Swarm AI and Its Impact on Wholesale Distribution.

[00:00:04] Welcome to Around the Horn in Wholesale Distribution with Kevin Brown and Tom Burton. Sponsored each week by LeadSmart Technologies, Tom, Kevin and their guests review the news of the week and dive deep into the topics impacting manufacturers, wholesale distribution, independent sales agents, and the global wholesale supply chain.

[00:00:24] Whether it's M&A, SaaS and cloud computing, B2B e-commerce, or supply chain issues, we peel back the onion with our guests into the topics that impact your business the most.

[00:00:37] Let me know when you're done and we'll get started.

[00:00:39] Right. I'm right here just enjoying the music this morning.

[00:00:44] Live from Chicago.

[00:00:46] Live from Chicago from the Hyatt on Whacker. So my home away from home for a bit.

[00:00:53] They saw that big bar downstairs or?

[00:00:55] You know, it's so disappointing. Remember how years ago it was all, you know, second, you come in the ground floor, you go up the escalator and there's that big bar and all the glass looking out to the river and out to Michigan Avenue.

[00:01:07] And the whole thing was rows of booze. They moved it, I think it's probably five years or so ago, because I've been here once since they did it. But now it's a big like three level circular bar or like half circle against the glass. It's not as cool as it was when we were here.

[00:01:23] It was pretty impressive, right? Everybody remembered that.

[00:01:26] So, well, I think it was like 2017, 2018. We were here together. Yeah. So great spot. I'm here for 10 nights for working with affiliated distributors on their two of their events. So we kind of pushed them together. And the lovely Mrs. Brown came into town last night to hang out with me for the weekend.

[00:01:46] And, but it's nice. I got, I think I told you, I've got a right out the window right here is the Chicago river and Michigan Avenue. So if you're going to be somewhere, it's good.

[00:01:58] My friend Andy here, see you in Chicago Sunday.

[00:02:01] I want to say, Will thinks you have smooth moves. I think I'm going to remove Will from the, from the show here.

[00:02:07] Yeah. I'm waiting to hear for Will. He texted me the other day, said he wanted to get together while I'm in town. We got to put that together.

[00:02:13] And then Andy likes your new beard.

[00:02:15] Yeah, that's right. He can, he can hug me when he sees me next week. I think I'm having dinner with Andy on Wednesday of next week. So good.

[00:02:22] Good to have Andy with us. Will lives in town. Got actually quite a few meetings with some, some powerhouse industry folks that are in Chicago.

[00:02:31] So I'm looking forward to seeing a handful of people that are here. So I'll be here till next Thursday.

[00:02:38] I'm home for two nights, then off to San Antonio with the great friends that we have at net plus Alliance for their meeting.

[00:02:46] And then back here a couple of days later for the final affiliated distributors, national electrical meeting.

[00:02:52] So yeah, good, good couple of three weeks or so crammed in on the road, but it's all good.

[00:02:58] All right. Let's get on with it.

[00:02:59] Let's let's tell our story about why we're here.

[00:03:03] Might as well. So I'm Kevin Brown. I'm here live from Chicago with my lifelong friend and business partner, Tom Burton.

[00:03:10] Tom's back in Southern California where we get our work done together.

[00:03:16] We're the two co-founders of lead smart technologies and we get together every week as best as possible on Friday mornings for this around the horn and wholesale distribution podcast.

[00:03:27] We talk about what's going on around the world and wholesale distribution, manufacturing supply chain, M&A sales, marketing, human resources.

[00:03:37] And we look at the news of the world that's going on and we try and boil that down a little bit into how that impacts wholesale distribution.

[00:03:46] We do that by means of the newsletter that we send out each week.

[00:03:49] It's the same title as the show around the horn and wholesale distribution that email, excuse me, email newsletter goes out to a little over 10,000 people each week.

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[00:04:39] what you won't see is your screen.

[00:04:41] And that's where we're displaying that newsletter.

[00:04:42] And the newsletter is what we discuss.

[00:04:44] So if you're listening in and aren't able to see our handsome faces here,

[00:04:48] what you will be able to do is know that what we're scrolling through is that newsletter for each of these topics.

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[00:05:05] And there will be all of the recorded episodes where you can see the rest of that information.

[00:05:10] Before we move on, we can't do this each week.

[00:05:13] If we didn't have a sponsorship, we've got a producer and an editor, John Taylor, that takes care of all of this for us.

[00:05:18] There's costs to produce this as well.

[00:05:21] And our show each week is sponsored by the company that Tom and I work for, lead smart technologies.

[00:05:25] Lead smart has developed an AI enabled customer intelligence and smart CRM solution

[00:05:31] that helps wholesale distributors and manufacturers gain deep insights into their customers, their teams, and their overall business.

[00:05:39] Lead smart brings data from across an organization, from ERP, marketing automation, e-commerce, other data silos within an organization.

[00:05:46] We take it out of those silos.

[00:05:48] We bring it into a smart CRM platform.

[00:05:51] And we do the reverse of what typical CRM companies have done, which is a big brother solution where you're asking people to type in lots of information.

[00:06:00] And we provide information to the salesperson, to the sales and marketing teams to serve customers better.

[00:06:08] So new way of looking at things with smart CRM versus traditional CRM.

[00:06:11] If you're in wholesale distribution or manufacturing, we can be of help to you.

[00:06:15] Love to have a chat.

[00:06:16] So, Tom, did I miss anything or should we dive into the news?

[00:06:19] No, let's get to the news.

[00:06:21] Let's get chatting.

[00:06:25] So a little bit about economy and supply chain, which is the first segment that we have in the newsletter each week that we talk about U.S. weekly jobless claims unexpectedly fall.

[00:06:37] Any quick thoughts on that?

[00:06:39] My thoughts are is that I have zero confidence and credibility in any of the statistics that we see anymore.

[00:06:48] It's like in 10 minutes, it'll be, oh, wait a minute.

[00:06:51] The jobless really didn't fall.

[00:06:53] There was more.

[00:06:53] I mean, it's just all over the place.

[00:06:56] Yeah.

[00:06:56] Well, and I think this is what's interesting.

[00:06:58] This article used the term the blurring labor market, right?

[00:07:02] And of course, we talk each week about whether we're going to have the single rate cut that we've seen already or we're going to have one.

[00:07:09] And I guess we are about three weeks away from when the next one would be if it's coming and another opportunity in December.

[00:07:17] And that's, I think, what this comment that was made out of this article from Reuters really was just saying that it's kind of the blurring market view, labor market view, right?

[00:07:31] It's almost that they have to, right now, at least from a Fed standpoint, they almost have to take the labor market and push aside.

[00:07:38] And there's a couple of major factors related to that.

[00:07:40] And I think, you know, the two big one is, I guess, three was Hurricane Helene.

[00:07:45] That was the first shift that we saw.

[00:07:49] You've got Hurricane Milton.

[00:07:54] And so this is the reverse, right?

[00:07:56] We saw a fall.

[00:07:57] Now, I think what we're probably going to see next week is a big increase.

[00:08:00] And we've got 33,000 Boeing machinists that are on strike right now.

[00:08:05] And this is a major impact.

[00:08:06] I was talking earlier, and we'll probably get to some more of this later.

[00:08:09] In fact, we have an article that we'll discuss briefly about, it's actually a link to a podcast that NAW did,

[00:08:17] National Association of Wholesalers did with Eric Hoplin from their organization, their CEO, about the labor market and the port strike.

[00:08:25] And we've been talking more and more about labor issues over the last couple of years.

[00:08:29] But historically, it's what we've been talking about.

[00:08:31] It has been the automakers and the ports.

[00:08:34] Well, now we're talking about this issue of Boeing.

[00:08:36] And, you know, Tom, I'm going to pontificate for just a second, and then we'll move on.

[00:08:41] But, you know, I had this discussion with a regular listener and a longtime friend who's a senior executive at a national independently-owned distributor.

[00:08:52] And they do, you know, I'm going to guess tens of millions of dollars with Boeing.

[00:09:00] And I don't know the exact numbers, but, you know, one of the conversations that we had was that, you know,

[00:09:05] their business with Boeing is off a million dollars.

[00:09:09] And just in a few weeks of a strike.

[00:09:12] So you want to watch a trickle-down effect?

[00:09:14] You know, if that continues, how long can you keep the salespeople that are doing that or support or whatever?

[00:09:18] So this, you know, millions and millions, if not billions of dollars has trickled down effect into some of these things.

[00:09:24] So I think we're going to see related to jobless or job claims, jobless claims, I think we're going to see that tick back up because of Boeing.

[00:09:33] And then I don't think this week reflects anything of what happened last week with Milton, the hurricane.

[00:09:38] So.

[00:09:38] Yeah.

[00:09:39] Well, and there's going to be another jobs report a couple of weeks, you know, that I just am, I just really have lost confidence in a lot of the statistics.

[00:09:47] It's like, I don't know if you can believe anything.

[00:09:50] And they change so frequently that it's really hard to use that as any sort of gauge, if you want to call it that, at least for, for, from what I'm seeing.

[00:10:00] Yeah.

[00:10:01] Only believe what you hear on the Around the Horn podcast.

[00:10:04] Yeah.

[00:10:05] Right.

[00:10:05] Which is don't believe the statistics.

[00:10:07] Don't believe.

[00:10:08] So.

[00:10:08] You don't like them.

[00:10:09] Wait a few minutes.

[00:10:10] Yeah.

[00:10:10] Yeah.

[00:10:11] This, this article, though, as well, it talked about it.

[00:10:14] It said, you know, economists expect the Federal Reserve officials won't place too much weight on the employment report when they meet in early November.

[00:10:23] Yeah.

[00:10:24] We'll see.

[00:10:25] When it says economists, you know, I assume that that actually is somebody who, who is an economist versus us pretending to be economists on Fridays.

[00:10:34] So that's good.

[00:10:36] All right.

[00:10:37] Well, next article, business optimism is up as inflation begins to fade from supply chain exchange.

[00:10:44] What are your thoughts on that?

[00:10:46] It's a Dun & Bradstreet report.

[00:10:49] Yeah.

[00:10:49] No, I think I thought it was a good, interesting article.

