BoneChat call #6 - Stu Brandon - sales service advantages with the company-agnostic rep.

to be live with Stu Brannon. So, uh, we generally talk about innovation in BoneChat on the device side, but we, we don't always talk about innovation on the service side, on the sales and service side. So this is going to, uh, be completely different. So Stu needs no introduction. I'm going to hand it over to him. And, uh, raise your hand, stay on mute. Raise your hand physically or with a little hand thing when you have a question, and you can ask questions through chat also while Stew's talking. So take it away, and handing the mic to Stew.

Yeah, thanks, Tiger. I appreciate you having me on. When Tiger reached out to me, he and I have talked a few times, but he reached out to me last week about this and just kind of asked me to lay out, you know, my my perspective, what's happening on the sales and distribution side within our industry. And I mean, let's just start quickly. Traditionally within orthopedics, either people have been W-2s for one company or a 1099 independent for directly for basically one company or one distributor. And as we all know, the industry has changed drastically. I think that there's a lot of challenges definitely on the distributor side with this, this model, as well as I think for smaller companies, there's challenges too. On the, on the distributor side, I think it's getting more and more difficult for, for people like me to carry mainly one product line because, you know, so much is happening. You can get caught behind technology-wise or, or things that your, your customers may want. So I think that that's a major challenge for, for people like me. And I think the challenge for, for the companies too, especially the smaller companies, is if you are trying to have them focus so much of their time on your product, you're limiting a lot of times their exposure to other opportunity. The fact that we carry, you know, multiple companies, I think we have about 10, we average 10 or 11 revenue streams a month, but just having all of those allows us to be in cases where other companies' products are able to, for us to see opportunities in the accounts that we're in. So we all understand that. And so what we have kind of done, and it's been— it truly has been an evolution over the past, um, 5 years, really 6 maybe, um, where I was with DePuy for 21 years only selling DePuy products. Then I spent a few years with DJO Surgical, and I had the idea that, hey, I'll have— and this is nothing new, people have done this— I'll have DJO for my total joints, I'll have, you know, pick up some trauma products for that, I'll, I'll pick up other ancillary things I want, but I'd only have one company for each, you know, product category. And when, uh, DJO had been more fully Strykerized, I'll call it, I realized it wasn't going to be a long-term fit for me. So Scott Lyon, one of my business partners, he, he was the Corin distributor, still is the Corin distributor in our area. So we went around to our customers that had made transitions with us and we showed them Korn's products. And each one of them said to me, yes, Stu, I think it's okay. I would use it for you. And kind of a light bulb moment went off for us is like, hey, why are we trying to force our customers into the products that we have rather than find products from smaller companies that they'd be excited to use? And even from that standpoint, What we have found is, and we have proof with all of our surgeon customers, that because our companies allow us to carry multiple products, we have greater sales with each one of those companies than we would if we were just focused on that one company, which seems counterintuitive to a lot of people. But if we just would have sold Coren's Total Joints, we never would have gotten some of the people's business. And also by selling, being able to sell Corn's Joints, we're able to bring in some revision knee products that the surgeon never would have used. And so from that standpoint, it has really been eye-opening to me about what is possible. And it's also allowed greater partnership and collaboration with the companies we work with. And even I'll single out Patrick here. Patrick and I are friends and we do some stuff with EpiSurf, and I think the way that we do it and upfront and honest about why we're trying to pick up products and thinking a little differently, even the way we use social media, gives smaller companies and smaller distributors I think almost an unfair advantage going forward.

Interesting. So talk about— set it up for everybody, Stu, because, uh, you know, what, what is the typical, uh, what's the— what's wrong with, uh, when a sales rep or distributor signs up for one category with one manufacturer? What— tell us what the problem is with the distributor and problem with the, uh, the customer.

So the challenge for the distributor would be you're locked in on with, with one company, and it's not as big of a problem with the large companies for the distributor if you're a distributor and are able to get that contract because they have so much market share. Even at smaller margins, the distributors of those companies, they're going to do okay. They're not going to do as well as they did years ago, but it's really when you trickle down to, to the reps decreasing commission rates, decreasing ASPs. I calculated it out 8 years ago or 10 years ago. It was over a 2-year period. I had my commission cut 1% each year. And then also we had a 25% average ASP decrease because of RFPs. And so I calculate we lost 40%. Of our— of my Depew team's revenue over that period. So that's a— that is a challenge. And as geographies are getting smaller, working for these bigger companies, it becomes harder and harder for them, even if they are a 1099, to pick up ancillary products that don't compete and don't— excuse me— wouldn't potentially violate their contract with them. So that is, that's the problem with them. Um, and on, on the company side, you know, the, the problem as you're doing what we are trying to do would be to find quality people to represent what you're doing. Yeah.

Yeah. I, I hear that.

But that'll be Tiger. That'll be true whether or not they're carrying multiple products or a single product. Solely focused on that is finding the quality people.

Yeah. When I put my recruiter hat on, um, I, I talk to frustrated salespeople every week and, uh, you know, their territories get cut, their commissions get cut, the quotas get to become ridiculous, and they, they feel like they have a loss of control of their career. You know, they're not in, they're not in charge anymore. That's what I hear.

I mean, that's exactly right. It's what's, what's funny is that as more and more reps have reached out to me over the past couple of years because of what we're doing on LinkedIn, is every single one of them said, like, Stu, I feel like you were talking directly to me. And it makes me chuckle now because everybody's going through the same thing. It's just very few people are verbalizing it, whether they're, you know, afraid of repercussions from their company or whatnot. But really, all of us that worked for big companies are in the same boat or were in the same boat.

Okay, Alessa's got the first question with her hand raised.

So Stu, as you know, probably know, I was a distributor and a rep, and I carried a comprehensive line of everything from total joint trauma to spine, biologics, everything in between. And I was doing that in 2007. And I think— and so it gave me a unique perspective as we're bringing products to market. And I think what we decided that we had to do is we had to make it a definitive decision. Were we going to hire internally and have dedicated force, or were we going to hire distributors and rely on them? The issue that I've, that we, that I've seen with smaller companies throughout the last few years as a consultant was the lack of dedication. However, they were just me-too products. So my question to you is, one, Do you think that we are in line with saying— if I'm in line by saying a company, a startup in particular, has to really definitively make a decision? Yes, we're going to hire internal people, or B, we're going to hire distributors and we're going to be really selective about those distributors. And then the second question is, what do you think about a model that incentivizes with shares and treats the distributor like, like they do an employee in the sense that we, we offer shares in the company or options in the company based off of growth and make it a little more competitive and more fun for the distributors.

