Wholesale Industry Icons Review ‘23 and ‘24

[00:00:00] 10. Welcome to Around The Horn in Wholesale Distribution with Kevin Brown and Tom Burton. Sponsored each week by Leedsmart Technologies, Tom, Kevin and their guests review the news of the week and dive deep into the topics impacting manufacturers, Wholesale Distribution, independent sales agents, and the global Wholesale Supply Chain.

[00:00:25] Whether it's M&A, Sass and Cloud Computing, B2BE Commerce or Supply Chain Issues, we peel back the onion with our guests into the topics that impact your business the most. Hey, good to see everybody and so happy to have this fine group with us.

[00:00:43] I'm Kevin Brown and here with my business partner in lifelong friend Tom Burton and we are so fortunate and appreciative that we've got these three guests with us this morning. We have got, I've had people this week reach out and mention legends.

[00:01:00] I've had a couple of people say esteemed quite a few different things related to Ian Heller, Mike, Marks and Dirk beverage. The other ones that came in were less popular. I certainly won't mention but great to have you guys with us.

[00:01:17] We've got some great people popping into the show right now as well and we appreciate it. If you're joining us this morning on our live broadcast which we do each week on Friday mornings at 9 am, we are on Facebook Live YouTube Live and LinkedIn Live.

[00:01:32] If you're in any of those platforms please say hello, maybe tell us where you're from and share your thoughts with us as we go through the day of discussion. This is a really positive day for us.

[00:01:43] Before we dive in and do a little housekeeping we do each week. I'm going to kind of go, no pun intended. Down the horn. Around the horn, Dirk. I'm under. There we go. I'm going to start with you, Dirk.

[00:01:57] If you wouldn't mind my friend, Dirk beverage maybe tell us about unleash WD. We supply America yourself. I think just about everybody that's going to join us today, probably knows who all

[00:02:08] three of you are but would love to get a little bit of feedback on what you do each day. Yeah, super cool. Thank you. Kevin time honored to be here. I'd like you and love to share the stage with you guys. It's super, super cool.

[00:02:21] So thanks for bringing us together, Kevin and Tom. I'm Dirk beverage, founder of Unleash WD. Over the last 30 years we've developed a platform that is designed to help distributors rethink their business and remain relevant, profitable, sustainable in this age of disrupts.

[00:02:38] We do it through our keynote speaking, our strategy workshops. The like over the last three years, we put it up on the screen. We created this platform called Weesplay America. And unapologetically we're going across this country, championing you the backbone of America

[00:02:51] that allows our society to live and provide for us all in the way that we do. Doing that by going across the country and Weesplay America, RV, championing your stories, 24 documentary films over the last three years and I just love meeting the people. Our passion right now.

[00:03:15] Over the years we've really focused on sales, we've focused on innovation, we've focused on technology. My passion right now because of these last three years is people. When it all is said and done, when it's all said and done, I am absolutely passionate

[00:03:31] that the reason we are in business is to help people, human beings grow, thrive and flourish. And you can take that in any direction as you serve your customers, you're helping individuals thrive.

[00:03:44] My real passion is what we do for our employees and that's what we're going to be talking about a lot in 2024 and beyond. That's awesome. Thanks, Dirk. You know I was just going to share with everybody.

[00:03:55] If you haven't watched, well first off, if you haven't heard Dirk Mike or Ian speak, you need to find an event to get to to hear any of their keynote speeches. They're all unique in how they do them.

[00:04:11] I'm going to leave it at unique, but they're all phenomenal and no one has ever left hearing any of the three of you give a keynote without takeaways that they can use in their lives in business. Dirk, thank you for that.

[00:04:24] I thought Dirk, do a keynote and I think you lost 10 pounds by the time you were done. You were like, you are soaking wet from running around this. And time I have a few more 10 pounds to lose. So I need more to hire for more keynote, right?

[00:04:40] Yeah, that's right. That's good. All right, let's jump over Mike, how about filling us in on yourself and Indian River consulting group and what you guys do and we'll get to Ian then and we're going to dive into our discussion today. Sounds good. My name is Mike Marks.

[00:04:55] I am the founding partner of Indian River consulting group. You should be the managing partner. My chemistry is our current managing partner. I'm old and I told the other partners, I said, you guys should treat me like a lump of

[00:05:08] a toothpaste tube and squeeze my butt out of your space as you can. But we work with the contributors and the work we do with manufacturers is basically helping them understand channels and the role of the distributor.

[00:05:20] We've done a lot of projects from all the contributors, mostly medium of the care I sister of the American at Britain once a book, some research fellow with NVIDIA and sort

[00:05:31] of teach a little bit academically and just have a lot of fun and have a really good girlfriend and I get the race for charge. Mike, how many years have you been doing this? Oh, geez, they were dinosaurs when I started.

[00:05:44] We started the company back in A7 and it was going to be with the two names that we see they're going to be Indian River consulting group because out of the corner of the bathroom

[00:05:53] in the Canadian River, it was going to be Roger and Mike's excellent consulting company. Unfortunately we made a right decision. You can tell what movie is this big at the time. Yeah, yeah, that's very good. So you're a California guy originally and living in Florida now, right?

[00:06:08] Yep, we're just going to California and live in 44 places. Wow. How does it have brief, brief bout in the 60s with LSD? It's all been on the planet. Good. Would you get into that? We'll get into that in a different approach. Sure.

[00:06:24] Hey, Kevin, can I jump in real quick? I think I was shout out to Mike when the pandemic brought itself across the country. We did this thing every Sunday afternoon and Mike was kind enough to be one of the first

[00:06:41] individuals to raise his hand and say, how can I help? And he and his partner came on and brought some absolutely needed insight on doing stress tests of businesses. And I think that was absolutely super timely.

[00:06:59] And it's just a little microcosm of what he's been doing over the years, but something that he did to help this industry at a time in need. And I still thank you for that, Mike. Great work. Nobody cared about cash until they didn't have any. Right. That's good.

[00:07:16] Hey, a quick question before Ian before we have you dive in here real quick and then we'll get into our questions and discussion for the day. Have the three of you ever shared a stage before? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:07:28] I'm old and I can't quite remember, I've never been to three of us all together but the two of us are getting Ian and I. Yeah. So let me endure. Yeah. I think you guys all might have been together like book ending keynotes. Of events. Yeah.

[00:07:44] That's kind of how it plays. I'm just trying to have something be a, you know, first in history here this morning saw it here first at the moment. Mike and I were in the same federal prison for one.

[00:07:56] And I may have been wrong about convert because maybe we did go through rehab together. Yeah. Yeah. It's starting to come back. It's starting to come back. Is it okay? Very good. All right.

[00:08:07] Well let's jump ahead and Ian, please take us and get us back on control and on track here. That's not a fair thing to ask me to do. Controls. No, not Ian. So distribution strategy group is media and analytics company we do a lot of thought leadership

[00:08:23] content like webinars and white papers and discussion panels of distribution executives and technology executives. We have a podcast that I think dirt and Mikey both on our podcast now. And we also have three subscription analytic products to do net promoter score, employee engagement and market demand estimation.

[00:08:48] We did the first ever industry conference on artificial intelligence and October and we do another one in June. It's awesome. Great. Your AI event last October was fantastic. Well attended. And I'm appreciative of having been there.

[00:09:04] We were exhibiting it that as well, but I got to meet some of the speakers and actually Lin Chase is going to join us in April on the podcast here. Yeah. Well, you know, my dude Spartaner Jonathan has a PhD in Computer Science in AI.

[00:09:20] When we became equal owners of the company, AI wasn't such a big deal. And I'm glad because he could have negotiated more than that. Yeah. Yeah. Kevin, if you don't mind. Yeah. Kevin, if you don't mind, I'm going to jump into from working with Ian.

[00:09:36] Man, when Ian, you and Jonathan joined partners to create the business you've got. You filled a big, big hole in this industry to bring the needed thought leadership. I mean, in so many different dimensions. And then you already mentioned it.

[00:09:51] You guys jumped on the AI to really help the distributors rethink and bring that in. Your leadership is absolutely commendable, buddy. Thanks. I really appreciate it. I mean, you guys are both invited to the conference. You're friends of the firm so you get the 100% discount as attendees.

[00:10:06] So we can I become a friend of the firm. When you don't, when you don't get the leads or sports players. Or speak about the leads. I don't care about the leads. So very good. Well, we're covering all the leads smart.

[00:10:21] I would think you care about the leads. We made, we made it. It may be something important to us. All right. Before we jump ahead, two things we need to do. Tom, will you do me a favor in highlight? Phil Samuels comment there.

[00:10:35] This is the kind of stuff we're hearing. Greatest. I've got this. I'm just making my suggestion. I'm not asking the history of the industry. All right. Let's just follow the name. Joe, wait, you see, you know, I have compromising photos on Phil Samuels.

[00:10:49] He's got a really good BS going on. So, OK, very good. He paid for the front row seat for the four seats here. So make sure we treat him well today. I can keep a little bit of that. All right.

[00:11:02] Well, before we jump in, the full discussion of why we're here today, which is to talk about 2023 and moving forward to 2024, we got to hit just a couple of quick housekeeping things that we do each week. So again, I'm Kevin Brown.