[00:10:55] You know, basically, as it was saying here, really the only real concern that in this, in this survey that was done that businesses had was supply chain issues as a result of geopolitical issues.

[00:11:07] I think, you know, as a business owner myself, right, I, I think that we have three potential challenges that may or may not manifest in the next year.

[00:11:18] One is supply chain, which they're talking, or geopolitical issues, not just supply chain, but geopolitical issues.

[00:11:25] And, you know, that can have a much, a very wide impact on a lot of things.

[00:11:30] I think we're going to have another article about consumer debt in a little while.

[00:11:34] I think consumer debt, which we've talked about for a long, long time, I think still has not raised its ugly head in the situation there.

[00:11:42] I think it's still a risk.

[00:11:43] And I think just the national debt is a risk.

[00:11:46] If you look at those three things, if we can avoid those or kind of navigate around them over the next year, I agree with a lot of, I think there's a lot of, a lot of opportunity.

[00:11:57] If we run into one of those, then we're going to have a quite a bit of a headwind, I think.

[00:12:02] But it's just a matter of, can we navigate?

[00:12:04] Still thinking only one, one, one cut then, huh?

[00:12:08] So that's leading up to?

[00:12:09] One cut this year or next year?

[00:12:11] This year.

[00:12:13] Hey, I'm hoping there's only one cut this year, right?

[00:12:16] I don't think that there will only be one cut this year.

[00:12:19] Yeah.

[00:12:20] I'm hoping.

[00:12:20] But next year, I think there will, well, I know there'll be quite a few more.

[00:12:23] But again, this article was all talking about business optimism and investment and all of that.

[00:12:30] And it was pretty substantial.

[00:12:32] What's your, this is a little off topic here, and I'll come back full circle here in a moment.

[00:12:38] What's your gut tell you?

[00:12:39] You know, I was reading in an article the other day, it was talking about, somebody was asking about when will we get back to 3% interest rates?

[00:12:46] And, you know, there's a lot of discussion about maybe never getting back there in our lifetime.

[00:12:51] What's your gut tell you the leveling point will be if we find a balance?

[00:12:55] Three and a half, four, four and a quarter?

[00:12:58] Assuming there's no other sort of external event that, you know, would cause it to drop.

[00:13:03] I think, yeah, it's high threes.

[00:13:05] Okay.

[00:13:06] High threes, four, yeah.

[00:13:07] Okay, very good.

[00:13:08] Well, so back to cutting to the final part of this is that this particular article is that they talked about economic uncertainty driven by geopolitics, which are pushing people to diversify their supply chain.

[00:13:24] We talk about that constantly, about nearshoring and onshoring.

[00:13:28] And I think that's what's really going on.

[00:13:30] They referenced some industry specific regulations and data requirements and so forth.

[00:13:35] But the big ones were the geopolitical issues and the impact on supply chain.

[00:13:40] We'll be talking a little bit more about supply chains than actually in the next article as well.

[00:13:44] So.

[00:13:45] Okay.

[00:13:46] Any closing thoughts on that one?

[00:13:48] No, no.

[00:13:49] All right.

[00:13:50] So we have a, again, still in our economy and supply chain section of the newsletter.

[00:13:55] McKinsey and company supply chains are still vulnerable.

[00:13:58] Um, this was interesting.

[00:14:00] So they said nine, 10 respondents.

[00:14:03] Uh, they didn't say how big the study is, but McKinsey doesn't do small studies.

[00:14:07] So, um, said nine and 10 respondents saying they've encountered supply chain challenges in 2024.

[00:14:15] Um, but it says more worryingly, there are signs that when it comes to supply chain resilience, companies are taking their foot off the gas.

[00:14:23] And they're tying, they tied that back to everybody got so serious during the pandemic.

[00:14:30] Um, and the pandemic was such a hard, heavy hit to that, but yet they're taking the foot off the gas of focusing on supply chain, even though we've got a Panama canals issue, Suez canal issues, the political issues in the South China Sea, uh, China, Taiwan geopolitical issues.

[00:14:48] And all of the challenges that you've got right now, even with China pushing steel into Mexico and all the things that go with that, that, uh, I thought this was an interesting one talking about that.

[00:14:59] There's a lot of vulnerabilities and there maybe isn't enough attention being paid.

[00:15:03] Well, and the attention is across the board.

[00:15:06] In fact, that would have been an interesting graph.

[00:15:08] We should have probably grabbed in there where they were showing, you know, the uptick of nearshore and the uptick of a lot of the technology that was going in to, again, address supply chain issues.

[00:15:18] And this has drifted back down over the last year or so.

[00:15:22] Um, and it wasn't just one thing.

[00:15:24] It was more or less anything related to the, to the topic was drifting down.

[00:15:28] Um, which I find interesting given everything we've talked about related to nearshoring and, and so forth.

[00:15:35] It's still not necessarily being embraced at the level that maybe there's the talk is about.

[00:15:41] Well, this article talked a lot too, about the idea that, you know, executives are getting, you know, uh, involved in obviously more of our, it's just, we've got some supply chain related people down there in our purchasing office and operations.

[00:15:54] But that they talked about is that it's not understood well enough at a board level and that the boards, uh, company boards aren't asking enough questions.

[00:16:02] That's a big deal, right?

[00:16:04] Because all of a sudden, if you don't have a board support on needing to grow or that you start thinking about nearshoring and onboarding and your board's not up to speed on all of this, it's a big deal.

[00:16:15] Um, so that's, I want to bring up Will's question here because I think it's related to that.

[00:16:19] He's saying companies are not feeling the immediate pain, so are looking to save money.

[00:16:25] Do you think that executives or even boards are going, okay, this is a way to save money by, you know, maybe not putting so much attention on some of these supply chain issues and, hey, it's not a problem now.

[00:16:37] So let's not spend money on it or it's less of a problem.

[00:16:39] Yeah.

[00:16:41] So my, I'm going to, I'm going to ask, I don't know if he's still with us or not.

[00:16:44] He commented earlier, Andy Mitchell with a Mallory supply and he's, I hate to compliment him.

[00:16:52] Uh, but he's probably one of the, the top people I would turn to in North America, specifically in the industrial and industrial safety world on supply chain issues and, and, uh, and importing directly from China.

[00:17:06] So I'd love Andy's thoughts if he's still with us on this topic of, but I, what I would guess is what kind of Will's referencing here.

[00:17:13] And we'll, if he's still there could, could, to chime in on this as well.

[00:17:16] But I think what we saw is pandemic.

[00:17:20] So, you know, we went seventies and eighties, we pushed everything to China, you know, everything possible to save tons of money.

[00:17:28] Now we've got these pressures going on.

[00:17:30] We had China shut down, right?

[00:17:32] I don't know if you remember seeing some of the images in, uh, in Shanghai and Singapore and Shenzhen and some of the ports there where, you know, hundreds and hundreds of ships backed up waiting to get product to leave.

[00:17:44] And, uh, when they shut down, so no one here had a choice, but to figure out where do I get an N95 respirator or latex gloves that would normally be coming from either China or Southeast Asia somewhere.

[00:17:55] Um, and they had to find alternatives within their supply chain.

[00:17:59] Well, that pressure is now gone.

[00:18:02] That's, that's the, I guess it's the, the, the hands around your throat pressure.

[00:18:07] Now the pressure is okay.

[00:18:09] Well, yeah, there's a threat to China and Taiwan or yeah, there's this or there's that, but they're not immediate forced on them.

[00:18:17] So I think that's that, you know, to Will's point, if I understand what he's saying and I would agree with him here is the cyclical piece of it is it's not crisis right now.

[00:18:27] It's what's the best for my future that I need to be working on.

[00:18:31] And that's probably where this article talks about some boards don't necessarily, the board of directors don't necessarily understand it.

[00:18:38] And if they're thinking about a profit, just solely profitability, it's like, who cares where it comes from, get the best price.

[00:18:44] Right.

[00:18:45] That's not the way that we want to be thinking right now.

[00:18:47] I don't believe.

[00:18:49] So, no, I think that's a bit short sighted and, but.

[00:18:53] Yep.

[00:18:53] No, nobody.

[00:18:55] Yep.

[00:18:56] It's like a couple that had commented on this stuff, kind of stuff earlier, probably are midway through their sandwich right now.

[00:19:01] So they didn't chime back in.

[00:19:03] And I will, Tom, I'm going to make one, I've said this a handful of times and probably I think I'm going to continue to say this until it either happens or the issue goes away.

[00:19:16] I think that one of the more important things to be paying attention to right now, and I think that the U.S. government is doing this, starting to pay very close attention.

[00:19:26] One of the biggest factors that could impact more than ever before that could impact the supply chain in the U.S. is going to be Mexico.

[00:19:35] And the issue is we've always had great relationships.

[00:19:38] We have NAFTA.

[00:19:39] We have all of those things going on.

[00:19:40] We have, you know, I live, you know, just what am I, like 80 or 90 miles from the Mexican border where I live.

[00:19:47] And we've always, when I was a manufacturer's rep, I was crossing the border constantly working with the Mecheliodors and the factories that are at the border there.

[00:19:58] China is putting pressure on Mexico.

[00:20:01] China is investing in Mexico.

[00:20:03] China is wanting to get around U.S. steel tariffs by going into Mexico and building things that are coming to the U.S. with Chinese steel.

[00:20:11] Mexico is, in my opinion, probably one of the biggest things to pay attention and the biggest things to understand from a supply chain standpoint is what are the positives, the negatives, the risks, and the rewards of business in Mexico.

[00:20:28] And it's not just Latin America.

[00:20:29] You can say that stuff coming through by rail or by truck from other parts of Latin America are coming through Mexico anyways.

[00:20:37] But Mexico in itself is the thing I would be watching the closest and having a plan for what happens there.

[00:20:43] So a couple of comments came in that relate to this.

[00:20:45] You want to cover those?

[00:20:47] Yeah.

[00:20:47] I mean, so, you know, Andy's saying, right, that the production of, in this case, N95s and disposable gloves, they can't compete with Asian markets.

[00:20:57] And, you know, the U.S. has put tariffs from China and it's shipped the product to Malaysia.

