The Effect of Amazon’s Reclassification and Lower Inflation on B2B eComm

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

[00:00:16] and dive deep into the topics impacting manufacturers, Wholesale Distribution, Independent Sales agents, and the global Wholesale Supply Chain. Whether it's Amazons, Sass and Cloud Computing, B2B eCommerce or Supply Chain Issues, we peel back the onion with our guests into the topics that impact your business the most.

[00:00:37] Good morning. It's happening. Not much I feel like we're empty nesters here compared to last week. I'm thinking about that, thinking about that preparing yesterday and further this morning for today's show. It's just us. Yeah. Oh my word, what's going to happen?

[00:00:56] I think we need to go back to the eight or ten guests every week. Yeah. I'd say it's nice to have a first little comment on the day from Marty who was with us last week on the show.

[00:01:10] And for those of you that don't know what we're talking about is today is episode 101 of Around The Horn and Wholesale Distribution, and last week we celebrated number 100 with just. Wholesale's guest, Black Down. Yeah. So I guess I wasn't Dan.

[00:01:30] I kind of had my arm going but I wasn't quite Dan's and sorry. But yeah, what ensemble I guess we had last week we had the seven guests plus two of us. Our producer and editor, John Taylor was with his line as well.

[00:01:46] Now it's just two old slogs here. I was talking again today, but I've got quite a few guests lined up for the rest of the year. It's going to be a good year of guests coming. So but boy last week was your fun. Wasn't it?

[00:01:59] Yeah and I'm in the newsletter at the bottom. We'll talk about it. I put the link to the replay in there. It's cool to watch the LinkedIn replay because you see all the comments and stuff as they kind of lie as well.

[00:02:11] So I think it's well worth looking at and just watching the LinkedIn. So I put the link to the LinkedIn real good at the bottom. Yeah, that's had a lot of additional comments I think on that as well.

[00:02:23] So you know Tom why don't we kind of dive in? We can reference back to that and tell people why we're here. So I'm coming brown and here with my co-founder of our company lead smart technologies Tom Burton and lifelong friend. It's been years and years.

[00:02:36] We've been together as friends and we're going to get together for the last four or five years now. And we get together every Friday morning on LinkedIn live YouTube live and Facebook live.

[00:02:47] And then later in the day I'll pop up with our podcast formats and we talk about what's happening in the global economy, US economy. Labor markets supply chain issues, mergers and acquisitions, sales, marketing, people, leadership.

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[00:05:35] So we started to talk about the economy and supply chain.

[00:05:39] Oh boy, man, what a the another week. I say I sent you a text earlier in the week and I said I'm what did I say if that there was a 60% chance we might see a cut this week.

[00:05:53] Yeah, but yeah didn't see it. I'm sure you were happy about that and I was open to see it just so I could throw a picture of a around the horn logo on LinkedIn post and then a stake underneath it.

[00:06:08] Yeah, it was interesting because you know there's there's some challenges right now and I want your take on this as well as anybody that's listening but you know we're at a very precarious place right now.

[00:06:21] I would say, you know the fed right now is at the risk of hero or zero and there's some big challenges right now because if they wait too long we could get into a real pickle and I think everybody that consensus is

[00:06:37] sort of in this stock market is bacon stuff and already that it's time.

[00:06:42] Boy, I flip on CNBC oftentimes time at lunchtime and listen to the economic news and what was it Wednesday when Carlos talking there was the consensus of the guests that they had was we should have cut.

[00:06:58] So it's interesting timing obviously everybody's got an opinion but what are your thoughts? Yeah, my thoughts are that the fed has very little that they can do about what happens going forward.

[00:07:10] So even if they were to cut multiple times between now and the end of the year I don't think that that's going to have much of an impact as to whether or not we get that quote unquote soft landing is they're knocking about in the article right or that we avoid a slowdown.

[00:07:27] I think that's what's happening on the slowdown and.

[00:07:31] And let's look, there's not a lot of data out there but so you have to kind of piece together the pieces of the puzzle and trying to see what's happening but if you really start to look right we've talked about this for.

[00:07:44] Months is the whole consumer debt situation. And I think the consumer debt situation I don't like think it's clear from the data is catching up and consumers are basically saturated right they don't have any more places to spend.

[00:07:59] Their credit cards are filled up they've you know eaten up their savings we meet up our savings right things like that so there's just not a lot of dry powder in the consumer world it's there.

[00:08:10] The consumer as we know drives a lot of the economic growth one way or the other.

[00:08:15] That that may be in helped a little bit by a rate cut because your interest rates on your credit cards and so forth are but I don't think that changes the fact that do you have more dry powder to go spend. As a consumer all that much.

[00:08:28] I also think some of the hiring things that we're seeing is not necessarily directly related to business slowdown I think there's a lot of.

[00:08:36] Trepidation on hiring because of well should I be hiring should I wait to see how a I plays out I think there's a lot of.

[00:08:44] Questions that companies are asking before they're making a hire and I don't think it's directly related to hey we don't have the money or the budget or whatever on those two things happening you know so. Yeah it.

[00:08:57] It will be interesting to see I just don't think there's a direct correlation that is going to exist between the fed cutting rates and whether or not we have a slowdown or a soft landing I don't think there's a lot of.

[00:09:10] Interrelationship there's some impact or influence I'm not saying they're completely independent but they're not directly in my opinion directly correlated. It's an interesting thought I mean that there's a common in here from one of the economists in this article this was a writer's article.

[00:09:28] That talked about soft landings don't materialize from waiting to more and you know and inside that with to me was kind of intriguing I think we're at a place. I think more I think about it and look at and kind of listen to some of the arguments.

[00:09:47] I don't think a quarter point.

[00:09:50] Cut this week would have been a bad idea I think it would have signal something right and I and again we we have to say this every week either of us just I don't know about you I took two economics classes in college I think is what what I took and.

[00:10:07] I think the reality out of this is that. You know a quarter a quarter of a pointer 250 basis points is not going to change things for the negative.

[00:10:20] As much as it could change things for the positive I think what that would be signaling is hey we the from the fed is hey we see.

[00:10:30] And acknowledge kind of with the stock market is already baking in and what can sentiment of people is in general of expecting that let's start something and see what happens because I don't I don't see that you know that.

[00:10:43] And so I think that's a quarter of a percent cut even if things took back up slightly is going to have that big of a difference. I tend to agree I don't think it's going to have that big of a it may have more of an emotional.

[00:10:58] And actually real impact but um. You know clearly there I think that if there's anything that they're concerned about is the last thing that they want to do is cut and then go Oh crap now we got a raise again. Right so that.

