about here not just about kind of the dollars moving around

[00:20:46] from smaller to larger organizations yes sonopar tries to do this where they'll they'll buy a handful

[00:20:53] of people in the geography they'll stitch that together into an operating unit because they try

[00:20:58] to do operating units of about a billion dollars each which is kind of an interesting take but you

[00:21:04] know a number of these companies were already esops uh which at you know in play stock ownership

[00:21:11] program when you do it in this setting it usually means that the ownership has maybe a family owned

[00:21:18] company or uh some partners that wanted to you know make sure that for the long term their

[00:21:23] employees were well well represented and well taken care of will basically sell the company to the

[00:21:29] esop the esop distribute stock to all the employees including the ongoing executives for a long time

[00:21:35] I've had some involvement with an esop in the past um but what's really neat about that is with border

[00:21:40] states being an esop is now that warehouse driver right a forklift driver or the delivery guy

[00:21:48] or the order entry person from these smaller companies now joining this much bigger company

[00:21:55] really a great opportunity for them because now they become employee owners of a five billion

[00:22:00] dollar a year company in that setting in the in border states example so it's kind of need to watch

[00:22:05] the human side of that and we typically on on the show here we talk about the financial

[00:22:11] market impacts things like that but I appreciated what he talked about this you know because if you think

[00:22:17] about it and there's a lot of employees you know uh esops out there uh Mike Mortensen that was with

[00:22:25] us a few weeks back with uh Alaska rubber group or airgy industrial they're in esop as well great way

[00:22:32] to hire retain you know and keep good people and when you get acquired into an esop it's really a

[00:22:38] nice thing for employee retention for the people that you want to keep around and I would expect

[00:22:44] that that is part of the border state strategy right as a way to attract higher quality acquisitions

[00:22:51] yep um to me that wouldn't in you know you are there's always risk right of acquisitions

[00:22:56] an absorption of acquisition but if you're acquiring an esop where it's an employee own company and

[00:23:02] you're going in there I think your retention is going to be much higher your everything's

[00:23:06] going to be much easier or I guess are more effective or efficient in that acquisition strategy so

[00:23:12] to me it's a pretty pretty intelligent business strategy for them and intelligent and

[00:23:17] and and and a very you know potentially very lucrative for the employees as well

[00:23:22] you know I don't know the ins and the outs of this we might have somebody that does that's

[00:23:26] involved with us I wish this we we we had a guest that was from an esop but I'm assuming if esop

[00:23:33] acquires an esop own you know the company that's an esop acquires another company that's an esop as well

[00:23:40] those employees get to uh get two bites of an apple potentially too right I would think is

[00:23:46] is you know yeah I depend on how that everything is distributed I don't know all the ins and outs

[00:23:51] about how you know money and everything is distributed but assuming that it's you know distributed

[00:23:56] equally yeah absolutely so there's a little more trickle down of all of this as well and David

[00:24:01] covered this nicely in his article was that you know some of these organizations were part of

[00:24:06] either i marker affiliated distributors and buying groups and sonopar is not to my knowledge

[00:24:12] part of any groups border states is part of affiliated distributors so these these large

[00:24:19] acquisitions have some significant potential impact to less to a trade association but certainly

[00:24:24] to a buying group potentially so interesting stuff to watch what what using a big piece of this

[00:24:31] and this kind of goes to an article we're going to talk about you know in a little bit about

[00:24:35] the big home depot acquisition yesterday of srs but this ties into really looking when you look

[00:24:43] at these electrical acquisitions and you start thinking about it we've got with and leads weren't

[00:24:48] quite a few very large HVAC plumbing electrical distributors that are kind of combined entities

[00:24:54] that are are very large we're talking with two or three other really large ones right now um

[00:25:01] about using our technology to help their business grow but when you look at these folks a lot of

[00:25:06] what they're doing is tying to home building as well and we have this huge glut here in the US

[00:25:11] of a need for new homes and so gobbling up these electrical HVAC type folks that are going to feed

[00:25:20] that because you know it's interesting David references um another article here about

[00:25:28] Brad Jacobs who was one of the founders of united rentals the big equipment rental company

[00:25:33] and a billionaire um he's just launched another distribution company that's so called tech enabled

[00:25:40] and David references that's is something we should talk about another time but you know

[00:25:45] he made the comment about wanting to get in back into wholesale distribution

[00:25:49] related to the home building market and home maintenance market as he said I think residential

[00:25:55] construction is not going to be replaced by a hologram I want back in right and you know what you

[00:26:01] are not going to find uh uh an AI tool that is going to go swing a hammer or use a nail gun on a

[00:26:09] home right at this stage so I thought that was interesting so I think these the home building space

[00:26:15] in those folks supplying that are going to be in a unique place here for a while so good information

[00:26:21] there yep all right let's move yeah let's move ahead to our e-commerce and marketing section good

