The Impact—And the Future—of AI in Wholesale Distribution and Manufacturing

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

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

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

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

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

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

[00:00:36] How are you this morning?

[00:00:38] Doing okay.

[00:00:39] Other than your microphone?

[00:00:42] My microphone is perfect now.

[00:00:44] Okay.

[00:00:45] Careful what you send out to the universe.

[00:00:48] That's right.

[00:00:49] Murphy may jump at you.

[00:00:50] Good, good, good.

[00:00:51] Well, it's good to see you today.

[00:00:52] I'm Kevin Brown.

[00:00:53] This is my lifelong friend and co-founder of Lead Smart Technologies, Tom Burton.

[00:00:58] We get together every week or most weeks, I guess I should say, here on LinkedIn Live,

[00:01:04] YouTube Live, Facebook Live, and we chat about the topics and happenings around

[00:01:11] the world, most of it tied to North American distribution and manufacturing.

[00:01:15] We try and bring all of the data from the economy, the mergers and acquisitions

[00:01:22] of the world, sales and marketing, technology, AI, all the things that are impacting wholesale

[00:01:26] distributors and manufacturers.

[00:01:28] We put that into a newsletter that we publish every week.

[00:01:31] That we do every week no matter what.

[00:01:33] That goes out.

[00:01:34] It's called Around the Horn in wholesale distribution and manufacturing, and it

[00:01:37] consolidates a lot of that news that matters to folks in manufacturing and wholesale

[00:01:41] distribution.

[00:01:42] It goes out to over 10,000 people every week.

[00:01:44] If you would like to get that and you do not get that, we'd be happy to share

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[00:01:51] You can reach out to us at hello at leadsmarttech.com and we'll get that out to you.

[00:01:58] Or you can request it at the website for our podcast, which is www.aroundthehornpod.com.

[00:02:06] Past episodes are there, information is there, beautiful pictures of Tom and I,

[00:02:11] and it's a pretty special place.

[00:02:14] We do this every week first live, as I mentioned on LinkedIn Live, YouTube Live,

[00:02:18] and Facebook Live where a nice audience joins us each week.

[00:02:21] In fact, if you're with us, we'd love to see in the comments where you're from and

[00:02:25] where you're listening in from.

[00:02:29] But we record all of this and we've got, as I mentioned earlier, John, our editor

[00:02:32] and his team take all of that, put it all together and get this out onto all the

[00:02:37] popular podcast formats later in the day on Friday.

[00:02:41] So if you're listening in on Spotify or Odyssey or Amazon or Apple Podcasts or

[00:02:46] wherever it might be, if you're listening in versus watching us, which you'll

[00:02:49] be missing today is that newsletter I mentioned will be up on our screen.

[00:02:53] And we talk about a lot of these articles, a few little graphics here and there.

[00:02:56] So if there's something that you're hearing but not seeing, you can always pop

[00:03:01] onto the Lead Smart Technologies YouTube page where a full recording of the

[00:03:05] podcast is there and you'll be able to see all that data.

[00:03:09] Fortunately, the company that Tom and I work for, Lead Smart Technologies,

[00:03:13] Lead Smart has developed an AI enabled customer intelligence and CRM platform

[00:03:17] that helps manufacturers and wholesale distributors gain never before seen

[00:03:21] insights into their customers, their customers' buying habits, product categories

[00:03:26] that they're buying, quotes that they have open, all kinds of things that

[00:03:29] help drive revenue and grow business.

[00:03:32] But also deep insights into your team and in your overall business.

[00:03:35] And that brings all that data in from external sources like ERP,

[00:03:39] marketing automation, e-commerce, data warehouses and gives actionable

[00:03:44] insights to help grow businesses.

[00:03:46] So Lead Smart is our sponsor every week.

[00:03:48] We greatly appreciate that because we couldn't do this otherwise.

[00:03:51] So let us know if you'd like that newsletter, Tom.

[00:03:54] Any thoughts before we dive in?

[00:03:56] What did I miss?

[00:03:57] No, I think you covered everything and yeah, if you're out there listening,

[00:04:00] please let us know.

[00:04:01] We still have been having weird things with comments coming through.

[00:04:04] Yeah.

[00:04:04] And they come on LinkedIn, they don't come in here.

[00:04:07] So yeah, if you're out there and you can let us know you're here,

[00:04:10] at least we at least know we have some comments coming through.

[00:04:12] Yeah, I was a guest on another podcast yesterday which was grateful

[00:04:15] our Lead Smart customer and good friends at Perimeter Office Products in Atlanta

[00:04:20] host a podcast each week called Pushing the Envelope.

[00:04:23] Great show.

[00:04:24] And I had an opportunity, I seemed like there was a little snafu

[00:04:28] a little bit with LinkedIn comments there as well.

[00:04:31] The comments are anyway.

[00:04:32] All right, let's get on with it.

[00:04:34] Let's do it.

[00:04:34] So each week as we break down the news in our newsletter,

[00:04:37] we start with a section called economy and supply chain.

[00:04:42] So we've got a number of articles that we posted about things

[00:04:45] going on within the economy.

[00:04:47] But you know, Tom, we talk about this all the time because we've got a stake bet on this.

[00:04:53] And this article was talking about that for the first time this year,

[00:05:00] we've seen a little bit of a slowdown which could be beneficial to the needs of our hopes

[00:05:07] of well maybe not your hopes, my hopes of two or more interest rate cuts this year

[00:05:12] because things were getting dicey first part of the year.

[00:05:15] We weren't seeing additional slowdown like we saw in the second half of last year.

[00:05:19] So any thoughts on that?

[00:05:22] Well, I mean, I have a few thoughts.

[00:05:25] So first of all, yeah, inflation core CPI was down, but PPI was up.

[00:05:33] The market, I believe, is completely overreacted to what I think is a minor, minor change

[00:05:40] and doesn't necessarily.

[00:05:42] And I unfortunately think it plays into my stake, winning my stake,

[00:05:47] but I don't think it's great overall for the situation is now you have yesterday,

[00:05:51] the stock market hit 40,000 quickly overreacted to the news of the lower inflation.

[00:05:58] And what does that do?

[00:05:59] That creates even Biden was out talking about, hey, look at how great the economy is,

[00:06:03] look at how much money you're making in the stock market.

[00:06:06] That causes people to start spending again and drives up inflation.

[00:06:10] So I'm still very much sticking with my prediction of the one cut this year.

[00:06:18] And I think the market is way overreacted, but also on the plus side is that maybe there

[00:06:24] is some positive change. Sometimes we kind of have a double-edged sword, right?

[00:06:29] We get ahead of ourselves and then we end up back in the same place.

[00:06:33] So well, I think you're right.

[00:06:35] And I haven't said this in three weeks or so.

[00:06:38] I don't think so. I'll go ahead and say it now is I just look at,

[00:06:43] it's interesting, right? And I haven't even said it this way before.

[00:06:47] But when we think about the auto trades that are done and the computerized trading

[00:06:56] that goes on on Wall Street, right? And how that mostly manipulated,

[00:07:01] but how those things happen and move quickly.

[00:07:03] That wasn't around the way the stock market moves and the ability to analyze things.

[00:07:11] None of that was around when the Fed started figuring out that 2% is the right number and

[00:07:16] all these other, we talk about these every week.

[00:07:19] We've got another article coming up where we talk about the labor market,

[00:07:23] all these things.

[00:07:25] The stock market wasn't working the way the stock market works now when we came up with

[00:07:29] all the metrics that we try and drive and manage inflation from.

[00:07:32] And that's just been my thinking for a while.

[00:07:34] And you set me straight a couple of times on this,

[00:07:37] that my thoughts aren't going to change it.

[00:07:39] And I took two or three economic classes in college and that was about it.

[00:07:45] So certainly don't claim to understand or know these things well.

[00:07:48] But I question is we've got a stock market and a business world

[00:07:52] that's moving at light speed in 2024.

[00:07:56] And we have metrics that we use to define the economy

[00:07:59] that are from one of these days.

[00:08:01] I'm going to go look up when all of those metrics came together,

[00:08:03] but it was early in our lifetime if not before you and I were alive.

[00:08:08] And I don't know that we've got the balance there.

[00:08:10] And so I'm appreciative of your comment about what the stock market's doing.

[00:08:15] Then we get a little exuberance, so to speak, going.

[00:08:17] And what does that mean to these other data?

[00:08:21] So the market is based predominantly off of sentiment and momentum.

[00:08:26] Versus actual data.

[00:08:30] And we can overreact to both directions.

[00:08:34] My point is we may end up with a self-fulfilling prophecy of,

[00:08:37] oh my gosh, look at all the money that we're all making in the stock market.

[00:08:41] It causes people to go spin.

[00:08:43] Spending creates inflation.

[00:08:46] And even like I said, the CPI, the consumer price index was down.

[00:08:50] But the producer price index was up.

[00:08:53] So I don't...

[00:08:54] And you're on mute, by the way.

[00:08:55] Are your microphones not working now or whatever?

[00:08:59] No, I hit mute there for a second.

[00:09:00] And I was going to say there was that I had some...

[00:09:03] Bec, I forgot to mute my phone, so I'm a little embarrassed with that.

[00:09:06] But no, I think what we're looking at from that standpoint,

[00:09:11] what you're just describing there is the...

[00:09:15] It's kind of the reverse because usually we'll see on the manufacturing side first,

[00:09:18] and then we'll see it on the consumer side, right?

[00:09:20] And so that's what we really...

[00:09:23] That piece of it surprises me.

[00:09:25] But what I really look at with this is the Fed chair commented,

[00:09:29] and I think he said he was in Amsterdam this week when he made the comment.