[00:11:15] And clearly there must be some. Idea or some percentage of op you know percentage probability that that may happen in their minds that's you know again we don't we're not at the meetings we don't have all the insight but.

[00:11:27] There must be some of that in there but yeah I think it could have had a bit of an emotional positive impact. Yeah I just you know there's a quote in here it said Mark and observers have recently questioned whether the Fed has left rates.

[00:11:42] I've elevated levels for too long potentially hurting the chances of pulling off the soft landing or lowers inflation without badly hurting growth and so.

[00:11:52] There's a there's a pretty pretty big issues at risk right now with with waiting too long and that my point my guess my point is with that is look if if the.

[00:12:05] Great send up going from five and a half to five and a quarter between five and five and a quarter versus five and a quarter and five and a half.

[00:12:14] Does that change that much in the economy probably not you know and so to start this might be process might be good with the idea of finding that balancing level because as a sort of go talk about you see more and more in the news is there's a risk of waiting too long and there's.

[00:12:32] Significant damage it can come out of waiting too long so yeah and in my point I just don't think that's a I don't think that's a factor.

[00:12:39] I don't think that the waiting too long or even the volume or the degree that they're cutting is going to make a difference one way or the other is to whether or not.

[00:12:49] We have a soft landing or recession or whatever I think we're passed in my opinion we're passed that point and it's other factors it's other dynamics other than the interest rates that are determining whether or not. We're going to have economic growth and slender.

[00:13:03] Well, the and the risk right is the big recessionary risk of the other other extreme and that's what we're worrying about right is is what happens all of this and I think.

[00:13:13] What we need to find a way is to get into your point earlier you know and you've been saying this forever is you know the consumer still spending right well now that's flattening out because they're tapped out right.

[00:13:27] We've got that happening and we've got super high rates and we have the risk on the other side of it and it's probably time you know will quit and comments here one cut his hashtag one cut in 24 which you know you might you will you just pick sides to.

[00:13:48] I do think the longer they wait unless we see because we're seeing good news right within the labor market and we've been seeing week after week or single news. I think the longer that they wait, the more pressure there's going to be to do.

[00:14:08] Maybe even half a point cuts versus a quarter point cut and multiple of them this year so we'll see you know the jury still out when it's been all day on this but it's I believe it's time.

[00:14:21] Okay, but I think for sure we will see one in September not for sure. I think high probability we will see one in September bar in any strange data between now and then.

[00:14:32] What I don't know is what will happen after that. I think that if they move too quickly they could spook the market as well because then they're like well wait a minute we are in a recession or we are to you know it's there's a lot of a lot of.

[00:14:45] I think that's a lot of the time, but it's a lot of. But anyway, I just don't think overall at a macro level in my opinion whether they cut two points or five points or cut it in half or whatever is going to have that much

[00:15:03] difference as to whether or not we have growth or we have a recession or a slowdown in 2025. You don't think taking... Wait a minute. Let's pause on that for a second. I want to make sure you understand. So your suggestion is if we went from rates

[00:15:18] at five and a quarter down to three and a quarter, you don't think that that would stimulate the economy in a significant way? I don't think it would change the situation we have right now. It doesn't change the consumer situation of being tapped out.

[00:15:31] It doesn't change the job market situation in some of the trepidation that exists there. I mean, it might help some of like we talked about last week on the show. It might help some of the businesses were in.

[00:15:41] I can't believe that the rates are a lot of spending in a business lot of time. I think as we said last week, I think in certain verticals of the test. But I think overall at a macro level, I don't think it makes much difference.

[00:15:51] So maybe we're spending too much time on this all as you want more question about that. Because I'm intrigued, right? And I wouldn't argue what you're saying. But what comes to my mind related to that is, you know, and... What you think about in the youth

[00:16:07] to think you used the word tapped out earlier, right? Is savings has gone for the average, for many consumers. Credit card levels are very high, right? But if you took one or two percentage out of that, that frees up cash for that individual.

[00:16:24] And that individual that's in that spot is probably there because of two reasons. One is they're overextended or two. They're spenders in general. And if the spenders in general that, they're going to spend that money that's going to be right back in the month.

[00:16:39] But it's not going to be that much, right? I mean, if you look at credit card interest rates, which are sometimes 20% 25% depending upon where you are. I mean, I have decent credit in the credit cards we have, I think, are 20% or somewhere around around.

[00:16:54] So even if there's a rate cut, you're not going to see a massive difference. You might see it go down to 18% or 17% or whatever. You're still going to have high interest rates on consumer debt. It's probably going to take a while to trickle through

[00:17:08] some of the other things that are there. So I just don't think it's going to have that much of a overall impact. I think we're past that. Okay. That's all. And I do agree that in certain verticals, like we talked about last week on the show for sure,

[00:17:23] there will definitely be some impacts. But at a macro level, I don't think it's going to be a catalyst one way or the other as to whether or not we end up in recession or we end up in a growing economy. Overall. Fair enough.

[00:17:35] So, well, we'll do my hope is when we do our year in review and January. Hopefully we can get some of those esteemed guests from last week back with us again. My hope is that we have a lot to talk about in what's going on in the economy.

[00:17:52] Hopefully, we're checking along like we're supposed to be and we've seen some cuts. Well, I think it's probably the most confusing economic environment that I've witnessed in my lifetime. Yeah, I can't remember anything like this. Yeah. And I do think that the job market,

[00:18:12] which is what causes stock market to drop today, right? The low job thing is I said, I don't believe that is entirely or even really driven based around the, hey, we're just not, well, well, we got to stop spending money. I just think there's trepidation on how

[00:18:29] companies are thinking, how they're going to use resources and resources they really need. And, you know, do I make that big step in hiring? Or do I still wait and see as AI or other, you know, optimization efficiency tools going to

[00:18:42] allow them to not have to make that hire. So that's a, we've never really had that scenario, if you will, right? That were, that were struggling with. So there's a lot of dynamics. In your story, you can use it. Yeah. Well, and it's, you know, it's frustrating is,

[00:18:59] you know, we've used the term in this discussion there we could discuss in here forever. We've talked about this simmering, right? We got pickups up, send-downs but we don't have any nice consistent movement in any one direction. And that's, you know, obviously we're,

[00:19:16] we're doing okay right now with it that way. And I think that's what the feds looking at. But you mentioned that the job and the report that came out this game. And, you know, that was interesting because, you know, talked about this was from,

[00:19:30] I don't know what the market's doing right now. But the NASDAQ and fall of 10% after disappointing jobs report. And it's interesting because they call it, I'm just going to quote from this. It says US stocks tumble across the board.