[00:26:27] article from demandgenreport.com I shared this with I sent this off to a few folks today there's

[00:26:33] a large trade association that's invited me to speak to their membership at an event this summer

[00:26:40] about once that's firm and locked with a date and topic all all announced it but the conversation

[00:26:48] is about buyer journey right and and tracking and managing that and changing buyers as a big part of

[00:26:55] that discussion we talk about changing buyers here all the time right you've written quite a bit

[00:26:59] about it and so forth uh so this is a good article about the e-commerce report about the best of

[00:27:04] both worlds combining B to see simplicity with B to be depth so what were your takeaways from that one

[00:27:12] well for you I thought it was a well but it's a very well put together articles

[00:27:16] structure nicely yeah structure nicely in a lot of good detail um you know we've been talking about

[00:27:24] why as buyers were all B to see buyers first so the you know we've talked about this over and over

[00:27:30] was good to see it's good to see this starting to get more and more of a of a I guess traction if

[00:27:36] you will in the in the business marketing world yep is looking at first of all you know there's two

[00:27:43] parts of the equation right there is the buyer journey in the B to B world which is generally more

[00:27:49] sophisticated and complicated than it is for a consumer right because there's multiple decision

[00:27:54] makers there's multiple people involved in the process obviously to paint upon what you're selling

[00:27:59] it will vary from one thing to the other so you do need to map the buyer journey but if you cross

[00:28:04] that buyer journey with looking at it through the lens of simplicity as you buy as a consumer or how

[00:28:11] you as an individual want that experience to be and then you translate that back into the buyer

[00:28:17] journey if you look at those two things together which is basically what this article was saying

[00:28:22] then you can really start to build an experience that again we'll live up to the expectations

[00:28:28] as they as they said here so it's you can't just repeat what goes on in the in the consumer world

[00:28:36] you have to look at it in the lens of whatever your buyer journey and is with your different products

[00:28:41] but then you can overlay that with the simplicity of a consumer experience and they talked a lot about

[00:28:47] Omni channel you know we talked a lot about Omni channel and all of that um but you know again just

[00:28:53] think about what you want to do and you know think about yourself when you're looking at this go

[00:28:59] would I want to buy with this experience or would I be excited about buying with this experience or

[00:29:05] would I be kind of turned off with this experience so anyway good good article as you said good

[00:29:10] structure all the way around yeah i don't know about your house in particular but i know in my house

[00:29:16] if i was developing a Omni channel e-commerce solution and i wanted to take the best

[00:29:24] best features of a beta cd experience and bring it to b2b i would ask my wife to come

[00:29:33] and take a hard cold look at this because my wife has highly experienced in the beta c

[00:29:40] online transactions and and i would want her take on all of this because you know at the end of

[00:29:46] the day and i say this all the time and it's probably um probably say too much but you know

[00:29:52] the end of the day is we know where buyers are changing right or was it 62 percent i think it is now

[00:29:59] and i bet that's probably a year old that statistic of b2b buyers are millennials may not be that way

[00:30:06] within your market yet or you know your geography that you're in or the vertical that you sell into

[00:30:13] but it will be very soon if it's not yet and they do things different and they look at things

[00:30:18] different and they research things different how we say you know that that buyer probably you know

[00:30:23] ordered door dash to bring his lunch right when the previous buyer brought a lunchpale you know

[00:30:29] and and had lunch with the vendors twice a month just a different nuanced way of going about things

[00:30:36] and it does really bring into the and this is a little bit different right now in the beta c world

[00:30:44] we're looking that they're looking to follow you on your online journey and purchases right

[00:30:50] that that would be the way we want to track that we're living in a world where somebody may say

[00:30:55] hey you know what i researched your product on your website you know not just you know a three

[00:31:01] am abrasive maybe as an example right i researched it on my chosen distributors website

[00:31:08] i may look that have looked at it on my secondary distributors website i went and looked at amazon

[00:31:13] because it's got two thousand reviews versus seven reviews on my choice vendor of choices website

[00:31:20] and then i looked at it at three am's website as well and then some items i might decide to do an

[00:31:26] electronic purchase others i might want to just build my order but have a guy pick it up at the

[00:31:32] counter and now we have all these touch points right and that's where a lot of folks are struggling

[00:31:38] right now to really follow that buyer journey is where are they engaging with me

[00:31:45] and that doesn't even remotely bring in and it's i don't even think it's referenced in this article

[00:31:50] is where is my customer now engaging with me in social media and other arenas whether it's

[00:31:56] i'm emailing i've got an instagram that they're following i mean there's all of these components

[00:32:04] of that buyer journey now and so much of it's coming from how they experience things on their

[00:32:09] personal life sure i mean no different right there's an anonymous zone as i like to call it