[00:09:34] But he acknowledged that the economy...

[00:09:38] Just a little quote from this.

[00:09:39] The economy is different this time because so many Americans refinance their mortgages

[00:09:44] at very low rates before the Fed began raising borrowing costs in March of 22.

[00:09:48] And many businesses or large businesses also locked low interest rates in for other

[00:09:53] purchasing at that time.

[00:09:55] Said it may be that the Fed's rate policy is hitting the economy not quite as strongly

[00:10:02] as it would have if those two things were not the case.

[00:10:05] So I mean, to me, it's like, okay, well, are we using the right stuff?

[00:10:11] So anyways, that being the case, let's just wait and see.

[00:10:16] I'm still bullish on two plus.

[00:10:21] Still, as I mentioned in the past few weeks, I watch usually at lunchtime or even during

[00:10:27] the day, I'll throw it onto my digital assistant here and listen to CNBC.

[00:10:33] And you can pick whatever status you want about no cuts, one cut, three cuts, two cuts,

[00:10:40] whatever it is this year.

[00:10:41] And there will be a punditon that will have great data behind their reasoning.

[00:10:45] So yes.

[00:10:47] Anyways, next article that we reference here is about the US labor market fairly tight

[00:10:52] and that the broader economy is losing steam.

[00:10:55] So just a little bit of data in there about what's going on in the market for

[00:11:03] the jobs.

[00:11:03] So I was a Reuters article.

[00:11:05] It says a number of Americans finding new job claims for jobless benefits fell

[00:11:10] last week.

[00:11:10] And it says nearly unwinding nearly half of the jump at the start of the month,

[00:11:17] indicating the market conditions remain fairly tight even as the job growth is cooling.

[00:11:22] So another one of these impacts that we've been seeing kind of bump up and bump down

[00:11:27] with that.

[00:11:28] Yeah.

[00:11:29] I don't know if it tells us anything or not.

[00:11:30] Seems more just sort of a lot more of the same.

[00:11:33] Yeah.

[00:11:34] Well, as we can let's move ahead then and let's chat a little bit though.

[00:11:38] I think this one's important.

[00:11:39] Our next article was about the announcement this week about China tariffs that have been

[00:11:45] announced.

[00:11:46] 18 billion dollars worth of Chinese imports related to all kinds of things.

[00:11:50] And the article starts talking about electric vehicles, solar panels, batteries and more.

[00:11:56] And the reasoning behind that is and I was impressed with kind of the depth that

[00:12:02] this particular article kind of went into on this is, you know,

[00:12:07] the Chinese government, and I would assume that governments around the world have plenty

[00:12:13] of arguments about our economic and manufacturing trends and how we do things here in the

[00:12:18] U.S. as well where you and I live.

[00:12:20] But there's been so much of a glut of EV solar power and battery development that

[00:12:30] it does just a glut of it in China.

[00:12:34] And the idea of dumping that is here.

[00:12:36] And the issue that talked about a lot in this was about not just solar panels, but about

[00:12:42] the Chinese cars that could be coming in and wanting that.

[00:12:45] And frankly, we talked about this in the last couple of weeks as we've talked about

[00:12:49] nearshoring and onshoring.

[00:12:50] This ties really well into what we were talking about the nearshoring in Mexico,

[00:12:55] right?

[00:12:55] Because we've read and seen how much China is wanting to invest moving steel into

[00:13:01] Mexico, and steel is another one of the big tariffs that are here.

[00:13:05] Yeah.

[00:13:06] And there were you want to show that list?

[00:13:08] I mean, there was quite a few of them.

[00:13:09] Yeah.

[00:13:09] Well, as I was going to mention that this for the first time there, let's just kind

[00:13:14] of before we do that because that shifts gears off of what this part of things.

[00:13:17] But the, you know, they're major tariffs on steel and alternative energy sources

[00:13:26] that are coming in.

[00:13:27] But for the first time there's, and you can throw it up there, there's been

[00:13:31] tariffs that are imposed on medical imports, which is huge.

[00:13:34] We're related to needles and syringes in the medical place.

[00:13:37] So many of the, there we go, let's pop it up.

[00:13:41] So many of the folks that listen regularly onto our weekly show are in a space where

[00:13:49] they're selling some safety equipment as well.

[00:13:52] And historically, huge parts of the safety market have been manufactured in China.

[00:13:56] When we think about N95 respirators and so forth, I was talking to a large

[00:14:00] distributor earlier this week and I was asking about that.

[00:14:03] And they said they had over the last couple of years moved a lot of that out of China

[00:14:07] and other parts of Southeast Asia.

[00:14:09] But if you think about now all of a sudden tariffs that could be up to 25%.

[00:14:15] Right?

[00:14:15] As we're seeing this chart here shows us an increase of 25% on face masks,

[00:14:20] on medical gloves.

[00:14:22] That medical glove one, fortunately has not come until 2026, but syringes

[00:14:26] and needles up by 50% on the tariffs on them.

[00:14:30] That's going to impact every manufacturing company, every medical facility across the

[00:14:37] board.

[00:14:37] And they reference your medical gloves, but what they're really talking about with

[00:14:42] that is all of those disposable type of gloves that come in or the vinyl or their

[00:14:47] latex or whatever the material is.

[00:14:49] And those are sold in abundance by just about every type of distribution company

[00:14:55] out there, whether your food service, your medical or your industrial or your safety.

[00:14:58] So these are going to have, I mean, and the reason we it's one of the reasons

[00:15:02] we have our show here every week, right, Tom?

[00:15:04] Is this would be an easy article to just bypass.

[00:15:08] Right?

[00:15:08] And go, yeah, hit those Chinese, lots of tariffs.

[00:15:13] But the reality is this is going to have an impact on all of us and our insurance

[00:15:17] companies that pay our insurance bills too.

[00:15:22] Well, and I want to, first of all, thank you, Will, for God morning.

[00:15:29] I'll take it.

[00:15:29] Two D's.

[00:15:30] Yeah, two D's.

[00:15:31] That's the Chicago version of God.

[00:15:34] But I also wanted to hit his comment here.

[00:15:36] He said he was recently in Mexico City, lots of Chinese trucking companies with

[00:15:40] booths, right?

[00:15:41] This is what we've talked about before.

[00:15:43] Are the Chinese going to then be moving into Mexico City to potentially avoid some

[00:15:48] of the tariffs that we're just talking about?

[00:15:50] Yeah.

[00:15:51] Oh, guess what Will just said?

[00:15:52] Yeah.

[00:15:52] He's just saying I wonder if companies will import to Mexico, then truck to the USA

[00:15:56] to get around the tariffs.

[00:15:57] Will must listen to this show regularly.

[00:15:59] I think so.

[00:16:00] Yeah.

[00:16:00] No, absolutely.

[00:16:02] So it's an interesting, right, if we keep squeezing the tariffs on China,

[00:16:08] right, China's smart.

[00:16:09] They're going to find ways around that and Mexico is a great place to.

[00:16:12] Well, they're already doing it, right?

[00:16:13] And that's to Will's earlier comment.

[00:16:14] He talked about being Mexico City and lots of Chinese trucking companies there

[00:16:18] with booths.

[00:16:19] We talked about this either last week or the week before, though, was the issue now is

[00:16:24] how much stuff can get through the border in a timely fashion, right?

[00:16:28] And there's only so many border stops and there's only so many border agents that

[00:16:31] can do that.

[00:16:32] But I tell you what, we laugh amongst ourselves and you say this regularly in

[00:16:38] our company meetings is you heard it here first, but I think Mexico and Latin

[00:16:43] America, unless things settle down between the U.S.

[00:16:47] and China, I think Latin America is going to play a much bigger role in these

[00:16:52] issues moving forward than we probably give it credit.

[00:16:57] That I agree with 100 percent and it already is.

[00:17:00] And if we look ahead in the next five years, I think it will be the

[00:17:03] predominant source of a lot of the manufacturing things.

[00:17:06] Right.

[00:17:07] Hey, Tom, before we move on just to keep the screen up, you know, Will made that

[00:17:12] comment earlier.

[00:17:12] Will's been a guest with us a couple of times and on the show Will works for

[00:17:17] Infor.

[00:17:18] He is an industry expert in distribution.

[00:17:22] And I just wanted to shout out to Will.

[00:17:24] Will posted on LinkedIn and I haven't even wrote my comment yet about it, but

[00:17:28] I wanted to congratulate Will because he posted a picture of his, the U.S.

[00:17:33] patent and trademark office with his approval of his trademark of being the

[00:17:40] distribution guy.

[00:17:42] And that's just I just think that's so cool.

[00:17:44] One, it's cool because as you get to know Will, it just fits.

[00:17:48] Right.

[00:17:49] And but secondly is how cool is it that somebody thought about, hey, I'm

[00:17:54] going to go trademark a cool name to go with me in my chosen career.

[00:17:58] And why don't you go do that for the distribution dude?

[00:18:01] Right.

[00:18:01] Because you can't get guy now, but you could be the distribution dude.

[00:18:04] I don't want Will coming after me.

[00:18:06] He's a tough dude.

[00:18:07] He was a Marine.

[00:18:08] I would scare me the distribution dude.

[00:18:11] Yeah.

[00:18:12] We run that by Mrs.

[00:18:14] Brown and see what she says that maybe grab that one too, because yeah.

[00:18:19] Yeah.

[00:18:19] So anyways, congratulations.

[00:18:21] Congratulations.

[00:18:23] He put a lot of work and energy into that and it's well founded.

[00:18:26] And oh, it's great personal branding.

[00:18:28] It's awesome.

[00:18:29] It is.

[00:18:29] Yep, it is.