[00:19:42] I'm Friday after the July jobs report showed more cooling in the labor market. Fueling concern if the federal reserve's higher for longer interest rate stands might end in recession. So I think that goes back to, do I?

[00:19:55] I think there's a lot of lobbying that's going to go on and says, So it's all the feds fault. It's the feds fault. It's the feds fault. I just don't believe that to be entirely true, right? That's an easy way out of it going,

[00:20:08] oh, it's the feds fault. They should have cut sooner. There's a lot more, a lot more to it. I think there is, but I think what you're, you know, what was it? Was it Bernanke the head, the feds share that had the debacle?

[00:20:23] Trying to remember which one of the feds shares had the huge debacle in the 80s. And early 90s. And things early 90s. And I think there's a lot of this that Pal is trying to avoid that. And I used the term earlier today, Hero or Zero.

[00:20:38] And I think you got to be careful. You know, I think the pressure is getting really hot. And, you know, he can say all he wants. And at your point right, if he get everybody's at a space spot now,

[00:20:53] I think one of the articles I was reading earlier today said, consensus in Wall Street was 87% of the survey was definitely a cut in September and maybe as much as a half a point. I think there's, Pal can say all day long,

[00:21:09] you know, that they're not impacted by, you know, the elections or whatever it is. You got to know that there's one side of the aisle right now it's pressing for, you know, there's nothing worse that could happen to the sitting president right now.

[00:21:25] And the Democratic Party then for us to dip into a or sessionary stand, you know, state in, you know, September October. I mean nothing worse. I don't know. Good happen to that. So I think there is quite a bit of pressure. So let's see what,

[00:21:41] let's see what late September holds, I guess. Yeah, and I'll hit Will's comment. Then we'll move on here. I think, you know, this isn't something we've talked a lot about that he says the biggest spending, biggest issue is overspending putting the country further in debt.

[00:21:54] We now pay more to service and national debt as we do on national defense. Right. I mean, over what a third of the GDP is government spending. Yeah. And you know, that's an area as well that it isn't getting talked a lot about, right?

[00:22:08] But it is a situation as well, which is completely, won't say completely different. It's different than the consumer get situation. But it's still a situation of overspending. Right. And something we'll plug real quick to tell him.

[00:22:21] Sorry, I'll plug real quick when the other podcast that you and I, it's probably my second favorite podcast besides just wonderful. What? And that's the all-in podcast. And that's, you know, some technology executives. You could just put it in like, former Google, former Facebook, former Yammer, Microsoft,

[00:22:45] executives that come together each week and they talk about the economy. And talk about without the spin on also just recently talking about a lot of what we do. But there's a big discussion there consistently about the debt. And you know,

[00:22:58] that may be something we should talk about a little bit more. But today we need to move on because we've talked about it. If we don't move on, we're going to be here to like lunchtime. So yeah, I don't have time for that today. But before we do,

[00:23:09] let's just talk quickly about that article we have posted here about the panic on canal. It's raining earlier, you know, we talked in this segment that we talked about the economy which I've got supply chain. But we've been talking very consistently for the last,

[00:23:23] probably year and a half now, but the issue with the Panama Canal and the drought 2023 was the driest year on record of third driest year on record in Panama. And so you've got the lake on the other side of that lower the Panama Canal,

[00:23:39] less water than the commubless ships through it on a canal. And so the ship's through it on a consistent basis with that and it has slowed things down dramatically. This article just talks about lakes rising and with the lake rising,

[00:23:50] they're able to move a few extra ships a day through it. And as I first read this, I was thinking, well, you know, what's the difference? I think they said they're moving to 36 vessels from 34 vessels a day.

[00:24:01] And the trigger means I looked it up and what at top level, top level is like 36 to 40. I can't do more than that. But then I started thinking about it a little bit, man, what is that? I mean, that's such a small increase.

[00:24:16] But only you stop and think about it that some of the container ships are carrying 20,000 containers. Right? You move, in this case, just two more ships a day through, right? You could have 40,000 additional containers. And that is significant, right? That are moving from,

[00:24:34] and that's how Asian stuff is getting to east coast to the US and one of the routes to Europe as well. And with the issues in the Suez Canal, those two ships are those 30 to 40,000 containers that may become very impactful. Do you know what the maximum of is?

[00:24:50] If everything was all back to normal, what is there? Yeah, I looked at it. I just wanted to 40. Okay, yeah. So we're getting close. It's not, you know. Yeah, no, no. But it's, but what triggered for me

[00:25:01] on that time was the idea that it's less about the number of ships and more about what's on the upgrade. Right? And it just astounds me when you start thinking about 40 foot containers that see on the back with truck going down the street that you could put 20,000,

[00:25:19] some containerships can actually carry more than that. You could 20,000 of those on one ship. And then you start thinking about the electrical wires, the connectors, the valves that are going to, you know, the raw materials that are going to be capturing the capturing plant that, the, the, the,

[00:25:39] um, dust masks that are private labeled by a distributor in Minnesota or whatever it might be. The amount of those things that are going through that are impacting manufacturers of wholesale distributors, you know, a thousand, 10,000 containers have great magnitude to it. You know, so anyways,

[00:25:59] we're going to continue to watch this one of the issues that we're going to be doing right now, that we're still going to be paying very close attention to is in September is we have, um, uh, the, we're with a name of the labor union.

[00:26:13] But the Gulf Coast and East Coast of the US's, um, Fort workers are threatening to go on strike. That's not been alleviated yet. Hopefully that doesn't happen because when you put, uh, a strike in those areas can have a major impact on getting goods

[00:26:31] and烏rust through to wholesale distribution of manufacturing. So we're going to migrate south. Yeah, manufacturing distribution. We could talk briefly they article that we posted today. Here was related to Chinese manufacturing activities seem to client extending the decline in July. Previous declines

[00:26:50] they were starting to talk about earinding on showy other countries and things moving to Southeast Asia versus China. So this is kind of interesting, interesting, they're tying in this article. I don't know if you cut that, but they're

[00:27:04] tying a lot of this what's going on with the struggles that they're having to address. They say the article quotes depressed domestic consumption is closely related to follow property values that have left families feeling poor as 70% of household wealth

[00:27:20] is in real estate and they're really struggling. So that's on their consumption of things. Internally as people aren't spending money because 70% of their wealth is tied into their house and their markets crashing. Well, and it also says job insecurity, right? And I

[00:27:37] would suspect that job insecurity is very high amongst, you know, and what is a Chinese new year? Use the Februaryage. Yeah, it's usually February, right? And that's when everybody goes away for a month and sometimes they come back and sometimes they don't turn whatever. Yeah, that's your exact