[00:21:01] But what I'm hearing him say is, regardless, in this example, right, these products are still being, companies are still looking to look at where's the cheapest price?

[00:21:13] Can I get it from Asia?

[00:21:14] Right.

[00:21:15] They're not looking to bring those on shore or whatever that are there.

[00:21:19] And if anything, they're trying to avoid the tariffs, which is a cost issue, not a other issue that could get in the way of the supply chain.

[00:21:27] Well, Andy made an interesting point, though.

[00:21:29] And, again, I'm not complimenting you, Andy, no matter what you might think.

[00:21:35] I'll compliment you, Andy.

[00:21:37] I think that's a great point.

[00:21:38] No, he's got solid points here.

[00:21:41] I think the interesting piece is he talks about shifting to Malaysia, right?

[00:21:45] That, I think, is something very interesting to consider is, you know, and I used the term Southeast Asia a couple of times earlier, is, you know, one of the potential incoming administrations has huge plans of additional tariffs on China because it's not an even playing field of how we're doing business in the U.S.

[00:22:05] And the government support isn't there that it is in China for businesses and so forth.

[00:22:09] There's a very different motivation between those two countries.

[00:22:12] But I think as we look at this a little bit closer, Andy says he knows he's the best.

[00:22:18] So it's okay.

[00:22:19] He doesn't need my validation or ours.

[00:22:22] Right.

[00:22:22] So that's funny.

[00:22:24] But it is the idea of describing what Andy's thinking about is, hey, you know what?

[00:22:30] And just as a simplest example of disposable gloves is, all right, well, if I was getting all of those from China and there's a huge tariff risk coming, you know, let's get that from Malaysia now.

[00:22:42] Or Vietnam or whatever it might be.

[00:22:44] And I'm sure it's something I'm actually interested in researching a little bit.

[00:22:48] Maybe this is a chat GPT or a perplexity conversation I could have is the amount of increase of new industry in other parts of Southeast Asia.

[00:22:58] You know, Malaysia has done disposable gloves to the reference that Andy was talking about forever.

[00:23:04] Vietnam has done a lot of cut and sew and clothing and so forth.

[00:23:09] But it'd be interesting to see how some of that's changing as well.

[00:23:12] So anyways.

[00:23:14] All right.

[00:23:15] Good stuff.

[00:23:16] Good discussion about supply chain this morning.

[00:23:18] So we move into our manufacturing and distribution segment.

[00:23:22] Wow.

[00:23:23] Big surprise Monday.

[00:23:25] Get the announcement that a hardware wholesaler true value files for bankruptcy and is selling its business.

[00:23:33] That was that was a shocker to me.

[00:23:36] And I've been around for a long time.

[00:23:39] And most of my time has been in directly in wholesale.

[00:23:45] The side of the world.

[00:23:46] But in much of the country, you know, and I mentioned this to you before we went live today.

[00:23:52] You know, if you live in a suburban suburb of Seattle or a suburb of L.A. or a suburb of Chicago or whatever, you know, oftentimes when you think true value, you know, it's like, well, yeah, that's the neighborhood hardware store that I can run down to.

[00:24:07] And there's a do it best, you know, a mile away and two miles away is an ace hardware.

[00:24:12] And, you know, my case, that's true.

[00:24:14] And then there's two Home Depots within 10 miles of my house, either direction, five miles in either direction.

[00:24:22] But when you get out into other parts of the country, maybe a little more smaller town or rural areas, the true value, the do it best, the ace hardware is equal parts wholesale and retail.

[00:24:35] And sometimes even more, more, much more on the wholesale side of things, which really validates our conversation with that today.

[00:24:42] So big deal.

[00:24:43] Bill, I know that true value had been having some struggles.

[00:24:45] I think I told you it was kind of funny.

[00:24:49] I flew into Chicago on Monday and while I was getting the Uber, I got a text message from a customer of ours and longtime friend that I've done work with over the years.

[00:25:01] And who's a very much an industry veteran, former Grainger executive, and has done a lot of work.

[00:25:06] In fact, was even actually looking at an M&A transaction with true value a number of years ago.

[00:25:14] And he was kind of pinged me to see what I thought about all of this because he was pretty surprised even if he knew that they'd had some financial struggles.

[00:25:19] And the funny part of it was, Tom, is literally when I was reading his text, I was driving by the true value building in Chicago off of the expressway.

[00:25:30] So I took a picture.

[00:25:31] I guess it's going to be the do it best building.

[00:25:33] Yeah, exactly.

[00:25:35] You have a collector's item.

[00:25:37] Yeah, well, we'll see.

[00:25:38] I should save that picture, huh?

[00:25:40] So the interesting thing is, and the next article is from HBS Dealer, which is, so the next day, the announcement, right, is that they're going to do a deal with do it best.

[00:25:52] Tom, can you pop up that chart?

[00:25:53] Do you have that handy, that chart I did this morning?

[00:25:57] So let's look at, as we have this discussion a little bit about what this really means, right?

[00:26:03] So if you think about, you know, both the retail side of things that also does wholesale, you got, you know, way ahead of the game here is Home Depot at $157 billion.

[00:26:15] And you've got true value at $6 billion, and right behind them is do it best at $5 billion in sales.

[00:26:22] So lower end of the market, you know, the only one smaller than do it best is Orgel.

[00:26:27] We'll talk about Orgel in a minute.

[00:26:28] But a really interesting time for this.

[00:26:31] So that gives you a little breakdown in looking at the chart of, you know, where these people are at from a revenue standpoint.

[00:26:39] I think it's interesting with, you know, the smaller acquirer coming in.

[00:26:43] And the kicker that I think we're going to learn about this, Tom, is I want to get your thoughts if you had a chance to look at those articles.

[00:26:51] But I think the kicker that we're going to see out of this about the why is I don't think that true value has been as strong as we might think for a number of years.

[00:27:01] But historically, these organizations are co-ops.

[00:27:04] So they're member owned and then they're run as this distribution warehousing supply chain operation for them.

[00:27:11] In 2000, I think it was 18, true value sold 80% of the company to a private equity organization.

[00:27:20] So I'm going to guess when we, the chips fall.

[00:27:23] And if anybody that's with us has thoughts or if you're listening on the podcast, the recorded version, send us a note.

[00:27:30] Hello at leadsmarttech.com or directly on the website for the podcast aroundthehornpod.com.

[00:27:38] What your thoughts are on this.

[00:27:40] But I got a feeling when that onion gets peeled a little more, there's going to be some pressures that have been put on the organization through the private equity ownership.

[00:27:48] And that they couldn't kind of keep themselves moving the way that they had wanted to or hoped.

[00:27:53] So we'll see what plays out with it.

[00:27:55] I mean, and I know zero about this.

[00:27:57] So I'm completely looking on the outside, looking in.

[00:28:00] But from what you're saying, right, what I would guess is private equity came in.

[00:28:06] A lot of the good people left, right?

[00:28:08] Either were able to retire, cash out, do whatever, leave because they didn't like the new environment.

[00:28:13] Again, I don't know because I don't know the whole history there.

[00:28:17] And, you know, what it was obviously what was making it successful to a large degree ended up doing to make it not successful.

[00:28:24] And it sounds like I still don't fully understand how you have a $6 billion company that just all of a sudden goes bankrupt.

[00:28:32] That seems...

[00:28:33] They've had...

[00:28:34] It's not...

[00:28:35] It wasn't out of the blue, per se.

[00:28:37] Right.

[00:28:37] Let me say that.

[00:28:38] It couldn't be repaired.

[00:28:39] It couldn't be repaired.

[00:28:40] Right.

[00:28:41] It wasn't surprising that there was problems.

[00:28:44] The bankruptcy filing, I think, caught most people by surprise.

[00:28:48] So what's going on...

[00:28:50] I'm sorry.

[00:28:51] Yep.

[00:28:51] No, I mean, I just...

[00:28:52] I mean, that's just at the outside looking in.

[00:28:54] Obviously, something changed there that caused that deterioration over the last few years.

[00:29:00] Yep.

[00:29:01] The...

[00:29:01] I think so.

[00:29:02] The great article, the CEO of Do Best, they're the, you know, stalking horse bidder, so to speak.

[00:29:08] So I actually...

[00:29:10] I had heard that phrase, didn't know the details of it, but it's actually something that gets filed with the bankruptcy court that there's a, you know, a lead suitor.

[00:29:20] So this isn't...

[00:29:21] By far, this isn't done.

[00:29:22] In fact, the CEO references in that article.

[00:29:24] Then the secondary articles from HBS dealer, big deal, the big deal, Q&A with the Do It Best CEO.

[00:29:32] So interestingly enough, the Do It Best CEO started in their corporate legal counsel group.

[00:29:38] And so he's a lawyer by education and rose up to CEO of Do It Best.

[00:29:42] So there's a lot of caveats still within this deal to see what happens.

[00:29:46] But, you know, it's important to recognize this.

[00:29:49] And I shared this with you a little bit.

[00:29:52] And you did some work a number of years ago with a technology company that does POS software for these co-op companies.

[00:30:02] So you've been to a Do It Best show, right?

[00:30:05] I did, yes.

[00:30:06] Yeah.

[00:30:07] And I've joined you at one of those.

[00:30:10] And then I've been to three or four true value and I've done direct business with true value and ACE in the past.

[00:30:22] Different way of going to market than traditional wholesale distribution and working with them as a supplier is a little bit harder.

[00:30:28] But the interesting thing to consider is, as we look at this, is the impact on small businesses.

[00:30:35] So you've got, you know, thousands of these locations that, you know, short term will stay as, assuming that, you know, there's no other bidder to come in with something much higher offer than what Do It Best has done for true value.

[00:30:50] But now you've got these companies that over time are going to need to rebrand, go through a lot.

[00:30:57] And a lot of these are small town, very small businesses.

[00:31:01] I used the example earlier when we were talking, you know, I remember meeting a gentleman that had a, I think it was an ACE Hardware location on a Indian reservation.

[00:31:15] And they were three hours from the closest other store of their type.

[00:31:20] So when you, that's where you went for your ammunition or your weapons to go hunting.

[00:31:27] It was where you bought your hunting and fishing license.

