Building Strong B2B Brands in the Age of AI Marketing, With Guest Jonathan Bein

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Welcome to around the Horn in Wholesale Distribution with Kevin Brown and Tom Burton. Sponsored each week by LeadSmart Technologies. Tom, Kevin and their guests review the news of the week and dive deep into the topics impacting manufacturers, wholesale distribution, independent sales agents and the global wholesale supply chain. Whether It's M&A SaaS and cloud computing, B2B, E commerce or supply chain issues, we peel back the onion with our guests into the topics that impact your business the most.

Good to have you both. Jonathan vine, stop right there. Dr. Jonathan vine, we've got it. Got to say that as well. And Tom Burton and Kevin Brown here as we get together every week. It's happy to have you with us. Jonathan, thanks for joining us.

Honored.

Thank you.

Yeah, well, it's been a while in the makings to get you here. You're sought after speaker and researcher and so forth. I'm going to do a little bit of our intros that we do every week, a little bit our housekeeping. Then we're going to learn a little bit more about Jonathan as we go. But again, I'm Kevin Brown. I'm here with my lifelong friend and business partner and co founder of Lead Smart Technologies, Tom Burton. We get together every Friday morning, LinkedIn Live, YouTube Live and Facebook Live. We do that at 9 o' clock Pacific Time and we get together and we review the news of the week. We do that through the format of our around the Horn in Wholesale Distribution and Manufacturing newsletter that we review that goes out to about 10,000 people every week. And what we try and do is take news from all kinds of resources, including Jonathan's firm, the Distribution Strategy Group, and bring that data and information into our followers and our subscribers and share that information not just about information about the economy and tech and M and A and sales and marketing, but how that impacts wholesale distribution and manufacturing. And we do this again every week. When we're done with the live show today, our editor and producer takes all of that data, puts it into a format so it can be out on the podcast circuit later in the day. So whatever podcast platform that you might be listening in on, Spotify, Apple podcasts, whatever it might be, if you don't get our newsletter and you would like to just let us know, there's two ways to do that. You can do that through simple email to helloadsmartech.com and secondly, you can do that to our website for the podcast, which is www.aroundthehornpod.com. so if you're listening in on the podcast, you won't be seeing the newsletter that we have. So again, if you'd like to get that, let us know. The only way we're able to do this each week is because we have the sponsorship of the company that Tom and I work for, Lead Smart Technologies. Lead Smart has developed an AI enabled CRM and customer intelligence platform developed and designed exclusively for wholesale distribution and manufacturers. So we bring this, the show to you and we hope you enjoy it. And the best thing that you can do for us is if you enjoy what we do each week. Click the subscribe button, click the Follow button, Leave a review Forward the newsletter to your friends and whatever it might be, and we'll bring more people in to do more of this, which will also allow us to entice guests like Jonathan to join us on an ongoing basis as well. So, enough of the housekeeping. Did I miss anything, Tom? No, you're good.

Hey, I wanted to say good morning to Brian. It's good to see him back. Haven't seen him for a while. Good morning, Brian. And, and yeah, if you're out there, please jump in, say good morning to Jonathan. Don't have to say good morning to Kevin and I, but Jonathan definitely say good morning too, so.

Very good. So Jonathan, before we dive in, how about a recap of your journey to where you are today and what you're doing today with DSG and the. The famed Mr. Heller as well?

You bet. So I grew up in the in technology. My, my training is in computer science with kind of an emphasis in linguistics and music and these things actually all come together. So I did a lot of things in the tech world before getting into distribution. I had about a hundred software developers working for me at one point.

Wow.

And we were working with a lot of telecom companies, a lot of healthcare. I was CTO of a healthcare informatics company that had a very successful exit. I stepped out after 911 to have a midlife, my first midlife crisis and organized my sock drawer in my house. And I was like, well, I better find something to actually do. So I started doing interim CXO consulting where X could be E, M or T depending on the technology. And I did that for a number of years. And then I met ian Heller in 2008 and I fell in love with distribution. And I'd been doing a number of very analytic, focused types of consulting, whether it was understanding value of an offering, the ROI of an offering, value calculators, market sizing, pricing, very left brain analytic approaches. I found that distribution was a much richer arena for the things that I Love to do. Even a smaller distributor has probably a couple thousand customers, probably 10,000 or more SKUs. And you multiply those two numbers, you get a bigger number. And that ended up being a rich arena for the analytic life that I want to pursue. So Ian got me involved. And what we just say about he's the word guy, I'm the numbers guy. You know, we have enough corpus callosum that we can actually communicate. He's the right brain guy, I'm the left brain guy. We have a number of different descriptors, but distribution strategy, very briefly is we've got two things. We've got content. We'll talk a little bit more about the conference that we're doing later on, but we put out a weekly webcast. That could be a best practice. It could be a panel of technology companies, could be a panel of distributors, could be a show a little bit like this. That's one side of our business. Other side of our business is we've got analytics software for estimating the size of a customer's wallet, how much they're spending by different product categories, how much you have left that you could sell them. And then we have another product for measuring and improving customer experience.

So that's fantastic. It astounds me because I'm a devotee of the content that DSG puts out. It astounds me the amount and the quality and the quality of guests and so forth that are there each week. And we try and every week. In fact, I would be shocked if we went back through the archives of this show and there wasn't a week that we didn't mention something from content from your organization. So I'm excited that you're with us today. Kind of do a deep dive. Two things come to mind, though, that before we move ahead. One is you and Ian have a lot. I'd say Tom. The relationship that Tom and I have is very, very similar. How our brains work and so forth. And I always say there's a Venn diagram that Tom and I meet in the middle with a lot of similar skills. And while I don't have anywhere near the technology skills, Tom's a computer scientist by education and started and exited multiple software companies. And I'm a peddler of safety equipment and industrial supplies my entire career. And we came together to start our technology company to solve problems that I had had in my entire career. But there's a crossover where his technology comes into business. And Tom enjoys marketing as well. And I love technology, but I don't understand it well enough, but there's that. There's, I think, a nice crossover similarity to you and Ian there. Although I would never for a moment consider myself anywhere near in the same stratosphere of writers as Ian, so.

But it's. But you two have that relationship. That's terrific.

Yeah.

And so if we continue on that path. So Ian would be the creative, I would be the analytic. Right, so you'd be the creative for your business, Tom would be the analytic. But each of you has enough of the other that it works. It's not like it's, you know, split down the middle. So. Yeah, yep.

Tom would suggest that I have all of his good qualities and he has none of my bad in that crossover.