[00:27:56] right with that. And that's going to be impacted on this by the sourcing thing as well. To do an impact what you were just saying they're just slightly about that people coming back

[00:28:05] or not? Yeah, I just think if there's job insecurity, right? People are, you know, just like anything else, they're going to be nervous about spending and your wealth factor and that doesn't help the situation

[00:28:17] either. Yeah. Well, it's interesting. There's a, I'll call it a global phenomenon of Chinese new year that happens. And if you're on the manufacturer distribution side, you, you know, for a lot of years, you'll have, have felt this is that you come into the, into our into what,

[00:28:34] we're already into the new year. We have Chinese new year and basically manufacturing shuts down for minimum of two weeks, oftentimes as much of a month, which gives people an opportunity to get

[00:28:46] on a train or a bus and go the 20 hour ride back to the province that they're originally from. And if you're a factory worker at Penny's a day and you're having dinner with your cousin

[00:28:58] over Chinese new year and your cousin says, I make two pennies more a day than you do. Three provinces away, you're not even showing up back at your job. You're just going to that job,

[00:29:09] hoping to get a spot there. And I, you know, my experience in manufacturing distribution both. I've been impacted by this significantly. It's a work with the, the manufacturing company, the, the local to electrical world and electronics world as well a while back. And it was a

[00:29:26] huge factor that we had the plan for. And then imagine if you're the guy running that plant, but it says maybe 10% of your work force isn't coming back after Chinese new year. So,

[00:29:37] big impact with these things. I do think this is just part of our ongoing discussion, though, about as we talk about this as much will what happens with, you know, we've been watching for years.

[00:29:47] Now, things moving at some level from, you've got some electronics. A lot of glove, latex and nitro gloves. You've been kind of always been at some level in Southeast Asia, but a lot of other things moving into Vietnam and Lousen, Thailand and then across the

[00:30:03] Philippines as well. And I think we're going to see more of that. And then we've been talking consistently on this show about Mexico and Latin America and near shoreing there. So I think Green

[00:30:14] is, I think, I think, right as unfortunately got a real problem. Well, they do. And the other side of that is all the geopolitical pressure that goes down right now related to Taiwan and so

[00:30:23] tariffs and everything else that go along with it. Exactly. Right point about the tariffs. So all right, jumping ahead of you, comrades, and our marketing section, you want to jump in on that

[00:30:33] get us started on that one? Yeah, I mean, I found this interesting we were chatting about this earlier. Amazon is responsible now responsible for hazardous items sold by third-party sellers because they've been basically deemed as a distributor. And so, again, you know much more about this

[00:30:52] than I do but what it looks like to me is if you're deemed as a quote unquote distributor, then you are responsible for items that need recall or have faulty items or whatever as the distributor versus the manufacturer of those items. Well, and typically the distributor in the

[00:31:12] world that we talk to the most, the distributors going back to the manufacturer on those settings but they've got to play a role in this. Sure. What Amazon has been avoiding is through all of this

[00:31:26] is they've been showing themselves as a e-commerce provider and not a distributor. And now what the consumer product safety commission is says, no, no, you can't, you can't just shuffle this off,

[00:31:38] you play a role in this and you have to play a role in solving these problems as well. And so what is the protocol between an e-commerce provider and a distributor? Is there some

[00:31:51] I don't know exactly how that's worked historically but I think Amazon has just been kind of trying to watch their hands of all artists. And of course they've already said they're going to appeal

[00:32:01] all of this but I think you're going to see a lot of pressure from a lot of places that are going to make people rethink, because this was tied to, you know, it's this ruling says that they're

[00:32:11] going to be responsible legally for the recall of more than 400,000 products for the hair dryers and effective carbon monoxide detectors just that they've been involved with. You know, it doesn't mean that they're having to bear all the burdens of replacing the product.

[00:32:31] At the manufacturer, the manufacturer's still going to be involved right? I don't know if they have to handle the logistics, right? And which is right. And now the exact right, which is part

[00:32:38] of what happens, right? If you sell a power tool or whatever it is now and you're, you know, Joe's tool and equipment and you know, you know, Balexie, Mississippi, you've always been saddled with that and been participating in that process. And what's interesting about this is

[00:32:55] it's kind of frustrating is it's just the right thing to do, you know, it's to be part of the solution for your customer with this. So it's interesting how this is going to play out. They

[00:33:08] they just I think they want to stay away from getting saddled with that term distributor because no, I totally get it. I don't know this but my assumption is there are some other tax implications

[00:33:18] and some other things that go with that. I think there's a bigger issue and it's why we come together each week is, you know, we use the term I think in the intro to the podcast, the recording

[00:33:30] and John does for us is, you know, we talk about peeling back the onion. If you peel back the onion on this one, this one's kind of intriguing and interesting to me from a standpoint that we've talked

[00:33:39] about this before, you know, when Amazon supply started, now Amazon business, when Amazon supply started, they basically said, look, we're going after the Rangers of the world because I think the number was at the time. I think Granger was doing three billion through E-commerce and obviously

[00:33:59] that's a place in Amazon says, and I'll share this again. I've shared it before. I was having dinner, I've remember the restaurant and the event and so forth and who was there. Seven dinner with a couple of Amazon executives, one middle management, one upper middle

[00:34:15] management and it turned out we've got that particular bit my wife was with us and I think during an invention something about the breadth of what they sell and I asked them based upon

[00:34:28] that discussion kind of something along the lines of, you know, well, what wouldn't you sell or something like that? An executive's response was, you know, I think it was if it's legal and I think you said

[00:34:39] reasonably moral and can go in a box, we'll sell it. And so when you take that mindset and then you look at the logistics network of Amazon to say, well, well, why wouldn't I sell power tools

[00:34:54] and why wouldn't I sell x, y, and z, right? In that case. And so that's what they've done. I didn't want to hit Tom but I'm going to pause here for saying you want to hit Jason's

[00:35:05] comment. I really appreciate this in Jason's an e-commerce expert out there that really speaks well this. This is just putting Amazon at the same standard as Trudeau of distribution.

[00:35:16] Right, so Jason's somebody that we want to get as a guest to come with us later this year. We just recently met through LinkedIn but to appreciate those comments. But when Amazon went down this path,

[00:35:26] what they were basically doing is saying I'm going to sell the same stuff that you sell in your brick and mortar with all of your people out there, whether it's a Milwaukee Tool or a 3M

[00:35:36] respirator and I'm going to sell it in my format on my e-commerce platform. And and I'm going to go after your customers everywhere you're at. Most distributors have seen that as a huge threat.