[00:18:30] So it's going to go into his book that I'm sure will come down the road.

[00:18:33] So as we kind of jump ahead here, we talked about those tariffs first time

[00:18:38] tariffs going to be think that we're going to notice those, I think in our pocketbook,

[00:18:42] maybe more than we realize.

[00:18:45] It's interesting.

[00:18:45] The last comment on the tariffs though, is that Biden administration is saying that

[00:18:49] there's going to be any inflationary impact to that.

[00:18:53] Of course, you would say that an election year, but I kind of question that.

[00:18:58] So we'll see.

[00:18:59] So anyways, jumping ahead, Reuters article today about small business sentiment rebounding

[00:19:04] a little bit.

[00:19:05] That's from the National Federation of Independent Business Study.

[00:19:09] And just kind of an optimism level is up a little bit and things had been the sentiment

[00:19:14] had been down quite a bit Q4.

[00:19:17] So we'll just see.

[00:19:20] We're just going to kind of watch this a little bit closer, but small business

[00:19:24] is what runs the world.

[00:19:25] We don't think about it as much.

[00:19:27] But when you look at where job growth is typically coming from, it's from startups

[00:19:31] and small business.

[00:19:33] So yeah, persistent labor shortage is still continue to exert a lot of pressure.

[00:19:42] I don't know the confidence right can be a lot of things.

[00:19:44] It can be based around the ability to get resort to get employees to get to hire

[00:19:48] people.

[00:19:49] It can be based around economic factors.

[00:19:52] There's a lot of things that as a small business owner gives us confidence one way

[00:19:56] or the other.

[00:19:57] Yep.

[00:19:57] Very good.

[00:19:58] Well, we can kind of jump into our manufacturing and distribution segment next

[00:20:02] again.

[00:20:02] As I mentioned, we in our newsletter each week, we have a series of different sections.

[00:20:07] We talk about the economy and supply chain and we talk about manufacturing

[00:20:11] and distribution.

[00:20:12] We posted an article this week.

[00:20:13] It's actually from Modern Distribution Management about industrial production stalling

[00:20:17] in April.

[00:20:18] Again, this is kind of this I'll call it fluttering ups and downs that we see

[00:20:23] with really a fraction of a percentage point changes.

[00:20:27] But the article is there.

[00:20:28] It talks about anyways, it's in depth about the manufacturing adjustments as of April

[00:20:35] and capacity usage and so forth.

[00:20:38] And that's those manufacturing side of those metrics.

[00:20:40] Those metrics are all tied to capacity and the use of capacity there.

[00:20:46] But I didn't want to jump ahead a little bit in this segment.

[00:20:50] There's an article that we published today about the associated builders and

[00:20:57] contractors group, the Trade Association from TED Magazine, which is the electrical

[00:21:04] distributor magazine posted an article about construction backlog, which is interesting.

[00:21:09] Right.

[00:21:09] When we talked about interest rates being high, there's raw materials or building

[00:21:15] materials and so forth.

[00:21:16] Pricing has been so high dipped a little bit over the last few months.

[00:21:21] But raw materials or building materials have increased again.

[00:21:25] But backlogs are up and it's a little bit surprising to see that.

[00:21:33] Surprising in what way?

[00:21:34] I mean, what are you?

[00:21:35] Well, you wouldn't expect housing starts to be at a higher level and construction

[00:21:40] backlogs are tied to buildings being built.

[00:21:43] Money is harder to get.

[00:21:44] Money is more expensive.

[00:21:46] Building materials are higher.

[00:21:47] But all of these folks here are talking about having backlogs now, which means

[00:21:52] they've got more work than they can manage.

[00:21:54] Right.

[00:21:55] Which makes sense, right?

[00:21:57] Because of housing's picking up and all of those things, you would have a lot of

[00:22:00] the backlogs that are there.

[00:22:02] Well, it's kind of the issue is it should be a little bit.

[00:22:06] Housing is needed.

[00:22:06] We know all the statistics say that housing is needed.

[00:22:09] But the money is tighter to get and fewer people are qualifying for that homes until

[00:22:13] interest rates coming down.

[00:22:15] It is weird.

[00:22:16] I mean, I agree.

[00:22:16] But they are especially not necessarily in California or maybe certain parts of

[00:22:21] California.

[00:22:22] But in other parts of the country, they're really building still like crazy.

[00:22:26] I mean, even in Vegas, I was there a couple of weeks ago.

[00:22:31] I mean, I thought Vegas was kind of saturated and they just are continuing to build

[00:22:36] out farther and farther and farther.

[00:22:39] So somebody must be wanting to move there.

[00:22:42] No, no, it's definitely the case.

[00:22:47] I was just looking at this real common set.

[00:22:49] One of the comments here was that said, well, there are occasional hints of software in

[00:22:52] certain segments of the construction and over a certain period, the average

[00:22:57] contractor continues to report solid backlog and the belief that sales and

[00:23:01] employment and profit margins will expand over the next six months.

[00:23:05] Then the economist that wrote this talked about time will tell whether this

[00:23:09] optimism is justified.

[00:23:11] So, you know, I just saw something in the local newspaper where I live here in

[00:23:18] Orange County in Southern California.

[00:23:20] Is there some of this warning and says it takes $200,000 of income to be able to

[00:23:24] afford to buy a house?

[00:23:27] Now other parts of the country that that would be $200,000.

[00:23:29] You get a beautiful home, right?

[00:23:32] But with interest rates or where they're at, it's a challenge.

[00:23:36] It's a challenge.

[00:23:37] Yeah, we'll see.

[00:23:38] We can jump ahead on that and move into our e-commerce and marketing section.

[00:23:44] What's that first article there, Tom?

[00:23:46] B2B buying is complex.

[00:23:49] How to make it easier?

[00:23:52] I think that's something we would all like to know.

[00:23:54] And this is talking more from the B2B digital buying, e-commerce sites,

[00:23:59] things like that.

[00:24:02] I thought it was a really, really interesting.

[00:24:04] There were a lot of things in there that I had never really thought of or had a lot

[00:24:08] of exposure to about kind of what's happening to make that self-serve buying

[00:24:13] experience better and more fruitful.

[00:24:17] I thought it was interesting, right?

[00:24:18] Because we talk all the time on our show here each week about changing buyers, right?

[00:24:27] The idea that our, I think it's 60 some percent now of B2B buyers are millennials.

[00:24:37] They have a different experience.

[00:24:39] The sales side of things and the employee side of things,

[00:24:42] the wholesale distribution manufacturers,

[00:24:44] those their teams are getting younger coming in

[00:24:47] and they have different views and different expectations.

[00:24:49] We talk about that all the time.

[00:24:51] This article, it was in digital360.com.

[00:24:56] Great article about the complexity of the buying process.

[00:25:00] And you know, we have a through LeadSmart,

[00:25:02] we have a partnership with Optimizie, the e-commerce and marketing company,

[00:25:06] which is a great partnership with those folks.

[00:25:08] We see the movement through affiliated distributors, Net Plus Alliance,

[00:25:15] all of the buying groups and trade associations

[00:25:17] of propping up and supporting e-commerce within their members.

[00:25:20] But this is a great article that really impacted.

[00:25:24] And even if you're a distributor and you're listening to us today

[00:25:27] and you're working with e-commerce

[00:25:28] and you maybe bought one of the off-the-shelf tools

[00:25:31] or your trade association or buying group has helped you with that.

[00:25:34] This is really great because it talked about some things that I think

[00:25:38] a lot of people maybe don't think about as much

[00:25:42] because we're talking about like the fact that B2B buyers want the B2C experience,

[00:25:49] but they have different needs, right?

[00:25:51] In a B2B or B2C experience or business to consumer experience.

[00:25:56] And just let's just use Amazon, right?

[00:25:58] You don't need to click a button to share for approval

[00:26:01] or get others collaborating that are working on jobs

[00:26:04] that it was talking about and not all e-commerce tools

[00:26:07] have some of these things.

[00:26:09] No, you don't have the workflow there.

[00:26:11] I got to bring this up before.

[00:26:12] I love this comment from Bob here.

[00:26:14] The new state bird in northern Texas is the crane,

[00:26:18] the construction crane that is.

[00:26:20] Tom, you're fading away there.

[00:26:26] We've lost Tom, friends.

[00:26:29] Let's pause for a moment and mourn the loss of Tom.

[00:26:30] How about now?

[00:26:32] Okay.

[00:26:32] How about now?

[00:26:33] He's back.

[00:26:35] How far did it get on that?

[00:26:37] We heard about Bob's comment about the state bird of North Texas.

[00:26:40] I love that.

[00:26:41] I wonder, Bob, maybe you can comment is it just North Texas?

[00:26:45] I think it might be.

[00:26:47] Well, I think that may be where he is, right?

[00:26:51] But that's true.

[00:26:52] We see all that construction going on.

[00:26:56] Going back to it, one of the things that I found

[00:26:57] interesting in that article just that jumped right out at me

[00:27:01] is the idea of having multiple shopping carts, if you will.

[00:27:07] Which I actually think could be valuable from a consumer perspective as well.

[00:27:10] From a B2B perspective, I may be working on one project.

[00:27:14] I want to put all of that in one shopping cart.

[00:27:16] That's got to go through one workflow, one approval cycle.

[00:27:19] Now I have other things I'm working on.

[00:27:20] That's in a different cart that has to go through a different workflow

[00:27:23] and a different thing.

[00:27:25] The whole buying thing is a lot more than just throwing up a Shopify site

[00:27:30] and having some products on there that I can purchase.

[00:27:33] Well, or even there are some fantastic e-commerce tools available to wholesale

[00:27:42] distributors in particular that are packaged for them already.

