Unknown Speaker : 0:07

Welcome to Episode Four on the hard truth about b2b e commerce. I'm your co host, Isaiah Bollinger from trellis with me as my other co host, Tim. So

Unknown Speaker : 0:18

Hey everybody, it's a nice to see you today. Welcome.

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So, before we get into it, I want to mention our lovely, lovely sponsor, punch out to go company that we've worked with over the years, kind of a mainstay in the b2b e commerce space. And what punch out to go is for people that aren't aware, it's a global b2b integration company specializing in connecting commerce platforms to E procurement and er p application. So punch out to go essentially as an iPad solution that links business applications to automate the flow of purchasing around all sorts of different data. So they can immediately reduce integration complexities for things like punch out catalog, which is the name of punch out to go and then electronic purchase orders, invoices and other b2b sales order automation documents in order to accelerate business results. So if you're in b2b, you should learn about punch out to go see if they're a good solution for you. Because there's a high likelihood they can automate a lot of the you know, back office processes, save you a boatload of money and make you a much more modern company in today's digital world. All right, so I'm excited to announce our guest Michael powers. So Michael, we've been in touch through the infor community for a little while now. And you know, you're now the new director of e commerce for Alaska rubber group and I've been in e commerce for a long time, but uh, you know, like to hear from the horse's mouth, you know, maybe a little bit more about, you know, yourself and, you know, everything that you've been doing well, absolutely.

Unknown Speaker : 1:59

Thank you. Thank you, Tim, as I really I'm thrilled to be on today. You know, it's one of those things where six years ago, I wish there was a podcast like this, that I'd be able to get on and listen to thought leaders that have gone into the trenches when I talk when you talk about b2b specifically b2b e commerce in distribution or manufacturing. So I wish you guys all the luck with this podcast and you know, I Brady's a great guy punch out to go. So, again, thrilled to be here. So, you know, for us, for me personally, I think what has happened is over the last six years, I've seen a major uptick or real opportunity for b2b commerce for manufacturers and distributors, right. And the reason why I'm saying that is these are typical, typically family run businesses third, fourth generation, many of which aren't strong enough. IT department or do not have digital leaders within the four walls of their business. And you know for me six years ago being hired as the the commerce manager at Hilton marks a GNC and distributor in upstate New York, I really had the opportunity to come in and start from the ground up. And Isaiah as you mentioned as a inform sx e RP customer at Hila marks. We realized quite quickly that we need to move on from the the storefront product that they had at the time. And why did we want to do that we wanted a platform that was going to allow us to provide punch out catalog to our customers, Cornell University, RPI large hospital systems are even four or five years ago, we're looking for distributors and suppliers to hook up to their intranet or their e shop. So punch out was actually one of the the bottom I need to check off. But yeah, six years ago, I needed to go out to the marketplace and find a replacement for in for SSC storefront needed to find somebody that could provide us with PunchOut services. And then the most important thing was we needed somebody to help us with product data in Richmond, our website did not have high res images, accurate descriptions. So the fact of the matter is, if you're opening up your website, you need to provide accurate product data for your end user to buy from. So those were some of the things in our journey in the very beginning at hiline marks that you know, we were looking for in the marketplace. And I was able to identify a couple of vendors in the marketplace and decided to sign with, with unilock in in Philadelphia, and they helped us with all three of those services. But for me as the e commerce leader within the business It was so it was eye opening to see How the end users were so engaged with us in a digital presence. And so that actually, I think attributed to not only a fantastic customer adoption strategy and, and getting existing and new customers on board. But when we went live in January 2017, Timothy and Isaiah, first first six months, we were really going after, you know, our customer, customer base to educate them. And it was a great journey there. And in my time, close to six years there I left in we were approaching 30% of total revenue

Unknown Speaker : 5:44

through our e commerce platform, and

Unknown Speaker : 5:46

so zero to 30, you went from zero to at the time.

Unknown Speaker : 5:49

So we had, you know, 1514 to 15%. From Yeah, that was coming from a storefront which was basically one web page Locked in with items, rarely any description, to to leaving, and you know, as a distributor in the 70 to $90 million range, you're approaching 30% it was a really proud of that accomplishment. And the team at Hila marks both from the family, from the leadership team to my team that was there. Everybody was bought in because they just saw the trajectory of not only adoption, but revenue going through it. So that's, that's where I felt like I really got, you know, got excited and passionate about b2b e commerce. And you know, previous to that I wasn't a web development firm in Saratoga Springs. And getting into b2b commerce for a distribution business was exciting.

Unknown Speaker : 6:47

Gotcha. So you've gotten, you know, digital, your pre b2b e commerce you had digital experience

Unknown Speaker : 6:53

for last

Unknown Speaker : 6:54

10 to 15 years and you think that helped a lot with your kind of learning curve to get into b2b commerce. You know, 100% 100%, one

Unknown Speaker : 7:02

of the area's I think it lend itself was the when we looked at product data, realizing that organic search is extremely important, and making sure that if we're going to be displaying product data on our website, how do we make that content unique to other distributors that are selling the exact same product? So how do we become unique, doing product videos on YouTube that no other distributor is doing on a particular skew? Making sure we're using the blog section of our website to do product spotlights into you know, making sure all that rich content is wrapped into our platform along with our product data? So I do believe you know, whether you're somebody that's working at a web development firm or b2c firm that you know, has a good understanding of organic search and you know how to drive customers to websites. b2b e commerce is an area that they should have to they definitely

Unknown Speaker : 8:02

should look at. Awesome. Um, well, yeah, that's a great, great introduction. And yeah, so So now your last two rubber groups and then you could talk a little bit about that.