I've been really holding back on saying much of anything here. So let's move on to the.

Yeah, the. Before we do that, I got a quick question for you though. Jonathan, you had mentioned that technology and music piece.

Yes.

Is that where you and. And Dr. Lynn Chase first connected was through music or was it through science?

It was through science. And I actually didn't know about her music background until about four years ago, but she and I worked at Martin Marietta back in the day, back in the days of symbolic AI. We were among the first AI people in Colorado. She was doing stuff on, you know, Mars.

Yeah, Mars landing stuff.

Right, Mars. And I was working on space station stuff, so.

Okay, gotcha. I just thought that connection might be there. She was a guest. I met her through your AI event last October. Got to know her a little bit. She's been on the show as a guest and was just phenomenal. And what a unique human being, huh?

She's incredible. Yeah, she's a giant.

If we're talking about Dr. Lynn Chase. Lynn is. Jonathan, tell me if I'm wrong here, but a world renowned expert in AI and machine learning, but just a phenomenal human being, lived on a sailboat, plays like 25 instruments. Who knows how many languages she speaks. If you're interested in any of what she has to say, you could go back to our aroundthehornpod.com website or to LinkedIn, the lead smart technologies page. Scroll back a few months, you'll see her episode there. So, Tom, take us to the news, would you?

Yeah. So we're starting off with our usual economy and supply chain.

Yeah.

And the first article here, Federal Reserve minutes. Policy makers saw a longer path to rate cuts. So the only thing I can think of is they'd been finally listening to the show here and listening to what I had to say and realize that probably one rate cut this year was the right strategy. I think that's what happened.

If I'm reading, Jonathan, before we go any further, not sure if you're aware, but regular listeners to the podcast would know. And by the way, I don't know if you know this, Jonathan, but Tom and I have been friends since kindergarten, so we don't pull a lot of punches with each other. We behaved when we're together with our wives, but otherwise not so much. But we have a big steak dinner and some wine riding on what I'm a believer there's two rate cuts this year. Tom's that there's at the most one. And so each week we talk about this a little bit. So a little context as we have this discussion.

Well, you've been together since kindergarten and you're each sitting in your assigned spots.

Yes, very good.

We're used to it. Yeah, we're used to it.

Yeah, very good.

So, no, I mean, and it's interesting, right, is the market really has gone crazy since the last meeting for whatever reason, but I think what they came through and said is we're not expecting to raise anymore or no anymore. And yeah, there's a little bit of.

A threat of that there for a week or two. Right?

Yeah. But I think we're still everything I'm seeing. I think we're still sitting at that, that one and seems like that's basically what's. And so many words being said in here. So.

Yeah, well, you know, I, I think that, that this article talks a little bit about this from a standpoint of, you know, there were some people talking about some potential raises. You know, I, I every time I see this, it just astounds me. 11 hikes that there's been, you know, over the last two since 20, 22 and 23 that being done. So they said. One of the quotes here was such concerns have raised speculation the Fed might consider raising rather than cutting its influential benchmark rate in the coming months. Indeed, the minutes from that May meeting noted that various officials mentioned a willingness if inflation re accelerated. But then there was more talk later from Powell and others that kind of were like, no, no, no, no, don't, don't worry about that. Yeah, so we'll see what, we'll see what cap happens next. I'm just, you know, we're going to talk in a few minutes about some, some other metrics. I'm going to throw this out before we even get to that article that. Jonathan, one of the things that I've been saying Jonathan, for a long time is, and you know, neither Tom nor I claim to be economists, so we just pretend for a few minutes on Friday mornings. But I've been questioning for a long time whether we're using the right metrics related to inflation based upon the markets and the conditions. One of these days I'm going to stop talking about this and go do all the research about when, you know, did this 2% number come in, all of the metrics that they use. Because we just live in a different world than we did 20, 30, 40 years ago. So I kind of question sometimes if we're using the right metrics or not. But that's one guy's opinion. Any thoughts on, on rates, Jonathan?

But sentiment wise, 11 in two years is a lot. Eleven rate changes in two years. It's I, I feels like I, I missed some of those happening.

Yeah, that's what happened when I read that.

I got accustomed to them happening because they were so frequent.

Yep, yep.

They were every, every other month or a little bit more than that since then.

Yeah. So anyways, let's jump to the next articles because this kind of ties in to the same thing, that maybe this will help us a little bit getting to those reductions. Next article that we talk about here is from cnbc, talks about consumers punting big purchases like pools and mattresses. But this ties right back to when we talk about consumer pricing, wholesale pricing. These are all tied back into the decisions that the Fed looks to make on all of these things. And you know, what we've watched is this exuberance, I think, coming out of COVID and Mrs. Brown and I were talking about this yesterday, that we looked back and we realized, you know, we spent more than we should have during that time. And we like to think that we're probably pretty, you know, responsible in general compared to some. But now we're seeing this, consumers are now we're starting to feel that slowdown as the conversation that's getting started now. Any takeaway on that, Tom?

Yeah, you know, I actually did a little bit of homework on this after our last episode because I really wanted to understand it a bit more. And it's not easy to get clear data. But here's what I've discovered. Right. And some of this is pretty well known. Consumers as a, as a group, and that's obviously a very broad group, savings are at the lowest level that they've been in many, many years. Credit card debt is at the highest level that it's been at many, many years. Yet as consumers, what we're spending most of our money on right now is not these big purchases like they have here, but experiences and whether that's eating out travel, whatever, which aligns with what I saw in Vegas a couple weeks back. It was just people spending money by crazy on experience. Now what doesn't quite resonate with me, and I'd love your guys take on it and, or anybody who's listening, is the reason that people, they say that so much money is still being spent on experiences is that people are still kind of, you know, coming out of the COVID lockdown phase and they're going to go do everything and anything they couldn't do. But that's now getting to be two years ago, right? Or longer. So it seems, it seems a little, the pent up demand seems to be, you would think that would have, you know, have reduced a bit. But, but again that's what the quote unquote experts are saying is they're continuing to spend. And the reason that they're continuing to spend is that they have equity in their home. They have the wealth factor of their home equity. They have the wealth factor of their 401k. Even though that money may not be immediately accessible, there's still that feeling that hey, I've got this wealth. And so that's what's, what's actually happening. So anyway, it's kind of ties into a lot of the stuff that's here.

My immediate hit on reading the article was what you shared, Tom, which is that it's about credit card debt and people, people are tapped out on either credit card debt, lines of credit, etc. And so the big ticket items are getting deferred.