[00:11:15] I post this, this, this bright test every week with my lifelong friend and business partner Tom Burton. We are the co-founders of Leeds Smart Technologies. Leeds Smart is an AI enabled CRM and customer intelligence platform that helps wholesale

[00:11:31] distributors and manufacturers gain deep insights into their business that they've not had before that are actionable to help accelerate growth. Leeds Smart is the sponsor of the around the horn in wholesale distribution podcast. Can we do it every Friday morning?

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[00:13:23] That's our housekeeping. Let's dive in, guys. How's that? Let's go. I put together with the help of Mike gave me some feedback and everybody here did. I've got a bunch of questions. We'll see how many of them we get to. But there is no format for today.

[00:13:39] So we're just going to chat. So first one, when you look back at 2023, what do you see as highlights and lowlights for manufacturing and distribution in any other B to B market that you might see? Highlights and lowlights are 23. Who wants to go dive in first?

[00:13:57] I think he wants to go first. Saw that coming. I think a little bit more. I love the way. I mean, I activity was way down. Right. I was just a down.

[00:14:08] I mean, a guy just yesterday who told me that it was a slowest year for deals they've seen in a long time because I'm interested rates. They're expecting somewhat of recovery this year.

[00:14:20] I mean, it's still not a bad market to buyers all business but it's not nearly what it was a couple years ago. So I think that's low light. I think Mike, you were about to say something to now. Now I'm gonna do it. OK.

[00:14:31] A.E.N. question for you on that is that because of the interest rates because a lot of these were PE firms and they're doing the leverage by out and it's just the cost of capital of Soi. Is that really what I think would slow things down?

[00:14:44] Yes, for sure. The other thing is that there's some very inflated multiples of people were paying. A lot of the funds, it was very easy to pick it up. Fund together and people want them to invest money to get to return.

[00:14:57] But aren't that many good companies to buy? It's been kind of a sellers market for the last couple years that it was EN alluded to. And that pendulum is coming back relatively rapidly and the thing is you can't go out and pay 14 times the just at E.B.

[00:15:12] D.A. for a distributor and never have it be a creative. Wow. Yeah. So, people don't know the math and there's a disease out there called crazy to wind and there's a lot of zombie PE funds that are out there right now just because of that.

[00:15:26] And so people have, there's sounds like the tech space. Sounds like the tech space. There's a lot of zombie VC firms out there as well right now. Yes, you're right. Just think about the fiber market when everybody was going to change everything.

[00:15:37] And how that went way up and how it came down super fast. So, good dirt, dirt, anything to add to that? Not to the, that's the emergency in acquisition. I, what I saw in 23 again on the people side of things guys is the continued struggle

[00:15:53] to find the right people for the right positions. And it's not going to go away any time soon. You want to maybe expand along that a little bit, dirt kind of, you know, how many with your

[00:16:05] we supply America to or how many stops did you make this past year? Last year was around 30 different stops about 85 over the last three years. And continuing theme right of getting people without question.

[00:16:21] And a lot of the struggle is obviously in the desclos workers and the second and third shifts. Is one segment of that as well. And I, I believe that there's work that we all can do from looking at the problem tactically

[00:16:41] to really be a more strategic and looking at the employee value proposition that we've put together and other things that we can talk about going forward. But the people in talent issue, again, the conversation that's ahead has been big and will continue to be big going forward.

[00:17:00] And I can make one, one last thing. Even in time where are Kevin when I'd love to suggest is if we play back the replay of how you list it your the newsletter that you put out which is absolutely amazing.

[00:17:13] And if you look and if we replay that back all the different things you try to discuss in this newsletter, what was left out of your list? We didn't discuss that a whole lot. People in talent was left out of your list.

[00:17:29] And going forward, we may in relevant. I really believe that we need to change this narrative. Technology is important. MNA is important. AI is critically important. But none of it, none of it works without people. And unfortunately, people have been relegated to a second third or fourth conversation.

[00:17:54] We need to raise that up to be a first conversation. Love that. Will you help us do that this year, Durk, on this platform? I will do that. We should throw rocks each week if we're missed them stuff. Right. Yeah. I have a quick question on that, Durk.

[00:18:08] Is the people issue predominantly a generational issue that people are retiring and it's hard to find people? Is that people just not wanting to do the jobs? What do you think is the primary story that all of the above? Yes, yes, yes, yes. The demographics are absolutely critical.

[00:18:26] The macro trends. There are three million more jobs available than people searching for jobs right now. You just can't overcome that. What does that mean? It's the just that we have to take a look at, again, our employee value proposition even deeper.

[00:18:44] We got to look at the definition of work. We got to look at the changing needs and once and desires of employees, COVID absolutely accelerated. The needs and once and desires of employees, so we got to rethink that. We have to rethink our leadership.

[00:19:05] I've been in, Mike, and Ian have you guys been in conversations with people and I've been in conferences where somebody else raised their hand and they'll start pointing the fingers at this younger generation. They don't want to work. They're not collaborative. They want to become vice president overnight.

[00:19:20] Whatever it is, right? And I believe that's just the wrong mindset to bring into the problem. We have to look in the mirror first. I dirt people been saying that. The older generations have been saying that about the emerging generations.

[00:19:32] Since you could find engravings by each and civilizations. They don't want to work. You know, they are lazy with an uncouth and dream too much wine. I mean, it's just the, I think it's nonsense and so do I. I've got two kids in their early thirties and man,

[00:19:52] I fact I put on Facebook one day. I don't know where Penny and I went wrong with Austin in blame. They grew up with such better values than we tried to install them. Right? Yeah. Ian the brilliant. I mean, I'm just saying mindset. Let's change the mindset.

[00:20:09] This next time I ask the brilliant. It's arch up to learn how to tap into that, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's interesting. I mean, I kind of see both sides of that because there is some of that.

[00:20:25] Trying to think of the word, but you know, the, the give it to me all right. It's like, sure. It's like, yeah. Yeah. So they're feel we do see some of that. But that doesn't mean that we can't as the generation that we're in,

[00:20:37] guide and direct and manage and support that. I wanted to stick on this topic for a minute. I want to take it back from an economics standpoint though for a moment too. We talk a lot pretty regularly.

[00:20:49] We've been posting articles on the newsletter and having discussions here about on-shoring, near-shoring, reshoring. Right? So now we've got buildings are starting to be built again. Right? We've got, you know, one of the rebuild America or whatever the Biden administration's pushing some dollars out, right?

[00:21:07] There's interest rates seem to be going to calibrate here hopefully soon. We're going to see more building. We're going to see this trend of reshoring on-shoring coming, right? Those all create jobs and to Durk's point, right?

[00:21:22] If we don't have the workforce, it's going to be real challenging in those settings. I'm in the island agreement on the subject with Durk and, uh, I'm in the Board of the University and the Business College and and I have three graduate students that are my mentors.

[00:21:43] I pay them to mentor me, because they're once a month cool and they treat me shabby. And, and it's, I do it all. What else? Well, yeah, but they're very articulate. I'll give them that. Yeah.

[00:21:56] But one of the things that happened, I mean there was a song, I was under road. Somebody sounded to me and it was a song on YouTube about the, what happened the world when the last baby boomer died.

[00:22:07] And I left my butt off and it's like it turns out unicorns are real. They just didn't come up until the baby boomers were gone and the rainbows were bad. And I would now load it because it'd be great.

[00:22:16] A workshop at YouTube took it down through inter-properia content. But they realized there's no such thing as long-term employment. They want to have meaning. The snowflakes that we're talking about, they don't want to work. Want to be vice presidents. It's less than 5% of the genties.

[00:22:34] The 95, they want to have impact. They want to do something right. They care about things like diversity. They, you know, the care about mental health. They care about a lot of things but they want to learn.

[00:22:45] Because they figure they're only going to be there for a couple years because they're dad got laid off when he got into the fight and they just don't trust it anymore. And so what they care about is you're going to teach me.

[00:22:54] You're going to let him do something. And if you think back, I mean we're all a bunch old guys. There was a point when all of us were young. You're in a company and you're going to put me in coach. I can do it. Give me a chance.

[00:23:05] I'll show you. I'm going to get the result. And go, you don't have enough scar tissue kit. You got to add a little bit of 20. 30 years. 30 years. Well, and they're going through that same thing now. And they're talking to these old geysers. And they're just really frustrated.

[00:23:17] The problem is the CEOs and the senior leadership need to change their perspective. Great. And there's no shortage of talented, committed people that want to go do something. But they're going to do it their way. And the other thing on all this remote work.

[00:23:31] To me, there's a lot of ways you can have flex work even if I'm set under third shift in warehouse. Yep. And I mean, just nobody's bothered to even go look. And one of the things that we found is that good companies, leading distributors, are

[00:23:47] throwing out their employee handbook because they say weak middle managers hide behind it. I have a really good person, young Gen Z that I want to preserve. Their father's dying or something that eats in the time off.

[00:23:59] We say, well, no, we only give you three days for death and the family's not dead yet. You got to wait for your dad to die. And I mean, I'm not making this up this time. So I have a time.

[00:24:10] And so when you throw out the employee handbook, that person is really valuable to you. You go take care of it. We're about it later. Because if you don't have the manual to hide behind when the loser would soon see

[00:24:21] shortcase who spends all over time on the talk and work boyfriend once time off, it takes a strong man to say, no, you're not your not a core part of this. And so, you know, some of its senior executives have to change it.

[00:24:33] It's no, it's a trade or an out of it. It's really interesting. Eight players are loyal to other A players and co-workers, not the companies anymore. So you need to create an environment that A players want to go to work for you.