[00:35:50] There's a lot of them that you know I remember being in a a trade a buying group's meeting last fall. I don't know if you were with me at the event. I don't know if you were in this session.

[00:35:59] But two distributors up there that both do e-commerce. One of them embraces Amazon by being partnered with Amazon and the other one looks at Amazon as the devil. But what I think has happened

[00:36:10] that manufacturers have had to look at over the last I'll say 10 plus years is look, Amazon is just another distributor. There are another resource for distribution that end users are going to buy from.

[00:36:23] The five is a manufacturer. I'd really be looking at this as a great thing to them be categorized that way because now when my distributors who hate Amazon want to put pressure on me as a manufacturer

[00:36:35] why do I sell for Amazon and you're ruining the marketplace and so forth we've got this balancing act. And the end of the day right and I'd love Jason's thoughts on this further is you know Amazon is here.

[00:36:45] Amazon's here to stay we've got Brian back to join this occasionally from and see about you know they work with Amazon's on their Amazon presence. I wish I'd saved the information Brian since some information at his news letter this week about their manufacturing clients present

[00:37:02] on Amazon the growth that they had with Brian. But I think this is going to help later the level and the playing field a little bit as the hope right that's the take of it seems to me I mean

[00:37:14] his Amazon being cat classified as a distributor would not be the same as Zoro isn't Zoro classified it would be classified as a distributor. Well 100% in Zoro's part of Granger and that's right. Now you're stuck right. Yeah absolutely yeah anyway. I don't think Zoro's hiding for anything.

[00:37:32] That's right. So I think Jason's right I think the rule in just holds Amazon of the same standards and I think it's a good thing I think it's going to cost them some

[00:37:42] so but think you know some dollars and some right effort but I don't think it's a bad thing. I mentioned you we talked about this briefly ahead of time I don't think anybody's with us

[00:37:51] from any W today but I think I might throw this question out to some of our friends at the Amazon Association of Wholesale distributors as you know their view on this because to Jason's point

[00:38:00] again I think anything we can do to get this playing field balanced will be beneficial to wholesale distribution of the infection so it's good stuff. All right tax-regs states I eat commerce delivery

[00:38:13] fees to fund road repair. Well not surprising right how do we try again in somebody else's pocket is quick as we can but an interesting article this was uh rotors articles as well and

[00:38:29] it just there's states that are doing this already and pushing on taxes and so forth which is good but in the York Ohio and Nevada Minnesota Colorado and Washington are looking at very specific ways

[00:38:40] to tax delivery fees which is interesting we in that setting because from that you the at one of them was just talking about a 35 cent um well this is pretty everyone was most 27 cents and

[00:38:55] another one was 35 cents of an impact on a delivery fee and that's just gonna come to you and me right if we're looking at it for many commerce standpoint it's just it's just gonna get tacked

[00:39:06] on the delivery fees already so so prime is gonna go up by 37 cents or you know whatever it might be. What's something I haven't really thought about it you know obviously as you know we moved recently

[00:39:17] and you know we're in a neighborhood that's like a call to sex there's not a lot of traffic on there and I look out the window from it and I've just been noticing all day long the only traffic

[00:39:28] that comes down the street is a prime track a UPS track and a FedEx track and every once in a while like another delivery type track so I don't I don't think it's necessarily a lot of the you know

[00:39:42] and these are heavy equipment right these are things definitely impact the quality of the road and all that stuff so I don't know that it I'm not sure I'm a big fan of using taxes for that but I can see

[00:39:53] where you know obviously there's an impact to the infrastructure and the roads as a result of the increased number of of these delivery tracks so well I mean that they're and look

[00:40:07] let's find you hear my home office and I hear a truck outside and so it's it's literally that's pretty pretty funny timing and it's probably this is brown getting it getting a package but there is an island on it even smaller cold the sack with 12 houses and

[00:40:23] it is there is more put it this way there is as much or more traffic from delivery e-commerce delivery trucks coming then there is residents oh yeah my far by far here I

[00:40:38] far yeah so it's an interesting thing but I do you do your point right big heavy trucks if you live in a major metropolitan area and your the majority of vehicles you probably see

[00:40:50] out there are you know Amazon and it would be great to know the Amazon this statistics related to Amazon's fleet growth in the last three to five years you know they have their own you know they're

[00:40:59] on airline now as well for for their packages so anyways it's I do think there's some value in the impact that e-commerce deliveries are having but at the same time it's you know

[00:41:12] you know where it's gonna get passed into on right and come and screen our straight into the cast taxes or anything else it's a good all right let's jump into our last segment here in

[00:41:24] our e-commerce and and marketing segment where we've got experiences everything for V2B buyers it's not something new for us to talk about this but some increasing statistics I think is what we're seeing

[00:41:38] you know it's funny speaking of moving and all that because we've moved and all the turmoil right we've been doing takeout orders way more in the last month that we ever have probably

[00:41:51] in the last five years and it was funny last night we were about right order something again and I didn't want to order from restaurants that have had a bad experience on their online order

[00:42:05] so I made a decision to order from a restaurant that we've because we probably ordered from I don't know 10 restaurants I guess that's what we've been here. Let's keep going back to that

[00:42:14] time places great yeah I wasn't there but I just found it interesting I didn't necessarily make my decision based on the food quality or the even what I was quote unquote hungry for my decision

[00:42:27] was being driven off the experience that I was gonna have to go through on the on the online e-commerce site obviously that's a very simple consumer example but I think that is exactly what they're saying

[00:42:38] here and we've talked about it in the B to B world is if the experience is not there I'm just going to go find somewhere else to buy yeah no it's even a pricing is better right even if

[00:42:49] if pricing is better I may still go and find somewhere else to buy so this is going to impact wholesale distribution a lot in the fact of contracts and I think what's going to start happening

[00:43:03] is and this could be happening already and I'm just not aware it's been a long time since you know I've been calling on on manufacturing or construction or whatever it is in the

[00:43:14] field but you know there are when we put supply chain contracts or supply contracts in place with a manufacturing planter you know wherever it might be is we're going to start seeing more and more

[00:43:28] of expectations growing on the the e-commerce site of fulfillment of that right because if they want to order in that setting if they want to order online their experience there's no reason not

[00:43:43] to put some expectations of the experience in the contract if you're a large company you've got 20 distributors of what your contract and say seven of those and 20's probably large say 10 and four of those 10 are highly capable of fulfilling your needs you could start putting in expectations