Unknown Speaker : 8:14

Yeah, so that's again, that's where I for me, I got extremely passionate about b2b e commerce. And then, due to the success I had at Hill and marks, I'm actually proud to say we won the digital innovator award in 2019 by modern distribution management. So we are one of only I believe, 10 distributors in North America to achieve that, and so I was extremely, extremely honored to get that and I think based off the success, and my, you know, my passion to grow, I had an opportunity to come to me and that was the Alaska rubber group and the Alaska rubber group was a is a hydraulic hose and fitting distributor in the Pacific Northwest. That's an employee owned company. And the great thing About this team is that they at the highest level came together and realized to be successful in the future. They need to start now with their digital transformation. And so I was approached by the team there and had fantastic calls with everybody there. And yeah, it's it's been it's been an unbelievable ride and I started right around, I want to say, beginning of March, and we're having weekly meetings with the team and I can't wait to get this project going.

Unknown Speaker : 9:34

So much of their business is your e commerce at this point.

Unknown Speaker : 9:39

At this point, zero,

Unknown Speaker : 9:40

okay. As long as I make sure I

Unknown Speaker : 9:42

told Timothy, that, for me is one of the reasons why I'm very passionate and excited about the opportunity. Because, gentlemen, I think the barrier to entry and b2b e commerce has come down. Five, six years ago, it was a very expensive was as expensive as opening up a new branch of your business right now, things have changed. There's solutions out there such as a punch out to go or, you know, use analog insight software, big con, there's players and even B to C players, Isaiah that are now targeting b2b commerce. That that is that is brought the threshold down. And so I think, you know, with the opportunity with more vendors or tools, and things such as AI and voice, I'm passionate about not only building an e commerce platform in a website, but what other commerce tactics can we do. And one of the areas I mentioned to you is Alaska rubber group services, the oil marine and rigging and lifting businesses in the Pacific Northwest, those are not traditional brick and mortar businesses. These are end users out in the field that are doing work? How can we leverage technology or a progressive mobile app? So that they're able to quickly reorder through a mobile app from a job? Or if something is broken, or it breaks on them? Can we engage with them via a mobile app to have them, show us what is broken? And we could actually get into the shop and repair that product for them and get it to them. It's time and money that is lost on these job sites. What can b2b commerce for us do for them where we don't have to they don't have to shut down and

Unknown Speaker : 11:36

I'm really excited about that. It's awesome. Cool. Um, well, well, let's start getting into some of the questions. I think you've got quite a bit of experience to help to help everyone with Um, so one of the big and you made a great point that the barrier is down and I truly believe that like, you know, for the most part You can get into it in one way or another with these tools like bigcommerce Shopify, Magento, inside unilock. In theory, you could stand up one of these tools relatively cheap, but getting what you want could be expensive, depending on what you want, right, like, you know, how complicated that is, I really think the barrier is more the internal sophistication of the company to use these tools. Right. And, and, and make the most out of these tools. So what do you think the cultural challenges are preventing these companies from doing that? We know, we both know it's possible. Right? And yeah, why aren't they doing it? You know? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker : 12:36

It's a great question because I think it lends itself to I think culture is a is a big is a big reason why it's not happening. Because you have to realize and speaking from a, you know, a third generation business and Hila marks that was founded in 1906. That has been very successful in their business model. Having sales salespeople in the streets doing face to face. I think there's a lot of distributors that still believe that model can work in this age that face to face relationship. So I do believe sometimes, you know, there's a lot of b2b businesses that are still believing that the way they've done business for many, many years or decades, could still be routed in this day and age. And I think we're seeing it right now with the disruption of the COVID-19 and how companies are implementing work from home policies that I think now, organizations are realizing we need to invest in technology, people in our business and Isaiah, the reason why I think culture is also has been maybe a hindrance to b2b commerce but is now changing is a lot of these businesses do not have the an IT or e commerce leader. within the four walls, it's not an established department. And you know, I see you on LinkedIn, you're very active, I see some of the conversation conversations you're getting in. And there's a lot of conversation about where do these e commerce leaders, where do they where do you find them? How do you get get them into businesses, and I think culture is a big part of it. Now, I do believe that, you know, finding the right person, right person right seat, because of everything that's going on. It's going to lend itself to some some great b2b commerce leaders, not only in manufacturer district in manufacturing, distributing, but other b2b businesses. Awesome.

Unknown Speaker : 14:39

Yeah. Um, so just to touch on that a little bit more. Before we go on to the next one. What are you seeing as, you know, some of those common political issues like are internal politics, whatever you want to call it, like? Do you see some sort of like strife within the company of like, maybe one person's like, Hey, we need to hire this person and the other owners like No, no. Like, there's kind of like internal battles of who to hire or what to invest in. Have you seen much of that? Or?