[00:24:44] And if you do, you're going to be really at least successful. And if you don't, you'll talk. Yep. So I'm running, if I'm running the distribution of the manufacturing company the way that my grandfather ran it with the same processes and same come to work times.

[00:24:55] And the whistle that goes off at lunch and so forth. And I've got something coming to me probably. Yeah, you're way past the best by day. Yeah. There you go. Okay. Kevin, do you mind, can I just give three, do you need a point? Yes.

[00:25:10] I have a point what Mike said. And this. And this. So three data points that I think helped tell this story is. According to great place to work, only 16% of employees are flourishing. Only 16% of employees are flourishing. We can do better than that.

[00:25:30] Okay, now hold on to that. Deloitte then goes and reports. Let me get the numbers right that 96% of employees say, listen what Mike just said. 96% of employees say that well-being was the responsibility of organizations. Yet, 70, only 79% say that well-being is being designed and integrated into work.

[00:25:56] There's a gap there. And then third is our own future distribution report says that 95% of distribution leaders believe that we must have the mindset and the ability not just to help people do their job, which is traditionally what we've done, trained to do the job.

[00:26:16] 90% of us believe that we must have the mindset and the ability to help people and our employees thrive, not just professionally, but personally as well. And that requires we rethink how we lead. It requires the definition of what work is, how work gets done.

[00:26:38] And so there's this big gap in terms of what we must do to address this inflection point of what work is and who's going to be doing the work, why people work so on and so forth. It's good. I like that.

[00:26:58] All right, Jens, we're going to need a pop ahead here to some further points. I mean, I want to say for the record before we leave this topic, I'm a Jensie and I like to work hard. I like to work my ass off.

[00:27:11] So, you know, I must be one of the exceptions as the Jensie guy. And I, yeah, sure. You like cracking junior high? Which is because I work so hard. I look older than I probably should. All right. Okay, very good.

[00:27:27] So we talked about the two low lights of 2023. Let's go one minute each. This could be tough on highlights of 2023 in for thought to you first. Oh, my god. You got to make. Well, I have two things. I mean, it can spend all day talking about something happened.

[00:27:49] But two other things that kind of stuck with me is that we're out of the talking stage and distributors engaging in digital. They've gotten past the digitals going to replace salespeople. I mean, people have figured out digitals goes to enable our team.

[00:28:04] And you're seeing it's more than just a major topic. People are spending money. They're still, there isn't a clear path forward. Everybody's still trying to stumble through some association to do in these. But the thing that, to me, that's been the most fun,

[00:28:17] when you look at industry consolidation, a lot of manufacturers, I'll be very careful not to name names. But many manufacturers are actually starting to really recognize the value of the smaller distributors. The big distributors have tons of take away power. But they've got 300,000 stockkeeping units.

[00:28:36] And there's no way a salesperson is going to be able to say great, so we're even a fraction of that. And so what they're finding is that a lot of the really big distributors end up being more logistics providers.

[00:28:47] But they can't do belly-debelly selling and introduce new products and a manufacturer that's trying to expand and get share. They need the small distributors that will actually advocate for a new product and belly-debelly. We're still seeing your scientists at IBM

[00:29:02] told me once the thing that people screw up on digital is still analog things in a digital world. And people still need to deal with people. And the company's gets obeyed. It's all about logistics and money in quotes. And so you're starting, there's actually several manufacturers

[00:29:17] that have got a strategy that says, in just imagine, big guys that name a company. I have a strategy that I'm going to grow the business that's not big guy. I want to reduce my share of that giant distributor because I'll use me to crap on.

[00:29:32] And so if you're starting to see that white spread, I don't know if you guys have seen it. The big guys have become logisticsians as opposed to salespeople. Good analogy. Wait, you're finishing anything like that? Like you, I hadn't connected the dots until just now.

[00:29:48] But yes, I'm going to go visit a plumbing manufacturer in two weeks who has, they remind me of Apple. Do you remember when Apple pulled out of Mac world? And everybody said, what? But they had a different strategy. This manufacturer has pulled out a cabas. Imagine that.

[00:30:10] They pulled out a cabas with the intent and the strategy to get closer to their customers. They're taking that money and rather than investing it in one week in Las Vegas. They're investing that money to enhance their training, to enhance the internal university,

[00:30:32] and to enhance their ability to get closer and develop those relationships that you just talked about with the right distributors. So I never connected it until you just like so, super cool. Ian, how are you, Ian? Ian, how are you, Ian?

[00:30:48] A couple of one is the infrastructure investment in Jobs Act was by bipartisan bill. Hard to say, even harder to get something done. That's by partisan. And that is, I think the distribution doesn't understand it. And it's one point to trillion dollars as a lot of business there.

[00:31:09] We're going to produce some content on it. But that really started to take off in 2023. And I think it's going to be bigger by a lot for the distribution of 2024. I think the emergence of AI as a focus topic.

[00:31:27] I mean, it's good and bad, but there's a lot of good exciting stuff that AI began to enable in 2023. I'm excited to see where it goes. Cool. I have a quick follow-up question. Mike, what you said on yours is about digital, right?

[00:31:42] Finally, kind of coming from less talk and more action. Do you see an AI obviously being part of digital? Do you see that by the fact that companies are getting more sophisticated with digital in this mega-backed U-Dirk, that is helping to attract employees,

[00:31:59] attract more A players that want to be able to leverage digital in their job or is that not quite connected to digital? Well, it's like, it's like, looking a magnet and said it's putting two magnets together, you reverse the holes and then re-loving each other.

[00:32:14] If you want to bring Gen Z's in there, remember, these are people, I mean, think back. You're sitting in the Atlanta airport, you see a baby that's in diapers and can't even walk playing with an iPad, waiting to get on the plane in the stroller.

[00:32:25] I mean, they're used to digital and they come in and they're looking at the green screen and some guys are card-axes and they're going like, why do I want to be a part of this triassic reptile? So if you really talk about, I'm on the early stages,

[00:32:39] I've got my employees engaged, we're looking for applications. I'd like you to be a part of it. That makes you more attractive to them. That's great. I love that analogy. You know, it's funny. I talked to distributors and manufacturers every day and most importantly, probably with distributors

[00:32:55] is the, we talk, and we've talked about this on the broadcast here all the time is about the changing B2B buyer, right? And so I can't remember what the most recent number is 62, 65% of B2B buyers or rollinians.

[00:33:11] Well, distributors are trying to get their head around that if they're open to either discussion, trying to get their head around that. And then when you introduce the conversation that says, oh and by the way, the workforce that you need to be hiring

[00:33:24] is pretty much the same, right? It's kind of counterbalance and guess what? So your point, my end it's I think this slip through and if you guys didn't catch it, when Mike mentioned green screen he wasn't talking about what's behind the weatherman. He was talking about,

[00:33:39] talking about the fond color on the DCRD terminal, right? That's 23 year old ERP system that's still driving the organization. And there is no such discussion of what's a tech stack. No, many, many are doing great jobs at this, right? But this is in my highlight, I think,

[00:33:58] of the year is, it's a possible narrow down. But if I looked at it from distribution is that because of a lot of the work that three of you were doing and others are doing in companies like ours is we're trying to raise the bar.

[00:34:13] That's saying, you know what? And I say this all the time because people talk about, you know, we heard this at Ian's, the distribution strategy group say, I conference in October. You know, oh, we were gonna be out of business and dinosaurs and this and that.

[00:34:27] It's like my view is, you're probably not gonna be out of business, but the business is gonna be very, very different if you don't make some technological change. It's not gonna be what you're used to because you can't run it back to the employee man

[00:34:40] and we talked about, can't run it how your dad ran it or how you ran father ran it because the world's changing. Well, let me go back and take a look at this. A lot of this changes because the pandemic changed how customers who wanna buy.

[00:34:53] Right now, Cardamom just put out a set. He said, buy and spend 17% of their time face to face with salespeople. The rest of it they're doing online, doing its a group. And it's not just one salesman and one buyer anymore. There's multiple buyers.

[00:35:07] The number of buyers and the major decisions crippled in the last five years according to Cardamom. And the setting they just put out, they don't have the 23 day doubt the 22, 72% of buyers. This is a very large sample size. And if you just go Google,

[00:35:25] Google Gardener and I mean, it's all out in the public domain and share it. But 72% prefer a sales rep for the experience. They don't require they prefer a sales rep for the experience. That's on repurchase. Because you gotta remember, an industrial distribution or basically any of this,

[00:35:43] you're looking at an 85 or 90% rep for the experience. Once somebody sold it the first time, it's not sold the second, it's bought the second. And there's a lot of changes that are going through there. And when the buyers are doing this, that 70% with salespeople,

[00:35:58] that they spend, you're sharing that with their competitors. So when you start looking at all this, you have to be doing some digital because that's how you communicate with those customers early in their mind journey. And the other thing that's happened, and I mean, I think,

[00:36:13] you're supposed to be talking to us quote unquote experts, but I think you and Tom can really chime in here too. The cost of this technology is collapsed. A small distributor, but a distributor is 10 million dollars can be a fully digital distributor if they don't sell it.

[00:36:27] It's about vision and leadership and the convergence that are running like the granddad, just their advisor by the best-by-date as well. Well, it's an interesting comment. You know, we see this sometimes too, right? And my background is in 30 plus years in distribution manufacturing.