[00:44:02] of the e-commerce experience it goes with that because you know online web store ordering and all of the pieces that morning we're just seeing this statistics going up every day of how much more that's being used so I think it's going to be something to watch pretty close

[00:44:18] hmm so hey it's a good statistics in that article good good stuff to hit pause for just a second those of you who are with us live today you're seeing the newsletter that we put out every week on the

[00:44:30] screen and that is called around the horn and wholesale distribution of manufacturing it goes out as a mention earlier today about 10,000 people if you don't get that and you would like to please just

[00:44:41] you could even if you're here live with us and you don't get it you can pop up synope with comments but easiest way to do it is hello athletes smarttech.com to get you signed up for that

[00:44:52] more secondly go to the website for our weekly podcast and live show which is www.arroundthehornpod.com past episodes of their registration or subscription to the podcast formats apples, Spotify all the

[00:45:08] top ones are there as well and you can subscribe there and we'll get you in the newsletter which brings me to the final point related to that is that if you're listening and not seeing

[00:45:18] you may want to get this newsletter because if you're listening to the podcast later and not seeing the newsletter you might certainly want to do that so last piece of that is hit the subscribe

[00:45:27] hit the follow button we leave a review and this will get out to more people so next article time we move into technology cybersecurity in AI California DMV puts 42 million card titles on the

[00:45:38] blockchain to fight fraud this might seem odd when we talk about wholesale distribution but we're going to bring this full circle yeah I was I didn't know about this until you put the article in here

[00:45:51] I think that's amazing I don't know if I'm one of them I hope I am and basically what they're doing is they're using you know you've all heard the turn NFT right non-fundable token which is

[00:46:03] which kind of all you may we don't hear much about that anymore well because once AI came in it's sort of trumped all the hype that was going on within ft's and plus you know all the money that was

[00:46:14] being put into these you know meme NFTs and so forth but so the concept of an NFT is exactly what they've done they've taken the title of your car and they've put it on the blockchain and you get

[00:46:26] issued an NFT and non-fundable token that's right and now transferring makes things a lot easier there's a lot less opportunity for fraud you know we sold a car a few years ago right I had to go find the

[00:46:41] pink slip give it to the guy meet him you know all that goes away wait this and so it's going to make the transaction process a lot smoother and I think this is going to be I'm hope it works well

[00:46:53] because I think this will open the door for really all types of ownership even home ownership car ownership even things that you buy right you know refrigerators and all of that kind of stuff

[00:47:03] the things it can be done with that on warranties and so forth really really open the door I think to a much more efficient way of tracking and managing ownership so well the first one is good for me

[00:47:14] yeah the fraud component of it is is really solid too right um it is that that's what really triggered for me was you know and they're talking about you being able to transfer titles from a mobile app

[00:47:26] that's going to be being built and so so okay but you know there's all kinds of fraud that goes with you know leans and so forth and I think we're going to see this as well in the escrow world for

[00:47:38] Carson which is I think very interesting for us as well because you know we hear all these things about you know cyber fraud and so forth and people you know capturing your home title and so forth

[00:47:55] and having leans there that aren't real and and so I think this will be a nice application see this as well the other thing that this article talked about though that because of the the the tool that

[00:48:05] they're using for the blockchain application years called avalanches from company called avalabs and that deloite is working with them on a new disaster recovery platform for the government to use and FEMA to use post disaster because we hear all the time about people in the consistent basis

[00:48:24] after disaster that they you are waiting lying for days or whatever to file a claim and the flames get lost or whatever it is so this seems like another good application I think it's

[00:48:34] it's going to be interesting too you know let me ask your question maybe related this because you're much more up on on the blockchain but I just I can start kind of thinking about when you're we think about the manufacturing distribution world you know you've got people

[00:48:52] dealing with RFID tags and stuff like that and that's one thing but you know we start thinking about like whether it's medical devices or gas detection equipment or or or highly regulate and highly expensive and critical infrastructure components probably tracking those with NFTs in the distribution

[00:49:12] of manufacturing well and an user will probably really valuable as well when it I would think so and I would think the after market for those things would make the after market

[00:49:21] way bigger and easier and even the second hand market right I assume that you know people buy some of these large things and want to sell them to others and things like that it will the warranty

[00:49:32] I mean there's just when you really think about it and all the things that are done now through paper and you know logistically difficult ways of handling things there's just a lot that could be streamlined

[00:49:44] all the way around with using NFTs as a way to identify ownership and and the attributes that are associated with it right that's the beauty of it is that you can basically put any number of attributes

[00:49:56] on that NFT that then lives on that NFT so something what do you mean but how did that attribute artwork well I mean you were you know saying earlier right it could even be I have an NFT of my

[00:50:09] for my house or my car let's say it's my car right and I have a loan on that that there's certain you know there's who if to least it could be at least versus alone it could be all kinds of different

[00:50:19] things right so there's different attributes that are associated with that ownership and how that ownership is actually done yeah do I have the you know do I have the long term warranty do I have

[00:50:29] the this do I have that those are all attributes of that ownership that I would potentially want to I mean how many things of you bought were you may have bought like a warranty but you can't remember

[00:50:40] if you got it or not and if something did happen where would you find it and you know all that kind of stuff yep so great application there that you got that you've described right in in this is a

[00:50:51] warranty related I think that's where we would really see it well in them in a manufacturing distribution work cool so we're still here in our technology cybersecurity world Microsoft Faulty Crowd Strike update affected 8.5 million users

[00:51:07] I have I'll tell you my first takeaway and then I want to want to talk to you about this because you know part of what people are saying about this the you know they're saying 8 one one percent of windows machines were infected the problem is that

[00:51:24] 8.5 million who's they were right when you're when it's impacting united airlines it's a whole different story than you know Kevin Brown's you know PC so it's pretty of astounding of the who it impacted versus how many yeah and I don't know I don't know if there was any

[00:51:45] sort of selection as to the 1% where they more enterprise type customers it's not clear from the article anyway that is was there certain characteristics of that 1% you know again lead I know that one of the biggest issues right in most companies

[00:52:02] they don't a larger company they don't allow you to go in and change your software on your windows you have to take a diet eat it updates and all of that kind of stuff which obviously makes

[00:52:11] them the the issue of addressing this more complicated than if you have your own computer and you're you can do your own updates and all that but yeah I don't know if this was leaned or or skewed towards more enterprise type situations or not

[00:52:26] well it's interesting and I think this was tied to obviously it was tied to an update security updates typically get pushed right to everybody's computer so you're not going to have you know somebody my next or neighbors computer wasn't going to