Unknown Speaker : 15:10

I have I in some ways, yes. Because, you know, when I was building out, you know, as the the digital leader for some time, you know, in going out to the marketplace and selecting the platform, the question always comes up in a meeting is what is the ROI? What is the ROI of this e commerce journey that we're on? And so before I can come in like any other, whether it's HR or operations, I can't just come in and say, listen, we need to hire x, y, z, right? The fact is, there is sometimes conversations on you're building an e commerce team. Well, if somebody is going to be hired to manage your pin in your product data, there's there's a lot of executives in b2b businesses that have no idea what a Pim or see me a CMS is. Why are we hiring this person? Again? What are they going to be doing for product data? How does that affect us? Yeah, I've been in those conversations. And at the end of the day, you're you're engaging with customers and showing the the team not only the percentage of revenue that starts growing from having an e commerce platform, but also realizing you can't just build an e commerce platform and put it live. You it's a 24 hour, seven day, 365 days digital salesperson that you need to massage and invest in train. And that's where I think, you know, having, you know, conversations, not only with sales leaders, but the executive team in painting, what the strategy has to be is very important. Isaiah, I had a conversation with one of our top sales reps. The first day I was on the job and he came to me and he said, just you know, congratulations. I'm glad you're on the team. However, I am the website. I don't need a website. My customers don't need to know about our website. I'm the guy. So you know, you're talking somebody that's been doing it for 40 years, that makes a substantial amount of money in his in his world as completely looking at the strategy as something that would cannibalize him or put them out of business. And remember indie horror when he was at Forrester did the b2b e commerce the death of the b2b salesperson that was real conversations I was having where that friction was there, that friction was like, hey, you're investing in a website but I I am the website. But what I will tell you is that that that person, um, you know, six months after being live gentlemen realized going into a, a school system and sitting down with the buyer, who happened to be replaced his key contact. The first question they asked was Do you have a mobile app or a website I can place orders on. I prefer I don't want to waste your time. And his answer of me being the guy wasn't sufficient enough for that, that customer. And so I will tell you, I did receive a call from that salesperson after that customer encounter. And they say, What do I need to know about this website. And I said, you don't need to know everything.

Unknown Speaker : 18:22

But I'll sit down with you and, and show you how to register how to get the build a shopping list how to check out because I want that sales person to know if they need me. I'll do webinars, I will do customer calls. As a digital leader in a business like that. It's my role to make sure those people are comfortable with what they do. It's my role to also be the one that needs to make it easy for them to adopt to our technology. And you know, I think you've really hit on something very interesting there. I mean, with the culture and the politics. I formerly, I've been head of e commerce for b2c. b2b businesses and, and some that are both right. And so one of those businesses that I came into I was the first e commerce person dealing with b2b. And it was, you know, all of the cultural and political things that, you know that you're touching on here, but I think you've just underline, I think one of the success metrics is, you know, being a part of the team and being part of the answer, you know, really helping people and listening, because as soon as everyone realized that I was there to, you know, to help and to make sure that the sales teams that existed were, you know, needed more tools to succeed and that I was helping to get them that, then everybody was happy, and it all worked out, you know, when I was the outside thread or whatever, envisioning that was a different thing.

Unknown Speaker : 19:48

And typically, it was it was a trust issue, right? Zero trust because what what you're about to do is something that within that organization, not a lot of people know about, they can't speak to it, right? And so you know you constantly and again, had a sidebar conversation with Andy Hoare at b2b next. And I had the opportunity to speak there a couple of times. And Andy would say to me, Mike, what you're encountering is the lone wolf syndrome. And the lone wolf is the one that wants to be part of that pack. But the pack needs that lone wolf to continuously prove itself. And I had to on you know, maybe twice a week in the first year, continue to sell the strategy and why. And really, it came down to the end user, the b2b buyer, we need to be approaching them and having a strategy for them to make sure we're meeting their needs.

Unknown Speaker : 20:50

I mean, just to build on that for a second, I was kind of leading into sort of success or failure, because you're already bringing up one of the next topics that Isaiah and I wanted to Dive into for listeners and in what really what really makes a successful b2b e commerce, you know, Operation versus the ones that fail, you know, we've talking about culture and we're talking about politics and, you know, overcoming some of those things or learning how to really be a team player, but what are the other things that matter, you know, to make you successful or that cause you to fail?

Unknown Speaker : 21:25

So it's, it's a great segue, because I think I learned early on in the process that you need to go over and beyond to make sure you feel are people can be involved in the project, over communicating in the beginning, I think is extremely important, right? Because, you know, the more you're talking about it, the more you're asking folks to be beta testers so that they can test the product or the product, customer information. I think we're b2b commerce leaders may fail is they'll get into a, they'll get into an opportunity. They'll identify it, they'll do a SWOT analysis, they'll decide what they need to do. And they run out a strategy without sitting down and meeting with key stakeholders in many different departments, including key customers. And so, you know, for me, and I want to talk about what's happening now, you know, I am in three to five calls per week with my CEO, Oh, my head of sales, my head of purchasing. I have folks that are behind the counter, that I'll put an open invite out to a meeting and they are all participating. Because it's important for me to have their buy in early on before we even go live with the website, because I want them three months before go live to have, you know, created 10,000 shopping lists in our beta website, and they understand it, they're already talking about it. So So I think, you know, personally, having gone through it, I think, you know, at my first opportunity at Hila marks, I wish I went back and did that sooner. Whereas now I also felt like I feel like executive team I work with, is bought into this digital transformation. They talk about this as the new digital branch for the business. Everybody's on board. And so it's so I think where you can be very successful is making sure you're, you're putting yourself out there and get input from people and, but make sure you you have folks as part of feel like the part of the strategy. Nothing should be shocked.

Unknown Speaker : 23:41

Shocked, right. I mean, that's a key thing. Nothing should be shocking to the stakeholders. It's like, what is this? What's wrong?