[00:31:31] They had a lumber yard and a building material and some concrete and bricks and stuff out back that they sold.

[00:31:37] And it was also like a convenience store or small grocery store, all in one big location out on an Indian reservation.

[00:31:44] And you get into small parts of rural America where that ACE, Do It Best, Orgill, whichever location it might be, is a lifeline into that community.

[00:31:57] So there's some, you know, this isn't, you know, what happens in, you know, Orange County, California, where I live, where, you know, not having one of those doesn't change my day.

[00:32:06] But it could impact people a lot.

[00:32:09] And these are small family owned businesses.

[00:32:11] Of course.

[00:32:12] Yeah, I want to hit Andy's take before we move on here.

[00:32:16] He's saying private industry is ruining the industry.

[00:32:18] They buy good businesses, mortgage them, and squeeze them.

[00:32:20] And in time, they fail and someone has to pick up the pieces.

[00:32:24] PE is overpaying for industrial distributors.

[00:32:27] But, you know, few will see or will be less than they were in two to five years.

[00:32:32] There are a few good strategic PE firms.

[00:32:35] It's interesting, Andy, you say that.

[00:32:37] I don't certainly have the experience that you do with this, but I've noticed with some of our customers or even prospects that we've talked to that are private equity owned.

[00:32:47] I'm not generally impressed with how they look at how they're going to be operating the business.

[00:32:54] And a lot of times it seems like they're, again, this is just my limit, a lot of penny wise, pound foolish type of things.

[00:33:01] Because it'll be, you know, and a whole goal of private equity, right, is you need to get the next bite of the apple.

[00:33:07] So, you know, clearly the true value situation here, I can't imagine that private equity group is going to make any money off of that transaction no matter who ends up buying it.

[00:33:17] That's there.

[00:33:19] No, but, you know, they had to approve it.

[00:33:22] So, right, it'll be interesting to see.

[00:33:25] So, you know, Andy and the company Andy works with is acquired probably in their family owned privately held company in the distribution space.

[00:33:35] And Andy's done probably 10 acquisitions himself of small distributors in the last few years.

[00:33:40] So he's his insights are pretty solid to those things.

[00:33:44] So good.

[00:33:44] Well, we'll watch this closely.

[00:33:46] Honestly, it was worth the discussion today to talk about the impact of true value and do it best and so forth.

[00:33:53] And so we'll see, hope the best for the individual people involved in this as well.

[00:33:57] So last in our segment there on distribution and manufacturing is an article about University of Virginia researchers pioneering an AI-driven manufacturing advancement.

[00:34:12] This was pretty cool to talk about what they're able to do in this setting.

[00:34:15] And you want to leave that one off, Tom?

[00:34:18] Well, they're using, and I know we're going to talk more about agents in a few minutes, but they're using sort of modern AI technology and agents, which is to really transform the factory operation.

[00:34:38] And what these agents can do, and we'll talk, I won't go into a lot right now about agents, but we can hit more on that in a minute when we get to that other article.

[00:34:46] But what an agent can do is a lot of things can happen concurrently.

[00:34:52] And that's what this article was saying is by looking at a lot of things in the factory that were happening concurrently, and then these AI agents essentially working together in a collaborative way technologically, the ability to optimize what was happening in the factory was pretty remarkable.

[00:35:12] There's not a whole lot of data in there exactly what they're doing.

[00:35:15] I didn't go, you know, dig around.

[00:35:17] Yeah.

[00:35:17] I'm sure there's some other technology articles out there about it, but I found it really interesting.

[00:35:23] And, you know, obviously it's probably more of an academic study on all of this, but there's probably a lot of good takeaways that can be applied from a commercial perspective.

[00:35:31] Looks like, you know, they just described coordinating everything at once was what one of the, you know, the comments they made, right?

[00:35:37] So we're taking all these different factors and we're using AI to apply it.

[00:35:41] And that's the beauty of artificial intelligence, right?

[00:35:43] Is we can take all of these different, you know, we use the term constantly, you know, in our business and with our customers, we use constantly the, you know, the term silo data.

[00:35:55] And now we're taking silo data, in this case, in the manufacturing side and bringing it in.

[00:35:59] And what I thought was really cool about this was that, you know, and they talk about integrating system and process level parameters to optimize yields and dynamically adapt to changes.

[00:36:09] I think that's awesome.

[00:36:10] But now you think about that piece, but what if you could then introduce all of your supply chain data, right?

[00:36:17] These orders are on that ship and that ship just got diverted or this shipment is coming in late.

[00:36:26] Now I need it to go to this other plant versus that plant.

[00:36:29] And you drive those pieces of data in or even if, you know, an order, maybe the component of something that's being manufactured, a raw material or a manufactured component, maybe is from a different vendor.

[00:36:45] And for this particular order and the manufacturing process has to slightly adjust.

[00:36:51] When you start taking all of these pieces that have to go into, you know, traditionally now it's Joe that's been there for 27 years.

[00:36:59] It goes, oh yeah, well, this is coming in from a different vendor.

[00:37:02] So we need to adjust the variance on this piece of machinery.

[00:37:05] You start taking all these parameters in of human parameters, data parameters, supply chain parameters, manufacturing parameters, put all those together.

[00:37:15] Pretty impressive future in that arena.

[00:37:17] That's good.

[00:37:19] Interesting to see more about kind of everything that they were doing with that and how it all worked.

[00:37:25] That's it.

[00:37:26] All right.

[00:37:26] So, you know what?

[00:37:27] This is our little window where we'll do our quick reminder.

[00:37:31] If you're listening to us on the podcast that's recorded, whether it's Spotify or Apple or Amazon or Odyssey or wherever it might be, you are not seeing the screen where we're able to look at the comments that are coming in from the guests that are on with us live or the newsletter that we're posting.

[00:37:51] So what we do each week is we get together.

[00:37:53] We talk about the newsletter that we publish.

[00:37:56] It's called Around the Hornet Wholesale Distribution.

[00:37:58] We talk about M&A, manufacturing distribution, all the news that's going on throughout the week and how it impacts those that work in the manufacturing and wholesale distribution world.

[00:38:09] So if you would like that newsletter so you can join us and kind of know what's going on and read those articles in full yourself, you can reach us at hello at leadsmarttech.com.

[00:38:19] Easy to get it that way.

[00:38:21] Or you can go to the podcast website, which is www.aroundthehornpod.com.

[00:38:26] I see past episodes there.

[00:38:28] Click the links to sign up for your podcast subscription and or leave us a message there and we'll get you the newsletter each week.

[00:38:35] So, Tom, let's kind of dive in now as we look into our e-commerce and marketing segment, Tom.

[00:38:41] Let's talk.

[00:38:42] First article there is from Digital Commerce 360, how Fastenal pushed digital to hit $10 billion in total sales.

[00:38:49] So they're at around $7.5 billion right now and they're wanting to start getting to basically the core of this was talking about how they want to get to the point where they're doing a billion dollars a year solely in e-commerce related revenue, which is great.

[00:39:08] So a great goal to have.

[00:39:11] Yeah, I think they're approaching $10 billion overall, but they're wanting to really figure out how to.

[00:39:18] What I read into that is that they believe a big part of their growth has to become from more and more digital, right?

[00:39:24] Yep.

[00:39:25] As they reach $10 billion and beyond.

[00:39:28] Yeah.

[00:39:29] Well, and they're using some tools there, right?

[00:39:31] They've got their vendor managed inventory.

[00:39:33] They've got a lot of different programs that are Internet related now, and then they want to look to try and drive that.

[00:39:41] So, so much more of that is actually going through their digital presence online.

[00:39:47] So that'll be interesting to watch.

[00:39:50] It's a good article.

[00:39:51] It's with their CEO.

[00:39:52] Yeah.

[00:39:52] And so you can see, you know, when you see the CEO of an organization of that size that can do an interview and really talk and understand the depths of a digital strategy, I thought it was pretty cool to see because, you know, the vast majority of CEOs in wholesale distribution that you talked to didn't, wouldn't have the grasp of the digital opportunities that he talks about.

[00:40:12] So it's cool.

[00:40:13] Let's jump ahead.

[00:40:14] Another article from Digital Commerce 360, European B2B Marketplace Landscape, A Decade of Transformation.

[00:40:23] It was kind of interesting to see.

[00:40:24] I think that the crux of that article, and we don't need to spend a lot of time on that one, but was really tied to, you know, like the rest of the world, Europe shut down in March of 2020.

[00:40:36] And B2B buyers hadn't been embracing online purchasing nearly as much as their counterparts in other parts of the world had.

[00:40:48] And all of a sudden they had to.

[00:40:50] And so this article talks a little bit about the continued, you know, emergence of B2B growth within that marketplace.

[00:40:58] So I thought it was kind of cool to see that one.

[00:41:01] Yeah, but it's also showing that there are fewer marketplaces that are coming out year over year.

[00:41:06] It sounds like they're a bit saturated, but there's definitely more and more investment in that.

[00:41:11] I thought it was interesting, too, to see the United Kingdom and Germany represent 50% of that.

[00:41:16] So there's a lot of customer companies, countries that are way behind in that setting as well.

[00:41:23] So very good.

[00:41:24] All right.

[00:41:26] Let's see.

[00:41:26] Forbes Magazine, how to keep B2B outreach from being spammy.

[00:41:32] Did you catch that one?

[00:41:33] Yeah, I did.

[00:41:34] You just send emails that say, buy my stuff, don't you?

[00:41:37] Isn't that what you're supposed to do?

[00:41:38] Yeah, that's what people do.

[00:41:39] And then everybody loves them.

[00:41:41] Right?

[00:41:41] And everybody's happy.

[00:41:42] Cold calls that are by my stuff or emails or even better text messages.

[00:41:46] Yeah.

[00:41:47] There you go.

[00:41:48] Yeah, the text message.

[00:41:50] Yeah.

[00:41:50] No value proposition.

[00:41:52] Don't worry about that.

[00:41:52] We don't need that.

[00:41:53] Now, this was good.

[00:41:54] I thought this article was nice.

[00:41:55] It was in Forbes.

[00:41:57] And it talked about just a series of methods.

[00:42:00] I'll hit these real quick.