Yeah, I currently don't have anything like that. I think that would be pretty fun. Um, but your first question is, I don't think that you necessarily have to have either or. I think it, it depends on— it's all about finding quality people, and you can find quality people who want to work for one company, who think carrying multiple lines would be too distracting or, or, or too difficult. Um, but also there will be people out there that, you know, have a few, a few relationships that your product might be a good fit for. And I, I don't— I think it's a bad idea always when we say you should go one way or the other, because every situation, every, you know, even geographies around the country are so different. As I've traveled around a little bit more over the past 5 years, it's amazing how things are done in the Chicagoland area compared to Mobile, Alabama, as an example. And it takes different, different people, different ways to be successful. Another, another thing that I, I did not talk about, but several of the companies we work with, we have non-disclusive geography agreements, which I fought that tooth and nail because that's not the way it used to be done. It used to be carve out this geography and anything that happened But what I realized is that I don't care. I almost— and sometimes I prefer having a non-exclusive because of the relationship that it sets up with the company. Because you give, you give people exclusivity and then, you know, people like me hate it because if we're not selling as much as you want us to, you guys are hounding us and, you know, That's no fun, no different than if someone's hounding you about something. So non-exclusive, something that I have really changed my thought process, and I've also come to realize is that most of the companies that I'm dealing with are smaller companies that don't have a presence where we're working. And statistically speaking, it's very unlikely you're going to hire someone else in my same hospital with another doctor. And we've done non-exclusives for 5 years with certain companies and we really haven't run into a problem. So that's something that I would say consider that, but that will be met with resistance from people if they haven't done it before. Did I answer both of your questions?

Yeah, I think so. I think I think we'll see a growing trend for highly tenured distributors that have a variety of cascaded portfolios that can help bring product to market. But I think the incentive— the incentives need to change. I firmly do, because those distributors are very tired. I was tired of losing lines. I was tired of building them up and then them being sold and me getting nothing on this. On the, on the back end after all of that hard work to grow the company. So I want to incentivize the highly tenured distributors that, A, are going to keep us out of trouble, B, have the relationships. Because I think there's a pro— there's a definitive problem with the industry right now hiring such young people and putting them into positions where, uh, revision surgeries where they bring in 23 trays and have no idea how to get the surgeon or the rep or the scrub tech out of trouble if something falls on the floor. And so there needs to be not just a compensation, but there needs to be an opportunity within to push in the industry and to advocate for this highly tenured distributorship models.

Yeah, well, even to go along with it, it's again, it's the big company, little company, is that truly And I've talked with multiple people about this, and the number that we get is that if an ortho rep leaves DePuy, Zimmer, Stryker, and goes to another company, it's an absolute home run if they would bring over a third of their business. And, and so if I was running those big companies, I would probably be doing the exact same thing because you start calculating number-wise a 1% decrease in, in ZB commission would be like $400 million, you know, on their $4 billion in sales. I mean, that's— you have to lose a lot of business with reps leaving, you know, to make it not worth that just from a financial standpoint. And the other one is, is Putting these new reps in, you know, throwing them to the fire relatively quickly. Surgeons may complain about it, but is that actually moving the needle as a detriment to their numbers? No. And so, you know, I, I think that the smaller companies, it's just, it's completely different the way that they succeed. Is with seasoned people that have a few relationships to start, to start that. And then you have to grow outside of that also, obviously.

Okay. I think Corey has hand raised. Corey, you have a question?

Well, more of a comment, I think, than a question. But what I've seen in the landscape of third-party distribution has really changed a ton over the last 10 years. So, um, in the early days, uh, when I was an Arthrex distributor in the mid-'90s, they encouraged us to pick up product lines just because of what Stu was saying. You— it puts you— it puts you in front of who you need to be seeing every day. Um, as, as Arthrex grew as a company and their sales exploded over a 10-year period, then they went the opposite direction and said no, We don't want, we don't want you wasting your time with anything else. We've got plenty of product for you. Uh, we'll pay you more if you jettison some of the other product lines. Um, so we did, they did pay us more, but it was, it was a double-edged sword because now they had more control over you.

Mm-hmm.

They wanted to be able to tell you, you know, how many labs you have to have. You have to have a mobile lab, you have to have, X number of, uh, they would actually calculate your population and tell you how many reps you had to have.

Wow.

So it was, um, it got to the point where you weren't a businessman anymore, you were a rep. And, uh, recently I've heard that Arthrex is nervous about, um, you know, satisfying their IRS requirements, because if you have a distributor that's, that you're, that you're dictating to, telling them that you can't have any other product lines. This is how many people you have to have. This is what you have to buy. That doesn't satisfy the IRS. They could get themselves in a lot of trouble, uh, in back taxes. So they are, um, now making all their distributors direct, which I thought was interesting. And, and to Stu's point about the smaller companies, um, the fact that they're easier to work with, better to work with. But I don't see— I don't know how you can compete with a small total joint line, um, in a city when you're going up against Big Blue and DePuy and all the rest. I don't— that's— it's gotten to be so competitive, um, unless you have some kind of angle or shtick or you're paying, paying the surgeon somehow legally. I don't know how you do it.

No. Well, part of it is we don't carry just one company. We have multiple small companies that we carry. Do we get locked out of hospitals? Yes. But we have a much bigger geography that we can, we can sell to as well as if then if we were just with, with, you know, a Depew. In fact, I've told people this is that I honestly would rather have our portfolio of joint products than any single one of the big players. And I, I honestly mean that. I mean, it'd be nice to have that name and recognition that we don't have. But, you know, you're exactly right. We, we can't go everywhere and be everything to everybody because of contracts, this or that. But that's, that's a problem that we have. But there's plenty of problems on the other side that I don't want to deal with anymore.

So, so you're offering surgeons a larger menu of products even in the same category?

Correct.

I mean, that's, that's got to be valuable, correct?

I mean, just think of how all the big companies are now. I mean, Zimmer knees have a certain, um, flair and feel to them. Compared to Stryker knees. Just, there's like a culture within each. And what I have found is the small companies have a similar thing where maybe their design surgeons were Zimmer, Zimmer users, this or that. And so depending on what, what the surgeon uses that we're going after is a place that we, we would start when showing them something.