[00:32:17] there's an anonymous zone where we all research anonymously and we do whatever we do anonymously

[00:32:24] and then there's a place where we start to interact with with a company that we may be considering

[00:32:30] doing business with so there's a place where we move from that anonymous aspect of it to a place

[00:32:35] where we're willing to engage raise my hand right unfortunately or you know fortunately to paint

[00:32:41] upon which way you look at it right more and more buyers are trying to stay anonymous as long as

[00:32:47] possible but so if you make your if you make your you know websites or your you know your online

[00:32:55] presence whether it's social media or otherwise accessible and kind of safe for them to use and

[00:33:00] valuable to use people will use it right they'll use that data though and they'll look at you know

[00:33:06] all kinds of other information so it's looking at plotting out again we can spend a whole afternoon

[00:33:13] talking about buyer journey but it's looking out what is that buyer journey in the in what are they

[00:33:18] doing generally anonymously it's actually not that hard when you take a step back you probably

[00:33:24] can talk to a handful of buyers or just probably even know a lot of what they're doing research-wise

[00:33:29] and then what point do they feel like it's the right time or the right you know it's safe to engage

[00:33:35] so to speak on those next steps and mapping all of that through is again they talk a lot about

[00:33:40] this in the report here yeah good article I actually sent this off to a few people this morning

[00:33:45] I've shared this article that I thought it would be a value to them and their their marketing efforts

[00:33:49] as they go so good stuff um let's kind of move ahead just because of our time limits today um

[00:33:54] next arena that we jump into is our technology cyber security an AI segment of the newsletter

[00:34:01] uh good article from Forbes about how will you know in manufacturing's AI revolution arrives

[00:34:07] you may not know any initial thoughts on that one there are a couple things I mean what they

[00:34:15] mean by you may not know right as a lot of manufacturers are using automation and capabilities are

[00:34:21] ready that will be further optimized by AI so you may not see you know it's already kind of

[00:34:27] happening behind the scene just not like you're planning to necessarily see like a whole

[00:34:32] transformational shift and how the manufacturing process is done but what I did find interesting

[00:34:38] in here and it was kind of deeply embedded in the article about using AI to discover suppliers

[00:34:48] and they just talked about that briefly as like you know this is kind of another use case of

[00:34:53] of a manufacturer's how do they use AI to discover suppliers um and I assume a distributor could

[00:34:59] do the same thing right how could they use that to discover things that they're there and you

[00:35:04] start to think about that think of yourself as the supplier now how do you set yourself up so

[00:35:10] that when AI is out there discovering how do you set yourself up so that you end up getting discovered

[00:35:17] and get discovered in a positive way yeah and this goes way beyond like having some keywords on your

[00:35:22] website right this is and like I said it was something they just touched on in there but when

[00:35:29] you think about it I think that you know even just we've talked about supply chain and all of that

[00:35:34] I think that discovery aspect of AI in the manufacturing world is something that's not really

[00:35:39] been talked a lot about but could have a very very meaningful impact good I like that they talk

[00:35:46] about quite a few things you know that we're in a reference particularly right robots ERP and

[00:35:53] then other segments right and there's a lot of organizations that already have robotic systems

[00:35:58] in place I was on the road uh last month and get to stop and visit a large HVAC and plumbing and

[00:36:05] electrical distributor and Pennsylvania and watch their robotic system that they've got three shifts

[00:36:11] running and one of their shifts is only a literally the major part of it is about getting truck

[00:36:16] staged for loading while they're loading up their robotic inventory system so it's a series of boxes

[00:36:26] that are I think six high and a big it's almost like a big part of their building and there's

[00:36:31] robots at the top that are moving around and picking which box and the box comes down the conveyor

[00:36:37] and shines a light on what inside that box a packer needs to take out of that for that shipment

[00:36:43] and off it goes to the truck and and we're seeing more and more of that and this article discusses

[00:36:47] quite a bit about these robots are already in a lot of facilities but now they can start doing

[00:36:52] what they call co-bots and co-bots that are working with those robots and learning from the first

[00:36:57] robot so interesting stuff in there here's the big takeaway before we move on and talk just

[00:37:02] for a moment about cybersecurity my big takeaway is this really article really reinforced

[00:37:09] the the fact that AI can be nuanced into your business versus a dramatic oh man we're now

[00:37:21] an AI enabled or driven company and we went out and hired a bunch of you know chief AI agents

[00:37:27] or whatever it might be and and I feel very very strongly it doesn't fully align with all of some

[00:37:34] of your thoughts but I feel very strongly that the winner in the technology world is going to be

[00:37:41] incumbents and what I mean by incumbent is you already have an ERP supplier or you're looking for

[00:37:48] a new ERP supplier you already have a CRM and customer intelligence solution or you're looking for

[00:37:54] a new one the tools that you already need in your business those can be the ones and the simplest