[00:42:01] They talk about pressure testing your messaging first.

[00:42:05] When they say that B2B, buyers are often skeptical.

[00:42:08] So want to avoid overpromising and being overconfident and knowing that you're speaking their language.

[00:42:14] Conduct research.

[00:42:15] Test different messaging.

[00:42:18] And so forth.

[00:42:19] And then ask the question, how would you convince yourself?

[00:42:21] Two, they say address prospects' key challenges, which is what we see so rarely in digital marketing

[00:42:29] or email marketing is that people want to talk to you about why you should buy what they have

[00:42:36] versus clarifying that they understand what your needs are.

[00:42:39] And I think that's one of the biggest challenges out there.

[00:42:42] So that was addressing key challenges.

[00:42:44] Third was share timely, relevant thought leadership.

[00:42:48] There's nothing worse than just getting a message from somebody that you know has no interest in you

[00:42:53] other than selling you something.

[00:42:55] So when you can talk about thought leadership.

[00:42:58] And then four was focus on genuine networking.

[00:43:02] And five was differentiate through face-to-face prospecting.

[00:43:06] And then there was quite a few others.

[00:43:08] But a few of these really hit me because it's something that we talk about all the time with, you know,

[00:43:13] our marketing at LeadSmart, right?

[00:43:15] Is I'm here for three weeks straight on the road of events.

[00:43:20] And, you know, as our friend of the show and friend Mike Marks likes to say, belly to belly, right?

[00:43:27] With folks.

[00:43:28] And people still like to see people.

[00:43:30] So I think this is talking about the omni-channel approach that we talk about quite regularly.

[00:43:35] And when you're looking at understanding your customers, sharing thought leadership, being involved in the industry,

[00:43:40] I think people appreciate that and gravitate to your message.

[00:43:44] You know, I think I told you I had a conversation earlier this week with a pretty well-known sales trainer and coach.

[00:43:53] And he's very, he does a lot of writing for Harvard Business Review and does a lot of studies in this area.

[00:43:59] And one of the things, and he called it doing the opposite, right?

[00:44:02] What is the opposite?

[00:44:04] You know, most people, when you think of marketing or promotion, the first thing that comes to mind is,

[00:44:09] well, how am I going to promote my product or my service, right?

[00:44:12] And what he was testing and got analytics was, is with companies that,

[00:44:19] whether it was marketing or even in the sales process, never mentioned their product.

[00:44:23] They just basically went in and from a consultative perspective and tried to help the company and,

[00:44:29] and even the salesperson didn't present their product, but just went in as a consultant.

[00:44:34] Anyway, bottom line, what they found is, is deals close 30% faster without approach.

[00:44:42] So, so what happened is, even though they don't introduce your product, the customer eventually wants to know,

[00:44:47] well, what do you sell?

[00:44:48] What do you, what can you bring?

[00:44:50] And so they wait for the customer to ask them.

[00:44:52] They didn't bring it up until the customer asked them, which is the opposite, right?

[00:44:56] Because most salespeople or marketers can't wait to put the product out in front of you.

[00:45:00] Deals close 30% faster, no decisions, meaning that some, but where they just didn't decide at all,

[00:45:06] reduced by 50%.

[00:45:08] And the value of the deals overall went up 20% by taking this.

[00:45:13] And I'm sure he's going to be publishing this in the Harvard Business Review,

[00:45:17] but he calls it doing the opposite.

[00:45:18] We were joking about like that Seinfeld episode where George was doing the opposite of everything that he would normally do.

[00:45:25] This is like the opposite of everything that is in the, in the sales world.

[00:45:30] So do me a favor.

[00:45:31] Will you reach back out to him and ask him to make sure we get a copy of that when he publishes it?

[00:45:36] I will.

[00:45:36] I will.

[00:45:37] Because I think that's something we want to share with this audience and have a further discussion about.

[00:45:42] I think that's great.

[00:45:43] You know, that, that makes me think about giving a little hint to, we haven't finalized everything yet,

[00:45:49] but early next year, we're going to, shouldn't talk about this, but I will, you know me.

[00:45:56] So next year starts around the Horn 2.0, where we're going to do some more traditional podcast style interviews and they'll be, you know, focused and featured.

[00:46:06] So I think maybe Tom, we should be thinking about having him as a guest.

[00:46:09] Yeah, sure.

[00:46:10] That'd be great.

[00:46:10] That would be great.

[00:46:11] I'm sure.

[00:46:12] Yeah.

[00:46:12] Yep.

[00:46:13] And that new format, it's not where it's an additional format, not a new format, additional format.

[00:46:18] We'll be doing individual interviews.

[00:46:20] We've had some great industry leaders that we've met and talked to who sometimes don't want to jump on and go through the fast pace that we have here,

[00:46:28] but they would be great people to just have a conversation with.

[00:46:31] So we're going to do some episodes next year.

[00:46:34] We're in a little bit different format as well.

[00:46:37] So, hey, here comes Bob.

[00:46:39] Aloha.

[00:46:39] A little bit late.

[00:46:40] Yeah.

[00:46:41] That's right, Bob.

[00:46:42] Better late than never.

[00:46:43] It's good to have you.

[00:46:45] All right.

[00:46:46] So that was good.

[00:46:47] I love that marketing article.

[00:46:48] You know, it really just, and if you run an organization, you have a marketing department or you're a marketer,

[00:46:57] I think that Forbes article, and if you're listening again and you don't get the newsletter, feel free to ping us.

[00:47:02] We can forward that article to you.

[00:47:03] I thought it did a nice job of outlining without being too simplistic nor too technical of what omni-channel marketing is.

[00:47:11] Yeah.

[00:47:11] Right?

[00:47:12] So very good.

[00:47:14] All right.

[00:47:15] Technology, cybersecurity, and AI.

[00:47:17] We talk about AI once in a while here.

[00:47:20] Once in a while.

[00:47:21] Yeah, next segment that we go into.

[00:47:23] I am, this is pretty cool.

[00:47:25] So from VentureBeat, OpenAI unveils experimental swarm framework igniting debate on AI-driven automation.

[00:47:34] Tom, I'm going to have you jump in to start with that.

[00:47:36] I've got a handful of thoughts and some excitement, some cautions, but give us a whirl on that.

[00:47:42] Yeah.

[00:47:42] So this is all around the, I think we touched on this a week or two ago around agents, AI agents.

[00:47:49] And I keep getting this question asked me all the time is what is an AI agent and what is it, how does it differ from anything else?

[00:47:56] So think of an AI agent as a little AI tool or module that has a specific objective.

[00:48:04] So for example, let's say you're going to take a trip, right?

[00:48:08] Well, you could have an AI agent that is an expert in finding and booking airfare.

[00:48:14] I think you brought this up a week ago about your Hawaii endeavor.

[00:48:17] That's right, yeah.

[00:48:19] You could have an AI agent that's an expert in finding and booking hotels.

[00:48:23] And then you could have an AI that was expert in finding a rental car, for example.

[00:48:28] Right?

[00:48:28] Each of those have its own job, right?

[00:48:31] One is to get your airfare.

[00:48:32] One is to get your hotel.

[00:48:33] One is to get your car, your car rental.

[00:48:38] So the idea is that these agents can go off autonomously and, again, given some direction.

[00:48:45] But not only can they be autonomous, so let's say the agent that's booking your airfare books your airfare or at least comes up with some flights.

[00:48:54] And it can communicate over to the other agents for the hotel or the car rental.

[00:48:57] And the three can work together.

[00:48:59] Now multiply that by potentially, you know, in a much more complicated scenario, hundreds of agents or potentially even thousands of agents.

[00:49:09] And I think this is along the line of that factory situation we just talked about.

[00:49:12] Yep.

[00:49:13] Working together.

[00:49:15] What AI unveiled already exists by other companies to some degree.

[00:49:20] There are already platforms for doing this.

[00:49:23] But open AI certainly gets way more visibility than these other platforms.

[00:49:27] So as they start to release these other platforms, people start to go, well, wait a minute.

[00:49:32] You know, I never knew this existed or whatever.

[00:49:35] And it makes it a bit more mainstream in the industry.

[00:49:38] So there's been a little bit of controversy.

[00:49:40] Are we ready for this?

[00:49:42] The good news is that these agents can be created with guardrails, with really actually very good guardrails so that you can keep them on a track.

[00:49:52] You can keep them going down.

[00:49:54] And now obviously you say, well, how do you do that when you have thousands or hundreds or whatever?

[00:49:57] We're not at that point yet.

[00:49:59] We're not dealing with that, but it will come from those things.

[00:50:02] But tremendous amount of power when you take all of these individual sort of experts, if you will, and bring them together to accomplish goals and objectives and outcomes.

[00:50:13] So let's take a step back for a second with that discussion because it's powerful.

[00:50:19] So we hear a lot about agents now, very consistently, but we're also hearing about co-pilots.

[00:50:25] So just to be clear, an agent is something that can go out and act autonomously.

[00:50:30] It has a direction of what the goal is, but it can go out and act autonomously.

[00:50:35] Or a co-pilot is something that would help us while we're doing something, making suggestions, giving some advice, some guidance, and so forth.

[00:50:45] So a co-pilot is working under our direction, and an agent is autonomous with a goal and an objective of what they're supposed to go do.

[00:50:53] Yeah, the co-pilot is like you said.

[00:50:55] Yeah, I think that's fair.

[00:50:56] The co-pilot is help me write this blog post or help me write this email or create this presentation or whatever, right?

[00:51:03] And all those types of things.

[00:51:04] But they're basically just acting as a co-pilot to you being the pilot.

[00:51:10] These agents are essentially, and I don't like to say operating on their own because it sounds like it's sort of a chaotic.

[00:51:19] It's funny.

[00:51:19] I did a workshop this week for one of our customers.

[00:51:23] It was an AI workshop, and one of the guys at the end said,

[00:51:27] the entire time as you were talking about all of this, all I couldn't stop thinking about is war games, right?

[00:51:33] Those were the things that came through his head.

[00:51:36] And so I don't, you know, you use these words like, you know, they work on their own or whatever.

[00:51:41] It's not exactly quite like that, but their ability to operate and collaborate and work together, again, under the guidance of how we put the agency together.