Interesting, really interesting. Um, can you talk about— so we have a lot of— this is a very entrepreneurial community. We have a lot of startup founders. If you're starting a new device company from scratch, you have zero sales, uh, and distribution, uh, bandwidth. How would you, how would you start it? How do you penetrate regions of the US the most efficiently.

Yeah. I mean, if you're truly starting something from scratch, I've had this conversation multiple times over the past 2 weeks with people, is one of the funny things that a lot of reps out there think and companies think is like, oh, you know, that small company, they only have business. How much are they paying the surgeons to use it? Well, the reality is, is if I started a total joint company today, I absolutely need surgeon involvement to help me design products to be KOLs and, and train other, other surgeons. So if I was starting a company, I would find a few people out there that believed in what we were trying to do. And then, you know, as you're going, you know, gradually grow through, through people who may have a relationship, use the surgeon's relationships as well, who they're, who their buddies are. And, you know, for a small company to start, I know it's very expensive, but at the same time, You know, if you had zero business today and you had 3 busy surgeons at the end of, you know, 6 months into it, that'd be a home run for everybody.

Yeah, I think the trap that small companies fall in is they, they need national coverage or at least spotty national coverage. And so they, they go out and hire 1099s and like what you talked about earlier, is they end up, you know, on paper they have coverage in Phoenix, but in reality they have what, less than 1% mindshare of that person in Phoenix. That, that rep in Phoenix is not even going to mention your product. I mean, unless it's a perfect opportunity.

Right.

And even from the standpoint, what I have found a lot of small companies struggle with is that there are, they kind of lose track of surgeons that may be friendly to them, whether they were exposed to them in, in training. And it kind of blew my mind when I was talking with one of the companies. I said, okay, where have all the fellows gone? And they're like, well, we really don't know. And that's just mind-boggling to me because you have a lot of people spread out now that could be open to it. And that would be a great way, like, hey, if we can get Dr. Smith engaged with it, finding someone to take care of him. I mean, that's increased revenue for a, for a small company. Now we get back to the same thing as the hard part there is making sure you're finding quality people because I get it, giving people some business and if they're not going to focus any time on it or hoard resources, etc. I mean, ultimately you need quality partners regardless.

Yep, yep. Okay, Mark Maloney, uh, brand new member, got his hand raised. Thanks, Tiger.

That's a great topic. Um, I just wanted to share the, the best advice I ever got on a startup. I, um, I mean, you certainly need a good story. And you certainly need a good solution to a good problem. But the best advice I ever got was one of our startups in the '90s. I flew to Memphis and sat down with Dr. Tony Russell because I knew him from the early days of the Russell Taylor nail. And here's what he told me. He said, if you can get one doctor, they'll tell your story and get one doctor. He said, if you can get 100 doctors to tell your story, get 100. He said, because doctors sell doctors.

Mm-hmm.

So a few days later on Christmas Day, I flew to New York. I sat down with, um, Dr. David Helfand at HSS. He was interested. He agreed to come on and be the chief of that particular advisory group. I asked him for 4 or 5 names. Uh, we went from there, recruited. Ron Navarro, Bill Ritchie, Roy Sanders, Eric Johnson around the country. And let me tell you, there's never been a faster accelerant than that group of doctors. And, uh, every one of them did it for their own personal ambition. And that was another piece of advice that Dr. Russell gave me. He said, don't pay anybody. He said, find doctors that want to do it. For their own particular ambitious reasons. He said nothing drives you faster than a desire for recognition. Now that can be tailored, obviously, but anyway, right, good topic.

Thanks for— yeah, good topics. Yeah, start with the evangelists. Yeah, um, thanks, thanks for sharing, Mark. Uh, Phil has got his hand raised. I think he's hopefully off mute. Yes, Phil.

Yep, there we go. Sorry, folks, uh, probably don't want me to turn my video on. Um, um, so I had a question. I, I was just talking to Tiger Buford about this. Um, so my company has, uh, we've developed a, a point-of-care scanning system that scans, uh, that uses two new technologies to document in at the, at the point of care in the operating room. And I'm interested what a distributor, if there are distributors here, I think there are, what they're— I'm interested in developing a value proposition for, for distributors. So, um, what the system does is it works. We make the trays for plates and screws and stuff that gets used in the field, the non-sterile stuff. We can make the, the trays digital, and we have a scanner that works inside the field that can use a novel laser scanner to scan the usage, implant usage. Um, the other technology is an imaging technology that captures full UDI at the edge of the field. So when the nurse opens the product, it captures all that data. Um, the vet— it's, it's clear to me what the value play for the OEM is, um, because we can send that information back, like who the surgeon is, how much each tray is done, all the field inventory value to the OEM, but we can also sell it, send it to the distributor. Distributor. There's, there's also some things, really cool things we can do with surveying on the system. It's a touchscreen live at the end of the case. And payment. We have the local contract on the system and we can facilitate faster payment. I know that's sort of a broad overview, but one of the things I'm interested in doing is hearing and querying distributors to how they would see a system like this help them do their job and be more efficient? Is it— would anyone like to comment on that? I understand if no one would, but I just, I just thought I might ask that question.

I mean, to me, it would all get down to what is the cost to the distributor? What's the company willing, willing to pay for?

Yeah, the cost would be nothing to the distributor. Zero. And you— we would give you an entrance to the portal. Yeah. To look at all the data.

Yeah. Well, I think if it, if it could scan the tray and, and generate— you're saying it could generate bills basically for the hospital, invoices?

Correct. Yeah. We're look— we're looking to speed the revenue cycle, but, but what we want to do is we want to learn from distributors how this could help them. That's— it's important that they're part of the process too.

Right. Well, the way I look at it is it could be a selling feature too for the hospital too. You're getting a more accurate billing on what was used, which we've all heard stories about people charging for things that, that aren't used. I mean, any industry where there's money, there's going to be people doing dishonest things, right? Sure. And, you know, I'm sure every hospital has a story about a particular rep So I would, I would sell it that way too, as is, you know, the hospital should love it.

Yeah, well, we're working with ASCs for hospitals right now. They're pretty good. So. Right. Anyways, I would look up a couple of you guys and if you don't mind me just sending you a couple of questions, I'm just looking to gain perspective of distributors and to sort of understand what's important to them.

It's important to us.

So Phil, are you saying that this system would automatically generate a DOF for—

breaking up there, Cory.