Yeah, it made, it made an interesting comment. One of the CEOs that was commenting here, it says that this is all happening at a pivotal moment for the national economy. The average Joe has been contending with the double whammy of high prices and borrowing costs while economists and policymakers are trying to gauge the impact this has made. So I think this is a different type of pre recession, call it whatever you want, than we've seen historically. And I think a lot of that, as we say, is tied to what happened during COVID and so forth and coming back. In fact, Paul Kennedy with Dakota Supply Group just commented, did everybody buy their stuff during COVID when they couldn't have experiences? And I think he's spot on with that.

That's exactly right. I think that's exactly right. Right.

Yeah.

And now it's gone from Stuff to experiences.

Right.

I think it's got to level out. Unless people are still thinking, okay, I got to get these experiences now because I never know when the next Covid is going to occur. Don't know. It's not my mindset. But I don't know if I represent the average. Average.

What I think, I think to Paul's point, there too is. And by the way, Brandon Lee's with us. Thanks for being with us today, Brandon, and signing in. You know, we, we see pretty regularly we get like comments all the time from people that are like, hey, I made a comment. But it doesn't show up if they're through LinkedIn sometimes. But that's okay. We appreciate those that are with us and trying. But you know, I think one of the things that we see a lot of with this is, and it's maybe not as bad in my house, but it's. There is. I don't know that the Amazon stops have slowed down that much. Certainly as I look in my neighborhood, the Amazon truck and the UPS trucks here as many times a day, I think in the neighborhood as it was during COVID So I think there's a lot of people that have just kept that buying it, buying spree that they've gone on is the same way. So Brandon, did you know Brandon's comment there before we move on? Tom?

Yeah, no, he said I don't think it's a conscientious thing. But I agree that experience, that more experience. Experiences are more important to people than stuff. Than stuff after Covid.

And I think, I think the stuff might have become a lifestyle. It's just a. Yeah. A cycle that people are in. So.

But those big tickets that they're talking about, pools and you know, big, big ticket things, maybe theirs are going to slow down. I don't know what that has, you know, good. And that all comes back to distribution and manufacturing potentially to some degree.

But absolutely that comes right back around to that setting. One last comment related to this and there's a quote out of that, out of this article and it says this matters because it adds to a growing picture of consumer spending more finally slowing down. As expert had long anticipated. That means that the Federal Reserve may get the sign it's been waiting for that interest rate hikes have had their intended effects of tightening the economy, which could be good news for investors and consumers.

Before I've said this before, that said.

Two what I just read.

Okay. All right. Well, I think there will definitely be a lot of cuts next year. I have no, I'm not. I would not. I just saying between now and the end of the year, I think it's going to, as we go into next year, it's totally going to start to kick in and I think we'll see a lot more cuts.

Good. So a couple things before we jump ahead. Good morning to Mike Mortensen from ARG Industrial. It's great to have you always like when Mike's with us. He's been on the show with us twice before. Appreciate seeing him. And then Brandon made a great comment here. He said it's also, this is, this is astute. So really astute, I think, is that it's also a culture of a younger generation that experiences are more important than stuff. And I think you probably saw that on your Las Vegas trip, Tom, is that, you know, there's people there. You know, their car barely got into the parking structure, but they're buying $40 cocktails. Right. So it's an interesting event.

$40 cocktails and $100 movies at the sphere.

So, yeah, there's, that's the experience. But that, that ties back to, you know, what my wondering about is how we track the economy in this country if it needs to have some adjustments tied to it based upon who, how, and what people do and how our business life works. Because things are different than it used to be.

So I think, Kevin, to that end, we're seeing new configurations of employment, wages, inflation and stock market that we haven't seen. So we may be in a different kind of world now.

Yep. Great comment from Marty McLaughlin and he's from the Mosaic Group and formerly the chief marketing officer at, at Affiliated Distributors. So we got some great comments coming today. Marty says, I think many are de stuffing. I wish Marty was live with us to tell us how he came up with de stuffing. That's from a marketing guy right there. Big purchases may align to real estate transactions and many aren't selling to keep their 2% interest rate. So good point there. And, and then I like this one.

If lunch costs 80 bucks, it's now considered an experience. I like that. Right. Chipotle for $10 is not an experience. But yeah, $80 for a hamburger and a drink could be.

But you know what? It's, it's, it's ridiculous when you go to, you know, Jersey Mike's and get two sandwiches and two drinks and two chips and it's 30, 30, 35 bucks. It's like, how did it. It's not fast food anymore. Might as well go to the restaurant and Spend five more dollars and have something better. Hey, Tom, before we jump ahead, and I know we need to for time, I wanted to welcome Jason Bader with us. It's nice, Nice comment. Jason's got a great podcast himself and we're appreciative of him being with us today. So thanks for joining us. Happy to have you with us. I've invited him to join us on the show, if he's open to that. We'd love to have him sometimes. And so we'll go from there. And Brandon says to Mike Mortensen, mic drop moment. So very good. All right, so now this ties into, as we're talking about how they look at things, another article here from Reuters about the New York Fed announcing announces a launch of a new supply chain pressure metric. I think this is an interesting piece. Right. And I, I don't want to tie this to me being right, and I don't want to say that that's what they're doing, but it almost feels like somebody saying, okay, maybe there's more we need to look at. And supply chain pressure has not been traditionally part necessarily of what the Fed looks at.

Well, I think it's broadening. Right. I think it's very smart to broaden the analytics and the metrics. And Jonathan, love your take on this as an analytics and metrics guy. I think, you know, I mean, look at. I agree with you, Kevin, that we probably. Look at us up there.

Just stop there.

Okay.

I agree with you is enough.

Okay, go ahead. Did I really. Did I really say that?

You said it out loud and.

Oh, really? Okay, Sorry.

There are witnesses.

Okay. I do agree that, you know, the number of metrics and that we tend to look at is small given the vast complexities of what we're doing. So I think adding different metrics and looking at different metrics and analytics is very smart. But, Jonathan, what's your take on this availability index? From what your stamp. Do you think this is a valid metric or what do you think is the pro and con of that?

Well, it depends. I think partly depends on the cost of creating and maintaining that metric. The cost of what we just went through was very high. So if the cost for this is reasonable and it. And we can spot something and get ahead of it because of that, that's a win.

Yep. That's an interesting point. I don't know what would be involved in actually doing it. It sounds nice on paper. Right. But what is actually involved and what.