[00:51:51] Right.

[00:51:52] They can, there's just a lot of things that can, yeah, so it's very different than a co-pilot.

[00:51:57] Yeah.

[00:51:57] No, but they've got to have an objective of what we want them to go do is, I think, the key to go with that, right?

[00:52:04] What makes me think about with that, if, you know, rather than, and I'm glad my mind went to what I'm thinking about versus, you know, the war games type thing,

[00:52:13] is, you know, a number of, I guess the last, last number of years, the last probably three or four years,

[00:52:21] what we've been seeing is, especially around the 4th of July, is a lot of fireworks displays becoming drone displays.

[00:52:29] And what it makes me think about is, you know, having watched some videos I haven't seen in person,

[00:52:34] but having watched some videos of, you know, hundreds of drones that are on the ground in a field

[00:52:39] that all at once take off to go accomplish something.

[00:52:42] Right.

[00:52:43] And then they come together to do the fireworks display as these interconnected pieces.

[00:52:49] Then they know where each other are and what the other one's supposed to do next, but they have a specific job.

[00:52:55] That's what came to my mind in this setting, right?

[00:52:57] Is I just.

[00:52:59] That's a good analogy.

[00:53:00] I push my, you know, I push my button of where I want my agents to go and my agents have a goal.

[00:53:06] Because it's very likely that these agents will be, you know, sharing data about one, what one is doing, right?

[00:53:13] You could have a.

[00:53:13] Absolutely.

[00:53:14] No, they have common memory, right?

[00:53:16] So there's memory between them that they can operate off of the same memory.

[00:53:20] Which is, again, very different than traditional programming where you have to send data to one thing to another and all of that.

[00:53:28] It all operates off of the same data pool and memory pool.

[00:53:31] Back to the travel example in that setting, right?

[00:53:34] Is, you know, the car rental agent needs to know and understand what the hotel agent is doing or the flight agent is doing in this setting.

[00:53:41] So this is going to be good.

[00:53:43] I think, you know, the issue, I guess one of the things, and I'll ask you this because you've got much further depth of understanding of this than I do.

[00:53:51] But, you know, we get, you know, the people as we think about, you know, getting to, you know, AGI or getting to a place where this is like real thinking or thinking beyond where human thinking would be.

[00:54:07] And we get the concerns or the risks of, you know, are the AI models taking over the world for us, right?

[00:54:14] I think if things are managed correctly, right, through all of this, and you talked about guardrails earlier.

[00:54:21] I think with guardrails into these pieces, it's nothing but, you know, potential good can happen.

[00:54:27] But I've got a lot of, this is probably when you're buying me my stake in January, this would be a good discussion.

[00:54:34] I'm kind of trying to get my head around, you know, people talk about we're going to have, you know, all these agents and co-pilots doing so much of this stuff.

[00:54:42] We're going to have so much free time and so much more things we can do.

[00:54:45] There's the economic factor for me that's like, well, if the agents are doing everything, does the economy keep moving the way it is with translating dollars for time spent and things like that?

[00:54:58] So there's a deeper conversation about what happens from a dollars and cents in an economic.

[00:55:03] But that's midway through the bottle of...

[00:55:08] And they talk about that in this article, right?

[00:55:10] The fear of, you know, the ongoing fear of job loss and job replacement.

[00:55:17] And it's a valid fear, but I think it'll open up a whole lot of other jobs.

[00:55:22] It's just going to require a different skill set.

[00:55:25] Yeah.

[00:55:26] Yeah, I think it's my thinking on the economic factor beyond just like an hourly worker or something.

[00:55:32] But we'll dive into that.

[00:55:33] We'll put our thoughts together.

[00:55:34] We'll talk about that more another day.

[00:55:36] So now as we think about all of this from a standpoint, again, and we're in our segment of the podcast where we are in talking about AI technology and cybersecurity.

[00:55:47] Well, all of this stuff for building AI swarms, managing co-pilots, managing automations, managing the tools that we're using in all of these things with these agents and so forth as well,

[00:56:06] takes computing power like we've never thought about or had before.

[00:56:09] And it's, you know, magnitudes different than what we need for normal computing power.

[00:56:17] You know, chips are, correct me if I'm wrong here, but as we talk about the NVIDIAs of the world and so forth,

[00:56:23] they're not making little chips like you have Go on your computer.

[00:56:27] Their chips are the size of a PC, right?

[00:56:29] Yeah, so, and to put some perspective in that, the cost of a chat GPT chat, if a typical conversation, is 25 times the electricity of a Google search.

[00:56:44] That's great analysis, great comparison.

[00:56:47] And that chat that you do, the Google or the, I'm sorry, the open AI or the chat GPT conversation takes on average a half a liter of water to cool the systems that are facilitating that conversation with you.

[00:57:05] So you have two environmental impacts there.

[00:57:09] You have the electricity and you have the water or the cooling requirement that is there, which I know we're going to talk about, you know, the nuclear, but.

[00:57:20] I mean, I, this is one of the things I really appreciate about some of the big tech right now is that they're, they're stepping up to figure out how to address this and to do it in a environmentally friendly way.

[00:57:33] Yep.

[00:57:33] And, you know, there's awfully a self-serving way as well, but they're, they're really looking at a lot of ways to make a carbon neutral environment out of it.

[00:57:41] But yeah, it's, it's something that is the, you know, that's a lot more power than, than a Google search.

[00:57:48] Well, and it's interesting.

[00:57:49] So I'll expand upon that a touch as well is last, last October.

[00:57:55] So I guess almost a year ago, I wasn't able to make the one that they had in June of this year because I was on crutches, but distribution strategies.

[00:58:03] Strategy posted a AI for distribution conference in Chicago was a great event.

[00:58:08] Jonathan and Ian, and Ian put that together and did a really nice job.

[00:58:12] But they had a gentleman there by the name of Zach Cass.

[00:58:16] And Zach was the one part of the original team at open AI, the makers of chat GPT.

[00:58:23] And I think his title was, you know, something related to, I can't remember, but it was, he was one of the guys, senior guys in charge of bringing the whole thing to market.

[00:58:38] And he left about six months or so afterwards.

[00:58:41] And now he's probably one of the most sought after speakers globally on AI, but he was addressing the group's great presentation.

[00:58:48] He lives not far from you in Santa Barbara.

[00:58:53] And he brought up all the things that we could be thinking about, about our future, right?

[00:58:58] And the realities that we could see.

[00:59:00] And he used that one example, though, where he talked about curing cancer, right?

[00:59:07] And he was using the example and saying, look, when you've got, and in this case, agents that we were just talking about,

[00:59:13] when you've got thousands or tens of thousands of agents that are looking at blood tests,

[00:59:21] they're looking at MRI scans, they're looking at ultrasound scans,

[00:59:26] they're looking at gene mutations, whatever it is.

[00:59:30] And I'm not smart enough about medicine to know too much further.

[00:59:33] But when you think about it right now, we have a very finite amount of researchers that are just using individual brains

[00:59:39] and then trying to bring data together.

[00:59:41] He said, well, when you start looking at all of these things that can go out and do this research,

[00:59:46] bring that all back together, then use additional AI tools to evaluate and analyze that.

[00:59:51] He said, it is impossible that we wouldn't solve cancer, right?

[00:59:56] Or cure cancer.

[00:59:57] It's impossible that we wouldn't do all of these other things because now what we're doing is we're compressing the next 200 years of research

[01:00:05] into a series of months or short number of years.

[01:00:11] But what he said is, and then he gave a number of other examples that were just mind-blowing, right?

[01:00:15] Of what could be accomplished.

[01:00:17] And he said, the problem is we don't have a power infrastructure in this country particularly,

[01:00:21] and we're ahead of many, if not most.

[01:00:24] We don't have a power infrastructure to support the computing power that would be needed to achieve those things.

[01:00:30] Absolutely.

[01:00:31] Right?

[01:00:31] So which ties us to our next article.

[01:00:33] I saw this in a few different places.

[01:00:36] This was from Electrified as part of the Electrical Distributor Magazine.

[01:00:41] We had Scott Costa, the publisher of this, with us on the show a couple weeks ago.

[01:00:44] And the article is about tech giants make nuclear investments to keep up with AI.

[01:00:50] So what's it going to take?

[01:00:51] And Zach said that.

[01:00:52] He said fusion, nuclear energy or fusion is what it's going to take to power these things correctly to get to the level we want.

[01:00:59] So it turns out that the owner of the shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear power system said that it plans to restart the reactor

[01:01:06] so that tech giant Microsoft can buy power to supply its data centers.

[01:01:12] Yep.

[01:01:12] And that Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are all making investments into using nuclear power.

[01:01:22] Yep.

[01:01:24] And I want to hit Bob's comment before we leave here.

[01:01:26] You know, I think it's a good point, right?

[01:01:28] There's no such thing as a free run.

[01:01:29] The cost of technology are often buried, but they're very real.

[01:01:33] Mm-hmm.

[01:01:34] And, you know, he asked another question here, which is what they ask in the other article.

[01:01:38] Are we, ethically, are we moving too fast?

[01:01:41] Mm-hmm.

[01:01:43] You know, it's a, I don't know.

[01:01:45] I don't know that, I don't know.

[01:01:47] I think, you know, innovation and progression is important.

[01:01:51] The question is obviously is how we, it's funny too, because I just realized, you know,

[01:01:56] we haven't heard a lot about regulation again in a while.

[01:01:59] Yep.

[01:02:00] That's not something that's been.

[01:02:01] It's true.

[01:02:02] And I'm wondering if that's going to start to really start to come front and center again

[01:02:07] as a lot of these things come together.

[01:02:09] So I'm going to throw something at you, and I think that regarding the regulation, it's

[01:02:14] right now is issue.

[01:02:16] It's too controversial.

[01:02:17] We don't know enough, and it could just get in the way of the elections coming up.

[01:02:22] No, I agree.

[01:02:23] I agree.

[01:02:24] It could be noisy.

[01:02:25] Yeah.

[01:02:25] Yeah.

[01:02:26] The question is, do we hear more about it in, you know, late November, December, January

[01:02:30] could be a different thing, right?

[01:02:32] Could be.