[00:27:48] That makes kind of there's some varying levels of complexity.

[00:27:52] But this really you commented about the cart page

[00:27:54] and they talk about being able to work on an order for a particular job.

[00:28:00] And they talked about cart approvals, right?

[00:28:04] And sometimes there's, you know, Tom Burton can spend this much money

[00:28:09] and he needs somebody else's approval and being able to click a button

[00:28:12] to have somebody else approve that order and so forth.

[00:28:15] So this was really, really kind of cool the way it talked about a lot of these.

[00:28:19] Even requests for quotes.

[00:28:20] It just, you know, talked about a salesperson being able to,

[00:28:26] you know, get even a quote started for somebody.

[00:28:28] And then the customer come in and add to it, approve it, change it, and so forth.

[00:28:33] So it's good.

[00:28:34] Yeah, and we're seeing this even with our Lead Smart customers.

[00:28:38] I'm seeing more and more that a quote and the pricing that they're giving people

[00:28:44] are dependent to a degree on their AR balances, their days to pay,

[00:28:48] are they meeting their terms?

[00:28:50] And they're even setting job limits and credit limits based on around that.

[00:28:54] That's a lot of different permutations, so to speak,

[00:28:57] that you ultimately want to be able to incorporate into your self-serve experience.

[00:29:02] Right. Well, it's one of the interesting things too it talked about.

[00:29:05] I agree with what you're saying there is that optimizing checkout.

[00:29:08] And, you know, I think all of us have gotten stuck

[00:29:11] in some type of e-commerce purchase before,

[00:29:15] where it is just a horrible experience for our checkout.

[00:29:21] And this is talking about, you know, it's that the checkout experience

[00:29:26] is directly responsible for driving sales and contributing to larger sales.

[00:29:32] And it talks about, you know, B2B customers not having the patience

[00:29:35] for this and they'll move to the better experience.

[00:29:39] Right. And if we want them using our e-commerce site to do that,

[00:29:43] we've got to make it just these terms are from the article.

[00:29:47] Distraction in an interruption free experience.

[00:29:50] Right. So the experience is what life is about in this setting.

[00:29:54] Well, we're going to talk about AI in a couple minutes, some new stuff,

[00:29:57] but I think AI is really going to make a big change here with some of that as we go forward.

[00:30:04] Yeah. So before we jump out of this segment,

[00:30:07] the Electrical Distributor magazine also announced their 2024

[00:30:12] Best of the Best Marketing Awards for both manufacturers and distributors.

[00:30:16] So if you have the newsletter from us, you'll see the link to that.

[00:30:21] Otherwise, you can go to theelectricaldistributor.com and see that list.

[00:30:27] I think Scott Costa, that is publisher of that magazine

[00:30:32] and senior executive at the National Association of Electrical Distributors,

[00:30:37] I think he was actually going to be with us today.

[00:30:38] So hopefully he's listening in, which gives me the opportunity quickly to say,

[00:30:43] as we try and say about halfway through our show each week is if you're listening live,

[00:30:49] you are viewing with us live.

[00:30:52] You're seeing things on YouTube live, LinkedIn live and Facebook live.

[00:30:55] And you can see the newsletter that we talked about here,

[00:30:57] which is the Around the Horn and Wholesale Distribution

[00:31:00] and Manufacturing newsletter that goes out every Friday morning.

[00:31:03] If you would like to get a copy of that and you do not,

[00:31:07] couple easy ways to do it.

[00:31:08] You can go to www.aroundthehornpod.com and sign up for that.

[00:31:14] You can send us an email and add hello at leadsmarttech.com

[00:31:19] and we'll get that out to you.

[00:31:20] And again, if you're also listening on the recorded podcast

[00:31:23] on any of the popular formats and you're not seeing this

[00:31:26] and you'd like to get that newsletter, you can do it the same way.

[00:31:29] And finally, if you're listening and not watching

[00:31:31] and you'd like to watch the recording,

[00:31:33] leadsmarttechnology's YouTube page would be the best place to do that.

[00:31:38] So technology, cybersecurity and AI.

[00:31:41] Tom, why don't you take us away on what OpenAI is doing this week?

[00:31:46] Well, you probably heard that they released,

[00:31:48] they had an announcement Monday, which I found kind of funny

[00:31:52] because they came out at the last minute

[00:31:54] and said they have a big announcement on Monday

[00:31:56] and I think Google's big announcement was on Tuesday.

[00:31:59] So they kind of jumped the gun and kind of got ahead of the curve.

[00:32:02] But as you may have heard, they released OpenAI GPT 4.0.

[00:32:08] It is actually O. O stands for Omni.

[00:32:12] That's the moniker for that.

[00:32:14] And what that really means, well, it means a few things,

[00:32:18] but what the new release is as it relates to their model

[00:32:21] and the 4.0 model is that it is designed now

[00:32:25] to really be able to work across multimodal.

[00:32:29] So multimodal meaning voice, visual, text, video coming soon.

[00:32:36] Whatever different inputs that you're providing into it, it can operate.

[00:32:41] So here's the plus and the minus.

[00:32:43] I think that like most things nowadays it's going on in the AI world,

[00:32:48] they're quote unquote releasing something or announcing it,

[00:32:51] but then they're not making it available.

[00:32:53] So I think there's a small set of people, very small set of people

[00:32:57] that actually have access to a lot of these multimodal capabilities.

[00:33:00] I've been trying to get at it all week.

[00:33:03] I've been able to get at a few things, but not everything.

[00:33:06] But I think it will come over the next three to 45 days.

[00:33:10] Interestingly enough, a lot of the reasons that it's not coming out

[00:33:13] is that they don't have the computing power.

[00:33:16] These things take a lot, a lot, a lot of computing power to actually do.

[00:33:20] But one of the things that they demoed is the voice aspect of it,

[00:33:27] and there'll be a new mobile app for your phone,

[00:33:29] and there's actually an app for Mac,

[00:33:32] and there's one coming from Windows soon,

[00:33:34] where you can truly have a conversation with Chat GPT.

[00:33:39] Right now, you can give it a verbal prompt,

[00:33:43] but then you have to sit there and wait,

[00:33:45] and you can't really interrupt it or stop it.

[00:33:48] It's a little clunky.

[00:33:49] Here you can actually have a conversation,

[00:33:51] and they were showing that,

[00:33:53] and even be able to translate automatically

[00:33:57] to have a conversation from one language

[00:34:00] and have it automatically conversationally translate to another.

[00:34:05] There's just a lot of—I could go on and on and on.

[00:34:09] Kevin, I have told, I've been sitting here harping to you and others,

[00:34:13] that the killer app, especially in our industry

[00:34:16] and wholesale distribution and manufacturing, is coming.

[00:34:20] Mm-hmm.

[00:34:20] And a lot of times, I don't think AI has been taken seriously

[00:34:24] because the killer app hasn't been there,

[00:34:26] that people could see and go,

[00:34:28] oh my God, I can't live without that.

[00:34:30] I think we're getting very close to starting to be able to see

[00:34:33] that these killer apps are going to be available

[00:34:36] and coming out that are going to cause people to go,

[00:34:38] holy crap, I can't live without this.

[00:34:41] And we haven't had that up to this point.

[00:34:43] I think Chat GPT has been more of a toy than a business tool,

[00:34:47] but now I think with a lot of these new releases,

[00:34:49] we're going to see that coming.

[00:34:52] Awesome.

[00:34:54] Have you ever had me be this quiet for that long on this podcast?

[00:34:58] I was almost wondering, are you okay?

[00:35:00] Did your microphone stop working?

[00:35:02] What the hell happened?

[00:35:04] Well, I wanted to hear.

[00:35:05] You study this so much and you and your team

[00:35:07] are working on these things to bring what you're just describing

[00:35:11] to light in the product family

[00:35:12] that we've developed with Lead Smart Channel Cloud,

[00:35:15] our AI enabled customer intelligence and CRM platform.

[00:35:21] So it's important.

[00:35:22] There's a bunch of stuff I want to unpack with this

[00:35:24] and I've got questions for you on this,

[00:35:26] but before we do that, Bob made the comment,

[00:35:28] he said here that you can only imagine

[00:35:30] the size of the server farm for this.

[00:35:32] They must have their own nuclear reactor.

[00:35:34] And you know what?

[00:35:36] That's going to be the big issue behind all of this, right?

[00:35:39] Is powering it all.

[00:35:40] And server farms are one thing, so to speak,

[00:35:43] but the big issue is the power behind it.

[00:35:46] And it's interesting, right?

[00:35:50] And I'm not an expert on any of these things

[00:35:51] and it's something that I really like to read

[00:35:53] and study more, but if you think about it,

[00:35:56] we've got a current presidential,

[00:35:59] president and administration push, push, push on EV, EV, EV.

[00:36:03] And I should know this, but excuse me,

[00:36:06] where we live here in California, both of us.

[00:36:08] Do you remember, is it 2028 or 2030

[00:36:14] that you won't be able to sell?

[00:36:15] I think it's 2030, yeah.

[00:36:17] 2030, you won't be able to sell

[00:36:18] internal combustion engines anymore in this state, right?

[00:36:21] Well, the power grid can't handle all that.

[00:36:23] And then you put all that's going on top of this with EV.

[00:36:27] I heard Zach Cass from OpenAI

[00:36:29] at distribution strategy groups,

[00:36:32] AI and wholesale distribution event last October.

[00:36:34] Their big event is coming up in about three weeks in Chicago.

[00:36:37] We'll plug that a little bit further.

[00:36:39] And then we've got someone, Jonathan Bind

[00:36:41] from distribution strategy group

[00:36:44] is going to be with us as our guest next week.