They'Re talking about is that they reference a new gauge to Measure how widespread supply disruptions are and understand if availability is improving and track inflationary pressures and that impact that it has on local firms. So, you know, we talk every week about supply chain issues, right. And how these are impacting things. And I think they're just going to look, start looking at. At least this is just the New York Fed, right. But if they start and put that gauge in and start managing, looking closer at supply chains, I think it may trickle across and maybe that's just one more thing that, you know, helps, helps versus the current metrics or stack of what would you call it, a metric stack in your tech world instead of a tech stack. A metric stack, a series of metrics.

Yeah, yeah.

So anyways, I hope that they do and continue with that and I hope it finds, helps find a better balance. So as we go and move ahead, we have different segments of the newsletter that we send out every week. And as a reminder, if you're with us and only listening on the podcast, which you're not hearing or not seeing, I should say while you're listening is we have the around the Horn and wholesale distribution newsletter up. We send that every week to about 10,000 subscribers. And this just brings together information about manufacturing, distribution and E commerce and marketing and M and A and sales and supply chain and distribution, the economy. And we try and unpack that news like we're doing now with guests like Jonathan, and apply that to how it impacts wholesale distribution manufacturing. So if you don't get the newsletter, just please let us know if you'd like to helloadsmartech.com and we'll get you on the list. Or we have a website for the show, which is www.aroundthehornpod.com and you can get that newsletter. So we're going to jump now into our manufacturing distribution segment, tracking the inflation reduction acts impact on US manufacturing. That's from manufacturingdive.com I thought this was good talks about this. It's been around since August of 2022, but things are starting to get rolling with it. I know. Jonathan, you had a few thoughts when we talked earlier.

Yeah.

I think generally with technology adoption, it's easier to predict the fact of it than the when of it. And so there's all these initiatives in the electrification programs and policies of the US government to get to certain things by 2030, by 2050. We've heard some news about the slowdown of those. It's not a huge slowdown, but I think that what we see in this article is the level of energy on the manufacturing side to gear up for this. And that is going to play out in a positive way if distributors get after it over the next several years related to electrification. Let me give you just one example of the scale. So right now they're looking to build a million fast chargers over the next number of years and they expect to have 27 million, 27 to 30 million slower charges in houses or in multi tenant units. Again, they're thinking originally by 2030, so it slows down to 2032, maybe 2033. There's, there's a little bit of friction in the adoption, but that's a, that's a massive shift and the, the economic opportunities that will be driven for listeners to this show I think are significant.

Yep, I think that's, that's a great point to look at from that standpoint. What's interesting to me as well is we talk regularly on the broadcast here about onshoring and near shoring and I think this is spurning even more of that or spurring even more of that, I guess I should say, to get people to dip their toes in the water and bringing things mostly from China and Southeast Asia that can have some difficulties with supply chain issues and bringing that back onshore. So it's great to see. They talked about 39 states, factory and other project announcements in the lot's first existence worth more than $86 billion. And continuing investment pushes is happening. So I think this is going to be something to continue to watch. And Tom, I think it's something we should look at consistently is how that ties into the reshoring and near shoring things that we see as well because the electrification side is a big part of it that we're going to continue to see.

Yeah. And I'm wondering if is this going to breed kind of a whole new or put together a new breed of distributors that have that expertise to deal with some of these types of high tech items. Right. That are coming out. I mean it's, it'll be interesting to see how that evolves from, from the distribution perspective.

Yeah, I think you probably will see that. I mean we have lead smart customers who are branching out and have hold of new divisions of their companies that are starting to work on. So it is definitely. There's definitely some, some expansion opportunities if not Greenfield with this as well. That's good. Well, as we move through this segment ago now closed their doors, the big reseller or wholesaler of master distributor of industrial and MRO and construction and welding and safety products all of a Sudden this week there was a sign on the website that said close down. And I've seen a handful of these in the past happen quite a few over the years. Jonathan, you've been following this for a long time too. And I don't think I've seen one of these where the announcement goes out and on the website is liquidations at their website and, and this month. But that tells me that this has been going on for quite some time. If when the immediate announcement has all of the information about the liquidation happening surprised me, I don't know if you guys had any thoughts on that.

The, the acquirer could be interested in the, in the assets rather than the brand and the customers.

Yeah, well, that could be the, that you know, what I was looking at is that from this standpoint is that there looks like there's probably a receiver involved or potentially a receiver already involved in this and that they're promoting the liquidation of inventory. I would love to see somebody come along and you know, and it could be one of the other wholesalers, you know, makes a down and dirty offer on, on a good part of that inventory. My assumption is some distributors are looking at that, that have, you know, solid, strong balance sheets that will want to go in and buy some of that but never like to see when somebody closes their doors.

Was short on details.

It was yeah. Everywhere and I looked a number of different places to find more information. You made a great comment when we talked about this briefly before we went live today that the founding of this group, some of the founders of this group were or as NASCAR refugees. And so I think one of the things that it says is that the whole concept of master distributor, wholesaler slash reseller on this is it's not an easy business to be in. Numbers or margins are thin and numbers are tight. So we wish everybody there the best.

All right, should we move on to E commerce and marketing?

Tom, what's the first one there?

Yeah, so this first article from adweek. Some advertisers are rebuilding their search strategies as Google AI search engine grows. So boy, this is going to be, this is a big topic and one that's going to I think have a profound, a profound way of how we deal with search and how we deal. Deal with traditional, what we've known with search engines and so forth. But what it's talking about in so many words, right. If you've. And I see this periodically, I don't see it consistently but if you go into Google and you ask it a question like how to cook, how Do I cook macaroni and cheese or something like that? It will use AI and actually try and come back and give you a detailed, much like you would get in chat GPT, Right. Or whatever, a detailed AI explanation of how to make macaroni and cheese or how to create make prime rib or how to make a Thanksgiving dinner or whatever the case may be. Now there's some search terms like restaurants near me or something like that that obviously don't apply right now from these AI pieces and is more traditional search. But what the point of this article is is that as you know, people, how are Google selecting the information that they're putting into the AI response on how to make macaroni and cheese, for example? So if I'm Kraft, do I want to have my macaroni and cheese represented in there? And how do you do that? How do you do things that, as, you know, potentially people out there that you want to be represented in there, how do you do that on your website? How do you make yourself known and very different than the traditional sort of keyword aspect of things that has existed predominantly from search in the past. So really some interesting concepts there.

Yeah. So different inputs and different outputs. Keywords versus sentences.

Right.

Transactional versus narrative or informational.

Exactly.

Yeah, go ahead, Jonathan. No, no, please.