Cory, you're breaking up. Turn off your video and your audio should work fine. Oh, Cory, we'll try to get Cory back again.

You might be able to turn him off from your end, Tiger.

Yeah, let me see if I can turn off his video and see if that helps.

I think it's on my end, so—

okay.

Yeah, what So for—

I'm kind of getting inter—

go ahead.

I, yeah, I know this is on my end. I've got, for some reason, I've got kind of an intermittent Wi-Fi here. So I was just wondering if it automatically generated a bill later, you know, DOF that electronically that the hospital, you'd walk out of there and not have to worry about it anymore because the hospital has the deliver goods order form there.

Yes, that's, that's the, the goal with the system.

And do you, you track the, the trays as well? Because that would be valuable to a distributor.

Down to the screw, down to the penny.

Interesting. And who— so how do you make your money if you're not charging the distributor?

We charge the OEM a subscription fee for the, for the platform. It's a small platform system that sits at the edge of the field, and we charge the OEM for the data. The data is very opaque to the OEM. If you think it's opaque to the distributor, the, the OEM is, is even more in the dark as to how their assets are performing. The value's in the data primarily.

Yeah.

Well, I can tell you from personal— it boggles my mind how, how bad companies are at inventory accounting. I have never had an audit in my 30 years where it was exactly what it said. I always had far more inventory than they thought I had.

Well, one of the nice things about the system is, is again, it's— no system is perfect, but it can automate the inventory process. So the tray knows how much as things are declinated and scanned out of the tray, it keeps a running track of what's in the tray, that particular tray. So it can do inventory, inventory audit automation.

Um, so then do you have, you have to scan it back in the tray?

Yeah, we, we, we have a way to do that. We are, uh, we're working through that, but yes, we, we can use imaging to actually track the UDI to the tray, which is important for compliance. And it's a one-step process where you take one image of the implants and it documents that they're all back in the tray. It basically— and it can tie the UDI to the tray via imaging. This— what we've done is we've copied a bunch of retail stuff that they're using in retail and brought it to the medical— medical device industry is so far behind, it's, it's mind-boggling with regard to inventory control.

So basically you're doing like at some airports now, you just put your credit card in before you go into the store and then you just walk out and it automatically—

Yeah, that's basically the idea. But it's important for us to listen to the distributors because we want to be friendly with them. We want to provide them tools that help them do their job. That's really what I was hoping for, and I appreciate everyone's feedback.

Yeah, Colleen's got her hand raised.

Yeah, so I have a question. You know, in my years at Consensus Orthopedics, we would come across some rep organizations. I use that instead of sales rep because that group of reps would want to actually purchase banks of implants and some of them even instruments and, and actually bill the hospital on our behalf. And, you know, we had some pretty good success with a couple of them, but generally it was a challenge., and I just wonder what your opinion is of that model.

Yeah, my opinion of that model is it's, it's something I have never really been interested in because I view the risk of that is too great for me from the standpoint of as newer systems come out. I don't want to be on the hook having, having all that inventory. I can see it as a challenge for the companies because the distributors are going to want $1,500 total knees and then turn around and sell them for $4,000 or $5,000 because they're only— they're probably only doing it where they can make higher margins.

Yeah, we had some, some reps. I mean, the average selling price to those types of arrangements, there were some that were as low as maybe $1,700. And as high as low 2000s. But the challenges we found, other than pricing, since we were 100% manufacturing all of our own implants and instruments, pricing wasn't the issue. We still had good gross margins. The issue was, you know, recognizing revenue. Reps would want to return things, you know, some wouldn't work out well. And so that was really more of a challenge, just, you know, being sure that you actually had a sale.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Anthony's got a question.

Yeah. No, no, thanks too for the insights. You know, I'm, I'm a sales and marketing guy as well, and you know, a lot of it more global, but you know, coming back in the US and seeing all these different nuances. But I just wanted to just ask, you know, as you've got these smaller companies, you know, there's a trend of these smaller companies coming out with disposable instrumentation to do the entire procedure. And what's your outlook on being able to utilize, you know, an entire disposable tray to do a procedure versus the rigmarole of hauling all the sets in and all that beforehand?

Um, I personally like it. Um, I know Patrick agrees with that philosophy— everything disposable, sterile, shipped to the hospital. Um, it makes it a lot easier for us. What I'm trying to figure out is it makes it easier for the hospital also, but with everybody talking about reprocessing things or that, what's everybody's feelings on just throwing away everything?

But no, I mean, well, yeah, there's an environmental impact, correct?

Right.

You, you gotta battle that.

Right.

But, but if you're talking purely like logistics, excuse me, I like it. I like, um, what I really like is the companies that have kind of a hybrid for a total knee is there's a few instruments that they still want the metal pieces for, and maybe you reprocess a tray or two, but then have disposable trials, disposable you know, whatever. And it, I think it's pretty slick personally, but it's just all as margins keep going down, is it, is it cost effective for the companies to, to do that? Are the facilities willing to pay a little bit more for that?

It's all, yeah, some instruments just are never going to hold up, you know, over time. However, I think when it comes to patient first, would you lick a sterile implant or a sterile instrument or would you lick a versus licking an instrument that's in a reusable tray? And so, you know, that's a quote that I love from my friend in the industry that's been there a long time. You know, when it comes to being about the patient, it might take a little bit more, be a little more cumbersome for scrub techs, when you're talking about opening up screws and stuff like that that are sterile packaged. But if it comes down to it being about the patient, really sterile is the way to go. However, there's a massive problem with disposing all of these peel packaging and recycling. They're not showing a great added benefit. They're actually nowadays, so.

No, no, thank you, yes.

Yeah, I think in Europe they force the sales distributor to come pick up all the trash after every case, and that's, that's a deterrent. So Mauricio has the next question.

Yes, Stu, thank you for, for coming here. I follow you on LinkedIn, and you, you're like the MBA of orthopedic sales. So I have a question regarding like independent reps versus OEMs and how you can build like a puzzle. What you see in a lot of OEMs talk about this is pull-through. So basically, I'll give you my cannulated screws, but you move my locking plates and things like that. So you have one innovative thing and it brings a lot of the portfolio back. Smaller companies were usually limited to 1 or 2 products. So what, what ways are there for a small company like us, like, find independent reps that already carry complementary portfolios and get, and will get more benefit from working with us than just the sales that we bring them because it'll allow them to open new doors and things like that?