Unknown Speaker : 23:47

You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. I actually,

Unknown Speaker : 23:51

I think you guys will find some value in this conversation. So we I hosted a workshop at b2b next last year. There was a gentleman in it and we had a similar conversation about the successes and failures of, you know, a b2b e commerce leader. And this gentleman were in a kind of roundtable and he was drinking his water and, and, and at the end, we were kind of just had a free flowing conversation. And so he puts it down. He goes, he's like, I feel like I'm at a group meeting. And for me, it is so important because I'm going to be I'm a b2c ecommerce leader. You know, I worked for you know, I've done Shopify Magento. I've done I've been very successful in b2c in particular with fashion, right, and he was based out of Brooklyn, and he had a fantastic opportunity to work for a distributor in the Midwest and had moved to his family and he moved out there and he did not realize how important in E RP connectivity, the eirp within a b2b business. He felt like the experience In, you know, firing up a Shopify website, but really focusing on UI and UX and personalization was going to get them over the hump. And you know, at the end of the conversation, he said to me, he's like, I just didn't understand how complex that DRP is to these businesses, and how if you're going to be opening, creating a website, you need to make sure AR invoices, open orders, all of these things that are very important to a b2b business, you need to make sure you're working with a vendor that understands that. So it was a it was another it was an interesting conversation that I thought would lend itself well to this one. So so I think to sum

Unknown Speaker : 25:39

it up, because and I'm going to get into the next thing, but I think that's a really good point. And something that we've invested a lot into is, although we're e commerce, we're I think we're very eirp savvy, like we understand grps really well because we had to as an agency to understand b2b e commerce. What would you say it's fair to say that to succeed, you kind of need to build this Like e commerce culture that believes in it, it's not just like a side project, but you also need a leader like yourself who's not just oh I can build you a pretty Shopify site but actually is technical enough to like work with the IT team understand the eirp how that's going to get into the e commerce platform and kind of how it's all gonna come together operate like you need this this like oh, I would say technical leader to some degree I know you're not necessarily like a software engineer by trade but you you understand that is

Unknown Speaker : 26:30

it you nailed it You nailed it and Isaiah you and I've talked about this many times with infrared sexy and what you're doing you're absolutely like you're you could be considered a b2b commerce technical project manager and the build phase right like you really are because your your your company's depending on you to be the the the portal or that that connection to not only the e commerce vendor, but what happens if you're outsourcing your IT department, you know, You need to be that leader, that technical leader that understands all of that, you know, I had a fantastic person that was our system analysts, who is our SFC analysts, but a punch out to go or excuse me a punch outs, integration and some of the other things we needed to do. I would lead that with other count, you know, use analog in our project manager. So, yes, you nailed it, you just described a leader that is, it's not a side project, but they're they don't have to be so they don't need to be a developer, so to speak, they need to understand the complexity of the ecosystem and have the mindset of the strategy to get it live and customers adopted to it.

Unknown Speaker : 27:45

Yeah, awesome. Um, so where do you see the future of b2b e commerce going? Like, I think you've kind of already alluded to it with this, you know, new experience around mobile and being out in the field and I'm just kind of curious to hear your thoughts. thoughts you saw kind of the the, what we could call the 2015 or 2014 to 2020 where now, the barrier to entry is lower like what you know, what's the next five years, you know, people are getting up and running now, you know,

Unknown Speaker : 28:13

players like trellis Timothy and Isaiah sitting down, connecting with b2b commerce leaders in businesses, understanding the complexity of their businesses in taking the UI UX and personalization skills and that expertise in b2c that is lacking in b2b e commerce. That's where I see it's going. And I think you guys are one. I've seen many agencies, b2b, b2b, excuse me, b2c agencies, developing b2b Consulting parts of their business, because I do believe there is still a major opportunity in b2b e commerce to improve personalization and UI and UX because you know, at the end of the day, a lot of these platforms are highly customizable, right or customized from, you know, they go through their, you know, their their SWOT, they go through their build out phase. And it has to be this exactly. Whereas in b2c, you can which widgetized your website, I want to pull this in, or I want to offer this for promotions that's lacking in b2b commerce. So the fact is, if you guys have the ability to bring that type of, you know, engagement in, it's gonna be fabulous. Yeah, so you could see it being like kind of a better user experience and modern experience, but then potentially even like at a company account, but we're doing more with company account, yes,

Unknown Speaker : 29:39

of corporate accounts, functionality. Magento has really invested a lot into that. So that's the main area that we've been working with that, what we're seeing another platforms to where you have this awesome like corporate accounts functionality where you can build like an entire tree of people within one organization on the front end using the site and then they they They might potentially they could have their own slightly tweaked, you know, version for that, you know, big organization that has their own needs. If it's like a top 10 customer or whatever it is, you can see that being worth investing in on a per customer level, we're actually makes me realize we're actually, I don't know, I haven't touched on this yet. We've been actually doing multi site for a lot of Magento sites where we built a core infrastructure, and then we'll spin off individualized sites for specific customers. And that's been really successful. That's great. Yeah, so I think you're, you're absolutely right, but it's still the early stages. I don't think we're just tapping into the very early like, we could be doing so much more with that. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker : 30:46

So you know, it's a great I'm glad you brought that up, because, you know, I had first hand experience of, you know, going to one of our largest university customers, and what you just described The functionality you just described is something that procurement departments within a large scale customer in b2b is looking for. What do I mean by that? If you're servicing, if you're, you know, this is speaking from experience as a distributor, you launch an e commerce platform, you have a university customer, they could have upward 300 to 500 end users at 300 to 500. Individual shipped to addresses. So the fact of the matter is right. And now there's another layer saying that we have 200 to 300 end users that we want to buy product, but we want all of their orders to be approved. So now they need to go to purchasing or the finance department at Cornell University, or the University of Rochester. So if you build a platform that allows for you to manage user roles for approval or budget, I think it's similar to what you guys are doing with your, you know, your end user specific catalogs. And that's the type of stuff and b2b commerce that customers are, are looking for.