If, if you look at what's happened over the years, I wrote an article couple, couple years ago called the SEO arms race. And what we were starting to notice was notice in different sectors. You look at H Vac, electrical, industrial, pick your sector, companies year over year were growing. The number of keywords that showed up in a Google search or in a semrush, however you want to measure what gets them to the first page, they were growing at 40 or 50% a year for a number of years. And as we know this, the, the, the SEO gain is, is constantly morphing. It's like a virus that you're chasing after that's constantly morphing. This is more than a morph.

Yeah, I would say this is a pivot. This is a pivot. Yeah.

This is major shift. So I think we're going to see the same thing again though, that the SEO with AI is going to be this arms race that people are figuring out. It's constantly morphing.

Yeah, I think to go with that, I'm glad you described it that way. The morphing of it. And pivot's a good word too. But what we're talking about now with this as well is we've historically done words, maybe Some long tail words or terms and phrases or even sentences. But now we're mixing in video images and all of these different pieces. And this is the importance of what we try and do here every week is loop this back to manufacturing and wholesale distribution. There are some phenomenal organizations out there with large teams that are highly experienced at this. But we also meet throughout our travels, you know, weekly or daily sometimes. And Jonathan, you may as well, who are we see, you know, it's not for a lack of money or a lack of being a strong good company, but companies that are way behind on these things, right? We see quarter billion dollar a year companies who have one person in their IT department and outsourcing their web design and outsourcing, you know, SEO and all of those things. And this is a game changing potential deal because you might be okay with where you're placing right now in your, in Google search and so forth, but as this evolves, you could go from having spent a bunch of money with a third party a year ago and not done anything since, and you're, you know, maybe popping up a little bit on the first page to going one way down in the rankings because you're not following up on this. So this is, I think this is. And the reason I want, one of the reasons I selected this article is as a heads up right to now is the time to not only realize, hey, there's a whole lot of new different things happening with SEO that I need to be aware of, but it could radically change where I'm at on my search functions today. And if you're just using a third party or somebody on your team does a little bit of research on SEO here and there and changes some terms, now is a critical time to really dig in and go figure out what is this going to do to impact your web presence.

Well, and I want to have Mike's comment here or question here. He says how do you think the quality and overall content around product data will drive visibility given the AI search change? And my take on this is, you know, traditionally, right, product data is here's what the product is, the specs, the, the things like that. But now you take that one step further and you kind of, if that's the what then then kind of book in that with the why and the how. So why would I need this product? Why would it be a value, so forth and then how do I use it, what do I do with it, how do I implement it, how do I, if I have those, the what, the why and the how around that product data, because that's what those answers are providing. Those answers are not just providing data about the what, which is traditionally what has happened in the transactional world. It's also saying, well, why would you want to do this and how would you potentially want to do it? So I totally agree, you're going to have to improve the quality and overall content.

But the big picture that my takeaway from this article was, and it talks about companies like going to their FAQ section on their website and, and putting videos on the FAQ section and images in the FAQ section besides, you know, how do I process a return? Right. Because what we don't know yet, but it's very clear from this article and Google's already saying in this setting is video and images and maybe even voice are going to be major, major factors moving forward. So right now, and I think this goes back to Mike's question is, and it really ties a lot even to E commerce, right? We've got our PIMs in these different solutions where we've got beautiful taxonomy of all of these things and we've done all this work and all of these people and Mike, my friend, I'm not saying this to light a fire or be doomsday about this, but I think we need to be taking a look at and following very closely what is happening. Because to Jonathan's point, I think earlier was we've already known algorithms change all the time. Right. But now there could be this monumental shift in how these algorithms. Algorithms shift slightly typically. Right. And now they could be a monumental shift in how they do it.

Well, but it's also, you said the multimodal, right. And how it's using those algorithms and those indexing to actually identify multimodal content, not just tech content along the way. So there's the context of the content, which we just were talking about, and then there's the modality of the content. Content as well.

Those are big words for me.

Yeah, those are big words for a first Friday morning. So, yeah. Anyway, I'll fill you in later.

Okay, good. Any closing thoughts on that, Jonathan, before we go, that this is right up your alley? I think a little bit.

A picture is worth a thousand search attributes. I think this will reward those who've taken their product data seriously. And so if we think about the group initiatives like an AD and iMark, perhaps an association, the people that take product data seriously are saying, let's look at our top 10 of our SKUs, the 10% of our SKUs that represent 90% of our revenue. And by the way, it is that pronounced, it could be even more. They've already been applying efforts to enhance and ENRICH those top 10% of the SKUs. I think the, the folks that are, that are taking that strategy, who don't want to just look like everybody else in AD or IMARC or whatever, the group are going to be better served. And part of what happens in those initiatives is you're adding more image and video data. So I think it's a, it's a, it's a call to arms for those who are not already taking their product data as seriously.

But I think that's huge. What you're saying, Jonathan, from a practicality standpoint is just focus on the most profitable the start at your top 10%. Right. Don't try and boil the ocean all at once. Start and then keep adding from there. That's, that's very practical way of going about it without making it too overwhelming.

Well, and also utilizing the volume play that you're getting from the group initiative. Yeah you, you may not get too enriching. This is the second 10%. You may rely on what's coming out of the box from group initiative that you're in because. But one of the other expectations from users now is they don't want to see no image available for the bottom 90%. They're going to expect to see better faceted data for not just your top 10%. So there's a, there's an expectation about that that is driven by retail and consumer.

No, I'm really glad you said that. And we talk about that constantly here. Is that the B2B buyer right there. We know now that 60 plus percent are millennials and, and they expect a B2C experience in B2B. And so you to your point, and I'm really appreciative of what you were describing. There is and it actually elicited a comment here with emojis attached to it as well. Just pretty special.

But we don't, we don't get emojis very often.

Emojis very much. That's pretty cool. But, but I think we expect no.

Less from Mike Mortensen.

Yeah, right, exactly right. So Jason commented that might be the quote of the day and I think it might be right there. But Jason, you came in a little bit later, you mentioned and there was some stuff out of, out of a few others earlier that were pretty, pretty funny.

So we had some good referring to.

So yeah, that may be the. This this week might be our top Week and in special moments with all of that. But in, in looking across the board at this is we have to be thinking about changes that are happening and what's going on with our buyer. Right. So our buyer is changing and now we see some technology are changing. Now is the time to pay close attention as I think the takeaway of the day. So. All right, Tom, what's next?

Next thing in the marketing E. Common marketing here.

Sorry, promises.