[00:36:44] And Tom's background is in technology, but he's been working in and around the technology world for the distribution world for eight, nine years, probably now at least. And one of the early conversations we had as we found at our company was that once and a while

[00:36:59] we'll see this, right? And it's my dad's on the VP, my dad owns the company. My dad's grandfather started it and everybody's comfortable with eight or 10 or 12% growth that they just, that's just, you know, the gift that just happens in the marketplace, right?

[00:37:17] And it's like, well wait, we take all the vacations, we want we own a vacation home. All the kids have salaries in the business. And that mindset has got to change sometimes soon because their business is gonna be impacted dramatically.

[00:37:30] So one of the things before we jump ahead, I want to get to our next topic, but if you look over Tom's, I guess left shoulder, he's got an image of the book, the Tom wrote and it's called The Revenue Zone and it talks about the whole concept

[00:37:43] of this changing buyer. So again, an opportunity, we've got to plug Tom's as well since we're plugging everybody else's step. I'm not bright enough to write a book. So in fact, some have funny happened earlier in one of the comments came in

[00:37:57] when I was struggling to find a word the word enablement. My wife owns a marketing design and printing company then she works with a lot of major manufacturers that you would recognize if we said them here, and she shared the word I was looking for

[00:38:12] and you know, that's great. That's a great world. We're all trained to do what we have in tell us. Yes, exactly. I'm trying to get better at it. I'm hoping that she doesn't comment any further about my training. So they can't be before we go on.

[00:38:27] Can I just comment on one of the things? Please, okay, because you skipped me on what I saw in 20. If you just give me dude, what's going on? Mike, Mike, I'm failing. I said, Mike said, Mike said, I'm supposed to be

[00:38:39] the adult supervision and I'm not doing well. He's an enticent and it ties into what you all were just talking about here at the end. But what I find encouraging from 2023 and beyond is and it's maybe a little bit more nuanced

[00:38:53] than what we all have been talking about here, is this generational change that is taking place in the leadership of these businesses. What I am seeing is as this generational change is taking place, there's this intersection of a new aggressiveness, of a new understanding

[00:39:15] of the world going forward and the nobleness of business. And this leadership, I just see it as coming together to bring a new worldview to their business. I eat everything you guys have been talking about, but being original about the changing customers' demands.

[00:39:33] Like what also doubling down on the words we've used is the nobleness of the business, the goodness of the business and what that means to the employees as well. And I see that being a great trend that is going to drive performance forward.

[00:39:50] Before we jump past that Tomo, let me just go real quick here is the noble calling of distribution, is that the phrase? It has been the phrase, yeah. What did you coin that? I wrote about that first, about four months into COVID when I wrote an open letter

[00:40:13] called shift to tomorrow. Okay, and that open letter. So the first time I heard you mention that, when I think we talked about this, we had lunch in San Diego already last year. And I heard you use it a number of times in the past

[00:40:30] and it kind of was like, yeah, well that's a little hokey right? And then I started thinking about it. And then I started thinking about wait a minute, 75 cents out of every dollar globally goes through a channel, right? And that channel is distribution.

[00:40:48] And without it, our world stops, right? And I started using that thinking through that concept, that noble concept. And what the people that we're all here talking to and about is the world can't go without it. And I think that term, while the first hit me,

[00:41:07] it was like, yeah, that's a little over the top. But what it did is, and I love that it was a little over the top, because it got me thinking. And it got me thinking about what it meant. So I'm glad you used a phrase like that,

[00:41:18] because it, I think it gets, and I'm incurring to encourage others to think about that, that the calling of distribution, it's critical, right? Nothing happens without it. So, I'm gonna go ahead, Tom. Well, I just, I want I'm hearing is, right,

[00:41:32] as I kind of put all this together and Dirk, you just kind of think, put the bow on it. If you can create a company or a gesture company to have that purpose in that culture, right? And you combine that with modern technology

[00:41:46] and you combine that with the modern mindset related to the employees like we just talked about. If you put those three ingredients together, I think you could skyrocket, right? But if you're missing any one of those ingredients, it starts to get a bit fragile,

[00:42:01] because I don't know that you could really have the 18 employees if you don't have the right purpose in the right culture, and I can have a lot of digital, but if I don't have, you see it's like they all kind of are interrelated.

[00:42:10] It was what I'm hearing is we put all these three things together. How would you restate those three things? Yeah, it's really just culture, right? And purpose behind that culture, I think Gertier, point about the noble calling of distribution, it's purpose.

[00:42:26] And that, but purpose is key to a culture. You combine that with the technology and the right sophisticated technology or modern technology, I should say, AI included. And then you combine that with the employee aspect of the right mentalities, as we were talking about earlier.

[00:42:43] I think that's a formula for success if I'm hearing you guys right. Good luck. I like it. Consider stolen. Why don't you remember if you take one patient? You'll leave you take for many is research. That's just right. And time and time here.

[00:43:01] I think you really capture it real well. And in my mind, from the purpose perspective, the tremendous opportunity we have going forward. tremendous opportunity we have is to operationalize that throughout the organization. Purpose and cultures talked about it to see, sweet, that VP level, you know,

[00:43:21] to a strong degree. But the further you get away from there, the more that is diluted, our opportunity going forward is to work with those frontline managers, right? To truly help them what we call embrace positive leadership, understanding that they have the opportunity

[00:43:44] to help these individuals flourish in life. And science will tell you there's five things. There's five things that are required to flourish in life. And that's positive emotion, positive engagement, positive relationship, positive accomplishment and positive purpose. The degree we can help that warehouse supervisor,

[00:44:04] the degree that we can help that individual manager bring those types of leadership skills to the work every single day. That's part of what you just said is going to allow those organizations to take off. That's great. I love that. So we're going to move to a,

[00:44:24] I've got the series of other topics we talked about. And we've already been touching on them a little bit. So Ian, I don't want to put you on the spot, but I'm going to come to you real quick if you don't mind.

[00:44:33] We've touched on technology a little bit. We've touched on a little bit about AI. Let's chat amongst us and if you don't mind I'm going to ask you to kind of get this kicked off for us. But what are we seeing about changing buyer habits with technology?

[00:44:51] And is that impacting it all how manufacturers and distributors are working together based upon technology? Absolutely 100% yes. The, as mentioned earlier, buyers increasingly want to have digital tools. And I think distributors are finally understanding that a lot of people shop online but don't put the order online.

[00:45:15] And so it's cruise with the attribution of websites. Thank you. You know, distributors think that their website sell in a million dollars because we're just looking at the shopping cart. It's actually selling 20 million because people are putting peos together on the website and they're emailing them to you

[00:45:30] because that's how they buy. And so you've got to get the attribution right because otherwise you're going to underestimate your digital capabilities. I think distributors start to understand that. I think we talk to suppliers all the time. We get calls like off the record,

[00:45:45] we're really frustrated with our distributors digital capabilities. We're thinking about selling direct or going through other channels. How would you approach our distributors to help them understand how dire the need is for them to fix their digital skills gaps. So we have been a walk-in through our approach

[00:46:03] and I think it's helpful sometimes. But Amazon Business last year announced they did $35 billion. And you can go on there and say, I want to buy sustainable small business. Whatever, you can choose your options and buy new E1, the Air Force is doing over a million dollars

[00:46:19] with that. These institutions and businesses that used to be thought of as pure distribution clients are buying from Amazon Business because they have incredible digital capabilities. And in many ways, they're substitute for a procurement platform. And Zoro's over a billion dollars now.

[00:46:38] A lot of distributors who couldn't previously afford digital capabilities, as you said earlier, Mike, they can now but some of them don't know it, right? So I think going forward, you have to have those capabilities stop measuring the damn shopping cart as your way of looking at revenue

[00:46:52] because it's wrong. And when you hear somebody say, your B2B site should be like a B2C site. When someone says your B2B site should be like a B2C site, run away from that person because the requirements and the way you build them

[00:47:04] are very different. The distributors are in this fantastic position to take share, grow share, not just go on. Let's just get a defense but go on offense. But a lot of them don't know how. Love that. Love that. It's interesting talking about that experience, right?

[00:47:19] Is I describe it and I've said this on this podcast and many, many other places. Is that buyer? That B2B buyer? He took his girlfriend to dinner last night in an Uber. He's ordering lunch on door dash, right? He buys his dog treats come from Chewie.

[00:47:40] He meant that girlfriend on an app. Correct. Exactly right. Oh, my God. All right. Well, it's me Mike for just a second. But they're living in that digital experience and if they're coming to their distribution partner, right? And by the way, Zoro, Granger, Amazon,

[00:48:03] and everybody else that has these strong presence are trying to touch that person. You need to be in that place and I love the point that you're talking about their e-in from standpoint is don't be and I'm not going to articulate this as well as you did.

[00:48:18] But don't be in a place as a wholesale distributor where you're trying to do all things and then most importantly, understand that having that web front with your products and resources and all of the things that go with it is dollars coming into your business

[00:48:37] but it's probably not coming through that shopping cart, right? And you have to get to that presence and what I'd love to throw out to everybody else is this is great. Mike Mortensen with ARG Industrial and Alaska says the website is Scottie Pippen,

[00:48:53] not Michael Jordan on most days. Yeah, it does the assist. That's beautiful. That's beautiful. So, but I think that's exactly the place that we want to be. But Mike, before we come to you, what I'd like to throw out is a lot.