[00:38:00] example of this is Microsoft and their co-pilots right I already have word excel power point and

[00:38:07] outlook as part of my day to day life incumbent and as those bring these AI solutions in a consistent

[00:38:14] basis my life gets better with incumbent solutions without me having to go out and buy another one

[00:38:22] off piece of software that helps me with power points and I think this article really relates to

[00:38:28] that is you are going to see some nuanced things happen because some of it's already going on your

[00:38:34] business and we're going to lay our AI into those things that we already have so I had this discussion

[00:38:39] yesterday with it was a great discussion and we're going to follow up on it in a couple weeks

[00:38:43] in Charlotte with Brendan Breene the CEO of the Industrial Supply Association we were on the phone

[00:38:48] yesterday and kind of chatting about that concept so I believe it's going to be a big big help

[00:38:54] to help wholesale distributors and manufacturers ease into AI when they get that from trusted

[00:39:00] reliable even you know industry specific sources to get started with so

[00:39:05] does my little man agree with that? No I agree with that but I also think that

[00:39:10] and because we haven't seen them maybe yet it doesn't and obviously every industry is different

[00:39:15] there are going to be some killer apps in AI that we've not seen that don't exist with an incumbent

[00:39:22] that are not just an extension of what they already do that will not be that will be you have

[00:39:30] meaningful meaningful change and transformation change we just may not have seen them all yet

[00:39:35] it's good so I think there's going to be both there's going to be both I think that a lot of the

[00:39:40] killer apps are still even conceptually if they're out there they're not ready for prime time

[00:39:46] from a production perspective based on the technology but I think in the next year you're going to

[00:39:51] start to see some really interesting killer apps if you want to call that come out

[00:39:57] yet I don't know if that applies to manufacturing per se I'm just staying in general

[00:40:01] and it is going to be a completely different thing than what is happening with the incumbents

[00:40:06] that I'll say of course we all have incumbents we all have existing technology

[00:40:10] we have all existing things that we want to get more optimized and more efficient so

[00:40:14] it's not it's not an either or no I think you're right but I do you know to expand upon that

[00:40:21] right and this article was about manufacturing so I'll say that I'll call it the backdoor of

[00:40:27] the house right in our company makes front door of the house right on the revenue side of the

[00:40:33] company of how we how we work with our customers and also with our manufacturing partners but not

[00:40:38] supply chain issues we'll say um but there will be I believe some killer apps that we're going to

[00:40:44] want to bring in but the other side of it is you're incumbents and I'll just use us as an example

[00:40:49] right you've you've got a roadmap with the team that you run it at at our company leads more

[00:40:55] technologies for our channel cloudy i tools that some of the backbone technology isn't quite ready yet

[00:41:03] for the killer app that you guys have built and not built yet but laid out of where we're headed

[00:41:08] and I think i'll use that as an example of us being an incumbent also could be bringing some killer

[00:41:15] apps because some of the stuff that you guys are working on it within our company are

[00:41:22] going to really surprise people right yeah and the big million dollar question will be right

[00:41:29] is think of it as not an incumbent but maybe a trusted vendor or trusted partner if you are and you

[00:41:34] have yep you know a lot of the companies are a lot of companies are afraid though to make that big killer

[00:41:40] app shop because they feel about what it's going to do to cannibalize their existing business and

[00:41:46] all of that kind of stuff but I do agree that the opportunity you know obviously if you have a

[00:41:51] trusted partner and you have a relationship and a pre-existing relationship then that obviously

[00:41:56] reduces risk when you start to bring in some of these other applications yep great point and

[00:42:01] that's i think that's my when I say incumbent it's not a using the tool you have it's an incumbent

[00:42:08] supplier versus a incumbent product and that's good point and thanks for bringing that up Tom

[00:42:12] because i should probably reference that when i i've been on this soapbox for a bit now

[00:42:17] and so maybe i should should clarify that and reference that from a standpoint of an incumbent

[00:42:22] supplier versus an incumbent product so if you're trusted right and you understand and

[00:42:28] and in that case so kind of moving along because there's a couple other things we've got on the

[00:42:32] docket for the day that i that are going to spend a little time on is we're in the segment of our

[00:42:37] newsletter and again folks if you're listening in on our podcast uh recorded podcasts versus

[00:42:43] our live show you're not seeing the newsletter that we discuss we publish a newsletter every week

[00:42:48] it's called around the horn and wholesale distribution of manufacturing goes out to eight or nine

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[00:43:17] also click the link to go to any of the podcast formats that you like from there uh we would love

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[00:43:33] get all of our updates so um tom in this segment we've got an article here about uh the surprising ways

[00:43:41] that Microsoft co-pilot is helping security cyber security within organizations uh kind of want

[00:43:47] to move past this if you don't mind fairly quick but it ties back to what we were just talking about