Yeah, I mean, I think that the way that that is, is find, again, finding quality partners, finding people I assume you are selling cannulated screws?

No, this is just— right now the only thing I'm selling is CMF space, and I found, uh, I found like an OEM partner to take that to market because I, yeah, I didn't want to deal with building many sales channel partners, right?

But if, I mean, if you're talking, let's say, foot and ankle— foot and ankle is a good one— or spine, because they've been doing stuff like we're doing, trying to do with the joint products for years is, you know, you go have a foot and ankle procedure done and really they're doing 5 or 6 procedures sometimes it seems like because they're having to make an osteotomy to gain access or whatever, whatever it is. And so I think talking with, with those people who are in the types of cases, um, is, is really the way to go. And there's, you know, unfortunately it is all back to finding quality partners, which is the hardest part for everyone, correct? I mean, like myself, the hardest part we have is finding reps that want to work with us, quality reps that want to work with us. For all of you that are on the company side, it's finding quality people, you know, in my position that you would want to work with. And I don't think we're ever getting away from that. But I do, I do think the use of LinkedIn and, and, you know, that professional platform is a way to get to know people quicker. And as far as the NBA thing, I'm only 5'9", so I'm far from that.

No, it's a— thank you. Yeah, it's, it's really, really insightful, and I agree. And I'll follow up just for— if you keep it to the end, like, LinkedIn is good. So how do you filter out good people on LinkedIn? What are some traits that you, you can find from what you've— because you've interacted with a lot more people than all of us probably have.

Yeah, I mean, what I would say on the company side, and Patrick, I'll say you and I have had talks about LinkedIn a lot, and from a company side, I think everybody needs to be on social media, but it's about creating value to other people rather than everything sounding like a commercial. And it has to be a long-term a long-term play. Like I'm talking literally commit to a year plus of doing it, not expecting much return. But after the time of consistently doing it, putting out stuff that's truly beneficial, even I'm going to pick on you, Patrick. We talk about EpiSurf and you've said like, and you did a post about it on one that wasn't a fit for EpiSurf. And, and to me, drawing that, like, hey, these are indications that are not for us. And you're, you're still educating people about your product, but you're deferring it away. You're educating people about anything within it, and that compounded over time will get people to know, like, and trust you. And, and what, what you do is you have conversations with people that are interacting with you. What I have found is people reach out to me that never have liked anything that I know of or even commented on anything of mine, but yet they reach out to me and want to talk with me. And I think companies can definitely do that. It'll look a little different than me individually doing it. But I still think that's how you do it. And it can't be, which is why I think the big companies struggle with this, is it cannot be like, okay, we're going to do this and we're going to have significant increase in sales in the next 90 days.

Yep. That's the, yeah, Stu's got the formula for LinkedIn or any, you have to share all everything, you know, and ask for nothing in return. And that's really hard for companies to do. It's really hard. Correct.

In fact, I was shocked. Depew put out a post, I think it was yesterday, the day before, where they just asked the simple question about what's on the playlist in your OR. Did anybody see that? And I watched, and I actually watched that and I was like, wow, that was a very good post because it was really not about that. It wasn't about Depew, it wasn't about that. And that was the only post I've seen from one of the big companies, to my knowledge, that didn't directly turn around to, you know, that's why we're awesome.

Yeah.

Well, the big companies are, uh, they're hampered with legal compliance regulatory. So they, they, these teams, it takes weeks to get clearance for a LinkedIn post. And, and at the end of the day, they can't say anything. Where the little guys, you, the little companies can say just about anything you want and you can always ask for forgiveness later on.

Well, the little companies can have a point of view. Big companies, like by definition almost, they can't have a point of view. They, they have 20 different, you know, not 20, 200 or 2,000 different products, many of which have semi-competing interests to each other. And they can't really, they need to appease such a wide audience it's very tough for them to have a point of view. And that's, I think, where a lot of this comes across that you see on LinkedIn and stuff of just very generic and very, very sort of bland.

Right. Well, and along with that, Patrick, you already know that, but if you're trying to speak to everybody, you're speaking to nobody.

Yeah.

Is, is you have to be very, very focused. Matthew Ray Scott talks about being tactfully polarizing, but think about it. You have to have some polarizing element to you, otherwise you're not speaking to anybody. You have to talk about stuff that brings people like, oh yeah, I, I think similar to that, or that's an intriguing thought.

Stu, can you share for the group, um, your mindset or, or, or the distributor mindset being in the position of sort of building a third-party distribution network, it seems to me that any small company or many small companies are stuck with the decision of sort of you can go fast and not so good, or you can go slow and mediocre, slow and okay, or fast and not so good. And if one of the advantages of going a little bit slower, as you can take your time, you can vet people more, you can be more careful, you can be more diligent, but it comes at a, at a real time cost and a financial expense to do that. Other than just pure desire for independence, is there a reason that distributors don't sort of pair up with each other a little bit more and offer their services to companies as a bit more of a sort of package deal? You know, you in the Chicago area have a, you know, some sort of partnership with another independent distributor in Colorado or Oregon or something like that. And that's more attractive to the companies in the sense of you feel it's like, you know, once you have done the vetting, you get access to more geographies at a time. I can see why distributors wouldn't want to do that. Because in order to be an independent distributor, there's a strong desire for independence, and then you don't want to get yourself involved in all these sort of intertangling alliances. Maybe that's the answer. Is there another reason why distributors don't pair up with each other more often and work with each other more often than my perception is that they do?

Right. Well, we do a little bit of that, as you know, but I think the biggest challenge of that, and I've talked with Brian Terrali and Mike Nelligan, you know, on the surface about this sort of thing, but I think it ultimately comes down to How do you— it adds one more layer of complication to our life, if that makes sense. I mean, how do we, how do we structure a partnership? And you know, all the skepticism within the ortho industry about other people. I mean, how many people on this have had a positive experience with a distributor, or I should say a negative experience with a distributor they've worked for in the past? And that would be, that would be everybody. And so I think that that skepticism is what would be hard to, to get past. But I do think because of the unique way, like Patrick, you and I have gotten to know each other, or Mike Nelligan, Brian Thorali, Al Nanny, I mean, all of those people are independent reps like us doing similar things, different in a lot of ways, but doing things similarly, is I do see over time what you're talking about could happen. And I think we, we all have thought about it, but I would equate it to similar to reps who leave the big companies to do similar things to what we're doing is everybody has their own breaking point. But it would kind of be the reverse with this is that everybody would take time to get to like, ah, what if we partnered together some way that it'd be greater for the whole?