[00:36:46] We don't always let the cat out of the bag on our guests,

[00:36:48] but Jonathan's with us to talk about that event more.

[00:36:51] And Jonathan has a PhD in computer science

[00:36:55] and I think artificial intelligence

[00:36:57] or machine learning as well.

[00:36:58] So we'll get that out of Jonathan,

[00:37:00] but he's quite the expert there as well.

[00:37:02] I'm afraid about the two of you on this show.

[00:37:05] I might just take the day off.

[00:37:07] Go for it.

[00:37:09] Yeah, we're all good.

[00:37:11] But Zach Cass from OpenAI commented about fusion

[00:37:19] and all of that's going to be more than solar

[00:37:22] is going to be needed long-term

[00:37:23] for us to reach the full potential of AGI

[00:37:27] and so forth that goes with that.

[00:37:28] So that's going to be an interesting piece of it.

[00:37:30] But let's dive a little bit deeper into

[00:37:34] this whole discussion about this multimodal thing.

[00:37:37] And I wanted to get your thoughts on this, Tom,

[00:37:40] because I was listening last week to the All In podcast

[00:37:44] which I've been listening to for probably a year and a half

[00:37:47] now you introduced me to it.

[00:37:48] And that's four interesting, right?

[00:37:53] If you don't listen to this podcast,

[00:37:54] it's four technology,

[00:37:56] you know, wiz's experts from early Google,

[00:38:02] early, I think Chamath Palayapatiya,

[00:38:06] I shouldn't even try and say that is very early,

[00:38:10] you know, like when Facebook was like in the,

[00:38:14] I think it was 50 million, 70 million,

[00:38:17] something like that.

[00:38:17] They're all early stage tech investors.

[00:38:19] And one of them, the least they go from,

[00:38:23] I think a billion dollars worth,

[00:38:24] one of them is worth a billion,

[00:38:25] one of them is worth a half a billion,

[00:38:27] one of them's worth a quarter.

[00:38:28] And I think one of them's worth,

[00:38:30] or anyway, something like that.

[00:38:32] But crazy, crazy well, but smart guys, great podcast.

[00:38:35] They talk about everything across the board.

[00:38:37] And one of the things they were talking about

[00:38:38] relating to the video component

[00:38:43] of these tools moving forward

[00:38:45] is they take it back to Google Glass.

[00:38:48] And when Google made the Google Glasses

[00:38:50] for that short period,

[00:38:51] and they were talking,

[00:38:51] they were relating this to Silicon Valley,

[00:38:53] but I could see this happening in,

[00:38:55] you know, not to the dramatic edge

[00:38:58] that they talk about here,

[00:38:58] but people being frustrated within my social circles.

[00:39:01] But they were talking about

[00:39:02] people getting punched in the face

[00:39:04] because they knew that the guy

[00:39:06] that was wearing those glasses

[00:39:07] was recording everything they did and said, right?

[00:39:10] And they talk about it all the time.

[00:39:12] What do you see with that in our day-to-day life,

[00:39:15] and then maybe translate that question

[00:39:17] of the video component into the work life

[00:39:20] of a pipe-valve-and-fitting salesman

[00:39:22] or an executive in an electrical distributor?

[00:39:27] I think you have to separate out

[00:39:28] the video modal capability

[00:39:31] and then the channel of which that video is obtained.

[00:39:35] So, you know, one of the things

[00:39:38] that I believe we will see probably this year

[00:39:42] is the ability to install your open,

[00:39:44] a chat GPT app on your computer

[00:39:47] and literally have it record video-wise,

[00:39:51] not just a meeting,

[00:39:52] but maybe record everything you do during the day.

[00:39:55] Right?

[00:39:55] So think about,

[00:39:56] I was just thinking about my day yesterday.

[00:39:58] I think I had six Zoom meetings.

[00:40:00] I did some emails.

[00:40:01] I did some other things.

[00:40:03] If it was recording all of that during the day,

[00:40:05] it would then be able to take that video,

[00:40:07] summarize all of my Zoom meetings,

[00:40:10] summarize what I did,

[00:40:11] possibly give me a to-do list

[00:40:13] like a personal assistant for the entire day.

[00:40:16] Right?

[00:40:16] Now that isn't, you know,

[00:40:19] that's different than wearing glasses, right?

[00:40:20] That's videoing somebody else

[00:40:22] as you're using it for your own purpose.

[00:40:25] But the same concept could occur, right?

[00:40:27] Through a glass or through a wearable.

[00:40:29] You got to know wearables are coming, right?

[00:40:31] Right.

[00:40:31] Wearables are coming with it.

[00:40:32] But I think that what we're going to do

[00:40:34] is we're going to get used to

[00:40:36] how we use the video as a modal video and text

[00:40:40] as a way to fuel AI.

[00:40:41] We're going to get used to that

[00:40:42] in things that are less intrusive

[00:40:44] than wearing glasses.

[00:40:45] We're going to get used to it through our phone,

[00:40:47] through our desktops,

[00:40:48] through other things that are less intrusive.

[00:40:50] And then inherently,

[00:40:51] we'll find its way into wearables.

[00:40:54] And so it culturally changes.

[00:40:56] Because I think that they...

[00:40:57] And I think it's going to take a while actually

[00:40:59] because I do think culturally

[00:41:00] it's a big jump between recording your desktop

[00:41:03] and then having glasses

[00:41:04] that you're recording in a conversation

[00:41:06] with somebody on.

[00:41:08] But if you just look at the underlying technology

[00:41:10] that enables that,

[00:41:12] it is very resource intensive.

[00:41:14] It is very power intensive.

[00:41:16] But it's here and it's coming much, much faster

[00:41:18] than we probably...

[00:41:20] Again, resources...

[00:41:22] Assuming that the resources are available,

[00:41:23] the technology is close to being there,

[00:41:26] if not there.

[00:41:28] So this is where I struggle with this.

[00:41:31] And I'm going to share this.

[00:41:33] I want your thoughts on it is...

[00:41:35] I look at this

[00:41:36] and you described that with your day.

[00:41:38] And my day was very similar.

[00:41:40] A couple of the Zoom calls you were on,

[00:41:41] I was on as well.

[00:41:43] I was on a podcast yesterday.

[00:41:46] Boatloads of emails,

[00:41:47] and a little bit of looking at some of our

[00:41:50] BleedSmart's financial plan for next year

[00:41:52] and even in the rest of this year and next year.

[00:41:56] And so just so many facets, right?

[00:41:57] As an executive,

[00:41:59] so many different hats we wear during the day.

[00:42:01] So I think for me, right,

[00:42:04] is what I want this to do

[00:42:06] is to be able to say,

[00:42:08] help me be at a place that says,

[00:42:11] you can come to work at 9 and leave at 4

[00:42:14] and have been more efficient

[00:42:16] versus I'm still going to work 630 to 630,

[00:42:21] but I'm just going to get that much more done.

[00:42:24] Because the risk I think that we have

[00:42:27] is it not helping with quality of life.

[00:42:31] It just helps grind out more and more and more.

[00:42:35] And I'm not sure that that's what we all need.

[00:42:38] Well, I think it could go either direction.

[00:42:40] But I think it's up to us as the user, right?

[00:42:44] To figure out are we going to just use this technology

[00:42:47] to potentially improve our efficiency

[00:42:50] and our quality of life

[00:42:52] or are we going to use it as a way

[00:42:53] to get more done in the 12 or 14 hours that work?

[00:42:56] Well, I think it's going to become an issue

[00:42:57] within organizations, right?

[00:43:00] To make sure that people are using it

[00:43:02] in a way that's healthy and good for them.

[00:43:04] Because I think there could be,

[00:43:07] use the term double-edged sword earlier

[00:43:09] and I think that could be potentially an issue

[00:43:12] with all of this as we look at it.

[00:43:14] Yeah, it's very, very different, right?

[00:43:16] It's a very different way of working,

[00:43:19] a different way of thinking.

[00:43:20] It's a different way of...

[00:43:21] So it's a very big cultural shift

[00:43:24] between the different things that are there.

[00:43:25] Right, yeah.

[00:43:26] Well, so let's take this back to use case, right?

[00:43:29] Because a lot of our listeners are manufacturers

[00:43:33] that have sales teams out in the field,

[00:43:36] internal teams running the operation,

[00:43:39] we've got a large audience of wholesale distributors,

[00:43:41] which is a big part of our customer base

[00:43:43] at LeadSmart that we talk to every day.

[00:43:48] People getting up and pulling boots on in the morning

[00:43:50] and getting to job sites

[00:43:51] and then going to a meeting at the office and so forth.

[00:43:54] So let's play with this back to that multimodal comment

[00:43:59] that you made with that.

[00:44:01] Let's go back to that multimodal comment.

[00:44:04] Let's look at maybe distributor,

[00:44:08] field salesperson's role in late 2025 with these tools

[00:44:16] and maybe even back to an insider or a counter person.

[00:44:18] What do you see coming from that, Tom?

[00:44:22] Well, I think it'll be very...

[00:44:23] Not very, I think it'll be very...

[00:44:25] It'll be different based on the role, right?

[00:44:27] An outside salesperson will use this technology

[00:44:29] different than an inside salesperson

[00:44:32] or even potentially a counter person.

[00:44:34] But we've talked about this before.

[00:44:36] I really am a strong believer that this...

[00:44:41] And this is where we're headed, right?

[00:44:42] We're betting on this inside of LeadSmart

[00:44:47] is that this technology will be used

[00:44:49] to provide that really sophisticated co-pilot

[00:44:53] or if you want to call it digital twin

[00:44:55] to sales members of the sales organization.