[00:43:52] a little bit right Microsoft's putting these co-pilots in they built a co-pilot for cyber security

[00:43:58] officers CIO CTOs within organizations and the crux of that is is it's offloading

[00:44:06] minutia type tasks but important tasks related to cyber security checks allowing people to be more

[00:44:13] effective working on bigger picture stuff is that reason we'll take over that yeah and then the

[00:44:18] second part is as they talked about you know it's not easy necessarily to find people with deep

[00:44:24] security knowledge yeah so by using the co-pilots it allows you to potentially hire or bring on people

[00:44:31] that have less experience can can be leveraged with the with the co-pilots so the co-pilot can do a lot

[00:44:37] of the things that you would potentially have to have a highly experienced person do if you were

[00:44:41] going to do it without so i think that's a really a good example of of using something to hog mitt

[00:44:47] yeah um the people side of it yeah all right well let's uh let's go to the elephant in the room

[00:44:53] in our sales and m&a segment we're gonna talk about uh home depot green to acquire srs

[00:45:00] distribution so um i'm so frustrated at my life some days it's just bad timing so there's you know

[00:45:11] main press releases this went out across the wires the source that we use to publish this because

[00:45:17] there's some thoughts of related to it as well was from the distribution strategy group from

[00:45:22] the link goes to their website and we appreciate the content that we get from them on an

[00:45:27] ongoing basis but i was on the phone wednesday for 45 minutes with e and heller from distribution

[00:45:37] strategy group e and is a long time VP of marketing and hd supply and granger and other publicly

[00:45:47] traded companies and this announcement came out like 12 hours after i was on the phone with e and

[00:45:52] so i would have loved nothing more than to have been on the phone but i'm sure he was talking

[00:45:57] a million different people yesterday but you know what if you look across linkedin and

[00:46:02] and other arenas twitter x uh just tons and tons of comments about this i made a little video posted

[00:46:10] it it's on the leads for technologies uh linkedin page and my personal linkedin page if

[00:46:15] you're not following the leads for page please do so and connect with me if we're not connected but

[00:46:20] um big impact right so you had mentioned earlier about you know wanted to dive a little deeper into

[00:46:26] this but end of the day you've got publicly traded peripheral company that has is b2c

[00:46:35] but that has a builder side where they you know the home depot closest to my house there's a side

[00:46:41] entrance where that comes into the lumber section and and uh and some of the other building material

[00:46:48] sections as well um and um and it's for commercial tradesmen to come right well now you've got

[00:46:59] an organization like home depot that's got um remember what i said earlier about how many stores

[00:47:05] they have i can't remember it was this 20,000 i think was the number and uh and now they just

[00:47:12] srs distribution srs distribution uh building materials roofing supplies and so forth those same

[00:47:18] trademen that tradesmen that they've been trying to get into that side door at their retail location

[00:47:25] now they just picked up 760 branches in 47 states a 4000 plus truck fleet that delivers the job

[00:47:36] sites and now that tradesmen in their theory right back to what we were talking about about that

[00:47:43] that earlier about uh home building the glut we have with and all the homes that we need to be built

[00:47:49] and we're not going to get a an AI bot that's going to go build homes what home depot strategy now is

[00:47:56] we're going to meet you and i'm going to go back another comment from Ian on this Ian Heller's

[00:48:01] comment when he was on the show last he said that with us he said we have to meet the buyer where

[00:48:06] the buyer wants to buy and now home depot publicly traded company has looked at this setting and they

[00:48:13] said we'll work with you wherever you're at you want to come to the building material location

[00:48:18] one of these 460s and get roofing materials or siding or whatever it is that you might need for

[00:48:23] the job stop there oh and by the way you need it all delivered we're going to deliver it from one

[00:48:28] of those locations but if you happen to be driving home from work through the suburbs and you see a

[00:48:32] home depot pop in and use the same builder account that you have right there's all kinds of nuances

[00:48:39] that go with that but that's the crux of what's going on here that makes sense no is HD supply owned

[00:48:47] by home depot or is that i you know somebody may want to jump in in the comments they go back and forth

[00:48:53] i think they're separately owned company now but they were spun off back spun off and i don't

[00:49:02] know where they are right now and how does that how does this fit with that i mean i obviously HD

[00:49:08] supply is doing different types of products and so forth but i assume it's still part of their

[00:49:13] overall b2b strategy and yeah this and these sounds like another way to expand that b2b strategy

[00:49:21] yeah so you know we we've know a lot of that because of some of our customers at lead smart that are

[00:49:27] in the multi-family space and HD supply is big and the multi-family space and that might have kind

[00:49:32] of triggered a little bit of your question even i don't think that this has been referenced yet

[00:49:37] about where that whole thing fits i think that they're a separately operated company now so