[00:49:07] I'd like to expand on the discussion that Ian brought up and I'm really appreciative that you brought it up is the manufacturers struggle to say, hey, you know what? Maybe I should just put everything that I sell on Amazon business because they're just another distributor is the mindset.

[00:49:27] Distributors are getting upset with that but if the distributors aren't keeping up the manufacturers have to do something. So Mike, let's hit your comment if you want but I'd like to circle back to that topic. Well, I think there's two things.

[00:49:39] One is a, there's a McKenzie just put a study out called the T.C. Director Consumer and a lot of manufacturer clients are saying there's a bunch of other intermediaries that are unbundled like, and you get these in mass charge at MX

[00:49:52] that want to take over the receivable function for manufacturers they don't have to do it. Most of the distributors' decoria and don't even stop product they use third-party logistics providers. And so that's a multi-billion dollar industry today.

[00:50:04] So a manufacturer can go out between digital and rest of it. They don't need the traditional bundled distributor unless they do something valuable. And a lot of the distributors, to me there's a big gap in the mind of the manufacturers between the distributors, the horses pulling their chariot

[00:50:23] and some of the ones that are passed the best by date and they're starting to really discriminate in terms of treating those people differently than everybody else. The smart manufacturers are starting to treat distributors like channel partners and set the customers.

[00:50:36] And it just pains in there a whole lot better. People think they can ignore it and it'll come back and bite them into the butt. Yeah. Well, we're starting to see more and more of this, right? Of manufacturers that are either selling

[00:50:52] on their own website or selling in some marketplaces and marketplaces are, I mean, you've done multiple shows on marketplaces, right? These are going to continue to grow and I think the distributors got to get their head around that, even participating in it.

[00:51:07] And it seems to me and I'll ask you gentlemen this question. It seems to me when you look at distributors that do have an online presence, there seems to be two camps. One is, I'm going to try and do it all on my own

[00:51:20] or the other camp is, I'm going to do it on my own but I'm also going to participate in marketplaces because I can be selling as a third party seller in these different marketplaces as well. But I've talked to a few who are adamant against

[00:51:35] not participating in marketplaces. They only want to do it on their own. To me and I'm asking you gentlemen, you're thinking to me is that should be a dual strategy, not a singular strategy. Would you agree? I mean, it is. Every day is not groundhog day.

[00:51:54] And part of the vision of an owner operator, the person owns the capitals also the chief executive, is a tendo look at, I want to replicate what I've been doing once I'm in flow of keeps going. And they don't see this.

[00:52:06] They haven't quantified the downside of being in a marketplace, making the product available. Just remember, inventory is substitute for demand information. And if I can get better velocity in terms of where this is going it allows me to have higher fill rates from right-to-sending customers.

[00:52:21] Yeah, so they're looking at it either over and it should be see all of the above, who might do. I mean, take a look at the growth rate. But when you take a look at what Granger's done and ends in, those are a lot of a Granger,

[00:52:33] they had tremendous growth with Zoro, but one of the things that they had internally, everybody thought it was going to cannibalize their regular business and it didn't. It was added once you actually look at the data and can you, without filing any non-scozure,

[00:52:47] could you have a little color to that? Yeah, we've never consulted for them. I left there a long time ago, but no, that's right. I mean, they went after a different market with that. I think ultimately look, sellers are going to go with buyers are.

[00:53:00] So you either put your products where the buyers are where you build a place to draw buyers. And that means, so if you're a bad at digital and you don't sell on marketplaces, you're on a go on on a business path.

[00:53:12] Now, most of the time people are going to just before it gets that dire, right? But you've got to go where the sellers are or create a place for, go to the excuse me, you have to go where the buyers are

[00:53:23] or build a place for buyers to come to. Those are your choices. And I think there's a reason miracle to a marketplace company was valued at $3.5 billion or something, a couple of years ago. And that was their second valuation.

[00:53:42] So it wasn't like there wasn't any data to go by. That was their second round of fundraising. So you know, marketplaces are really you got to figure out what your strategy is. You can build your own. You can participate now. There's we talk about marketplaceification.

[00:53:53] Like, you know, MSC for example, doesn't have a marketplace, but what they do have is you can do direct ship orders from the manufacturers. And so there's a bunch of stuff that don't ever intend to stock. The manufacturers carry it, but you can order from the MSC website.

[00:54:07] So that's a step towards rapidly expanding your sort of without building up their buddy marketplace. What did you collaborate with a non-competing distributor with whom you have relatively small amounts of overlap? You sell construction supplies, I sell tools, how about we pull our assortments

[00:54:22] and we fulfill orders for each other? Or maybe it's half a dozen companies. I remember at the NW, my a few years ago, the guy from motion and Kevin Rourke. Yeah, and Kevin at OSNASK, we're saying, hey, we're talking about sharing warehouses and websites, right?

[00:54:42] And they said that publicly, it's where I'm not supposed to be anything, right? I don't know if they did, but you know, I think it's good. OK, good. And it's not like to hear about that actually. But I think these notions of collaborating

[00:54:53] to expand a sort, and in their case, leverage real estate facilities. There are a lot of interesting opportunities there for distributors without actually building a full-fledged third party marketplace. Well, I have several smaller issues that have a plumbing distributor that got connected

[00:55:09] with the very large consolidated or an electrical. And so they've now added five locations, five selling locations, even with a piker. But they're all in the existing locations of the electrical maturity, take a small part of the warehouse.

[00:55:23] They don't need a whole lot, but it gives local presence and a lot of times in these industrial industries, local presence matters. A lot that's the personal touch that Derek was talking about. That's great. Hey, Derek, to go along with this, you spent all those months and hours

[00:55:40] and Walmart parking lots. Thank you. And I try to prepare all sort of wherever they might have. You had some great camp grants you stayed and over the summer too. I enjoyed watching some of those. But as we talk about e-commerce,

[00:55:53] with you travel in the country plus your regular work with distribution, what are you seeing as you're through your travels and this discussion about e-commerce? 85, I think you mentioned companies over the last couple of years. What percentage of those had some level

[00:56:10] of e-commerce or were getting ready to launch that? Yeah, Kevin, great question. And I'm not the person to ask. Okay. I don't have a good answer on that. Here's what's going through my mind on this conversation. I wanna go back to how Ian started this

[00:56:26] and what I'm really pulled into is, Ian, you mentioned there's the opportunity to get on the offense rather than just beyond the defense. And a lot of great ideas in last 10 minutes of BitSwirl around, I'd love to hear from the four of you. What would you recommend?

[00:56:43] If you're sitting in the board with a mid-market distributor right now who has been a little bit slow, you know, to move to the digital opportunities in front of them and you want to coach them on being on the offense rather than on the defense.

[00:57:02] What are the one two or three things you'd recommend that they start thinking about now? I'll answer that to start. I would say, and we talked about this a lot on the show and he is really treat your data with the respect that it deserves.

[00:57:19] These companies have a tremendous amount of data and it's like every day, and I'm relatively new to this party as far as distribution. So I'm coming at it from an engineering tech background but the amount of data that you have that is super valuable

[00:57:36] and that can really drive a whole lot of things, not just AI, it's certainly the dual for AI but it's a fuel for just having insights and understanding of your customer and how you can better serve that customer. And I just see over and over

[00:57:51] that that data is not being treated with respect and if you start with the data, I think it opens up the door to a lot of opportunity whether you're going into AI or anything else that you're doing in your business. Cool. The InterMic before I jump in?

[00:58:07] Well, I think if you have a sales, sorry Mike, can we go? Oh, go. If you have a sales force, if you're in a business model that where a sales force is relevant, which is often the case in distribution, get a great software, at least Mark, right?

[00:58:22] Is it too old you need to really get CRM? May is the heck out of your sales force. I mean, we had Mike Emerson from your firm like on to do a webinar on sales force compensation. Holy cow, it was incredibly useful.

[00:58:36] And I mean, distributors need to get that kind of help to do a really great sales force manager. Well, because you know, I've heard people say, well, you know, how many of you can compete with 5,000 home depots? I have 100 locations.

[00:58:47] To that I say, yeah, but you're actually on customer sites. You're on more of them in one day than at home depots in a year, because they don't go out to the customer, right? So that's going on out of that. It's just manager sales force, well,

[00:59:00] I mean, I think the digital stuff is an obracher, you have to do it. But I've seen, and Mike, I don't know what your impression is or I know Tom and Kevin, you guys are around sales forces and I think you're going to be doing this.

[00:59:10] It feels like distributors kind of lost their mojo with how well they manage their sales forces. I mean, some, you know, the gap analysis and coaching and making joint calls and making sure senior executives are getting out in the field sometimes.

[00:59:24] I mean, it just feels like they've kind of fallen off in managing sales forces as well as they used to. And maybe that's maybe it's being getting a little better. I think it's easy to stay busy, right? Yeah, that's setting.

[00:59:36] And that's, you know, we have sub-sumable, like we built a tool into our technology with our CRM and customer intelligence tool that we're looking through an AI tool because we're connected to e-commerce and marketing animation and the RFE systems and bringing

[00:59:51] all that into the CRM component is we're able to point out where should you be spending your time versus where are you spending your time versus thinking about I should sell an item or I should sell a category.

[01:00:05] Yeah, that's we can do that too but it's what quotes are open that need to get close this week. What customers are at risk for churn and we're not seeing I agree with you.