[00:44:59] The way that it's used,

[00:45:00] the way that it's set up will be different

[00:45:02] for an inside person.

[00:45:04] Unfortunately, I think there's quite a bit

[00:45:05] that will be automated even from an inside person

[00:45:07] and I think the role of the inside person

[00:45:10] may end up actually dropping

[00:45:12] because there's so much that can be done with AI

[00:45:15] through the inside piece.

[00:45:17] Or redirected.

[00:45:18] That research redirected.

[00:45:19] Right, redirected.

[00:45:20] Right, redirected.

[00:45:21] Comes back to what we were just talking about

[00:45:22] with the website, right?

[00:45:24] And the e-commerce piece.

[00:45:26] I think from an outside perspective,

[00:45:28] having that co-pilot that you can have...

[00:45:31] I said this, I think in the beginning, right?

[00:45:33] I'm driving to a meeting or I'm driving to a location

[00:45:37] and I'm having a conversation with ChatGPT

[00:45:39] in my truck or my car.

[00:45:41] And I'm getting not just,

[00:45:43] oh, who's the primary contact at this account

[00:45:45] or how much are they bought?

[00:45:47] But I'm actually getting deep insights

[00:45:48] into how to best maximize that visit

[00:45:52] that I'm going to have with that account.

[00:45:53] Right.

[00:45:54] And providing data and information

[00:45:56] about the account that you never would have necessarily

[00:45:58] even thought of even looking for.

[00:46:01] And now you go into that account

[00:46:02] and you're adding so much more value for the account,

[00:46:05] but you're also adding so much more opportunity

[00:46:08] for you as your business and yourself as the salesperson.

[00:46:11] Right.

[00:46:12] So instead of bringing bagels on Tuesdays

[00:46:15] and talking about last week's orders

[00:46:17] and what needs to be replaced or whatever it is,

[00:46:20] we're bringing business insights

[00:46:22] that can help our customers grow

[00:46:24] their organization.

[00:46:25] And it's not that people don't do some of that now, right?

[00:46:29] People work very hard on that

[00:46:31] and have forever and ever and ever.

[00:46:32] But in the light of this is the magnitude

[00:46:36] of what that can be

[00:46:37] and the efficiencies that that brings

[00:46:39] are very, very powerful from that standpoint.

[00:46:42] I'm looking forward to all of this.

[00:46:45] And I do think what we'll see,

[00:46:49] and there was just a comment that said,

[00:46:50] you know, that came in, Bob mentioned,

[00:46:53] that came in, Bob mentioned the point about

[00:46:56] potential to largely replace 15 to 20 dollar an hour jobs.

[00:47:00] And we're going to talk in a few minutes

[00:47:02] about maximizing efficiency

[00:47:04] through another article that we have today.

[00:47:06] But I think what we're likely to see with this is

[00:47:09] it's not, it's probably will be less

[00:47:11] about people losing their job

[00:47:13] and more about what they're doing.

[00:47:16] And so it's kind of funny

[00:47:19] that ties into another article we have later on today

[00:47:22] about training, job site training in our people section.

[00:47:24] So I think it will be different,

[00:47:26] but I'm going to throw out a use case

[00:47:29] and see, let you pick it apart

[00:47:31] if it's, if I'm mistaken at all of this.

[00:47:34] But in theory, in the not too distant future,

[00:47:36] even using a product like ours

[00:47:38] with Leeds Smart Channel Cloud,

[00:47:40] you could be just day in the life

[00:47:42] of a field salesperson, right?

[00:47:44] You have a digital assistant,

[00:47:46] a co-pilot, digital twin as we call it,

[00:47:50] that can recap as you're getting ready in the morning

[00:47:52] if you chose to, could recap to you yesterday,

[00:47:57] recap to you what you need to do today,

[00:48:01] who you're seeing, why you're seeing them

[00:48:03] and what you need to talk about.

[00:48:06] While you're there at the customer,

[00:48:11] with their approval,

[00:48:13] you could be recording your discussion.

[00:48:15] You could be snapping pictures of a job site,

[00:48:19] a project, a piece of equipment,

[00:48:21] a cutting tool, a piece of machinery.

[00:48:25] Taking that picture,

[00:48:26] having that analyze the picture to give you feedback,

[00:48:31] all of that could be tying back to then

[00:48:33] the data that you get from the customer that says,

[00:48:36] by the way, yes, go ahead and get me 27 of those widgets

[00:48:42] and put them on this week's order.

[00:48:44] And that data can push right out,

[00:48:46] including the video recording,

[00:48:48] the AI recap of that meeting,

[00:48:51] the to-dos could all go into your CRM

[00:48:54] and in theory even into your ERP to process

[00:48:56] or e-commerce to process the order.

[00:48:59] I think you're absolutely right.

[00:49:03] Again, there's three elements to this, right?

[00:49:05] To making what you just described

[00:49:07] and we just talked about come to life.

[00:49:09] There is the underlying, call it software technology,

[00:49:12] which I believe is a head of everything.

[00:49:14] It's having the infrastructure like we talked about,

[00:49:16] the computing resources, the energy and so forth

[00:49:19] to make that happen.

[00:49:20] Then we have to have the data to drive it.

[00:49:24] Those are the three legs of the stool.

[00:49:26] What I see is that the software technology part of it

[00:49:29] is zipping right along.

[00:49:31] I don't know that we're keeping up well

[00:49:33] with the infrastructure and the thing,

[00:49:35] but there's a lot of money going into that,

[00:49:36] tons and tons of money that are beyond us

[00:49:40] and then having the right data to fuel that,

[00:49:42] which we're spending.

[00:49:44] I spend my entire day and night looking and working

[00:49:47] at how are we going to get the right data

[00:49:49] to be able to fuel these things?

[00:49:51] Because this is not something just fueled off of

[00:49:53] the general internet.

[00:49:54] This is using data that's coming from your company,

[00:49:57] from your business, from all of those things

[00:49:59] that are there to help fuel what we just talked about there.

[00:50:05] Technologically, we're not far away from it.

[00:50:08] We keep falling, I believe, farther and farther behind

[00:50:11] because, again, as businesses,

[00:50:14] we haven't seen the killer app,

[00:50:16] so we haven't made it a priority to do the things

[00:50:18] to get prepared for these things that are coming.

[00:50:20] But the killer app, I think, is going to be here soon

[00:50:22] and that's going to cause a stampede,

[00:50:25] if you want to call that,

[00:50:26] for some of these things getting dealt with.

[00:50:28] Great.

[00:50:29] Great analysis.

[00:50:30] Thanks for going deep on this stuff.

[00:50:31] The last piece I'll share with this is

[00:50:34] book that we both, I think, read last year.

[00:50:37] It's Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy wrote a book,

[00:50:41] 10X is easier than 2X,

[00:50:43] how world-class entrepreneurs achieve more by doing less.

[00:50:47] As I went through that book,

[00:50:49] I haven't even finished it yet,

[00:50:50] but I've listened to a lot of it.

[00:50:52] It's hard to have 10X thinking.

[00:50:54] The concept behind it is

[00:50:57] my mindset should be getting 10 times ahead

[00:51:01] of where I'm at today,

[00:51:02] doing things that will get me 10 times ahead today,

[00:51:04] using my time in a way that doesn't just get

[00:51:08] what Kevin can get done today,

[00:51:09] but how can I 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12X

[00:51:13] what I can accomplish by doing certain habits.

[00:51:16] I think these are the tools

[00:51:18] that we've just talked about in this segment

[00:51:20] that will allow us to 4, 6, 8, 10X

[00:51:24] our potential of what we accomplish.

[00:51:26] Then if we do it right,

[00:51:28] give us some good freedoms in our life

[00:51:30] and or quality of life

[00:51:32] that oftentimes we struggle with in the work world

[00:51:35] because we're just too dang busy

[00:51:37] because we're trying to accomplish 10X things

[00:51:41] in a 1X world.

[00:51:42] I totally agree.

[00:51:44] If that accomplishes that, as I said before,

[00:51:46] it's going to be the way that

[00:51:48] you or the company chooses to use it.

[00:51:51] The ability to actually accomplish that

[00:51:53] is definitely there.

[00:51:55] Anyway, we have a lot more to cover.

[00:51:58] We'll move through.

[00:51:59] I think it was well worth

[00:52:00] spending the time on that.

[00:52:00] Let's move ahead to our sales and M&A segment.

[00:52:04] There's an article that ties right into this.

[00:52:06] It talks about,

[00:52:07] will you and your sales team be relevant

[00:52:09] in the world of AI?

[00:52:10] They actually referenced the same book

[00:52:12] I just referenced in that.

[00:52:14] And they asked the question,

[00:52:15] am I a transactional business person

[00:52:17] or a relevant business person?

[00:52:19] And they talked about eliminating 80%

[00:52:22] of the nonsense

[00:52:23] and nonproductive activities in your life.

[00:52:26] I think she was the writer of this

[00:52:28] was writing an open letter to Kevin Brown

[00:52:31] in this setting as well.

[00:52:33] But it was really powerful.

[00:52:35] I don't know.

[00:52:35] Do you have any takeaways on that?

[00:52:38] I think it fits perfectly

[00:52:39] in what we just were talking about here.

[00:52:43] You had mentioned about the jobs

[00:52:45] are going to change.

[00:52:46] And this goes back to Bob's comment

[00:52:47] about the $15 to $20 an hour type jobs.

[00:52:52] What the jobs that are going to be required,

[00:52:54] I believe,

[00:52:55] well, I more than believe I'm seeing it,

[00:52:58] are going to be coordination and conducting.