[00:49:43] but this is this is my take on this and anybody that has more insight to this and there are lots

[00:49:50] of people that know this much more intimately than i do throw your thoughts out or share them later

[00:49:57] but is this is about this is about building material and home building versus renovations

[00:50:03] and stuff like that that's that's the big the big push in this there's that's there but

[00:50:09] and the issue right here is and i think this is what's got people i mean there's people freaking

[00:50:15] out about this there's people seeing it as opportunity i'm going to share in a moment my deeper

[00:50:19] thoughts on it i shared it in a video i've been made yesterday and that's on linkedin and

[00:50:25] facebook and youtube and so forth or it will be shortly if it's not yet or editors working on that

[00:50:31] but um this could be the tip of an iceberg right i mean you could have lows could make an announcement

[00:50:40] next week about i won't mention any names but there's three or four names that come to my mind right

[00:50:45] off the bat of lows wanting to go do the same thing that could be gobbling up even some of these you

[00:50:50] know esaps that we were talking about earlier that are very large that gives them these big footprints

[00:50:56] that then support now srs distribution you know in i think we said 46 states right that just

[00:51:04] is a you know this was an eighteen plus billion dollar deal right that's it was down yeah right so

[00:51:11] seven hundred sixty branches i mean you know we have some of our larger larger customers that are

[00:51:17] major players in the marketplace are you know forty fifty sixty branch is big

[00:51:24] oftentimes when you see the independently owned group so this is it is it's

[00:51:30] it's not to me it shouldn't be surprising um i don't think we're going to see this and you know if

[00:51:37] if if you're in the building material space you're thinking about this a lot yesterday and today

[00:51:42] and will be for the near future if you sell power transmission bearings things like that

[00:51:49] uh not a big deal to you in this setting doesn't mean that it couldn't be later but right now

[00:51:55] this is building material focused and probably mostly tied to home builders

[00:52:00] i'm going to take a twist on this because we got a few other things to talk about today and

[00:52:04] and i'd like your feedback on this as well time is it

[00:52:08] i look at this though maybe a little bit opportunistically if i'm a wholesale distributor and

[00:52:15] and i know your team's working on onboarding right now i just a great the upper midwest

[00:52:21] family owned building materials distributor and it's kind of got me thinking about their business

[00:52:27] and the upgrades to technology that they're doing right part of the threat is of this if you are

[00:52:35] threatened by this at all is that home depot in this ownership role now knows more than we've ever

[00:52:44] anybody's ever known about customers right because somehow they're going to find a way to correlate

[00:52:50] what Joe Smith buys in their stores Joe Smith buys at their branches and maybe even what Joe

[00:52:56] Smith buys in his personal life at home depot and the detailed data that they have and the

[00:53:02] the teams that they have that are working on analytics and customer understanding and

[00:53:06] customer intelligence but e-commerce component all of these things is hey you're never going to

[00:53:12] beat these guys but you can play a mean game if you are working on e-commerce customer

[00:53:19] intelligence truly understanding and meeting your customer where your customers at because

[00:53:25] this is the ultimate example of meeting the customer where they're at right and so now is the time

[00:53:32] that was that i mentioned that video that i made yesterday now is the time to be thinking about

[00:53:37] if i'm not there yet is where am i at i reference it as a tech stack right what are the technologies

[00:53:43] that i have to serve my customer better right to understand my customer better and to give them

[00:53:52] the tools that they they want and my team the tools that they need to do that so now's a good time

[00:53:58] to be really jumping in on all that so yeah you're going to have to be more well you're going

[00:54:03] to have to become in my opinion if you're going to stay independent in this area you're going to

[00:54:07] have to become even more valuable and provide even a more a better and different experience than

[00:54:12] you're going to get from the big guys the big box right so and the only way you do that is what

[00:54:19] you just talked about is you know looking at that how you're using technology and process and

[00:54:24] all the things by your journeys and thing we've talked about to provide a level of experience

[00:54:30] and maybe a more intimate experience than you're going to be able to get with a home depot in

[00:54:35] an SRS i mean there's there's always going to be room for multiple players but i might agree with

[00:54:40] you is that home depot has certainly got a lot of technology a lot of data that they can work with

[00:54:46] and you know certainly have the budgets to do some of these things so i'm sure we're going to talk

[00:54:51] about this more in the future what i'm looking forward to though is the other side of this story

[00:54:57] because i'm sure there's some very intelligent people out there within the industry

[00:55:02] that can talk about all the problems that are going to come from this yeah yeah

[00:55:06] i'm really looking forward to within within home depot i've done this acquisition right there's

[00:55:12] there's probably a whole set of thoughts about why it won't work well but i'm looking for like

[00:55:17] i said i'm gonna pay attention to this one so before we kind of jump ahead and wind the day down