Yeah. No B2B brands making a promise to customers more likely to grow market share. I, I was actually, I was really surprised when I saw this article. I've never heard this before, but I thought it was really good. Basically the simplicity of it is if you make a promise to your customer and I, and I, when I, when I was reading the article, I was trying to separate that. Was that like a guarantee or is it just more of a brand promise or a product promise? But either way it's promise. If you're, if your company and your product is willing to make a promise, you're more likely to grow market share fairly significant, fairly significantly are nearly three times as likely to drive a market share increase in those that do not. So anyway, I just found this intriguing and interesting.

Well, I think this, the, the, the real takeaway for me in this article talking about this was. And this is from. Can't remember who that article was from Marketing World. I'm sorry. Thank you. And but this is a big initiative. We could probably do a whole dedicated, whole show to this. Right? Is am I marketing product or am I marketing brand? And which is more important? Right. And it's almost a chicken and egg thing, right. You kind of have to have a little of both. But my big takeaway from this is that and it was a comment here says there's often a tie break where all things are equal. And what we are seeing is that the buyer group picks the bigger brand. So if you are competing against and then we think about just make this simple into, you know, distribution here is if, if I'm a Milwaukee distributor and I'm displaying Milwaukee exactly the same as 142 other Milwaukee distributors across the country with the same, you know, product data, the same images. And I'm trying to play the price game, I'm probably better off to grow my brand to go with that and then worry about the other part of it. So I think there were some interesting takeaways. Jonathan, any thoughts on this one?

I find the headline and the content of the article very counterintuitive for this reason that one of the big differences between consumer and business brands is consumer brands create a much bigger emotional hook.

Yep.

Whereas in B2B buying, unless I'm buying just a Milwaukee tool, if I'm making a sizable purchase in the B2B world, there are probably multiple people around the table as part of the decision. There's less emotion, there's less about relationship. Brands are about relationship, there's more value. So it's more about value, less about relationship and emotion. But what I. Where my mind goes with this is what does this mean for distribution? Because distribution is very weak on brands.

Yes.

I mean the Milwaukee tools, the DeWalt, you know, and we can pick other, we can pick other nodal B2B brands.

Well, maybe they're riding the coat. They're trying to ride the coattail on those brands.

Yes.

Versus developing their manufacturers.

Right.

Those are not distributors. That you're correct.

So keep going on that. Jonathan, on that point, I just wanted to add that in.

Yeah. And so I think there's an idea among some distributors that it is about relationships, meaning person to person, pressing flesh, belly to belly, whatever metaphor you want to use. I think some of the best distributors do create effective brands. Obviously we can think of Granger.

Sure.

We can think of msc. There's, there's a number of folks that do this. Well, the broader dynamic of market marketing, analytic world is starting to come to the fore. So it's going to be less about relationships, more about value. And I think that's where, where brands will get created and distribution is, is about, is about value.

Yeah.

Well, we've never been at a better time or place where there's more tools available to do that. You know, even the things that, you know, we've learned for early stage use of AI and marketing and content development and, and having a. To Tom, your comment earlier about a promise, it doesn't have to be a guarantee. It has to be, this is what you'll get from my brand. In fact, Mike, Marty McLaughlin made a comment there about engagement beyond product and price. Brand promises, culture, values and community.

Right.

And Marty's our marketing guy, our resident, and so I love to see that. Right. So that someone needs to leave feeling that there is more to this than just I saw a price on a DeWalt screwdriver, you know, whatever it might be. So good stuff. Great, great article. If again, if you don't get our newsletter and you'd like to please let us know and we can even get this particular one out to you. So, Tom, we need to roll ahead Right.

We need to move really fast. Yeah.

So we're going to go late today, everybody. We hope to have you stay with us. But Reuters article about Europe sets benchmark. We're moving into our tech and cyber and AI segment. So we've talked about over the months about the European Union and they're taking kind of the lead on AI and some from a regulatory, with AI laws with some hard hitting penalties that go with that and that is coming next month. So the rest of the world is a little bit behind. I would say there's a little milquetoast to the US's response to that which was a. Is that a presidential.

Executive order?

Executive order. Thank you for that. Right. And from that standpoint, so this one has quite a bit of teeth behind it. Jonathan, any thoughts on this? Have you read through this what they're doing in Europe?

Yeah, I think it's gonna be very, very tough to enforce.

Yeah, I agree.

Yeah.

And I would, I haven't gone back and read it since December, but I'm even wondering now how relevant some of the things are even that we're looked at in December based around some of the changes that are coming sooner than later. I, I just, I constantly, I think, I completely agree it's unenforceable and I think the relevance, it becomes out of date very quickly. But anyway, we'll have to see. Right. We'll see how it actually comes.

So let me ask a little controversial, potentially controversial question to go with that. A lot of people said the same thing about gdpr. Right. And, and tons and tons of people that violated across the board. But a whole lot of US companies that are doing business outside of the US or in Europe are now using GDPR standards with email marketing and list keeping and so forth. So I'm going to push back a little bit and say certainly they're going to try and do it. And I think what we may end up seeing here is a lot of US based organizations, specifically manufacturers and large brands are going to have to tie some of that together with how they're using AI and how they're doing things across the board. So we'll see what comes out of it. But they're not messing around with the providers on this standpoint at all.

GDPR is a lot easier to enforce. Yeah, it's, it's much less squishy.

And.

This what was described and AI in general is much more squishy. And I just think because of that it's, it's going to be a different kind of outcome.

Yeah, I agree completely. GDPR is much more objective, A to B type of things. This is very broad. I think there'll be some, obviously some witch hunts and things going after people with deep pockets and things along those lines. I just, I think a lot of stuff will get caught up in court for a long time. And I agree with you, Jonathan. I just don't think it's going to be very, very efficient and enforceable.

That's great. Well, thank you. That's a nice comment we just got from, from Jason there. Thanks for being with us today. We appreciate it. Good way to end a Friday. I'd like to wrap up the week. Thank you for that comment. We're appreciative of it. Before we wrap up on this part, I think what my view of what we're going to see with this is they're going to go after and pay very close attention to what Google and Meta and a lot of these folks that the European Union is already putting a squeeze on. That's where we'll see all of this first. And the hope is though, right, the big reason that they put these pieces in place is about anti terrorism and everything from bullying to racism and so forth. And maybe some of that is a value that comes out.

I think there's some great guidelines in there for sure. There's no doubt about it. It's just some of the specific AI stuff. Like I said, I haven't read it again. I probably need to go back and take a look at it again. But I do agree with Jonathan. Enforceability can be potentially. Squishy is the word he is.

So anyway, good, let's jump ahead to a little bit of info about AI attacks and cloud security threats. Either you want to get started on that one.