[00:53:01] You're going to be conducting things

[00:53:02] in the organization that is leveraging AI

[00:53:05] into what you're actually doing.

[00:53:07] So the jobs that are going to be

[00:53:09] the most valuable are people

[00:53:10] that can understand how to coordinate

[00:53:12] and conduct using AI versus people

[00:53:15] that can just get something done.

[00:53:17] Because the AI will allow you

[00:53:19] to get a lot more things done.

[00:53:20] But if it's not coordinated,

[00:53:22] conducted, put together,

[00:53:24] it can't just run on autopilot.

[00:53:25] That's re-orchestrated.

[00:53:26] At the same time.

[00:53:27] The orchestration aspect of it.

[00:53:30] So, and I think that's a lot of what

[00:53:33] that article was talking about is that

[00:53:35] the sales, even from a salesperson

[00:53:37] or somebody who's in the field,

[00:53:38] it's no different.

[00:53:39] We just talked about.

[00:53:40] If I'm thinking about how am I going

[00:53:42] to coordinate my day?

[00:53:44] How am I going to orchestrate my day?

[00:53:46] How am I going to versus,

[00:53:48] okay, I just got to go visit some people.

[00:53:51] I think it's a very different.

[00:53:54] Let's say it is maybe a different skill set

[00:53:56] because it's more than just,

[00:53:57] hey, I have good relationship skills

[00:53:59] and I'm charismatic and people like me

[00:54:02] and they trust me and things like that.

[00:54:04] To going into actually being more business oriented.

[00:54:08] And we've talked about this on previous shows,

[00:54:10] even in the training of people,

[00:54:11] the people, the salespeople

[00:54:13] are going to have to understand

[00:54:14] the business possibly more than

[00:54:15] what they do now.

[00:54:16] So a lot of different contexts on that article.

[00:54:19] Well, there's some really good pieces

[00:54:21] to this, right?

[00:54:21] And they talk about some of these segments, right?

[00:54:24] I talked about transactional versus

[00:54:26] a relevant business person.

[00:54:29] They talked about jobs that are repetitive

[00:54:31] and don't require the deep thinking

[00:54:33] will be the first to be replaced by AI, right?

[00:54:36] So this where we're headed with this is

[00:54:40] we tend to in the risk for anybody

[00:54:43] is that we go through the motions of our day, right?

[00:54:46] I was busy, right?

[00:54:48] Now the thing is talking about the deep thinking

[00:54:50] that the author here represents a number of time

[00:54:53] of what is most relevant.

[00:54:55] Now we talk about this constantly

[00:54:57] with lead smart channel cloud customers

[00:54:59] with the Genius Feed AI tool built into our system now

[00:55:03] is it's easy for us all to stay busy.

[00:55:06] But Genius Feed can actually go look at the data

[00:55:09] that we have in the CRM from ERP

[00:55:10] and e-commerce and marketing animation

[00:55:12] and general CRM data and say,

[00:55:14] these are the things you need

[00:55:15] to pay attention to today, right?

[00:55:17] Helping with that deep thinking

[00:55:19] about what needs to get done.

[00:55:21] I've got this many quotes

[00:55:23] that are closing this week.

[00:55:24] And here's my alert.

[00:55:26] I've got overdue AR balances with these customers

[00:55:29] I need to check in.

[00:55:31] These are the things that will allow people

[00:55:33] to accomplish more with less ideally as we move forward.

[00:55:37] But I like the idea that this author used

[00:55:40] about talking about deep thinking

[00:55:41] because so often people don't think a lot

[00:55:44] about their day, their week, their month.

[00:55:47] They're not intentional.

[00:55:48] They just respond, right?

[00:55:51] As opposed to being the reactive

[00:55:53] as opposed to being very proactive in this setting.

[00:55:56] So good things about the transactional conversations

[00:56:00] that can have, the coaching that can,

[00:56:03] how AI can help with coaching.

[00:56:04] We talk about that with our customers all the time

[00:56:06] is when this Genius Feed is alerting a salesperson

[00:56:10] within Lead Smart Channel Cloud regularly

[00:56:11] about what they should be paying attention to

[00:56:15] and that same alert and or summary email report

[00:56:18] comes to a sales executive,

[00:56:20] they can be coaching better, right?

[00:56:22] So much that can be done.

[00:56:24] Great article, loved it to see.

[00:56:26] Our next segment that we talk about each week

[00:56:28] is people in leadership.

[00:56:30] There's an article there about navigating the FTC's

[00:56:32] new ban on non-compete agreements.

[00:56:34] There's a lot of pressure on that.

[00:56:36] That's from industrytoday.com.

[00:56:38] NAW came out with their,

[00:56:40] National Association of Wholesalers came out

[00:56:42] with their stance on that this week

[00:56:44] and their pushback on that as well.

[00:56:46] So back to kind of tying into all of this AI,

[00:56:52] people, whether it's jobs being shuffled

[00:56:55] into other parts of a company

[00:56:58] or people potentially losing their job.

[00:57:00] We posted an article in today's

[00:57:02] Around the Horn newsletter

[00:57:03] about human resource from humanresourcedirector.com

[00:57:06] magazine and it said seven out of 10 employees

[00:57:09] would like to update their skills more often.

[00:57:11] So it said ultimately 71% would like to do that

[00:57:15] and are looking for upskilling

[00:57:17] and re-skilling opportunities.

[00:57:20] That didn't say AI or efficiency per se,

[00:57:25] but it's screaming, right?

[00:57:27] Teach me more about how to use these tools.

[00:57:31] Yeah, and I'm good to see that.

[00:57:35] I would like to see that demand to learn more

[00:57:41] and to grow more in the sales world.

[00:57:46] It's interesting.

[00:57:47] I work with marketers a lot

[00:57:49] and I work with salespeople a lot.

[00:57:50] I see marketers really, really, really

[00:57:53] trying to improve their skills,

[00:57:55] update their skills along the lines here.

[00:57:58] I see it less in the sales world.

[00:58:01] I think as salespeople,

[00:58:02] we tend to rely on our relationships,

[00:58:05] our Rolodex, I shouldn't use that word,

[00:58:07] I guess that's dates me,

[00:58:09] our Rolodex, our charisma, our whatever

[00:58:13] and maybe we feel that there's less

[00:58:15] that we need to learn.

[00:58:17] But I think in the world of sales,

[00:58:18] more than anything, that 70%

[00:58:22] is going to need to really, really change from that.

[00:58:25] We can't just rely on our charisma

[00:58:27] and our Rolodex.

[00:58:28] So I'm hoping we see more of that

[00:58:31] urged for learning and stuff

[00:58:33] in the sales world.

[00:58:33] I just don't see it.

[00:58:34] I see it a lot in the marketing side.

[00:58:36] I don't see it a lot in the sales side

[00:58:38] in the world we're in.

[00:58:39] Got to keep at it, right?

[00:58:41] And working on that.

[00:58:42] So I think organizations

[00:58:44] that are thinking about training,

[00:58:46] upskilling their people is great.

[00:58:48] So that kind of covered that people

[00:58:50] and section we go each week,

[00:58:52] we have our industry scuttlebutt section

[00:58:55] where we talk a little bit about M&A

[00:58:57] and expansions and things.

[00:58:58] So article here about Imperial Dade

[00:59:02] expanding some coverage

[00:59:03] and an acquisition,

[00:59:05] Motion Industries

[00:59:06] growing by acquiring another company in New York,

[00:59:10] White Cap

[00:59:11] and their acquisition of National Lateran Scaffolding.

[00:59:15] There was like five others

[00:59:16] we could have posted this week

[00:59:17] or more that came through.

[00:59:19] But we try and have some of those articles each week.

[00:59:22] We also have though each week

[00:59:25] a section that we call a good read

[00:59:27] or good reads.

[00:59:28] And there was a really good article

[00:59:30] that we posted.

[00:59:31] We've been posting more stuff lately

[00:59:33] from Mark Dancer.

[00:59:35] And I don't know if the folks

[00:59:37] follow Mark Dancer or not,

[00:59:38] but the easy way to do it

[00:59:40] other than LinkedIn is

[00:59:42] and Mark is just a veteran

[00:59:43] of the manufacturing distribution world,

[00:59:45] a writer, a speaker, researcher,

[00:59:49] fellow with a couple of organizations.

[00:59:51] And the easy way to read Mark's topics

[00:59:54] are at markdancer.substack.com

[00:59:57] So Substack is kind of what's replaced

[01:00:00] most of the blog platforms this day and age.

[01:00:04] But he talks about seeing the supply chain

[01:00:06] in a new light.

[01:00:07] We won't spend too much time on it,

[01:00:09] but it talked about him using,

[01:00:12] having a chat with ChatGPT

[01:00:15] about the uses of AI

[01:00:17] in a wholesale distribution company

[01:00:20] and talked about data a lot.

[01:00:22] And these are things Tom that you talk

[01:00:23] about consistently in our organization

[01:00:26] and then what other people

[01:00:28] be talking about, right?

[01:00:29] About the amount of data

[01:00:30] that a wholesale distributor manufactures as well,

[01:00:33] but distributors even more so.

[01:00:35] Transactional data, inventory data,

[01:00:37] customer data, supplier data,

[01:00:40] logistics data, financial data.

[01:00:42] And he starts asking relevant questions

[01:00:46] in addition of ChatGPT

[01:00:50] about why do these things matter

[01:00:52] and how do we use these things

[01:00:55] and how do they impact our community

[01:00:57] and so forth.

[01:00:59] Really kind of intriguing.

[01:01:00] So you get a chance to follow Mark,

[01:01:02] markdancer.substack.com

[01:01:05] Check him out on LinkedIn,

[01:01:06] that information is there.