Unknown Speaker : 32:11

Yeah, a lot of that out there. It's just kind of piecing it all together and get it all work. And that's it. That's the hard part. Right? Like people underestimate. You know, I think where companies fall down, honestly, is they hire trellis or like, I'm just, you know, using us as an example, they hire a trellis and a digital agency. And then they go, Oh, build me the site, but they don't realize like, you know, you they would get so much more out of their work if they actually logged in and actually learned all most of these companies don't even log in to learn everything that these platforms have to offer, because these platforms can do a lot. But rarely do we see that they're internally learning everything platform can do.

Unknown Speaker : 32:53

To that point, Isaiah to a lot of these folks, that same exact person you just laid out for me Also a person that doesn't take the time to survey their customer base, or to a customer segmentation, and realize the different end users that are looking for different ways to shop or buy from you a really good point.

Unknown Speaker : 33:14

Yeah, you know, and I say, you know, you're bringing up learning and then you know, Mike, you're bringing up, you know, customers, and I think this is, again, another segue into something that's a hot topic for us. And a big area of interest is really, you know, learning like, Where are you learning from B to C, for example, to apply to B to B, because I'll give us a couple things in my research recently that are of interest and see if this comes up for you guys. But I saw recently a story about drones using drones for remote locations to look for QR codes on let's say, a pipeline or, you know, some infrastructure and you know, so the QR codes were set there. intentionally to know like the particular part and whenever it was needed, yes, then the drone goes back to them. And it's sending that information wherever it needs to in order to automate an order, you know, that needs to get done. So things like that, you know, of course, they're playing on image recognition qR, and you had mentioned voice activated ordering earlier. How are you picking up on you know, all of these things, some of which are more developed in b2c? Some of which, but now, you know, here you are, in this this major b2b, you have situation, how do you pick and choose from among those successes or experiments? They use them for yourself?

Unknown Speaker : 34:37

So that's a great question. Because we're in a we're time an age where information can be overwhelming. There's so much information out there about strategy. Listen, guys, LinkedIn is taken off, right. There's so much data, there's so much information out there. I personally, try to identify the thought leaders or subject matter experts in b2b e commerce and see what their take is on that and kind of listen to what how they feel that that's going to impact the business. So, for me personally, you know, I'm Jonathan Bain at real results marketing. Very, very smart gentlemen, gentlemen, who I think is done, you know, early on, I would look at his state of bd b2b e commerce in the mdm.com, modern distribution, management management's website, because every single year that was a thorough, thorough report not only on platforms, but also technologies and really some some fantastic data on how b2b customers buy. The other i think is I you know, AB horse, somebody that I look at a digital commerce 360 dot com. So I'm trying to look at resources in the marketplace. Because if I go straight to LinkedIn, and think about, you know, how AI and VR and all this All these different things that are happening in e commerce. That's fantastic. And maybe there's some stuff I'd like to look at. But at the end of the day, I want to, I want to look at the the the strategies or the new innovations that b2b folks believe can be impactful in the near near future. Huh, gotcha. So you're trying to like kind of pick and choose because there's so much in b2c wire is there is and you know, I think just the fact is with b2c, there's there. But again, that's a massive opportunity for b2b e commerce. You want the personalization? And listen, we're talking about drones, right? You know, in our business, how great would that be? I mean, we sell rigging lifting supplies to helicopters in Alaska. It treats out right. And the fact of the matter is, what can you us as a distributor and manufacturer in the Pacific Northwest, how can we leverage drone technology? How can we leverage a A video screen that allows for us to certify product. And that's through a mobile app. So, um, you know, I try to do my best to there's a lot out there. I try to look at, you know, thought leaders in the in the industry. I do look at it Toby, the CEO of Shopify, yeah.

Unknown Speaker : 37:21

Yeah,

Unknown Speaker : 37:22

he's awesome. So I'm listening there, but at the end of the day, I really want to stay in my lane so to speak, to realize, who are the guys that in b2b commerce, specifically distribution, what are the b2c technologies that aren't going to be winners? And you know, one of the

Unknown Speaker : 37:39

things I would just add here, too, and it's not really meant to be a plug, but that's really something I say and I and trellis in general really care about is trying to create, you know, more thought leadership and to bring thought leaders together to discuss these things. You know, I'm on the Forrester global marketing research. search panel and I do a lot of things, you know, through them. So you know, my name is not like attached to reports and stuff, but it's meant to condense. You know, you're taking knowledge from all these different areas and condense it into something useful. And, you know, the folks that you mentioned, Jonathan, you know, Three cheers to Jonathan Jonathan. I mean, it's great. I mean, a lot of these folks are great. We're just trying to be like, laser focused, I guess, if you will, on this area. There are a lot of things we could do. But this is something that there is a need, and bring folks like yourself and or, you know, working on this line, you know, we just want to have that conversation want to open up the door. I feel like b2b commerce is like hidden secret to a lot of companies. Let me just write you.