[01:00:17] And I mean we spent a lot of time and I you know, Mike, I started my career working for an national and distributed. I was a manufacturer's rep for 10 years and later invested in a manufacturing company before

[01:00:26] I came full circle to what we're doing now and across the board we did a lot of that in the past I've like trying to really segment accounts well and are we selling full

[01:00:36] line and all of those things they see much less of that but I don't see anybody less busy people are still busy. But I don't know what they're accomplishing at the same level and I think the people

[01:00:46] that embrace all across the board technology are going to drive that shift and make a change of significance right. When do Mike's point earlier, Mike, you made the comment about belly to belly right?

[01:00:59] We are still in a relationship world and I think people like to have the relationship and Tom talks about this a lot in his book is that people are going to buy how they

[01:01:09] want to buy but that doesn't mean that they don't want access to you when they want access to you. So, I'll throw up my point to your question right? It is and I'm going to introduce another question to the group here but I think people

[01:01:23] specifically right now if I was talking to a CEO I would tell them a couple of things right now. Have a people strategy which I'm learning more and more about all the time from you but

[01:01:37] have a digital strategy and a digital strategy is not I bought a bunch of different software programs right? A digital strategy is I'm buying these strategically to do these things in my company whether

[01:01:53] it's e-commerce tools CRM, AI tools whatever it is and I have a strategy of where that's going to take the organization because very few people have that in my day and in debt. They have a lot of software.

[01:02:05] Tom used to term years ago I remember and he said people want outcomes not software right? But people buy software because they are cost-changing object real quick and we have to help

[01:02:16] people get out of that as we talk about e-commerce so the last thing I'll say to this and I want to come to my final comment on this topic because we got a few other things

[01:02:23] to discuss here is we haven't mentioned today buying groups and associations much and all of you in fact Mike we had lunch at ISA meeting. We had lunch at an AD event and we've been together it you know I can't think about all

[01:02:40] the different events that we've been together at and if the good ones are doing a great job I don't want to say the good ones there are all of them are trying to do something there are some that are really excelling at helping their distributor members with digital

[01:02:57] strategies and I don't know what it is there must be something that keeps many distributors away from the joining buying groups or being active with trade associations I don't know what it would be because there's so much data so much information guys like you coming

[01:03:15] to speak at events right that is so valuable of them I would always encourage that dirt to your question right well what I tell you is looking to that closely and get get involved

[01:03:26] because you're going to get back more than I mean it sounds like I'm promoting all of these folks but true they think people get back more than what they put in I hear it all

[01:03:34] the time yeah good Mike close us out on that particular topic to do question two comments giving advice was to you if somebody's been slow to start we've we've we fix the our end deployments when everybody ends up certainly sabotaging them one and two two

[01:03:52] clients they did everything right except their sales managers all they'd ever done for years who's coach people on transaction closing they didn't have a sales management process it was documented they didn't lack the skills to actually develop the sellers to make them

[01:04:08] capable in terms of their own growth talking about gencies and so in two situations this last year we had a call a timeout and the managers had to go through and create a flow chart what is your sales management process it's more than just transactions they actually changed

[01:04:24] out a couple people had to go through some skills training so that's one number two if you're going to do anything with digital stop playing with vanity make or vanity metrics and e-commerce

[01:04:37] and trying to talk about pay views and bullshit and we're in the sales business if I was going to spend money is a new distributor I would spend money on effective lead gen so if I

[01:04:49] see a rem or however you're going to do it on the front of that funnel and my goal is not to get people to come to the website to look at papers during that my goal is I want to put my field sales

[01:04:58] people in front of new potential customers in the meaningful situation and I'm going to measure how many of those events that happen every great point every month and then what is a 90 day

[01:05:09] yield from doing it you want your technology to enhance your sales people the Star Wars stuff right now people are actually talking about synthetic sales reps but that's not to replace your sales

[01:05:20] rep that I give one to each one of my sales guys so all of a sudden I can be almost a time to selling I'm using the predictive stuff that's like a lead smart and a lot of the other AI

[01:05:30] level tools that are saying we should be in mind the customer they order this every six weeks it's been seven they haven't done it and the synthetic sales rep generates the email puts it for

[01:05:40] the real sales rep but only has to go click click and send it out it significantly amplifies their capability so instead of trying to be Amazon try to really think about how do I build

[01:05:52] this at a tools to my field sales people have a knife in a and a hand fight where there's no knife I want to be the guy with the gun and knife fighter went the knife and the fist fight

[01:06:03] love it there we go there's our Indiana Jones analogy how for the day I know quite carefully I know we have a couple more questions but I just wanted to clarify

[01:06:14] one thing real quickie and you said in the beginning do you think that the sort of erosion of the sales management did you think that COVID really amplified that as people started to work from home

[01:06:25] and go out of the office you think that's a big part of the sort of I guess erosion of the sales management process. It's a good question I think it proceeded that but I do think that made

[01:06:36] a worse in part because I think what a lot of sales reps learned is that they can actually be more efficient by spending more time on the phone so a blend of outside an inside activity

[01:06:46] is actually optimal I don't think distributors understand those processes are how to coach them yet so I think it was already happening but to your point I think that changed the game somewhat

[01:06:57] I agree very good so it's supposed to depend on making spows a lot of sins yeah yeah that's a great that's a great way to look at that I think that is and I think to Ian's point right

[01:07:09] that idea of inside outside and partnering inside and outside right in those settings as well as is key so Mike you had thrown out a comment or a question that we could use today

[01:07:24] that was what are some of the signs that the distributors falling behind the pace of change and I'm going to before I'm going to ask for answers or thoughts on that is I'm going to throw it out there in

[01:07:35] in a few different ways right let's talk about it from a people standpoint a technology standpoint and then maybe a general business standpoint or if there's something you want to add to that but

[01:07:45] you know what are some of the signs that are distributors falling behind and I think in this discussion we could probably say distributor or manufacturer what was there thinking people technology

[01:07:56] and what was it third one just general business okay got it or the the all of the above that you chose to add how's that okay who wants to kick us off Mike it's your question once you go all right thanks

[01:08:14] it's pretty nice under the spuss here and I'm looking forward to holding you down into the busters are you a question I know but Kevin Kevin Kevin is good at this Kevin gave me a

[01:08:25] framework so now I gotta give you a really easy you can't do stuff like that Mike when I got the cup to my mouth I just almost covered myself well if somebody's behind the curve it shows up

[01:08:38] is margin and that profit pressure because all of a sudden what happens to their employees we we can't do races this year because we're not making enough money and and so people start to think

[01:08:49] you're not taking care of me or they're cutting their benefit program or they're doing various things for the employees or the first thing they do is cut training and development which if

[01:08:56] you're a gen Z probably one of the most significant things that exist in your life so the other thing in terms of technology you have people in your company saying but we need to do XY and Z and the

[01:09:06] owner says we can't afford it because we're not making any money and what happens they have the series of semi-religious experiences where they have a supplier that terminates them or puts

[01:09:17] a big national right in on top of them and they they lose a lot of their protection or you know the whole thing is gets worse and worse and worse because they're not making money they never see

[01:09:28] the problem they never diagnosed the problem has executive leadership for lack of vision or anything else is always the competitors and this is the marketing's getting tougher and say they whine about it and they're fundamentally they choose whining as an exit strategy.

[01:09:46] That's so well said and I tell you, you know I love the work that you do jerk I think to the most inspirational person in the distribution industry and that's saying something because

[01:09:55] it's a gigantic industry. I agree. Yeah yeah I think but I tell you I grew everything you said Mike and then anything I see is cynicism is a is venom in a culture and if I see cynicism I see

[01:10:13] you distribute it that's falling behind because if you're cynical you're blaming the world, you know you're blame your action, your blaming your customers, your blaming your employees and what is really compelling about the work that you do dirt is there's no cynicism in

[01:10:29] what you say or do and there's no cynicism in the language or the spirit of the distributors that you call on. It's earnest it's like I mean like one of my favorite shows in

[01:10:40] the last several years is Ted Lasseau right? Yeah I know to show but Ted Lasseau's not a cynical person he's serious for threat he has no malice he has no gile right and I think that is a

[01:10:52] wonderful way to lead it's what I aspire to do it's really hard to do right as well as aspire to but I see it in you all the time dirt and I see it in the companies that you visit and those

[01:11:02] are companies that are not falling behind because they take responsibility to take accountability and they lead with a positive uplifting style. That in is amazing how you position that and

[01:11:17] I'm a hugger I want to hug you because of what you've just said not about me but about those businesses that I have a chance to visit and it ties into you know this core belief that I have

[01:11:31] you know two years ago was all about the great resignation right and now it's it's talent and people and all that and I think where we're falling behind is in terms of developing our employee our employer

[01:11:45] brand just listen to what Ian said there and then you look at the demographics of the workforce coming in to the workforce the people coming in the workforce they want everything that Ian just talked about they want earnest they want truth they want meaning they want purpose

[01:12:10] they want family they want connection they want bond where and how they get that I'll tell you where you get it get in the RV with me and come on the and that's where you get that and we are

[01:12:26] sitting on a freaking gold mine these these and I love all of distribution my heart is with the independent family own employee own distribution business that's where my heart is and if we could help these individuals number one truly believe that that they have something

[01:12:50] that that the workforce is yearning for help them believe that help them see that number two then goes to what you were talking about Mike think about it strategically not tactically you can't just tactically complain about the competition or or or your manufacturers you got

[01:13:08] to die deep into the real issues in the business and in the market and then number three traditionally we've been rotten communicators and marketers not just of our product not just but of our value proposition to the marketplace we've been rotten communicators and marketers

[01:13:28] about who we are what we believe and what we stand for and man if we can help these businesses absolutely wrap their arm around the goodness and the opportunity and yes get on the

[01:13:42] offence as you said sign me up because because there are six million people at least employed in in distribution and there's an opportunity to bring fulfillment meaning purpose and damn good lives. Well listen to you all day. No what will be this stuff and that's great.