In theory, it would give your— it would give you more contractual leverage, I would think, because you're coming to the companies with more geography that you're sort of taking care of. Now you have to do the job, of course, you have to do a good job. But to your point earlier, you know, so many VPs of sales or whatever, they think their job is just to like, or maybe Tiger Buford said this or someone like, they think they're like, their primary job is like color in the map. They think they're like, that's what they need to do is just sort of be map colorers. And as soon as the, As soon as they can put that great PowerPoint slide together where the, all the states are colored, then it's just like, let's sit back and, and watch the, uh, and watch the, the, the checks come in. We all know it doesn't work like that, but if you can sort of color in a number of places at the same time with quality distribution, that's something companies would pay, you know, would, would pay beyond whatever their own individual sort of standard kind of rates would be, right?

And I, I do see that, and it's something I've it kicked around in my, my mind and talked with a few other people about it. And it kind of stalls out because it's one of those things that it could be an important thing, but it's not an urgent thing.

Yeah. Consortium play would take a lot of work to put together. I've always thought of sales as a local business. I mean, every zip code and in fact every hospital they have different buying habits, different pricing, different contracts, different service needs. And so it's hard to— it's just hard to grow a big territory with the same service because every customer needs something different.

Correct.

But I— so I don't see how you get around that, um, when you're trying to cover the United States.

And also, I think about reliability. It's hard enough for our reps and distributors to manage their own schedules, let alone going, hey, I wonder if this person has availability this Friday at 1:15 PM, uh, and they can— and can they bring it, and do they want to bill it? It's too much logistical— it's a logistical nightmare when you try to partner with other distributors, um, on that level, unless it's really going to boil down to a massive calendar. If you can find distributors that are willing to subscribe to a calendar, and I think there's an option there, and that might actually be a really good idea.

Yeah, that's a good point. Patrick, I actually have a real-world example of just what you're asking. So I had a small sports, sports medicine— I was a distributor for a sports medicine company, but they also had some pretty good foot and ankle products. And a very close friend of mine at the time was, uh, the strike— he was a third-party Stryker trauma distributor. And whereas I only had 4 reps— this is after my non-compete was up with Arthrex— um, I only had 4 reps, but he had like, I don't know, I think 32, uh, around the state in Colorado and Wyoming. And I said, well, you know, they do a lot of foot and ankle work. Why don't we put a bunch of, of this sports medicine product in their bag. And he said, great, let's do it. So we did, we went through training, did, did all kinds of traveling around meeting with these reps. We couldn't get the trauma guys to pull anything from the sports out of their bag. We, I mean, they, I don't think out of 32 of them, maybe 2 of them sold a few sports medicine type products in the foot and ankle. So, you know, it's just a matter of focus. It just, they were thinking about trauma the whole time. They weren't thinking about the opportu— an additional opportunity that they had for the sports stuff and the foot and ankle stuff.

So, well, you hear that example, Corey, a lot with these big distributors who will, you know, company, small company XYZ gets super excited because they sign some distributor that has 100 reps and in reality, you know, 6 of those 100 ever really put any sort of effort towards it. That, that story happens with, with a fair amount of frequency.

Well, I'll add to that, Patrick, is when I was with Depew for the 21 years, we had numerous products that we got. I mean, Stimulands one, now the Smith-Nephew people in, in our area carry it. But anyway, I didn't— never focused any time on that because what I saw was our distributor would pick up distribution for some smaller unique products like that. But what would always happen is after a year or two, we wouldn't have it anymore. And even, even 10, 15 years ago, there was some hassle trying to get products going. And I thought, well, why do I want to do this if it's just going to be gone in a year or two? A lot of work for very little return. Yeah. Yeah.

Where can you give, um, for the group, many of which who, who work for small manufacturers or, or are running small manufacturers or small, you know, um, implant providers, from the distributor's perspective, good companies are good to work with because of why? And bad companies are bad to work with because of why?

I would say the most of it comes down with clear, honest, and open conversations and knowing where the company really is. Um, and Patrick, you and I talked when we picked up EpiSurf I forget whether I asked or you told me, but you told me what you thought a successful year one would look like. Mm-hmm. And it was actually a lot less than I was expecting. Yeah.

I said, I'll be honest, just don't punish me for my honesty and think that I'm sandbagging it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You did do that. But at the same time, I think everybody underpromises or sorry, overpromises and underdelivers. And that goes for people like me trying to talk with companies and the reverse, where we have actually taken the stand where when we figure out we want to pick up a product— in fact, we're working through approval at a hospital system right now for, for a, for a knee for, for a surgeon. And we went to the company and said, Basically, we want this for Dr. So-and-so. We think it would be a good fit for him. And we were really focused on that and set it up so that they weren't expecting us to just go gangbusters everywhere with this product. And I can tell you, after we started having those, those conversations, we haven't had any companies like come back to us and be saying like, hey, come on, why aren't you producing more doing this. And Patrick, back, back to what, you know, I think our communication has always been upfront and, you know, there's nothing to be brutally honest about yet, but we wouldn't be afraid of having a hard conversation and tiptoeing around something based on how, how we started our relationship. And so I think from a company standpoint, doing that right from the beginning and being truthful about really what it is that you're, you're offering them, because even if it was a me-too product, everybody knows if you're very successful with a me-too product, there's a lot of money to be made for reps and distributors. But a lot of times the companies say like, oh, this is so much better than all of these other things out there. And then people like me, I look at it and it's like, uh, they're just giving me the sales job. And so it does, it does affect my, you know, whether subconsciously or, or, you know, even something I'd admit that does affect my desire and willingness to, to promote it.

Yeah, I'd like to expand on, on the, the honesty portion of, of what Stu just said, and the relationship that the company has with the distributor is very important. And I think the, the manufacturer has to look at a distributor more like the, uh, a customer than they do— a customer or a partner or both. Um, it gets it gets really tough when you have a manufacturer that's, you know, says things like— and this is a real-world example— well, you have to turn in your Sunshine Act form or you don't get paid. You can't— they're an independent distributor for a reason, because they like to be their own boss and they're entrepreneurial. They don't really like to be dictated to. So that's a little tidbit I learned over the last 27 years as well.