Unknown Speaker : 38:44

That's why I was excited about this, because we've hinted at the fact that you even brought that up is exciting to me, because, you know, I say you and I've talked about this with infor SSC, right we we talked about, you know, specifically, you guys have a massive ball. too, I'm so excited that you're doing a ecommerce podcast. And you know whether you take clips of this and put it towards your YouTube channel, there is leaders that are still looking for this information, right? I'm talking about those guys that we mentioned specifically because of the distribution and b2b commerce. But at the end of the day, you're going to bridge the gap and doing something like this and having the opportunity to speak with you. Um, I know you guys are heading in the right direction. And I'm excited to see the other guests with different perspectives on b2b commerce on here as well. Well, yeah, we're

Unknown Speaker : 39:39

gonna interject here because I think it's worth like, you know, we're gonna invite you back probably one to two years from now because we want to keep going up like this. Yes,

Unknown Speaker : 39:48

yes. Yes,

Unknown Speaker : 39:52

sales are online.

Unknown Speaker : 39:55

Typically, I I'm gonna hold you to the drone. I have drone technology, and

Unknown Speaker : 40:03

we're gonna do it, I'll send you more aeration.

Unknown Speaker : 40:05

Oh, please do you think about it, though, like, by the way, you're saying that in a way that, you know, this company that we're been in discussions with, um, and I'll send a link to I would like actually your your input on them, because that type of technology where our drone that it goes to the top of a rigger crane at a job site that can read a QR code, and either recertify the equipment or identify a part that needs to be replaced, so you can place an order, that's where everything's heading. And so I'm excited about that stuff. I love it.

Unknown Speaker : 40:42

Yes. Thank you, Isaiah. Sorry. Yeah. So um, well, so we're gonna run out of time here, but you're kind of already touching on it, and you're talking to all these, you know, b2b leaders. So what do you think the biggest challenges for specifically because you'll love experience and distribution for b2b e commerce distribution, what's the biggest challenge in the next five to 10 years for companies like Alaska? You know, there's a lot of companies out there like Alaska that have their zero. You know, that's a daunting task. How do you go from zero? years zero to 50? I think 50 is where I see the market going, you know, getting to eventually 50% online. Yes,

Unknown Speaker : 41:19

yes. It's a coming together as an executive team or ownership in realizing that they need to build the big digital branch of their business. They have to look as they need to look at this as if they're building a new brick and mortar store. And they realize that they need to, you know, they need to do their best to attract ecommerce talent. You know, specifically, it may not have to be b2b, it may it may be some, you know, web design. I came from a web development firm, but they have to be open to bringing in people that historically the business never really had. Right and how to manage them, and how You know, put give them the ability to lead and bring in tools that will allow their business to take off because I think that's a big, that's where I think they're gonna win. There are a lot at zero, it's still a conversation in executive meetings because they're seeing other people doing it, but they're saying Who wouldn't? Who inside the four walls of this building can can do it now. And typically, they may not have that person and then they say, who do we know that can get that person? And both of those tend to be pain points.

Unknown Speaker : 42:33

Yeah, I think you bring up so I think that's such a good point. I think I think it's getting that internal talent like we discussed can understand both the PRP side the eecom side kind of bring it all operationally together. Um, and I think the challenge that I would face that they're going to face is that you know, tech talent you know, in high demand anyone good, you know, even with Coronavirus, you know, obviously, this is a good time to go after people right now, although, just because obviously there's per employee than than ever in a long time. But generally, it's hard to get good tech talent. So, um, you know, and a lot of that tech talent gravitates towards, like an Airbnb or, you know, they, Amazon just, you know, hey, we'll give you 200 grand or 300. Great. Here's a bunch of stock options, how what would you recommend, you know, your family owned distributor to kind of get someone like you and make that attractive versus, you know, you might be able to get an offer from, you know, who knows how many other awesome tech companies?

Unknown Speaker : 43:32

You're right. And for me, I think it goes back to, you know, I saw this as a major opportunity to and we talked about it just now, taking a business. I'm extremely proud of the ability not only of the, you know, being allowed to get in there and implement a strategy and build it and see the success of it. I think you need to find somebody that wants to be an owner. that wants to take a project and realize that they're digitally transforming a business. It's not just about a salary. It's about building something from the ground up. It's taking a one person team in yourself to now delegating and leading and building and growing that team for me and I saw Timothy, you nodding, um, it becomes a passion project. So I, you know, could you, you know, for me,

Unknown Speaker : 44:27

say, Hey,

Unknown Speaker : 44:28

I have all this experience at Hila marks and, you know, why don't I just go in and look at something else that is already a mature platform in focus on maybe taking over a team or managing a team or go work? Yeah, and do that. For me. It's a passion project. I love this. So I'm looking at this opportunity of that I have a team that I came to me and said, we're all in 100% 150% all in. We need a guy like you. We want you to lead it and we We're gonna do it whatever you need, we're here for you. For me, that's, that's bigger than any just paycheck in the world. It's to be part of something bigger than yourself and build it with the team. And especially as an employee owned company, this you know, 1015 2025 years from now, these employees are owners of the company, they want this to succeed. And so that that's for me, I think it's different for other businesses. But if you're looking for a passion project, if you're looking for something that you feel you can get in there, roll up your and that's the other thing too, guys. You need to as a digital leader, it's great building a team but in the beginning you have to be you have to get your hands dirty. You have to do everything from you know, managing the not only the the company's expectations, but also the clients expectations. You're going to be the one that needs to focus on how to identify 50,000 skews. to enrich on our website, you're going to be the one that's deciding that in the beginning. And yeah, you got to have to have a very hands on approach. But you're gonna get into spreadsheets, right?