[01:14:07] Yep this is good so we're we're kind of running short here we said we would just go to we're done talking but I want to throw a couple things out so we are not to keep in you guys all day

[01:14:19] we had a bunch of other questions though that we didn't get to but you know it's interesting they all got woven in pretty good the discussions today we had about nine topics we were going to discuss

[01:14:32] we got to four I think four four four million I'm going to do the final one but as I look through the other ones they've been woven in through the entire discussion and that's that's the value

[01:14:44] for me of having not just business relationships with friendships with you gentlemen and your background and your experience bringing to these discussions because this and there's a quick side note you know when Tom and I decided to do this 70 probably

[01:15:02] most of 80 weeks ago I guess it is now because we missed a few Fridays along the way when I told Tom as I said you know what if this ever has to get overly scripted

[01:15:12] too many people involved so on the back end of how we're doing things if I have to have the exact perfect microphone or I can't worry about Mike Marks looking up with you know first work here

[01:15:24] in there if we have to we have to worry about this I don't want to do this I want to have a discussion Tom and I have known each other for over 50 years we have a discussion every Friday morning

[01:15:33] it's because we bring guys like you and on a consistent basis to have discussions and it's never fully scripted or outlined which I guess if there was professional podcast producers would probably scold us on a lot of things but like I said I could listen to the dirt

[01:15:48] good continue on that for an hour so here's what I want here's what I want to throw out there we talked a lot about last year we talked about change we've talked about M&A and we've talked

[01:15:58] about people we've talked about technology we've talked about CRM we've talked about e-commerce and many different things most of it is about we've talked about some challenges some opportunities let's look forward to 2020 or even even beyond we can talk about it and we'll do it as a

[01:16:18] group but I'd like to hit each one of you you know what do you see is maybe biggest challenge in 2020 or 24 if we haven't hit it yet today and then let's talk about biggest opportunities and we

[01:16:28] can tend to wind our way out through of today's discussion with kind of what do we see coming plus as minuses, cosptions maybe is the three things and let's hit it off time I'm going to start with you this

[01:16:42] time is just like a speed round you know we have to go through like 30 30 seconds with no but I was just trying to give everybody that the end is in sight okay why would choose on this

[01:16:53] last one is up to all of the fact that we were going to be doing for two hours just not here so no I think you know I'm just going to I think to look ahead and the challenge in the

[01:17:06] opportunity are the same and I think it's going to go back to this you guys really hit me when when you kind of when we talked about that you know the three legs of the stool right the purpose

[01:17:16] and the culture and the and the technology and the people I think though the opportunity though with technology just because that's more of my world I think there's a real opportunity with AI

[01:17:27] and with technology to use that as a catalyst for all of those things you plan and to make it not as if something that's a fear or oh my god it's going to make things less personal or less

[01:17:39] relationship I think can make us all a lot better. I think on the challenge side is that we're not ready I mean I work with technology I work with companies at the technology level and the distributors

[01:17:51] and they're not ready and so I think this next year has got to be a focus on readiness to be able to take advantage of the technology a lot of the AI technology that's out there right now

[01:18:02] is not prime time it's not ready for enterprise level you spin it's going to be it's going to be before we know it we're going to blink and it's going to be there so I think the challenge is readiness

[01:18:13] right now and the opportunity is is that technology all right that was I think less in a minute doesn't that there's a time limit on this that was good anybody else Mike have had it

[01:18:28] I'm always the first guy when there's a buffet in the meeting I always the first guy in the buffet like is everybody wait for somebody else the oldest and five boys growing up so you had to eat with

[01:18:37] your arm around your food to make sure there was enough so if me looking at 24 I go back to what the booleo brothers had done in terms of talking about the economy we're going to have a spot in

[01:18:48] economy in 24 it's going to be a little bit soft and spot some things are good some things it's it's just volatile it's like we all like up we all like bubbles we don't like recessions

[01:18:59] we all know how to hunker down but right now we're kind of like in the middle and it's like our economies that sell addressing and industrial lubricant and everybody just looks at you funny so

[01:19:10] I would follow their advice and they said you don't the worst thing you can do in 24 is to hunker down and go in your turtle shell and wait for the market to come back because their

[01:19:20] prediction is even though 24 is going to be a spotty 25 as I lose my credit on what's that and it's going to be funny so so so what happens they say making investments my advice to them

[01:19:33] would be spend some time working on your business instead of in your business and start to think about what do I want to do with technology how do I start because this is the year you want to be able

[01:19:43] to go in the offense in 25 so do the preparation get the people thing right do the kinds of things that we've been talking about but on the business I'll set it in that would be my advice awesome

[01:19:54] love that super cool dirt and I'll I'll I'll I'll I'll go in you can guess mine is going to focus on people um I'll throw out three numbers 120 and 80 120 and 80 and I think generally we do an amazing

[01:20:12] job at training our people 100% of our people on the hard skills to do the job we do a great job of training everybody in the organization of the hard skills to do the job why because we need that

[01:20:26] productivity and then I think so that's 120 I think we do an okay job with 20% of our workforce the sales team were constantly investing in developing them the emerging leaders the women in industry the high performers were we're investing in 20% of the individuals to help grow their capabilities

[01:20:49] but the real opportunity going forward in my mind is the 80% the 80% who really there there's part of our workforce that has been forgotten about that once we've developed them to do the job out in the warehouse to do the job as a counter-seevable that individual performer

[01:21:10] who who doesn't want to be on a leadership path going forward but our business stops without them we have an opportunity to change our frame of reference to change our mindset to say what can we do what must we do what's our responsibility or its our opportunity

[01:21:28] if we focus on the 80% that we've forgotten about some degree to help them grow develop focus on purpose impact and grow in their potential and I think if we are able to do that this guy is absolutely the limit to where we can take our organizations beautiful

[01:21:51] what pressures on you and pressures really on after all that well I'm going to start with a negative sorry but I think one of the big challenges is going to be adjusting to AI enabled cyber

[01:22:03] crime in 20200 wow yep so right now you can be a medical distributor you can get a call from a customer that you work with for a long time recognized that person always how they could say hey

[01:22:16] I need $20 worth of copper wire and power tools sent to this address for job I'm starting you know this person you recognize their voice and they send you an email that came from them

[01:22:29] and the whole things a crime right I mean that's that's happening right now I wrote an article about this and there's a Japanese company that lost $35 million because someone posed as a

[01:22:41] director of the board and asked them to transfer money for an acquisition and it was gone so I mean there are a whole new ways of cyber crime that that the sugars need to adjust to and they

[01:22:51] really need to get training on that now and that all that that earnestness and that that personal contact makes distributors more vulnerable because criminals are inherently synics and opportunists

[01:23:04] and the bad actors go after good people so that's the bad side the good side is that AI is going to allow distributors to compete in unique ways that a lot of the leading technology competitors

[01:23:22] are gonna have a hard time matching because AI can enhance people I'm not saying hey guys not gonna take jobs it will but I think you know to your point my earlier about the synthetic

[01:23:33] salesperson I mean you can double your salesperson's productivity with AI whether it's in a good CRM or it's this you know the how they get composed all our responses to emails that you

[01:23:44] review before you send them and so you can it's like putting you know I think I heard one speaker say it's like an iron man suit I think it was a column we asked someone just wrote a column

[01:23:56] for us that that use that metaphor is that AI can be like an iron man suit for your people and I think looking at those kinds of tools and having the combination of people and AI can make

[01:24:10] triggers for roachously competitive and go on offense smaller things or least more tactical things pretty good chance the feds gonna pull off a soft landing interest rates are probably going to

[01:24:22] come down a little bit later in the year and so I think to your point might be able to spotty but it's not likely to be a recession it's a good year to work on your business and

[01:24:33] get ready to come out strong in 2025. Nice. That's great all throughout this my take on this in as well and I love all of these comments and any and thank you actually for you know throwing

[01:24:45] out that caveat right we can be we can have fancy rose petals thrown around all the time and talk rara kumbaya but that doesn't mean that there's you know not elephants in the rooms as well

[01:24:58] and I think your wise wise comments about and we've talked about that a number of times less couple months Henry Shine right the huge medical distributors got hammered two times from the same cyber criminals right in their organization and they've threatened that

[01:25:17] they're still there and they may come back right which that's that we could talk for an hour on what the implications of that are but I think that that is cyber security something that

[01:25:28] we're gonna be talking about more on this this podcast over the coming year might take and looking forward is it it it recaps a little bit of the broad discussion we had today is whether you're a distributor or manufacturer is is go leak look closely at your business

[01:25:47] go dive into all facets of your business the people the processes the buildings the technology and don't think that doing things the way we've always done them it's you know what's what's

[01:26:00] you're saying right we got you here won't get you there I don't know if that's saying has ever been more true than it is today things are moving in the world that we live in so quickly