I mean, this is. We've talked about this quite a bit. You know, we've talked a lot about security threats and you know, obviously there's a lot of black cat I'm sure going on with AI and how do we use AI as a way to, you know, get through and I think we're even seeing this now. The number of emails that I'm getting, phishing emails are getting more sophisticated than ever. Even knowing like who are, who our vendors are and who we're paying and things like that that were doing things and AI is just going to potentially, you know, again allow them to be more sophisticated and more clever, if you will, on how they do some of those things that are there.

Tom, tell Jonathan that story that we experienced at Lead Smart last month. While I was on the east coast a few days.

Yeah, it was pretty simple. But I got an email that came from Kevin Brown. It said, and it said, please pay this bill. And it was. It even had the vendor, a vendor that we were working with. And it had the number, the amount of money that we would generally be paying that vendor. And Kevin had already paid that vendor. I didn't even as I unraveled it, it was a phishing email, so it really wasn't from him. And so somehow they discovered a vendor that we were working with and. But had I not, you know, in a bigger company or had I not kind of pulled the string a little bit, it could have easily been passed on to accounting and just gotten paid like, you know, it was just a normal bill.

Well, and the interesting piece of that, it was going to accounting.

Yeah.

But you get copied on those emails as our chief operating officer of our company. So that's where you caught it. So, Jonathan, I'm at a conference in Charlotte and I'm between the hotel and the conference center and I'm getting these teams messages from Tom. It's like, why is that so much? You said it was this much. And I have no idea what you're talking about. And four or five notes back and forth. I finally called Tom and then he dug into a little closer and when you saw where the routing was coming from and a few things and it was, what was it, four or five thousand dollars, Tom. But you know, in a larger organization that could have gone right through and could have gone right through for probably a lot more money. So it's a, it's a scary time out there with some of this stuff. Ian told us a story a while back about a cloned voice calling to an electrical distributor to ship ship a bunch of copper wire to an A location. Wasn't even a job site. So this is something to stay on top of. The last thing we all comment on related to this topic is it's more important than we might think because one of the things that this talked about was they were using the attacks on organizations like GitHub. Right. Where lots of software companies have their codes stored. And so an attack there could impact. Might not feel like this is impacting me if I'm a manufacturer distributor, but it could if a cyber attack, an AI driven cyber attack happens at a location where some code is stored for some of the software that you use. So something to pay attention to.

All right, should we move on to this big conference that's coming up?

Yeah, I've Heard a lot about it. What's it called again?

I don't know, something about Applied AI for distributors. Jonathan, you know anything about this?

I've heard a little about it. I'll share what I know.

All right.

You know, it's, it's all rumors though. I mean it just kind of murmurs. But actually the last topic we have is a great lead in to this because one of the speakers we're going to have is Teresa Payton, former White House cio, talking about AI and cyber security. So she's, she's one of the main speakers but it's basically a follow on conference to what we had in October of 2023. And it was a terrific conference then where we're bringing together industry visionaries on AI, we're bringing together tech leaders in AI, we're bringing together smart distributors that want to get involved with AI of all sizes from 10 million to 30 billion. And really the goal of the conference is to give people the information they need to get going with AI in their own business. The assumption is that companies that take a leading role in AI are going to see outsized returns relative to fast followers and even more relative to laggards. So it's a, it's a intensive two day conference where there will be immersion in technologies that can be applied today of different types of and thought. Thought leadership from. We have the, one of the, the former C level folks from, from OpenAI, Zach Cass who's going to be speaking, absolute visionary. He spoke last year. I'm still taking in some of what he said, trying to parse it actually. I'm hoping to corner him and bring those things to ground. But those are the kind of speakers we're gonna, we're gonna have the CTO of Granger, Senior CTO at from wesco, former CTO from Arrow Electronics, really significant players in distribution as well as technology companies. So I think it's, I think if you are thinking about AI and how you get involved or wondering. It's June 4th through June 6th in Chicago at the Marriott near O'. Hare. So it's very convenient, get in, get out type of a situation. And you can find the agenda at w@appliedai for distributors.com appliedai for distributors.com great event last year.

One of the things that in October, one of the things that I was really appreciative of at the event was the time at the meals and cocktail reception. You know, we've all been to a million cocktail receptions and stuff but sometimes they're difficult. But I remember I was sitting at a table the night before the keynotes the next morning. And hopefully Ian doesn't get Covid again this year.

He's getting it now preemptively.

Okay, perfect. Because that was such a shame. And it was because he got literally got diagnosed with COVID or tested positive for Covid the night before the session. And I think you covered his keynote, didn't you? But. And fine job of that, but I just give you an example and I've not experienced him. I shouldn't say I've not experienced, but it's not common. I was sitting at a table at the cocktail reception chatting with Lindsay from 3aspens Media and having a great chat and over walks and sits down. So I can't remember who else was with us, but there's a couple other people at the table. We were chatting and overwax. Lynn Chase. Right. That we were talking about earlier. One of the speakers and we're talking a little bit and Lindsey was commenting about this podcast and. And we were chatting about it and Lynn says, you know, and she's one of the keynote speakers. Right. And she's just stopping in at the tables chatting. And it wasn't at all in the conversation I had with Zach Katz in the hallway after his. His presentation. Genuine conversations with keynoters that weren't just flying in for their check. Lynn Chase, that discussion, she was heard the word podcast. And Lindsay, she said, well, what podcast are you talking about? And Lindsay described the show we're on today right now. And Lynn was on her phone subscribing to the around the Horn podcast on Apple podcast. So there was such a genuine group of people there and the way that things were set up was a nice opportunity for networking that you don't always see at these types of events.

So, yeah, it's very much not about golf events or a architectural tour of the Chicago River. It's really about getting focused, very focused.

On AI well in a great location. That hotel, I thought handled it really, really well. So good, good event.

Mike's got his best one he attended in 2023 and that he's going to be seeing a big cruise. So that's a pretty good endorsement right there.

Yep. That's fantastic.

Good.

Well, let's. Let's kind of move along. We're kind of running. Going to run short on time. So we might not talk about everything today, but I did want to talk about this article from Supply House Times because it ties back into the economic discussions that we had earlier. We're now in our sales And M and A segment. And this is from supplyhouse times.com and magazine. This was about their 2024 Premier 150 survey results. Any takeaways from you guys? Jonathan, I know you had a couple of thoughts on this early on. Kind of ties back to the economic stuff we talked about as well.

Return to normalcy is the word that comes to mind for me for the. That's the H VAC group, right?