Yeah. Well, Corey, what you said about being a customer is our favorite companies to work for are the ones that do treat us like a customer. And what I have found, found to be true over the past 6 years is, is it, it really is amazing how much more excited I am about talking about their products than other companies' products. Now we do carry competitive other companies' products and they know that. We're upfront and honest with them. But we always, if we're talking hips and knees, we always start with one company because they're our favorite to work with.

Well, and I see a lot, I've seen a lot of smaller companies just not be ready. They, they, they, they focus on comprehensive when they can't be. You can only be good at so much. And so if you don't have a pricing matrix, if you don't have shipping and logistics, if you don't have phone numbers to contact and after-hours information, and if you don't have— if you are not ready for somebody to utilize your product and a distributor sell your, your product and things to go wrong, or to be on contract. If you can't just streamline that, you have— it's just as challenging to get a distributor, to keep, to keep a distributor happy as it is to keep a surgeon happy. In fact, it's probably more challenging to keep a distributor happy. And so if you are not in line, and if you don't have your 30-second sales pitch ready for your distributor, if you don't have all of the materials ready to go to submit to the your value analysis pack, your insurance, everything, a pricing matrix that's very clean. And your distributor isn't gonna be talking to the, I wouldn't be talking to Stu and found out that Stu's making 5% more commission than me. These are the things that get companies in trouble is a lack of transparency because distributors are smart. They're smart and they've been playing the game a long time and they're probably smarter than your entire executive team put together when it comes to to emotional intelligence and dealing with the physician and the hospital network. And I think one of the biggest failures is not having a distributor, if you're a distributor organization, is not having distributor on your executive leadership. I see that happen all the time.

Yep, there's an adversarial relationship between a lot of these companies and distributors because they feel like the distributors own the customer. And they don't have access to the customer. And there, I've seen that a lot.

Right. The companies, you, misguided, I think oftentimes have this feeling like, you know, the distributor should feel so lucky to sell our just amazing, great XYZ product. And, and putting aside even the legitimacy of that claim, I think companies, they oftentimes, they, they fail to recognize the first like 10 acts of benevolence they're on the distributor's part. They're out there working for free before there's ever money that ever changes hands in the entire relationship. There's time, there's sort of access in the sense of like the customer relationship is the entirety of the distributor's livelihood, right? If things go wrong with that distributor, if they introduce or sort of open up their world to a new company and that company comes in and screws a lot of things up for them, that hurts the distributor not just with that company's business, but with like 7 other things down the road and hurts their ability to go sell future product XYZ with future company that comes down the line. So the first act of benevolence is always on the distributor's part, and companies would be smart to remember that more often. They very, they often forget that or don't realize it. They just think because, you know, some product has been in an R&D process for 2 years that anybody would just be so lucky to have access to, to something like this, right?

I also—

that's right, not having— and not having people that, uh, have, have dealt with $1,200 shipping, uh, charges. And these are things that unless you have been a distributor, you have no awareness of. And you cannot have a sales force, an executive sales team that does not have distributors on it, because the mindset will be So off course. I see this all the time in companies. If they not have a distributor, it's the craziest thing. But yet we rely on a distributor network and have zero perspective and just give them a— they've always lived on salaries plus commission, right?

We've always— we've all seen the big company, you know, someone will come out of a big company for, you know, they were 25 years big, you know, VP at big company XYZ, and all of a sudden they get dropped into this big role with a smaller company and they have to rely upon distributors. And they get so, you know, they're the tactic at big, you know, when you have control over the whole sales force and their employees and so on and so on, you can, you know, you have a lot more sticks than carrots. And, you know, when you're trying to manage a distributor sales force, you sort of have one stick, you can pull the line. And so you have one choice, you have one opportunity to play that stick forever. So, you know, choose it wisely and get good with the carrots is kind of what I tell people.

Right. Well, even Patrick, even if they're 1099 distributors, but with a big enough company, then they, you know, like, like we were talking, Corey said earlier about Arthrex and, and their concern. But when you, you know, Zimmer or DePuy distributor, the company can be more forceful with them because the reality is if one of those people loses distribution, it's a lot different than if a small company loses distribution as far as percentage of business at risk.

Yeah, yeah. A lot of those big company distributors these days are just distributor and title only almost. It's more, you know, sort of regional, regional sort of sales director or, or whatever because they're so, it's so tied in with one company that's 95% of the, of the, the revenue.

Right. Actually, right. There is something that I want to add since all you guys are small company people, is I was just talking with one of our companies and it wasn't EpiSurf about, about culture. And this company that we work with does have a good culture. And they were saying, how can we promote this? And it really got me thinking and probably applicable for everyone on the call is smaller companies have an opportunity if there is a uniqueness to the inside and it really is a good culture to, to grow that. But the way that— or the thing you have to be careful of there is you have to be more discriminating on who you would have as a distributor or even surgeon customers to use your product. And, and I thought of it this way, is it if you were talking about something in, you know, we'll just say Mobile, Alabama, some small company, you would think of the rep there and maybe the surgeon or two that use it, right? And that would be what you thought of the corporate culture. Well, what if those people aren't people that are anything like the culture from the inside? Yeah.

The face of the company is usually the rep. It's not the manufacturer.

Yeah.

Totally agree. I think another, another issue that the, that the manufacturers have to pay attention to is when they hire, uh, a regional manager, um, they have to, they have to train that regional manager to be respectful of the distributor, what he's built, uh, respectful of, uh, just basically talking to that, that, that distributor's reps. So, Stu, I don't know if you've ever had the problem where, you know, you've got these regional managers all trying to make a name for themselves and they, they'll start meeting with doctors and, and your reps without asking your permission. And I think that's just a kind of a no-no. I think you've got to respect that, that what that distributor's done, who he's hired, those are his people. If you want to talk to them, you want to ride with them, you want to want them out meeting with surgeons, they go through you first.

Right. Well, I can tell you when I was a Depew rep, and it hasn't been so much since I've been a distributor, but when I was a Depew rep, I absolutely hated it when my doctors would go to Academy because they would come back and have interacted with corporate people, you know, that And not to say that I was controlling, but you know, the corporate people are there selling what's the latest and greatest. Well, none of my customers ever were qualified to be the early evaluators of everything or of anything. So they would get all excited about things, come back, and I'd always have to be the person saying like, well, yeah, about a year from now you'll be able to use it, maybe.

Yeah. It's the medical shows tease people with things they can't have.

Yeah.

Correct. Always the case.