[01:26:11] Tom you know literally Tom and I go after this we finished up here today we go to a call with sort of development team to learn about the things they built this week and my I leave with my head

[01:26:22] just bulging right for many reasons but but which things are changing fast Mike you've made it you made a couple of comments earlier that some of the statements you made referenced the tools that they use about within EOS entrepreneur operating system right

[01:26:41] if you're not doing things like that and not saying that EOS is the answer right but change is upon us and I'm not a naysayer that says you're going to be out of business but your business is going

[01:26:53] to be very very very very different very quickly if you're not looking at all of these things and Tom mentions us all the time to me he's never seen an industry that has more data available

[01:27:03] to them and now is the time to take a look at all facets of the business to say where do I want if your family on business where do I want this business to be for my grandkids and now is the

[01:27:16] time to really look at that because I'd say this is the year that we're going to start seeing people have major impact upon their businesses that aren't making these shifts and changes because AI is

[01:27:28] moving so quickly and it doesn't matter if you're a pipe valve and fitting distributor with two acres of pallets of stuff out back or if you're selling technology components right the

[01:27:40] guy down the street is going to be taking advantage of this stuff and if you're not it's a big risk that goes there so my closing thoughts on that as we wrap up today uh take a ways from the

[01:27:52] day any idea to thought I'm going to ask a question as my takeaway if you don't like it Kevin as you just said that my mind is going crazy okay I want to ask you a question oh how does the

[01:28:02] lead smart technology help these distributors that you were talking about sure take that data and use it in the way that you would just say we need to well that's kind of you and the

[01:28:13] Czech should arrive by lunchtime oh no I want to hear your answer too Kevin yeah in a nutshell maybe Tom will add to this as well right is to the point that distributors and manufacturers

[01:28:28] but really distributors and as we talk about these legacy family businesses right yep they've got generations off to time of data yeah and you know a great example that who's with us today

[01:28:38] commented a couple times earlier was Dan Judge right that started to net plus alliances and Dan's going to join us sometimes soon for not our regular around the horn we're just going to do an

[01:28:49] interview and have a chat with Dan I had some time with Dan this fall but uh you look at him making making share is quarterly report with you you know what we should talk about that in fact

[01:29:00] maybe that's the right time like to have Dan because I read it when it comes out we're partnered with net plus uh spending a little bit of time and having um having a beer with Dan is uh is

[01:29:13] like having a beer with anyone you guys it's I just walk away having learned so much but the in answer to Durk's question what we try and do as a technology company is very different

[01:29:24] than what traditional CRM companies do and even some of the AI companies out there we try and look holistically across an organization by taking data sources in from whether it's e-commerce marketing automation and obviously always ERP data wherever possible combining that with what the sales

[01:29:42] person is seeing and Mike you know what I don't you and I talked about this over lunch earlier in the year early last year you mentioned as a number of 80 20 right company should be putting 80

[01:29:54] percent of the data into the CRM for their sales people sales people 20 percent it doesn't matter if it's 60 40 70 30 80 20 whatever the numbers right we should be flooding sales people with information and data that's actionable yeah and where we do something different in our company to

[01:30:11] reference to Durk's question is we try and use AI related tools to make things that are actionable that serve the customer better and when the customer has a better experience with your organization sales person sells more sales person wants to adopt and use the technology you bet

[01:30:31] owners to Mike I this take away an e-in you've talked about this many times as well as well as Durk is when you use technology right in your business and we think we've embraced this

[01:30:41] in the tools that we've built through our AI tools as well as general CRM tools is ownership and leadership gets far more return on investment far more data far more details than they would ever imagine from a technology investment just by supplying data that's actionable

[01:30:58] and what we've done with the AI tools at home in his team of built is now we get these reminders within the technology that says hey Durk these things are happening this week yeah right uh these quotes this customer hasn't bought this customer is low in this category

[01:31:15] of purchases right now we're bringing actionable or insightful data and that's what we try and do Kevin what I heard there that released to that to me but I heard there is your focus

[01:31:27] is on your customer's customer yep it's it's focused on the end user serving the end user back in into that to provide the data to the sales team to be able to serve that end user

[01:31:38] I and I'll just add one more thing it will sneak peek you guys got me all fired up today so I have to give you a sneak peek is we're using that data right now and we're aggregating that

[01:31:51] in our CRM and using it in a bit of a traditional way right now but what we're going to have hopefully technology keeping up with our design is that synthetic sales person that you just talked

[01:32:02] about and using that data to drive that I think somebody else in the comment mentioned that 24 by seven synthetic sales person I call a digital twin whatever the right word is for that

[01:32:13] but it's leveraging that data and it's that guardian angel that can help it's not to replace you it's to help enable you and really I mean think about it right we all get caught up in a lot of

[01:32:26] BS stuff in our job every day that we would love to have something be able to help us do so we can focus on what we really do well that's what I see what we're going to be able to enable us to do so

[01:32:36] a little sneak peek more of this is coming I had to tell you because you use the word and I couldn't resist with trade but it all starts with having the data right if you don't have

[01:32:46] the data and that we're capturing then that becomes the fuel to drive this otherwise it it doesn't work and I've been a lot I love the term guardian angel man that that describes it maybe that's what we should call it maybe that's what should be called it

[01:33:00] it's not a no-lory it'd be channel cloud it's guardian angel guardian angel god AI there we go we should buy that you know quickly go ahead you that's your role you do but in any any closing thoughts thank you for those those kind of words Dirk yeah

[01:33:16] yeah I think it was this is a fantastic discussion I felt really honored to be here I think you know that there are I think distribution has a very bright future and I think one of the things that I

[01:33:28] love that you say Dirk is people didn't stop saying distribution isn't sexy I've always thought of it as a fascinating industry in place to work I've never really had trouble when I was in Atlanta with the supply and we're competing with UPS and Delta and home deep

[01:33:44] on all these other you know much richer companies we were able to build great teams because we communicated vision and excitement and opportunity and I think if you really believe that and you

[01:33:56] act that way that other people get infected with that optimism and excitement and so I think we got a lot of chances ahead of us no question about it but we got a lot of smart people in this

[01:34:07] industry who are going to overcome those challenges and and we're going to beat some competitors one the way too that's great Mike wrapping up I think we pretty much covered it I mean they

[01:34:18] autonomous end the top talked about this in said examples of everybody knows in the military if in Iraq if somebody fired a mortar at us we've got the round going back before it even lands

[01:34:30] within six feet of where they launched it and that's a seabrank that's the system we used to do it the systems automatic but if you think about it's controlled by sales rep there's a soldier

[01:34:40] that's sitting in there he sees all this stuff in real time it comes up there's an inbound deal should we fire he all he has to do is hit the butt when you build that twin thing this is not

[01:34:50] about replacing salespeople this is about giving those tools sales for end-ins. All those messages of those suggestions you need to buy it's all done and all I have to do is go click click click

[01:35:01] you do that and all this CRM so everything just goes away and every sales rep in this industry is going to go where do I get mine that's all you gotta do what I get my guardian angel

[01:35:11] that's right exactly exactly it's time to work that's right I already checked the domain it's not available so I'm I'm I put a put a bid down yeah she was not the factor that I was

[01:35:25] well guys thanks for having me I had this is like a band get back together yeah it's right I tell you and yeah I've had I think three or four people reach out to me in the last

[01:35:38] couple weeks about us getting together today and they said how on earth did you get all three of those guys together to join you and and I just wanted to tell all three of you thank you thank you

[01:35:49] I was a perfect one yeah great respect for all three of you you all do a lot of similar things and a lot of nuances and I learned from each of you and I consume all of your content that all of you

[01:36:01] put together we try and reference it when we do this each week so I don't want to put anybody in the spot but I'm hoping that we could get this group together again down the road because you know

[01:36:12] we've got people that have been with us for an hour and a half and they're still making comments on what we're doing so thank you guys I can't tell you how much I appreciate getting to know each

[01:36:22] one of you better as we run across each other through the shows and the events and I'm grateful for what all of you do so I'm going to wrap things up time anything to add before I want to thank

[01:36:33] everybody as well thank all three of you as well I this has been awesome and I can't wait to do it again good work on that so again those of you who are listening in from the podcast standpoint

[01:36:46] you got didn't get to see these you know five pretty faces today but you got to hear some great insights those of you that were with us live we appreciate your comments we do this every week

[01:36:57] at nine o'clock Pacific on YouTube live Facebook live and LinkedIn live and then we're available later in a day on all of the top podcasts formats and we look forward to having you join us

[01:37:10] if you'd like our newsletter please reach out to us and Kevin I want to we didn't get a chance to hit any of the comments really today I wanted to thank everybody but there was a ton of great

[01:37:18] comments we usually try and work for it a more but we would have been here for another so thank you for everybody who commented and some great point on a great comment yes we're going to we're going

[01:37:28] to wind this down Jens I'll ask you to hold on for just a second so we can thank you one more time thank you everybody have a great weekend be kind do good things and be safe

[01:37:38] happy Friday yeah we hope you enjoyed today's episode and our guests each week we try our best to dig into the topics that are impacting your business so please reach out to us

[01:37:54] 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 and even guests you'd like to see join us we're looking forward to

[01:38:04] 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 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

[01:38:22] lead smart technologies and their manufacturing and wholesale distribution industry CRM customer intelligence and channel collaboration platform that's lead smart technologies at lead smart tech.com