Unknown Speaker : 46:12

Like there's absolutely no spreadsheets in logging into the admin panel of the software you choose, you know, utilizing Magento inside. Yeah, you know, yeah. Your eyes ever

Unknown Speaker : 46:23

listen, today, I can be in a conversation with my team. And they understand that I probably don't have a lot of product knowledge on hose fittings, or hydraulic hoses, and the fact that the e commerce strategy that I have, they are coming to the table and say we're going to help you with the product information. We're going to help you with the product expertise. Let us identify manufacturers in product categories, and who we should be onboarding onto our website. It's a cohesive project, and that's really important as well. You can't get into one of these businesses and think you're going to run off and You said, Isaiah, it's not a side project. But I think a lot of businesses treat in e commerce leader, specifically in b2b as, okay, go off and do what you need to do. And we can't wait for go live. It can't be that. It wasn't I'm gonna flip it back on you. And I know you were running out of time, but what are you seeing when you sit down with the customer, they sign on for you to do work. And then when you get to the difficult parts of the conversation, you know, they're expecting a, you know, a walmart.com or a amazon.com. website, but they're not willing to step up when it comes to investing in the platform.

Unknown Speaker : 47:41

Those are hard conversations. Yeah, we're we're trying to get better at that. Because as an agency, you know, I think a lot of agencies make this mistake. They're like, yeah, we'll do the work. We you know, they want the sale. They want to get the project. And we're seeing, honestly, we're seeing how b2c, it's a lot easier to do that because the projects are a lot more straightforward would be We have to be a lot more careful because we're so reliant on that person being able to get us the product data, or whatever it is. We don't want to be two years into the project. And we still don't have the product data. And, you know, we're getting yelled out, but it's really out of our hands, because we can't, you know, get all their product data. It's not necessarily like our port for job as a company. So I've been trying to basically like question the hell out of these companies. And literally, I'm talking to one where like, I told them, I was like, I'm concerned that you guys haven't thought through the operations they have. And they almost like they almost didn't go with us because they thought that we couldn't be the project, which I'm like, I'm trying to communicate. I'm like, it's not that we can't build you an awesome front end. It's that I'm concerned. We're going to build you an awesome friend. And you guys haven't thought through the eirp integration they're going to use in this case that the core i love You're familiar with, of course, etc module for Magento but they never gave us the opportunity to talk to ECC. They Want something really complicated. And ECC does certain things, it's a product that is built to do a certain thing. And I'm like, we, we need a conversation with them to even see if it can handle all these customization like, right, the due diligence isn't there, and I'm trying to just really kind of get them to realize like, Hey, guys, like, there's a lot of thought that hasn't gone into this operational, you know, workflow of the data going back and forth and what you want on the consumer experience and what this integration may or may not be able to do, because we didn't build ECC, right? Like, we're kind of at the whim of what epicor is gonna be able to do with that. And so there's all these different things that need to come together. And I'm trying to get companies to really like take a step back and say, Hey, like, you're not ready for this. This is gonna fail. Like you almost kind of like put it back on them. I mean, I got off a call with another company that's like, yeah, we're trying to go live in August. And I was like, so do you have like a design like, they're they're asking us to do an immigrant The reason we got in touch with him is because in four but it wasn't infosec. So we would have to translate some of the things that we did for their specific version. They're an old version that doesn't have API's. It doesn't have API's and then they want this crazy CP q module integrated into it. And so yeah, like, which is a whole separate, really complicated thing that we didn't even have time to get like, deep into, and they want this all live in August. They don't even have anything yet. Like there's nothing like

Unknown Speaker : 50:34

what I

Unknown Speaker : 50:36

know that's impossible, but they didn't know that. Like, I literally was like, Guys, I hate to be the one telling you this, but I don't think progress is possible.

Unknown Speaker : 50:44

Now, that goes back to me the I'll let you speak on that. It goes back to not having somebody in those conversations within that business that understands that if you need to have a strategy you need to you need to do Listen, I came, we had over 1100 mods in SSC. That enhancements. 1100 that's, and why was it? 1100? It's because, you know, there's different parts of the business that need different things. Right. And so, you know, if you're not having those conversations with the vendor, and understanding really what the back end like what's happening there? Yeah, it can be a scary, scary project.