So we have— And if you're international, it's worse. 'Cause the international doctors never get what they see at shows.

Right.

Right. That's because the high ASPs in America still get priority, right?

Yeah.

But it's— For decades.

But half the attendees are from, you know, outside the US and they, they see things they can't have. Here, I got a question from Tyler, a write-in question. Are you guys familiar with Innovate Ortho? They're a group sales organization. They, they, they looks like they're trying to do what, um, we talked about earlier, like a conglomerate of distributors in the US. Anyway, no worries if you, if nobody's heard of them. It's Enove, the number 8, then Ortho. Yeah. Uh, next question was about when Stu and I talked about this, non-competes. So a lot of, a lot of reps can't— if they're working for Depew, they can't ever go out on their own, ever, because they, they're locked into non-competes. And so I'd love for Stu to talk about how to How to say no to non-competes and kind of win your independence in the future?

Yeah, well, so when I left APU, I had a non-compete. My lawyer looked at it and, you know, he said, Stu, we feel they've breached your contract. You know, I'm fine with you going right in and doing it. And he said, with that being said, they're going to have a beef against you. So when we left APU, we felt like we had to violate it. So it was a very stressful, messy time. Ultimately came to a settlement. But my, my point in saying that is, yes, people are, are scared, nervous, etc. And I get that. But there are legitimate ways around non-competes. There is a non-compete will not be violated by me having a conversation with someone that I've, I've been their rep for years. And I think that there's a lot of misconception on, you know, what violates someone's non-compete and what doesn't. But when it comes down to it, I have to receive compensation for Dr. So-and-so changing his product usage from something that would have been, you know, a Depew product to whatever company I was selling. And just think about this through everybody's history is we've all seen reps move from, you know, Depew to Zimmer or whatever it is, doesn't matter. How are these companies paying for it? They're paying them a guarantee. But if business comes along, there's more money in the pot to pay for that person, right? If business came along, even if that person's not, not involved with it. So my take is that there's creative ways to, to not blatantly violate non-competes and at the same time help people make a transition. And that's where it does take it. A team of people to do it.

And the— and the— for young reps, just don't sign the non-compete, right?

And obviously not a— if you try and go work for Stryker as a young, a young rep with no experience, they're probably going to say, well, then we're not going to hire you, right? Which— that, that's a choice people have to make.

You can also redline. You can redline certain phrases and you can try to correct it.

Yeah. Yep. But what I think the vast majority of people think is, you know, this is the standard contract.

Yeah.

And, and that's, that's not true. I, I haven't had a non-compete for over 5 years with, with any company. And I'm, I personally am never signing another one. Or the one way around that would be if, if truly it would be something that, you know, compensation goes down, you know, geography gets changed, it gets null and void. Or even a unique one that I did think about that I think would be fair is a non-compete that goes away over time. Meaning if you, if you hired someone And I mean, let's be real, the whole concern about a non-compete is when people are inheriting a lot of business, right? If you, if you become a rep, you know, a couple million dollars of business, I understand why people have that. But that's where it would be even a scenario like that. If you hire the right person, treat them correctly, and had something that went away over time. You know, if you work for us for, you know, a year, knock a couple months off and, you know, whatever that could look like. I think that would be interesting. And another thing along with the companies that I like working with is the fact that I have a non-compete or don't have a non-compete with these companies is another thing that makes me want to not leave the company because I have the ability to leave if I wanted.

It's free market, uh, right, you know, forces instead of contractual forces.

Yeah, correct. And even that is, I would rather have a lesser commission rate and not even have a non-compete, you know, talked about, than make a few more commission points with a non-compete. Because I think, I think requiring a non-compete starts the relationship off very adversarial.

Yep, totally agree.

Because ultimately what I've come to find is a non-compete is only there if the party that holds the contract wants to manipulate the other person, intimidate them, scare them, and if you see that as a possibility with them in the future. I mean, the way I look at it is, why would I want to hire someone that if they truly had a better opportunity, that I would want to hold them back from that?

Yeah, it's short.

I think more important to distributors is non-solicitation language, because it's, it's, it's frustrating when you put together a good sales force, and then the manufacturer comes in and poaches your people. So I don't know if you, Stu, if you have non-solicitation language in your, in your contracts, or— I, I insist on it. I insisted on it because if, if you, if you, if something happens to you and you decide you want to go do something else, they can't just come in and hire your people because it's your reps that are, that have those, that business. And I was, I had a front row seat to to the, the, uh, Stryker, uh, third-party distributor, trauma distributor I was telling you about. Stryker came in and poached 13 of his reps in one day, uh, and he had this non-solicitation language. He wound up— he, he sued him because he had enough money, uh, he— so he sued Stryker and won.

But even in situations like that, nobody wins because how much money did he spend?

Uh, I spent about $3.5 million.

Yeah. Question answered.

Yeah. And so my guess is even after that, he didn't feel like he really won.

Well, I don't know. The, the striker owes him over $5 million plus attorney's fees. So we'll see.

Wow.

Well, I, this has been great. I think we're, we've gone over by 15 minutes. So what a great topic. Um, People had to drop off, but everybody's saying what a great topic this is. This is needed. We may have to do a part 2 in the future with Stu. Hope you become a BoneChat member. We got a lot of entrepreneurial people on here like yourself. Thanks. Thanks for presenting, Stu.

Yeah, absolutely. I enjoyed it. Always enjoy talking with different people in the industry. Um, because I don't have it all figured out. None of us do. Exactly. This is the way we all get better.

Exactly.

There's— there's what I love about you is there's new ways of doing things, even in service, that people aren't even thinking about today.

Yeah.

And you're figuring it out, right?

I mean, what I— what I tell people, and some people look at me sideways and scratch their head, I honestly believe there's no better time to be in orthopedic sales than today. The caveat to that is you have to be willing to do something different. And what, what percentage of the people would be willing to do that? If you want to do it the way it's always been done, it's going to be a potentially miserable career for you.

Well, they don't know better. They usually spend 10 or 20 years getting beat up before They realize there's a different way. Yeah.

All right.

Well, thanks. We'll call it. We'll make it a wrap. Thanks, guys. We'll see you next Thursday. Um, or actually next Thursday. Yeah, we do have a topic, uh, next Thursday. So thanks, guys. Use Slack and, uh, look for the announcement for next Thursday.

Thanks. All right. Thanks, Tiger Buford.

Thanks. Thanks for all.