[00:55:23] our good friends uh Jennifer Murphy and Dan judge in the team at net plus alliance they publish some

[00:55:30] information we put that article in here excuse me about the strong growth of their members

[00:55:35] in in 2023 and what they see for the future so um check out what net plus has published if you

[00:55:42] want to get a look at that you can find it on our newsletter or through net plus so we appreciate

[00:55:46] the work that they do and the partnership that we have with them so anything stick out for you

[00:55:52] Tom and that no just happy to see happy to see the continued growth so that's good news

[00:55:57] that's great news good so we added in i reference our good friend dirk beverage on this will probably

[00:56:04] need to stop doing this soon but dirk reminded us in january that we didn't talk enough about people

[00:56:08] in leadership in the show so uh we've got a people in leadership segment now great article that

[00:56:15] we put in here that came from um uh industrial distribution magazine and it uh is within our

[00:56:24] people in leadership section it's called the science of success it's a it's a good article really

[00:56:29] good article about joys lands del joys is the VP of industrial sales at valin the huge uh

[00:56:35] industrial supply company uh got us canadian latin american operations and it talks about um i think

[00:56:43] the articles called the science of success and it kind of follows joys's journey as a woman in

[00:56:49] industry she talks about starting as a road warrior 23 years old to where she's at now she's

[00:56:56] incoming uh chairman of industrial supply association super involved in the volunteer work that

[00:57:01] goes on there as other people on her team are christpergune and few others that are part of the

[00:57:07] the leadership team chris is this uh chief marketing officer there so if you didn't get a chance

[00:57:12] take a look at that article or just google that one about joys lands del but joys i think she was

[00:57:17] actually joining us today on the show if you're with us joys thanks for being here we're trying to

[00:57:22] get her to join us as a guest soon so good article about her success and the road that she's

[00:57:28] traveled as a woman in in business and what do you think tom thirty two hour work weeks is the

[00:57:34] next article in that section Bernie Sanders yeah i mean i don't have an issue with thirty two

[00:57:40] hour work weeks i think there's a time and a you know given the fact that we're kind of on it

[00:57:45] seems like twenty four by seven in our work world that's what came into my mind yeah i don't i

[00:57:50] think though that it's not something that should be mandated by congress um i think it's something

[00:57:56] that's more on a business level thing in the market right if if companies start doing this and they

[00:58:02] are finding that employees are they're attracting employees of that than others will do it right

[00:58:06] the market will take care of it so yeah so i'm not a big fan of the uh government mandate aspect

[00:58:13] of it but i i think there's some really um you know i think the idea of the thirty two hour work week

[00:58:21] or maybe the four day work week is maybe more of the appropriate way of looking at it especially in

[00:58:27] some of the you know these info jobs where we're kind of on twenty four by seven i think there's some

[00:58:32] merit so that's about what is that about uh 40% of what you work a week

[00:58:43] at the thirty two hours yeah that's my day and Tuesday yeah right i yeah just i i like what you said

[00:58:53] right one i don't like the mandate idea um and and two uh i think we're on twenty four seven

[00:59:01] so i do think if you can you know i want to it's funny it made me think too is

[00:59:06] you know we've been kind of having some discussions with our team because we're getting ready to open

[00:59:10] another office and have more people in the office and good friend of mine that runs a large publicly

[00:59:16] traded company just did a back to office mandate and trying to work through you know as like do we

[00:59:21] need three days in the office with everybody and some flexibility and as long as you have the right

[00:59:26] people and the projects are getting done and you understand it i look at it as it's less important

[00:59:31] about the hours it's more important about what you accomplished sure you know you know and i think

[00:59:36] we'll see more about that so that's good stuff so hey let's kind of move ahead from that standpoint

[00:59:43] hit our industry scuttle but a little bit uh bostwick brun uh mentioned here and from industrial supply

[00:59:49] magazine as well and um turns their folks exclusively to industrial they've got a series of

[00:59:57] different brands of companies that they own they've uh shed a couple of them they've a lot of

[01:00:03] you to be acquired and they're getting very focused on things so good for them hope to see some

[01:00:08] continued success for them and um we'll move from there too also if you get a chance take a look uh

[01:00:16] whether it's through our link there or industrial supply magazine has a great segment on

[01:00:23] i.s.a. 24 and the industrial supply associations having their spring events great of in every year

[01:00:31] it's in charlotte uh i'll be there and looking forward to that some fantastic speakers we've got

[01:00:37] gym craig is gym craig it's gym craig that was the goalie on the miracle on ice hockey team from

[01:00:44] the 80 Olympics 80 or 84 so i told us talking about Brendan yesterday about that from from i.s.a.