[01:02:32] Yeah.

[01:02:32] Yeah.

[01:02:33] Let's kind of jump into sales and M&A.

[01:02:36] Tom, we're kind of running low on time.

[01:02:38] We'll move a little bit quicker.

[01:02:39] We published an article here from NAW.

[01:02:42] Good, nice, nice recap here of connecting and selling to the next generation customer in

[01:02:47] the skilled trades.

[01:02:48] So we talk a lot about, right, B2B buyers changing, B2B sellers changing.

[01:02:55] And this was a nice article talking about some of that as well.

[01:02:59] So it says 50% of skilled tradespeople retire in the next 10 years.

[01:03:05] And I think, you know, we talk about all the time, you know, about, I think it was Gartner

[01:03:12] that did research that said, was it 62% now B2B buyers are millennials.

[01:03:18] They just buy differently.

[01:03:19] So the event I've been at all week here in Chicago with wholesale distributors, we've talked

[01:03:23] about that consistently is, you know, your sales team right now might be 60% of them have,

[01:03:32] and this is, I'm going to say if I, I had this probably discussion 20 times this week.

[01:03:38] Your, your sales team or our employees in general right now might have a very long tenure with

[01:03:46] your company, which is historically very good for you.

[01:03:49] There's another side of that coin that it could be very bad for you if you're not prepared for

[01:03:54] what happens when they retire.

[01:03:57] Two, two factors of caution.

[01:03:59] Are they prepared to deal with your customer who's changing quickly?

[01:04:04] And you can tell me all day long that, you know, here in central Nebraska or wherever you

[01:04:08] at that, you know, no, our, our 62% of our buyers aren't millennials there.

[01:04:12] It's 22%.

[01:04:13] Okay.

[01:04:14] What's it going to be next month, next quarter, next year?

[01:04:18] Those numbers are going to start balancing out.

[01:04:20] They just have to write by just the overall thought of demographics in general.

[01:04:24] They have to.

[01:04:25] And the other side of that is guess what?

[01:04:28] When you grow or open a new branch and you need to hire, guess who's applying?

[01:04:34] You're not getting very, you know, a small percentage of the people applying are going

[01:04:39] to be your 50 or 60 year old.

[01:04:40] They're going to be the 22 to 40 year old and they want to be treated differently.

[01:04:47] They're the next gen customer.

[01:04:49] That's exactly right.

[01:04:50] And they're, they're really, if you're in a leadership role, you have two customers.

[01:04:54] You have your team and your employees and you have your customers that give you dollars

[01:04:58] and you're serving two masters in that setting.

[01:05:01] So kind of not thinking about this.

[01:05:03] And I was really happy to see NAW kind of jump ahead of this.

[01:05:06] I guess they're paying close attention to the things we talk about each week there,

[01:05:09] but they're, they've published this.

[01:05:11] So good, good, good stuff there.

[01:05:15] Next, an article from a success magazine or success.com born to sell the science behind

[01:05:20] adaptive learning and what it means for entrepreneurs.

[01:05:23] Any quick thoughts on that before we jump ahead?

[01:05:27] Yeah.

[01:05:27] I mean, they were, you know, they were talking a bit about, you know, sales being a bit genetic,

[01:05:31] right?

[01:05:32] Or, you know, your sales aptitude being a bit genetic and that, and that there's just certain

[01:05:38] behaviors that good salespeople do.

[01:05:41] The good news is, you know, it talked about it.

[01:05:43] Hey, if you, you know, did gave you some tips and stuff on what you could do to address that.

[01:05:46] Yeah.

[01:05:47] But it aligns with what we just talked about.

[01:05:49] A really good salesperson has the ability to adapt and understand what's going on with that

[01:05:54] customer and can learn very quickly and can then again, be that consultant, if you will.

[01:06:02] Right.

[01:06:02] For, you know, like we were just talking about.

[01:06:04] So yeah, I thought it was an interesting article and some, some good suggestions.

[01:06:08] Yeah.

[01:06:09] I liked what I liked about it as well as it gave, you know, five solid tips to talk about as well.

[01:06:14] Yeah.

[01:06:14] Right.

[01:06:14] So, and I really try and as we're, you know, curating the articles for this each week,

[01:06:23] I try and look for things that are like practical takeaways.

[01:06:28] And, and, you know, if you think about, you know, in public speaking, right, we, we talk

[01:06:32] about regularly that, you know, you need to tell people what you're going to tell them,

[01:06:36] then you tell them, and then you tell them what you told them.

[01:06:38] And the best way to do that is say, we're going to talk about these three topics or

[01:06:41] these four topics or whatever it is.

[01:06:43] And when the articles have these breakouts of like four or five key takeaways, I love those

[01:06:48] because they're, you know, they're, they're actionable and they're very helpful in that.

[01:06:53] So, um, that's, uh, that's good.

[01:06:56] So we're, we're jumping into kind of our ladder, one of our ladder sections here.

[01:06:59] People in leadership, uh, talks about a few mid-career and older workers use AI at work.

[01:07:05] Uh, it says that few do, I should say yet.

[01:07:08] And it says about 15% of us workers age 45 and older use artificial intelligence tools

[01:07:13] at work.

[01:07:14] And those who do are typically self-taught and use it frequently.

[01:07:18] However, right.

[01:07:19] Um, this is from HR dive.com.

[01:07:22] So we're going to see more and more shift.

[01:07:25] I think these statistics that we might read in an article that this, this weekend or this

[01:07:29] week are going to be very different in a few months.

[01:07:31] Sure.

[01:07:32] Yep.

[01:07:32] So, uh, another article from Harvard business review, pay for performance.

[01:07:37] Doesn't have to stress workers out.

[01:07:39] Good kind of conversation about paying for, you know, pay for performance and whether that's

[01:07:43] commission based or it's project based or different things like that results based perform,

[01:07:48] uh, uh, compensation.

[01:07:49] Good article there.

[01:07:51] Uh, finally one, uh, careers and retirement affected by worker financial insecurity.

[01:07:57] And this could have gone just as easily.

[01:08:00] This article again, from HR dive.com could have just as easily gone into our, uh, economy

[01:08:06] segment, right.

[01:08:07] Is, you know, I just want to hit on something, a couple of things real quick and then we can

[01:08:11] move on from here.

[01:08:12] One on that paper performance article.

[01:08:14] I think we're going to see more and more jobs have a paper performance element to it,

[01:08:20] especially again, as you introduce sort of AI into the equation and so forth.

[01:08:24] So I think that while it's not just going to be limited to salespeople or, or whatever,

[01:08:30] I think you're going to see more and more compensation be aligned towards performance over

[01:08:36] time, regardless of your role.

[01:08:37] Yeah.

[01:08:38] It's just a personal, a personal belief or a personal opinion.

[01:08:42] So I thought that article was good because, you know, it did point out that the stress often

[01:08:48] comes from the environment or the culture, if you will, that's created around that.

[01:08:52] So it does require you to create a culture to not make that a, a, somebody's just breathing

[01:08:57] down your throat, but I'm actually helping you to achieve that result.

[01:09:01] The second one here.

[01:09:02] Yeah.

[01:09:02] The one thing that jumped out at me on the, on the, uh, debt and finance, I think it did

[01:09:08] say five out of seven people live paycheck to paycheck.

[01:09:11] A crazy.

[01:09:12] Um, and that they don't really have any savings.

[01:09:16] I don't remember the exact, I mean, that's, again, that's what I said earlier.

[01:09:20] That is a situation that I believe is not talked about enough and mainly because it hasn't reared

[01:09:29] its head as a problem yet, but at some point it has to, right?

[01:09:33] There's, there's, at some point the cliff, the cliff comes at some point and, you know,

[01:09:39] you run out of credit cards.

[01:09:40] So if you're living paycheck to paycheck, any sort of extra cost or any sort of thing that

[01:09:45] you're going to do is going to have to go on credit.

[01:09:47] Yep.

[01:09:48] Or you're going to have to borrow.

[01:09:49] And guess what?

[01:09:51] That does, you've been talking about for a long time that, you know, that credit gets

[01:09:56] capped in, in, in so forth.

[01:09:57] And next thing we know, we've got an implosion there.

[01:10:01] Yes.

[01:10:02] So I don't know.

[01:10:03] And I, I guess that, I think it's one of the biggest issues.

[01:10:06] It could be, you just never know.

[01:10:08] It could take five years to materialize.

[01:10:11] I don't know, but I think it's the potential of this becoming one of the biggest issues

[01:10:15] in the next 12 and 2025 is a potential.

[01:10:19] I just.

[01:10:19] It's a lowering rate so people can pay that stuff off at a lower rate and pay it off faster,

[01:10:24] right?

[01:10:25] Yeah.

[01:10:25] I mean, that may help, but at some point.

[01:10:28] I'm not biased about getting rates down or anything, you know, don't.

[01:10:31] I mean, rates are definitely going to drop.

[01:10:33] There's no doubt about that.

[01:10:34] But you still have the credit cards and the payments and, you know, it's.

[01:10:38] The default on it is the issue, right?

[01:10:41] I mean, that's the, taking that discussion time, we just went back into our economy discussion

[01:10:46] here, which is just fine.

[01:10:47] But I think if you look at that, my thinking is it's only an issue if it's, if it's defaulting,

[01:10:53] right, outside of an individual.

[01:10:55] But if we had too many defaults, it impacts the economy on a broader impact, right?

[01:11:00] So I hate to see.

[01:11:00] And the defaults come because your monthly bills are so high.

[01:11:04] You're no different than our national debt, right?

[01:11:07] We're paying so much.

[01:11:09] Right.

[01:11:09] Yeah.

[01:11:10] That's why I brought up the issue of rates, right?

[01:11:11] If rates come down, then that guy that has, you know, all of that debt can probably make

[01:11:16] those payments and survive.

[01:11:18] Doesn't mean he's going to be putting any money in the bank, but he's not going to default

[01:11:22] and go bankrupt.

[01:11:23] And then we get too many of those credit defaults.

[01:11:25] And then we start having other trickle effects into the economy as a whole.

[01:11:28] It's like the old 2008 home crisis or financial crisis.

[01:11:33] So, yeah.