Unknown Speaker : 51:27

I think one other thing I was just going to add quickly to this, this piece of the conversation is that one of the things that we've seen is that you have to do timeout, you know, you basically say, guys, all right, we're having a great conversation, and I get it. But let's talk about the pace of change. Right? You know, how, how much things change and how quickly they change and how prepared you are to deal with it, like, you know, three years from now versus you know, whatever, right. You just set that stage. And then second, you bring in you know, The other part of the conversation, it's like, okay, right now you understand that we all agree and everyone in this room understands that things change, and they're going to continue to change. So what have you got in place to continually review? Right? Who do you have? How do you approach it? How much are you budgeting? So when they say, I can only spend $64,000, and it's happening once, and then I'll get back to you, you know, then the conversation completely changed. It's like, Okay, this is phase one. And we understand that you have this budget, and this is how things work. But it's only phase one. And we're going to continue to talk about these things and how you build for the future. Right. And that's really a lot of these conversations go, yeah, we're trying to get people to think of more interational approach like an MVC approach, like, we'll get you up and running with something. I mean, in theory, we could stand up a platform and very little time, it's just gonna look like kind of a blank install. It's not gonna have any data that you get your data like, you kind of go through these transformations and you can get up and running with some Thing fairly quickly just might not be your your entire wish list and we're trying to get people to think more. Like just iteratively. We don't have to do everything in one giant wish list in one two year project, we could maybe do a three month or six month project and then just work on that wish list for the next 234 or five years. However, however long you want to keep improving, you know,

Unknown Speaker : 53:23

so Timothy, one of the things you just described is level setting. There's a lot of level setting conversations that people don't know about. Just know that it's so it's one of those. Yeah, yeah, just literally just stepping back and being like, because and, you know, I'll be honest with you, with when, when it comes to this strategy. One, you know, oh, we're gonna build an e commerce platform in six months. No, that's not going to happen for what we're what we're trying to accomplish. Exactly. So let's, let's Let's have a real let's have a real conversation about what needs to happen. As the e commerce leader within the business. I know that when we sit down with the team and say this is the goal of we want to be go, you know, in our circumstance, January 2021 is our goal date. So we're going to take our time to be methodical about the Sprint's we're going to be methodical about everything, we're going to take our time because we don't want it rushed, right? At the end of the day, we want to make sure that when the new technology is wrapped up, and we have beta testers that are using it on our, our beta website, right, and so those conversations have to be had and as the e commerce leader within the business, the one fear I have Isaiah with sprint deliverables is there's other there's other people in the business that have other things to do. So I have a committed team right now from purchasing and sales in my car. Hello, I need to make sure that we have all of the different functionalities in their input through this build phase, because if I say, listen, we're going to go live in six months. And then we're going to pull the team back together. And we're going to focus on the second part of our project. I'm telling you right now, I know those once those folks in my business, get busy with other projects, I'm gonna lose them. Right? Yeah. So that happened to be my past. And, and the fact of the matter is, it's really important for me, that I'm actually doing what you guys are doing now and saying, hey, I'd like to make sure that in the first three months of this project, I need to have so and so involved, but when we go into scope two, I need to have that person involved as well. So yeah, identifying sprint, deliverables and the different people. But that's, that's a conversation that back to your point, I say, these companies, customers don't have them many times. They just say I want to be liable. Six months, and I know they're not talking to operations or anybody. So you're absolutely right.

Unknown Speaker : 56:09

Yeah. And we're doing a lot of architecture and strategy now, right, kind of that upfront discovery process. I think that's still very important. But I think it's kind of having that mindset of, yes, you need to do that architecture strategy, you know, discovery up front, but you need some malleability and flexibility in the sprints. And as the project unfolds, to kind of iteratively you know, adapt as things change, and, and you learn more because what really happens, a lot of companies learn a lot as they're going, you know, in six months. And they're like, actually, now that we see this, you know,

Unknown Speaker : 56:43

yeah, by the way, one of the main reasons I have elected or I want our platform to have pretty much zero customisations because Isaiah when something new comes down the road six months from now, or we can add something that you think is going to benefit the business. Don't want to have a code base that is highly customized or has so much mods that it's not even, it can't scale. It's a custom website. And I'm looking for a platform that's going to allow us with the functionality that's given to grow in scale and be able to add on widgets in different functionalities that's really important to me you have wisdom

Unknown Speaker : 57:23

beyond your year.

Unknown Speaker : 57:27

That goes back to understanding in via Timothy, I appreciate it but you know, realizing that there's things that when you start this journey that you're told you believe, not so much believe but you're made to believe you need to have from the company from your, you know, the business you're in, you need to have this on the website or customers aren't going to use it to going live and realizing that internally that was a myth. The thing that we did actually spend money in customize with something that customer didn't want to use. Oh, yeah, don't get me

Unknown Speaker : 58:08

on the podcast on that, yes, yeah.

Unknown Speaker : 58:11

I've had that. I know we're having a good conversation here. But I say you and I kind of talked about that. Oh, man, that's that's a painful process.

Unknown Speaker : 58:19

Yeah. Especially with people that aren't necessarily, you know, savvy with this stuff. They see something shiny and they want that shiny thing, but is that gonna really we're very revenue foe is what's gonna make you money. Right. That's what matters. We got it. We got to wrap up here. But Michael, this was this was amazing. You know, I think I hope people learn a lot from this, especially from someone that's been in the ground floor like yourself. Um, we actually have one of our clients coming on next week from a distribution company and that's gonna be really exciting for Next Episode, they, we've done some multi site, customer specific stuff, I'm going to get into that with them. So anyone that's wants to stay tuned for next up. So hopefully you actually stay tuned for the next episode.

Unknown Speaker : 59:03

I will

Unknown Speaker : 59:05

listen to you guys do a roundtable if you want to do a roundtable let me know I

Unknown Speaker : 59:10

yeah, we will we will

Unknown Speaker : 59:12

yeah that's a that's a great we're gonna be doing all sorts of stuff so I'll follow up with you. But thanks everyone. Stay tuned for next Friday's episode. And yeah, we're excited. Thank you Mike. It's been a pleasure.