[01:01:08] I was kind of intrigued by how we went about that

[01:01:10] and his thoughtful article.

[01:01:11] Well, it sounds very in alignment

[01:01:13] with the things we were talking about today.

[01:01:14] 100%.

[01:01:16] How you're the future

[01:01:17] of how we're going to work

[01:01:18] and look at things.

[01:01:19] So I think it's a good example of it.

[01:01:21] Yep, exactly right.

[01:01:23] So additionally, before we get going,

[01:01:27] our second look that we do each week,

[01:01:29] we oftentimes have articles here

[01:01:31] where we've talked about them before.

[01:01:34] We talked at length about the impact

[01:01:37] on supply chain with the Baltimore ship

[01:01:41] sinking there or crashed that had there.

[01:01:43] So now they're talking,

[01:01:45] the article is coming out

[01:01:47] on what was really going on.

[01:01:48] They talked about it being a perfect storm

[01:01:50] of the equipment and the systems

[01:01:52] on the ship that had that crash.

[01:01:53] We posted an article there.

[01:01:57] Then the probably key thing

[01:02:00] we need to talk about before we leave here

[01:02:02] is something exciting happening next Wednesday

[01:02:06] that is available for all of our listeners

[01:02:09] and anyone that they might know as well.

[01:02:11] What's going to happen next Wednesday, Tom?

[01:02:14] Well, I think there's a good webinar

[01:02:16] that you're going to want to attend,

[01:02:18] especially if you want to kind of see

[01:02:22] a little bit of where the future is going.

[01:02:25] We're going to do a webinar

[01:02:26] as what is Smart CRM

[01:02:27] and why does it matter to your business.

[01:02:30] And we're going to obviously frame

[01:02:32] a lot of the things that we talk about here,

[01:02:34] which is how do you start building

[01:02:37] the foundation for the future?

[01:02:39] How do you take advantage of AI?

[01:02:42] What are some of the things

[01:02:43] that are happening and so forth?

[01:02:44] So yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

[01:02:48] It's going to be a deeper dive

[01:02:49] on a lot of the things

[01:02:50] that we kind of hit on here.

[01:02:52] No, it's going to be good.

[01:02:53] We've done something similar in the past

[01:02:56] and it's gone very well.

[01:02:58] This has got some updates to it

[01:03:00] with what we have.

[01:03:04] As far as AI, there'll be some expanded

[01:03:06] information on AI there as well.

[01:03:08] So whether you're a manufacturer

[01:03:10] or distributor, come join us.

[01:03:13] If you would like information on that,

[01:03:15] you can send us a note

[01:03:17] at hello at leadsmarttech.com.

[01:03:20] You can probably simpler or easiest

[01:03:23] just go to the LinkedIn,

[01:03:25] Leadsmart Technologies LinkedIn page

[01:03:28] and there's information about it

[01:03:29] pinned to the top there.

[01:03:30] And you can click on that link and join us.

[01:03:32] We had a big audience last time

[01:03:34] and found it very insightful about,

[01:03:37] you know, the concept behind it, right?

[01:03:40] Tom is what we're really trying

[01:03:41] to think about with all of this

[01:03:43] is CRM and you've used this phrase

[01:03:46] in the past many times.

[01:03:48] Sometimes that three-letter word

[01:03:49] can be referred to as a four-letter word

[01:03:51] because it's just been something

[01:03:53] somebody bought and threw

[01:03:54] into their organization

[01:03:55] and no return on investment.

[01:03:57] The salespeople don't use it.

[01:03:58] Their salespeople don't, you know,

[01:04:00] it's not helpful to them.

[01:04:01] We're going to unpack all of that

[01:04:03] and we're going to talk about

[01:04:04] why that was so 2018

[01:04:08] and what are the steps people

[01:04:10] can take to really drive growth

[01:04:13] and better visibility

[01:04:14] across the organization.

[01:04:15] I always use the four terms, right?

[01:04:17] Visibility, accountability

[01:04:18] and actionable insights.

[01:04:20] If you have any technology

[01:04:21] in your company that doesn't help you

[01:04:22] with those things,

[01:04:24] you're missing the boat.

[01:04:25] Well, it's also,

[01:04:27] and I, you know, it's also CRM

[01:04:29] will be the energy data power plant

[01:04:32] if you want to call it that

[01:04:33] that's going to drive a lot of what

[01:04:34] you're going to be doing going forward.

[01:04:36] Well, it's the place to visualize

[01:04:38] all the rest of the data

[01:04:39] in your business, right?

[01:04:40] And it's going to drive

[01:04:41] other things in the business.

[01:04:42] So, yeah, good.

[01:04:43] So very different than

[01:04:46] old school CRM definition.

[01:04:47] That's going to be a good show.

[01:04:48] So we'd love to have you join us.

[01:04:50] You can just click on the link right there.

[01:04:51] There's a link to sign up

[01:04:52] right in the newsletter.

[01:04:54] So that's true.

[01:04:54] It is.

[01:04:55] If you have the newsletter,

[01:04:56] you can do that right away.

[01:04:58] But then if you don't have the newsletter

[01:04:59] and you'd like it,

[01:05:01] LinkedIn is simple,

[01:05:03] the Lead Smart Technologies page.

[01:05:05] The last thing before we go, Tom,

[01:05:06] that I didn't mention

[01:05:07] at the beginning of the day is,

[01:05:08] you know, we are at number 91 today.

[01:05:11] We're coming up on 100 times

[01:05:13] we've had the newsletter out.

[01:05:14] Probably our, I'm going to guess

[01:05:16] it's our 85th show probably today,

[01:05:19] live show somewhere in there.

[01:05:23] We have a great audience.

[01:05:24] Everywhere I go,

[01:05:26] trade shows, events, conferences,

[01:05:30] people that I've never met before

[01:05:32] or oftentimes companies I've never heard of

[01:05:34] will comment about the newsletter

[01:05:36] and the podcast.

[01:05:37] And we're really appreciative

[01:05:38] of those people who join us.

[01:05:40] Got an email through,

[01:05:42] or a message through LinkedIn this week

[01:05:43] about it.

[01:05:44] A gentleman who's going to become

[01:05:46] a new friend of mine

[01:05:47] who he said he's used the terms,

[01:05:49] I stumbled across your podcast

[01:05:51] and love it.

[01:05:52] And now I'm a listener every week.

[01:05:55] I don't say that to Patis on the back.

[01:05:56] I say that because if you get value

[01:05:59] out of this,

[01:06:00] the way that we're able to continue

[01:06:01] to do this consistently

[01:06:03] is if you hit the follow button

[01:06:05] on the Leadsmart Technologies LinkedIn page

[01:06:07] so you get the updates

[01:06:08] and your friends will see

[01:06:10] that you're getting the updates.

[01:06:12] If you're following us

[01:06:13] and listening on YouTube,

[01:06:15] click the like and subscribe button.

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[01:06:21] If you're not getting the newsletter,

[01:06:22] let's get the newsletter out to you

[01:06:24] and share it with others

[01:06:25] so they can help us grow this as well.

[01:06:28] And if you're listening on Apple Podcasts,

[01:06:30] Spotify, wherever it might be,

[01:06:32] please not only subscribe

[01:06:34] but leave a review

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[01:06:36] the more relevance that we get out there.

[01:06:40] And then the last part of it is

[01:06:42] be part of our family.

[01:06:43] Share with us as many do

[01:06:45] on what we could do better.

[01:06:47] What are the topics

[01:06:48] you'd like to hear us discuss?

[01:06:50] Who would be relevant guests to have?

[01:06:52] We would love to get that information.

[01:06:53] So stay part of the family

[01:06:55] if you enjoy what we do and help us grow.

[01:06:57] Sounds good.

[01:06:59] No, for sure.

[01:07:00] All right.

[01:07:01] Well, Tom, anything exciting for the weekend?

[01:07:06] No, no, nothing too exciting.

[01:07:09] You get back to building those tools.

[01:07:12] You can use catgpt4o and go there.

[01:07:15] And keep refreshing my screen

[01:07:16] until I start getting the new tools

[01:07:18] I'm supposed to get.

[01:07:19] Very, very good.

[01:07:20] All right.

[01:07:20] Well, Tom, I wish you a great weekend, my friend.

[01:07:23] Thank you everybody that joined us today.

[01:07:25] We're grateful for you being with us.

[01:07:27] We're grateful that we have this opportunity

[01:07:30] to bring this information to you.

[01:07:31] So we'll wish you a fantastic weekend.

[01:07:34] Be kind, be safe, do good things.

[01:07:36] Thanks everyone.

[01:07:37] Have a good weekend.

[01:07:42] We hope you enjoyed today's episode

[01:07:44] and our guests.

[01:07:46] Each week, we try our best

[01:07:47] to dig into the topics

[01:07:48] that are impacting your business.

[01:07:50] So please reach out to us

[01:07:52] and let us know how you think

[01:07:54] we can make the show better

[01:07:55] or topics you'd like for us

[01:07:56] to tackle or talk about more often

[01:07:58] and even guests you'd like to see join us.

[01:08:00] We're looking forward

[01:08:01] to bringing you next week's session

[01:08:03] and hope that until then,

[01:08:05] you stay safe, stay focused

[01:08:07] and do great things.

[01:08:09] If you haven't already,

[01:08:10] please subscribe to the podcast

[01:08:12] and leave a review

[01:08:13] to help others in wholesale distribution

[01:08:15] get access to the conversation.

[01:08:17] And finally, please check out

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[01:08:23] and wholesale distribution industry, CRM,

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[01:08:29] That's Lead Smart Technologies

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