[01:00:54] and i said you know last year they had bill walton and bill walton is about as broken as a human being

[01:01:01] i think he said he's broken his nose like 14 times and something like that and teeth replaced

[01:01:06] and again i can barely walk but he never stopped moving across the stage it was dripping and sweat

[01:01:12] so i i loved listening to the bill walton at the event last year in Phoenix so uh i.s.a.s events

[01:01:17] going to be great the opening introduction reception is um i think it's the 15th on monday night is

[01:01:24] at the nascar hall of fate so uh the entire event turns left just continually left turns so i'm

[01:01:33] looking forward to that event if you are not registered yet uh i.s.a. partners.org i believe is it

[01:01:41] check out that article and off you're there let me know i'd love to see you there last piece in our

[01:01:47] the scuttlebutt piece is mars supply the good folks there in minnesota and and uh and

[01:01:53] was constant based company celebrating a hundred year milestone they're great affiliated distributor

[01:01:59] members and really doing some cool stuff peter and his team there doing some cool stuff with

[01:02:04] e-commerce uh the mars family still actively involved in the business had a chat with some of

[01:02:09] them at a recent affiliated distributors meeting so good on them for a hundred year milestone uh and then

[01:02:15] last um but not least is an article in our good read segment from our good friend and uh

[01:02:25] faux-aff as well dirk beverage wrote a great article about how to bridge employee well being

[01:02:30] versus business growth i think that would tie really well into that 32 hour work week and so forth

[01:02:36] but if you're not following dirk is doing some just great stuff about you know people let's just

[01:02:42] call it people within wholesale distribution so good stuff what did i miss there john no i just

[01:02:48] think you know reinforcing what you're saying about dirk and i think it ties back to what we're

[01:02:52] talking about he's really he's really i think pretty in a movement right to yeah not have people look

[01:03:00] at being people look at his commodities but as look at how do you really look at people as a

[01:03:05] strategic part of the business and a strategic part of your growth and you know treat them the way

[01:03:11] you would want to be treated essentially and you know you combine that with some of the technology

[01:03:16] and all the other things and that's how you are going to differentiate if you're a smaller independent

[01:03:21] versus the home depots and the other things that we're having here so the people the technology i

[01:03:26] think are all really big opportunities for differentiation yep could agree with you more

[01:03:33] all right well we covered a lot today and we talked about a lot of really important things uh

[01:03:38] thanks for the comments that we got in through the day i got a couple direct comments to me

[01:03:44] and uh it would it wouldn't be friday without will quench i mean at the end uh dirk has an amazing

[01:03:50] message he's right um if you don't follow dirk beverage um find him on linkedin he posts just he

[01:03:58] was like almost daily relevant stuff and what you know what i really love about dirk is

[01:04:04] posts really good stuff on the weekends he seems to really get in a groove on

[01:04:09] say it's not in that 32-hour work week and uh that's right that's right so uh some good stuff there

[01:04:15] and then he's got his uh uh we supply america tour coming up again uh and so that that will be

[01:04:21] looking forward to that so anyways um you're in florida i'm here in california we're waiting for a big storm

[01:04:28] to come through here tonight for the next few days um it's hot and sticky in florida

[01:04:35] that's a bad that's a bad i'm not outside but i i don't think it's so bad here very good all right well

[01:04:41] thanks for my friend appreciate everybody that was with us today again we do this every friday

[01:04:47] uh around the horn and wholesale distribution the pot the website for our podcast and live show is

[01:04:52] www.aroundthehornpod.com we get together we review this newsletter if you don't get the newsletter

[01:04:59] and you would like to let us know on that website find us also on uh linkedin youtube facebook

[01:05:06] apple podcast spotify all the popular podcast formats we're looking forward to doing this again

[01:05:13] next week's guest tom tea lind chase she is uh hoot you're gonna lever

[01:05:23] uh hi guru yes she is and it's what's interesting is she's not just an a i guru she's uh

[01:05:31] she's a business guru she's been involved in a handful of startup she's a consultant she's

[01:05:36] a expert witness and an a i guru and i if i remember correctly when i met lind was at uh

[01:05:43] distribution strategy groups a event last october they're having their next when this coming

[01:05:48] June will be there as well exhibiting their lind was one of the keynotes by far uh with the top

[01:05:54] keynotes there was two out of the four for me really stuck out uh and lind talked about what a i

[01:06:01] isn't to your business a lot and she's graciously gonna join us and we're gonna talk a lot about a i

[01:06:07] next week i'll throw this out if you have things you'd like us to talk to lind about when she's

[01:06:12] with us next week because we'll probably have fewer articles that will discuss let us know ahead of

[01:06:17] the time so tom i'm gonna wish you a good weekend my friend uh everyone else out there as well as

[01:06:22] be kind do good things and be safe have a great weekend have a good holiday weekend okay

[01:06:32] we hope you enjoyed today's episode and our guests each week we try our best to dig into the

[01:06:38] topics that are impacting your business so please reach out to us and let us know how you think

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