[00:52:39] get impacted because the likely of them using crowd strike was slim and none right it's an enterprise solution in most cases and that's where it was getting pushed out I heard a really cool example I can't remember if it was ever a really close friend and he runs

[00:52:58] he's senior level guy with a major multi-national it's interesting there his company is a he works for ally universal and he was security provider but he works on the cybersecurity in cyber threat side of things within their business so they have everything from a mall cop to

[00:53:15] a cybersecurity division to a bodyguard and that works within hundreds of thousands of employees and he said one of the calls that he was because this impacted them it one of calls he was on was

[00:53:28] tied to 17 hours with a series of vendors for them that were on lends and call people coming in and out and jumping back on and solving different fixes but it might have been him that was telling

[00:53:42] me this example but there was a lot of a number of companies who were able to figure it out based upon time zones they saw what was happening they hit pause on you know the update before it

[00:53:56] got out and in impact that everybody and basically what they were able to do is we're mostly return off and you know the limit access to the internet for a great percentage of their employees

[00:54:09] based upon different time zones so you know it looks just say eastern time you know somebody jumps on and just disables central and west you know a specific time so they couldn't get those updates

[00:54:23] until they saw the problem and they said okay you can now watch the period but one of the fixes that this article talks about is that what Microsoft was suggesting in this setting as well was tied to

[00:54:37] here go on it's another safe device go and download this to this file to a USB port do you imagine being an IT director for a large company and having to go tell your people

[00:54:51] oh go go on your wife's Mac and download this file to his feet or and then put this on your company computer yeah I spent some time looking at sadly linked in of all the people that were

[00:55:08] traveling that were posting the you know blue screens of death on the on the airport monitors pretty sad so anyways hopefully we don't see this again now we know pink closer attention to your

[00:55:21] and side note on that any crowd strike is one of the biggest names in cyber security by far yeah when does now absolutely and I know Elon Musk came out and said they will have no

[00:55:31] business with any of his companies they're moving beyond all of that so anyways jumping into our sales and M&A segment will talk just kind of real quick there's only a couple of articles there

[00:55:42] this week three him had some nice updates to some growth within their safety industrial business happily see some of those people that's coming affiliated distributors and that plus alliance I say events and so forth so that's good some expansion and growth with their acquisitions

[00:56:00] at the southern blazer-winding spirits the beverage distribution companies good and then there was an article we posted here about eight tips to master remote sales team management you know a lot of

[00:56:12] these are fairly generic and that article if you get the newsletter in your sales leader it's worth looking at some of them more of a and we ended up with this way once a while time where you

[00:56:22] we've posted articles it's got you know some generic stuff and I I don't mind doing those things because even the stuff that seems common since there's just really good reminders 10 oh it's

[00:56:32] gonna get reminded on some of the stuff right to trigger those things yeah so jumping into our people in leadership segment I didn't know that US employee engagement and satisfaction was

[00:56:43] tracked in the way it is but there's a Gallup survey that's put in here that after hitting an 11 year low in the first quarter of 2024 US employee engagement improved slightly and Q2 and both tracking an increase of American workers and full and part-time workers feeling

[00:57:06] involved in enthusiastic about their work so what this is saying is that only 32 percent of people are what would you just say involved in a really ugly engaged involved feeling involved

[00:57:20] in enthusiastic I mean that's pretty scary right I mean I know this is you know this is what Dirk was you know certainly talking about that we can and talks a lot about is and certainly in a people business right of you know wholesale distribution and so forth

[00:57:40] boy that's I don't know how these numbers are by different industries but that's pretty scary yeah it is and hopefully these they didn't talk about you know having not returned to pre-pandemic

[00:57:52] levels but they have improvement there so I think it's kind of neat to something I want to pay close attention out to and I might text you did mention Dirk Dirk beverage with

[00:58:06] we supply America tour in unleash WD and Dirk is the champion in wholesale distribution of people and you know it's it's crediting Dirk that we have this segment of the show about

[00:58:20] people in leadership is because Dirk called us out in January when he was with us on the show and we need to talk more about people so we're trying to post more of those types of articles

[00:58:31] and Tom I'm in a segue here into the next article talks about the true chief executive magazine next article was are you a gracious leader and I thought that was kind of cool because it ties right in

[00:58:42] because you know people are people and people have emotions and feelings and and finding that balance of getting efficiency and you and I we together jump in and a half hour from now we jump into

[00:58:59] a meeting with one of the teams within Leeds Martin and we're talking about productivity and expectations for the week and what was accomplished and there's a difference between being task masters and making people feel good in having a culture and you and I based upon the company

[00:59:15] that we run together and started together we talked about culture all the time but this article about being a gracious leader if that was pretty cool it gave a description it says a gracious

[00:59:24] person is one who is kind of supertycy a person characterized by charm generosity of spirit and empathy and that is a balancing act to do along with keeping people accountable within a business

[00:59:40] yeah I think and again by no means am I saying this is easy right but I do think and they even talked about this here if you have some clear objectives you have clear key performance indicators

[00:59:54] you have clear goals of what you're trying to accomplish either at the job level or the department level or the company level right I think that and if people know that I think you it

[01:00:05] opens the door to being a gracious leader yeah I think it also it it makes the responsibility of the leader though to get rid of the people that no matter what you do are going to be toxic to the

[01:00:20] York organization and I think that's one of the biggest issues that we all do right as we hire somebody who's maybe not the best person for the organization and we just we don't make that that

[01:00:34] move fast enough and we had that conversation earlier in the week right we were talking about we we operated leads more on the entrepreneurial operating system the EOS platform and part of hiring

[01:00:46] is there's a matrix that you use with that the ties to your core values of your company and and so easy sometimes we could say I need that sales person or I need that IT person because

[01:00:58] they're the best or they're coming from a competitor or whatever and you can get a toxic environment pretty quickly your point well and I'll hit Will's comment here right because I think there's a great point says companies are paying more attention how to raise engagement swords

[01:01:12] versus fixing the issues that cause or engagement that's easier for the leader it's I don't think you can force in an engagement score right or that we just went through you're going to have to

[01:01:24] build that into the DNA of the organization and that probably starts with being you know the leader and you know the culture and things under there but well I'm sorry go ahead and say no I just never

[01:01:36] would have if you would have asked me what you think the engagement score is and most come I would have priced at 60 to 70 percent I never would have thought 30 to 32 percent or whatever they're

[01:01:47] saying there yeah yep well it's interesting but I think it ties back nicely in this ties to Will's comment too when you're thinking about you know engagement scores just somebody's trying to

[01:01:59] report to a board or a private equity group or whatever it might be is very different than we mean have and an great example that doesn't mean they don't have board of directors and so forth but