[01:11:35] But anyway, we were in the sales segment there though.

[01:11:38] And Bob brought it up that he says, everybody sells.

[01:11:40] If you convince your second significant other to go to dinner where you want to go, you've

[01:11:45] sold something.

[01:11:48] That's pretty funny.

[01:11:49] So sure.

[01:11:51] I don't know.

[01:11:52] Is that DNA dependent?

[01:11:53] I think it is to some degree.

[01:11:55] Yeah.

[01:11:56] That's interesting.

[01:11:56] Good.

[01:11:57] Yeah.

[01:11:57] Well, you know, there are, I think it's interesting, man.

[01:12:04] And this is, I should keep this for another day.

[01:12:08] I'm going to throw this out there.

[01:12:09] We'll talk about it another day.

[01:12:10] There's an argument that says that salespeople aren't born because there are people that are

[01:12:16] introverts that are amazing salespeople because mostly you hear, oh, you're an extrovert

[01:12:22] or you like to talk.

[01:12:23] I don't think that's the characteristic to that article.

[01:12:27] The extroversion is not the key characteristic.

[01:12:30] Exactly right.

[01:12:30] It's can you build the skill set?

[01:12:32] So I don't know that it's DNA dependent, but let's, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's,

[01:12:37] Bob made that comment.

[01:12:38] Don't forget this discussion.

[01:12:40] Bring it up again when you're with us, Tom, let's talk about this again another day, a little

[01:12:44] bit further because we're kind of winding down.

[01:12:46] We don't want to keep everybody here all day.

[01:12:47] We've got our industry scuttlebutt section.

[01:12:49] A couple of good M&A discussions there is, is helpful.

[01:12:55] Let's kind of bump to the last couple here, Tom, that we've got.

[01:12:59] So I have a question.

[01:13:00] Who does a press release when they unveil a new logo?

[01:13:05] Let's see.

[01:13:06] Lots and lots and lots of people because we see it constantly.

[01:13:10] With a new logo or just overall branding?

[01:13:12] Dakota, the supply group just did a whole thing, right?

[01:13:16] Nahead is doing it here.

[01:13:18] The National Association of Hose Accessories Distributors, so forth.

[01:13:21] So lots and lots of folks.

[01:13:24] Maybe in this arena of wholesale distribution manufacturing, but anytime you can get somebody

[01:13:31] looking at your brand and your logo is a good thing, right?

[01:13:34] Okay.

[01:13:35] I could see it anyway.

[01:13:36] It was funny to me.

[01:13:38] It's like, is that press worthy as a new logo?

[01:13:41] I could see a whole new branding like DSG did, but that to me was a little funny.

[01:13:47] All right.

[01:13:47] Well, there was a little more to it in the article.

[01:13:49] Yeah.

[01:13:50] Yeah, yeah.

[01:13:50] So anyways, we have a good read, what we call a good reads section every week.

[01:13:56] And this week, sometimes it's about leadership.

[01:13:59] Sometimes it's about health or personal development or whatever.

[01:14:02] This was an article about giving performance reviews and how to be, how it says, how to be

[01:14:06] a boss at giving performance reviews.

[01:14:08] So if you are a leader and you're running a team and you've got to do reviews, a good

[01:14:13] article to check there.

[01:14:14] And then we also have a segment as we close out each week in the newsletter called A Second

[01:14:18] Look.

[01:14:18] Um, and I mentioned earlier today that, uh, there was a modern distribution management

[01:14:24] did a nice podcast about unraveling what's going on with the port strikes.

[01:14:28] I've only listened to a portion of it.

[01:14:30] I'm going to try and listen to the rest of it today, but it's, uh, Eric Hoplin, who,

[01:14:33] uh, is the CEO of the National Association of Wholesalers.

[01:14:37] He's been on TV three or four times in the last few weeks related to the port strike,

[01:14:42] sharing some thoughts and opinions on what's going on there.

[01:14:44] So good stuff.

[01:14:45] Hey, Tom, uh, the one last thing we show, show,

[01:14:48] the newsletter again, we just, let's look at the calendar real quick.

[01:14:51] We, uh, we share a calendar each week.

[01:14:53] We try and pull information ourselves.

[01:14:55] The folks at, uh, MDM do a nice job and others about posting a calendar, but we've got, um,

[01:15:02] uh, affiliated distributors, industrial and safety division meeting starts Monday here

[01:15:07] in Chicago.

[01:15:07] Uh, I happen to be on the 11th floor of the hotel that that's taking place in.

[01:15:13] Um, and EW has an event going on this week.

[01:15:17] And then as does, uh, next week is, uh, power and transmission distributors association does.

[01:15:23] But then another great event that's coming up is net plus Alliance has their annual meeting.

[01:15:28] We're both going to be in town for that.

[01:15:30] That's in San Antonio, the 27th through the 29th.

[01:15:33] I've been, uh, uh, very appreciative of the opportunity to speak on one of the panels on

[01:15:38] technology there.

[01:15:39] And then I'll be, uh, back in town here in Chicago, the, uh, around the 30th of the month,

[01:15:44] the last week of the month, uh, affiliated distributors having their electrical division

[01:15:48] event and lots and lots going on still, uh, this year with plenty of events.

[01:15:53] When you look at that calendar, I look at that Tom was like, man, I'd like to be at like two

[01:15:59] thirds of those.

[01:16:00] I'd like to be at them, but I also like to be home occasionally.

[01:16:05] So Q4 is a travel, travel quarter.

[01:16:09] Yeah.

[01:16:09] You know, I was talking to my older sister about that the other day and she goes, I've

[01:16:12] just noticed this pattern in the last couple of years that you're just gone in Q4.

[01:16:17] So, um, that's the case.

[01:16:20] Yep.

[01:16:20] All right, my friend, what did we miss today?

[01:16:23] I think we covered pretty much everything.

[01:16:25] All right.

[01:16:26] Well, great comments today.

[01:16:27] Great feedback as always from some good, good folks.

[01:16:30] We've got, uh, quite a few guests coming in the near future.

[01:16:34] Uh, Lily's, uh, working with me on getting that all lined up.

[01:16:37] I had a great conversation earlier this week with, uh, Justin Dunscum, who's the president

[01:16:43] of one of AD's plumbing divisions, and he's going to join us soon.

[01:16:46] And we've got quite a few folks lined up, uh, that'll be coming the latter part of this

[01:16:50] year.

[01:16:50] And then we kind of briefly talked about some additional shows that we'll do next year with

[01:16:57] a little different format as well.

[01:16:58] So good stuff.

[01:17:00] I'm, uh, looking forward to a nice weekend here in Chicago.

[01:17:02] It's sunny out and right over there is the Wrigley building and, and, um, Chicago river.

[01:17:08] So Mrs. Brown and I are going to spend a few days here and have some fun and back to work,

[01:17:12] back to work on Monday morning here.

[01:17:14] So Tom, I'll wish you well.

[01:17:17] Uh, we thank everybody for coming as we do every week.

[01:17:20] Again, I'm Kevin Brown.

[01:17:21] This is my, my friend and business partner, Tom Burton.

[01:17:24] We get together every week to talk about the news of the world and how it impacts wholesale

[01:17:28] distribution.

[01:17:29] Again, final reminder, if you're listening on the podcast and not seeing us live, uh, ask us

[01:17:35] for the, I've just opened my email and there's two or three requests today for additional

[01:17:40] folks that would like the newsletter.

[01:17:41] We're appreciative of those.

[01:17:42] If you'd like that newsletter, just reach out and let us know.

[01:17:45] You can reach us at hello at lead smart tech.com, uh, or at, uh, reach us at www.aroundthehornpod.com.

[01:17:53] All of our past episodes are there.

[01:17:55] You can click a link to get, uh, uh, to Apple or Spotify or whatever format.

[01:18:00] Well, we always do like to ask those two things.

[01:18:03] Uh, first off is that we couldn't do this if we didn't have the sponsorship of the company

[01:18:08] that Tom and I work for, uh, taking care of the bills that go with having our show.

[01:18:13] And, uh, so if you are interested in accelerating the technological advancement or growth of your

[01:18:18] company and accelerating the growth of your company through technology, uh, Tom and I work

[01:18:23] for a company, lead smart technologies, and we help wholesale distributors and manufacturers

[01:18:28] accelerate growth by using technology and understand their customers, their teams, and their

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[01:18:34] So if you'd like to have a conversation about that, that please reach out.

[01:18:37] The other part of it is, um, we get great compliments about the show, which we're so

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[01:19:18] That's it for me, Tom.

[01:19:20] All right.

[01:19:21] Sounds good.

[01:19:21] Go Dodgers.

[01:19:23] Go Dodgers.

[01:19:24] That's right.

[01:19:25] That's, that's bring on the Yanks.

[01:19:27] One more game, one more game to the world series.

[01:19:29] So bring on, bring on what's likely the Yankees then.

[01:19:31] Right.

[01:19:32] So, so we'll, I'd rather have the, I'd rather, I almost call them the Indians that I'd rather

[01:19:37] have the guardians or as they're called now.

[01:19:40] And good luck with that.

[01:19:41] Yeah.

[01:19:42] Good luck with that.

[01:19:43] Exactly.

[01:19:44] Not as likely as my, my rate cut bet.

[01:19:46] So, all right.

[01:19:47] Have a good weekend.

[01:19:48] That was a great, great reference point in acknowledgement of what will be happening soon.

[01:19:53] So, uh, we're just got to decide, are we going to, to A's Steakhouse in Newport or Solani's

[01:19:59] and Laguna?

[01:20:00] That's the, okay.

[01:20:01] All right.

[01:20:01] That's the question, but I'm going to leave that up to you.

[01:20:04] Hey, everybody have a great weekend.

[01:20:05] Thank you for being with us.

[01:20:06] Be kind, be safe, do good things.

[01:20:08] And we'll see you next week.

[01:20:09] Have a good weekend.

[01:20:15] We hope you enjoyed today's episode and our guests.

[01:20:18] Each week we try our best to dig into the topics that are impacting your business.

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[01:20:28] you'd like for us to tackle or talk about more often and even guests you'd like to see

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[01:21:07] Thank you.