Yep. Exactly. Right. Yep, yep. So this was talking about PHCP and PVF distributors, which then ties into H Vac as well. So they're seeing this drop off right. In 2023. And to your point earlier, is this just as kind of this balancing act to where we were pre Covid with all the work that was done afterwards.

If you talk to CEOs, some of whom are on this call, 2022 and 2023 are tough comps to follow on. Your board's going to need to give you some forgiveness.

Yeah.

I really was appreciative of this. And I think it's good. You know, sometimes you just read a headline, right? And that if you just read the headline about this, whoa, it's doom and gloom. And then as you dive a little deeper, you see. So I think it's good news is what we're kind of seeing is a balancing of things. It would be nice for everyone if we could get back to some reasonable interest rates, which will help on the investment side on distribution and manufacturing, which would be great. This was a phenomenal article just based upon the amount of data that's there. I mean, I would say of all of the articles in today's newsletter is that it's just phenomenal from a standpoint of segment size, relevance to the segments and so forth. It was. It's powerful.

So I just wanted to hit a. Address, a question someone asked, you know, where is the. More information on the. On the conference we were just talking about. If you click the link right here, it takes you right to the conference page. But it's applied AI for distributors dot com. Maybe we can post in the LinkedIn feed that's there. But applied AI distributors for distributors dot com is the thing that I just wanted to hit that question.

Thank you for that, Tom. Good.

All right.

Any closing thoughts on the data out of that article?

None for me. Okay.

Well, as we dive kind of ahead, we'll just kind of. We're going to pass a little bit by this. There's an article about dupont splitting off into three separate publicly traded companies, kind of along the lines of what 3M did recently with having spinning out their healthcare division. It's kind of funny in that article, I don't know if either of you know or remember this, but a number I think it was 2017, they brought some groups back and then split some things off. So it's this, it's almost a cycle. And my guess is what we're going to learn out of this is that some of this is tied to the lawsuits. They call them Forever Chemicals. I think that they have some risk where 3M had some big risk within their main company tied to some earplug lawsuits that was worth billions. And so it'll be interesting to watch this one. But they're splitting off into three publicly traded companies at DuPont. So and if you're in the, if you're in the safety or industrial world, you're doing a lot of business with dupont.

Yep.

So as a distribution company. So we have a segment each week called Industry Scuttlebutt. There's just three key topics here this week. We won't spend much time on them. AD announced their newly elected board of directors for Affiliated Distributors. Congratulations to that group as well. And then we look at Whitecap with some acquisitions, Ferguson with some acquisitions. Again, this is all coming from our around the Horn and Wholesale Distribution newsletter as well. And so we can kind of skip over that. Tom, I want. Why don't we just kind of start wrapping up. There's.

I have to say that I was excited when I saw the members in the board of directors. We have lead smart customers now in there. We have a lot of friends of the podcast here. So that was a great, great collection of members of that, of that new board.

That's a great point. Yeah. We have customers and friends there. So.

And that beautiful high places now.

Yeah, well, beautiful.

And audience members.

That's right. And audience.

Right. Exactly right.

Yep.

Paul Kennedy, that commented earlier with us today is in that picture. And. But it's not hard to find Paul Kennedy's face in a picture somewhere because he is moving fast. He's. He never stops between his work with NAED and affiliated distributors and other industry groups. It's great. So that's good. So anyways, let's kind of wind our way down today. Tom, before you do you want to hit that point about that Must see on Demand webinar?

Yeah. So Kevin and I did a webinar earlier this week called what Is Smart CRM and why Does It Matter to youo Business? And we now have it on demand. So just click that link Go check it out. It's, we've heard from a lot of people that it was very informative and educational. It's not a salesy webinar or anything like that. So if you're interested in kind of the future of CRM and AI and the role of AI and CRM and how, and how to avoid, how to turn, you know, avoid CRM becoming a four letter word in your business, there's some good stuff in there. So it's just free. Just click it and it's right there.

That's good. All right, well our last segment there is our good Read segment that we do each week. If you get it, if you get the newsletter, take a look at that. It was kind of interesting. It said Biden, the Fed and everyday Americans can't agree on the economy.

Nor can we. Right. So I feel a lot better. We can't agree either. So I guess if Biden and the Fed can't do it. Yeah.

Well, you know, it will be interesting to see what happens this year. I'm still, you know, I'm still at my two cuts because I'm not sure that the Biden administration and their presidential run can afford not to have something happen with cuts, but we'll see. Jonathan, what's your take on, on how many cuts this year, if any?

I'm going to go with you, Kevin.

Yep. You see? Two.

Yes.

All right, enough said, Tom.

All right, Jonathan, you can come and join us for steak and wine when, when that happens. So.

Yep, Lynn said, Lynn Chase said she's, she will help you, the moderator of it all as well. So.

Okay.

Okay, that's good news. Anyways, Jonathan, any takeaway from the day? Does your head spinning and you think a bunch of lunatics here. Did you have a good time?

Tremendous time and I love the amount of ground that you cover in the show.

We move fast.

Fantastic.

Yeah, I had, I had a, an executive from a major, major player in the manufacturing side of things. Tell me a while back, I've been trying to get him to join us for forever and he said I don't have anything to add. And I just, there is such a wealth of people out there that have years and years of experience. So we're continuing to work on our guest list. We've got, I think next week is Eric Copland, the CEO of national association of Wholesalers will be with us. Esteemed guests like you, Jonathan, we're, we're kind of. This is a cliche, but it's true. I'm kind of humbled Right. Our podcast started out 91. Are we Tom? 91. 92 times we've put the the newsletter out and probably 85 live sessions like this. And the fact that folks like you, Jonathan, and your. Your business partner and our good friend Ian Heller, and folks like Eric next week and Mike Mortensen that's been with us, and Paul Kennedy we mentioned earlier, I'm grateful. So thanks for being with us today.

Really appreciate the opportunity.

Thank you.

Good holiday weekend. Big plans. Jonathan, what's going on in Colorado, where you're at? You're in the Boulder area, right?

Yeah, just gonna try to get into nature.

Awesome.

Yeah.

Yeah, same here.

No, you should be coding.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I got some AI work to do this weekend, so all good. All right, well, thanks, everybody. Thanks everybody for contributing. Have a great holiday weekend, and we'll see you next next Friday.

That's right. Do good things, be kind and be safe.

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 and let us know how you think we can make the show 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 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, LE Lead Smart Technologies and their manufacturing and wholesale distribution industry CRM customer intelligence and channel collaboration platform. That's Lead Smart Technologies atLead smart tech.com.