[01:02:09] you know all the work that we were just talking about dirt if you miss good dirt beverages yes he's traveling the country seeing wholesale distributors or family owned or let's just say independent right they might be employee owned or parsed employee on great great example of that is

[01:02:28] you can have this you know emotionally mature and gracious executive level which is really looking and he talks about things about practicing radical security their curiosity I should say as a CEO and being super engaged with your people and being conscience about conflict and orientation

[01:02:51] you know balancing participation these are the things we see in you know as an example Paul Kennedy was with us last week you know the president the CEO of fully in 100% employee

[01:03:01] onto quote a supply group but Paul's just a good human being he has a boarder report too but his team would go you know go to battle for him and die for him because of the leadership

[01:03:14] that they have in an organization and we see that a lot and will sell distribution especially in the privately held ones and so forth so cool article we try and bring it again and we this segment is

[01:03:26] new where this year to what we do so we're going to continue to talk about leadership and people and how to help our people and also distribution manufacturing so industry scale about we talk about each week just a couple of targets in here 80 affiliated distributors

[01:03:42] announced the record breaking sales for the first half of the year great to see all of their the big thing that stuck out for me with them and that leads more work for partner with them as a

[01:03:51] preferred service provider with AD and appreciate our partnership with them we did a webinar with them this week and got all their events coming up but it was cool to see the growth in Mexico

[01:04:02] with them it was really neat to see how that article so got a little bit of information there two about global industrial growth and then an advocacy group is being launched in California

[01:04:13] to strengthen US supply chain so a few good reads I'm reading the news letter is you're scrolling a time and I had a few good articles there which takes us to our good read section

[01:04:25] we try and populate some some news each week tying to it might be leadership it might be executive health that might be personal development it's different all the time but this article's title the

[01:04:38] ink magazine the US men's gymnastics team just won a medal for the first time in 16 years and it all comes down to the gold fish rule so Tom you you any thoughts on that article

[01:04:50] I thought it was great I think it's something for all of us to be the gold fish rule reading you know have a ten second memory right and just and look we're all going to screw up

[01:05:01] and we're all going to you know do things a god I wish I would have done something different or handle it differently or whatever and the point is here push it aside and move on

[01:05:11] you can't you know in this start saying that hey look you know one of the was a Brady Malone I think they said it was who had some issues in the pre qualification or the qualification

[01:05:21] yeah and you know then came in and the actual um in the actual finals and just stuck it and he said yeah I just had to put it aside it's like I can't you know and you see this in other sports you

[01:05:32] know golf and other sports right you have to you can't you can't dwell on your last last bad shot but I think there's definitely an appropriate applicability to this into the to the business world

[01:05:44] well and you know where this comes from right I mean the immortal Ted Lasso and that gold fish rule came with it is quote was you know what the happy was talking to a player

[01:05:54] that was struggling he says you know what the happiest animal on earth is it's the gold fish it has a 10 second memory go be a gold fish right so doesn't mean we can't should fix our

[01:06:04] problems doesn't mean we shouldn't try and do our best every day but um that's the key so Wilquin says again he has a gold fish memory can't remember people's names well when you meet somebody use their name three times in the first two or three minutes of

[01:06:20] discussion and it will help you greatly and remember names I don't know Wil's name I just know he's a distribution guy it's all I know yeah that's right he's the distribution guy that's it

[01:06:30] that's a very good all right last thing we we publish regularly a second look if we have articles that have been there in the past we have something about more of the red sea crisis there of

[01:06:43] transiting the Suez canal and our other article there does we wind down each week there's a link here you can get it at the distribution strategy groups website as well but they they do have a great

[01:06:54] thing where they haven't a ticker where they're tracking um public-trained distributors there we have a link to it as well it takes you to their website and we appreciate Ian and Jonathan

[01:07:04] and their team their publishing that each week we have a calendar um the events that we come as well it's a mix of our work of bringing events together plus some of what water distribution

[01:07:16] management does as well it's a mix of both of us and so we've got quite a few events coming up but Tom this is where you put the replay right I did you can see it highlighted there in green

[01:07:28] yep so so if you miss last week's hundred episode with the cast of characters that we had you might want to go and watch that one again it's good yeah I would highly recommend it I I can't

[01:07:41] imagine a better overview of some of just the cross section of different issues on just distribution that the gentleman that we had on last week covered yeah and Mike works you know I

[01:07:52] said him and no I was thinking he was extremely well behaved yeah he was he was even raised his hand when he wanted to talk to us it's the right it was it was good so as he says you mean you have

[01:08:04] compromising pictures of people they can can behave well so all right let's wrap it up that's it all right any big weekend plans and back in boxes getting there yep all right I'm going to get my

[01:08:16] feet in the Pacific Ocean is okay make a few turns and a few waves and have some fun so thank you everybody for coming together with us with some new folks with us this week we get

[01:08:29] hundreds of people each week through LinkedIn and in Facebook and YouTube and another hundreds and hundreds on the podcast we couldn't do this each week without you we don't do it because we want to

[01:08:43] do it we do it because we have great listeners and great feedback and great comments so thank you for that and the 101 and didn't think we'd get there and Marty's designated change or shirt before next week

[01:08:56] so I was this is and I was you know it's funny is you've been wearing that shirt for three days and and Marty this is not the same shirt for last week I am a closet full of a low-hushards

[01:09:07] I will text you Marty the picture of them all but for those of you that doesn't make any sense to pay somewhat similar a low-hushard to the one I'm wearing today was a gift that we sent out

[01:09:19] to all of last weeks guests and Marty years should be at the tailor probably hopefully now so I'll have a different a little hot shirt it's the time of the year for that in my household so

[01:09:32] we'll go from there everybody thanks for being with us Tom I'll appreciate all you do and our guests that were with us today make and comments thanks so much we'll look forward to next week and tell

[01:09:42] that time be safe be kind and do good things have good weekend we hope you enjoyed today's episode and our guests each week we try our best to dig into the

[01:09:57] topics that are impacting your business so please reach out to us and let us know how you think we can make the show better or topics you'd like for us to tackle or talk about more often

[01:10:07] and even guests you'd like to see join us we're looking forward to bringing you next week's session and hope that until then you stay safe stay focused and do great things if you haven't already

[01:10:19] please subscribe to the podcast and leave a review to help others in wholesale distribution get access to the conversation and finally please check out our sponsor Leeds Mart Technologies and their manufacturing and wholesale distribution industry CRM customer intelligence and channel collaboration platform that's LeedsMart Technologies at LEEDSmartTEC.com