Old Tools, New Minds

We landed. It was 27. The iguanas were giving up the ghost, and they're telling me we've been down here for a week, and I think, you know, I never thought 57 would feel this good. So that, that is not in the background. That is not. That is not the Florida coast, but

It's the glaciers from New Zealand.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, you're close.

Oh, you know, it's. When you asked the question, I was flipping through my brain, and I'm, I'm going to go back to my first job when I was a trainee for IBM and we had to give presentations. And those of us who are old enough remember, you did flip charts. You, you, you had, you know, the big flip chart paper, and you planned your presentation and then you, you know, your skill as a Magic Marker writer was severely tested. But, you know, it forced you to put together a logical presentation and fast forward. Now, you know, we go to PowerPoints, we go to Zoom, we go to actually AI taking a subject matter and creating charts, and then we edit. And, you know, I think somewhere along the line we lose something, because if you made a mistake on the flip chart, it was a pain in the tail to correct. And if it was a, you know, you would take, you know, you might throw the whole thing out and redo it.

But it forced you to think through the logic of the presentation and where were you going to go? Whereas PowerPoint, now, you can get that done so freaking fast. I sometimes wonder if we lose something in the thought process, but that, that would be one that would jump out to me. I'm doing a PowerPoint pitch for the church next week, you know, and I was just. It kind of dawns on me, you know, how quickly I pulled that together. And then I sent it around for edits and got all kinds of feedback and I sent it around again for edits. So that, that's, that's a simple one that I would just pick, you know, how we present our case and to clients, to the people in general. And, you know, what we're doing right here, I'm sitting in Florida. You're, you're out on the islands out there, you know, you know, that, that wasn't around at all. How many times did we get on a plane to go see somebody for an hour?

I mean, and everybody's got to have that same answer. But those are two that jump to mind real quick.

Well, you know, think about the sales call and, you know, the, the great art of the sales call is to find the customer's pain and fix it. And, you know, a lot of times, you know, I would not even open the flip chart or the, the laptop and, and really just engage the customer in a discussion, you know, or clients or friends even, because a lot of customers became friends. And, you know, my rule of selling was always, you know, find the pain and fix it, whether you had the product or you knew how to fix it. And I just think, you know, what I worry about, and I see it in a lot of salesforce now is just thinking through the sales strategy, thinking through the product strategy, thinking where the customer's pain is. We used to call it read speeds and feeds. And we thought a lot of mistakes were made. Let me come in and start telling you what I got to sell versus what you need. And I don't know if power. You know, I think PowerPoint is terrific.

Don't get me Wrong. I mean it's, it certainly has saved the paper industry, but you know, it's, it's, it's just. I think we've lost think time.

Yeah, for a little bit. Yeah.

I had a. Grandchildren, rather. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. My, my, my. When I was running the academy of that, where I was working at the Academy of Natural Sciences was, you know, we're, you know, you know, grandchildren over greed ought to be what we're thinking about.

Well, are you fix? Yeah. Are you fixing a symptom or are you fixing the cause?

Well, I, I think, you know, you go out into the field and you ask two questions. How are you doing? How are we doing? And then the question of what can we do better? I, you know, it's Ron, it's evolved over time. But, you know, my philosophy of selling and marketing is that look, I'm never going to be low price, but I'm always going to be low cost. And what I mean by that is if yes, we have products, yes we have services, but if we can help you move your business forward and solve your pain, your problems, then, then we will lower your cost. And at the end of the day, you know you're going to have two identical products. But if one is helping you think through a strategy in your business or solve problems in your business and how to use the tool or how to use the product. And again, it depends on the products. I mean let's, let's, let's be very precise on that.

But I think a lot of the value for an organization is the skill and the know how, how use the products you sell in the most effective and efficient way and sometimes has nothing to do with a product but you have domain knowledge or expertise, access that you guys say, hey, I know a guy, let me bring him in. It's like I, I, I'm bringing an AI specialist right now to companies and saying I know what you think it is. I want you to listen to this guy and realize where the future is. And you know, light bulbs are going off. But you know, the whole point of being in business is to lower your customers pain and help them be successful. And if you take that approach, they're going to do business with you all day long. And frankly, I don't think that has changed since you and I started to today. I think that is a constant rule for success in the marketplace. You know, understand where the pain is and let's go fix it.

And by the way, I got some products that you buy that'll help do it. It's a whole different way of thinking about selling versus Hey, I got a copier. It does 800 pages per second. You know, this much ink is going to save you electricity. And how many do you want? Oh, you already have 45 copiers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, I, I, that's true. And you think about it, you know, how do we engage a customer these days? You know, what we're doing right now is often the interface that we have versus that personal relationship of, you know, sitting in a conference room and getting to know each other and, and talking things through. But the real issue of a sales is let me come visit your operation. Talk to me about what you do, you know, how do you make money? You know, it's, you know, what's, what's, what's the firm's goal? And if you understand that, and then you can design or figure out your product set and skills where that helps, that. That sale becomes a hell of a lot easier. And I, I still think there's people out there that do that really well. Oh, I, It's a, it's a lost art.

Well, and again, and, you know, we're talking about when we started and now, and I just think that, you know, there's certain fundamentals that don't change. And I just really think, you know, the ability to solve a client's problems and lower pain is. I'm not sure technology helps or hurts that. I mean, it really. You know, I go back to the flip chart example. Are you taking the time to really think through, you know, a strategy to engage with a customer, a how you build relationships, how you build trust. You know, what I worry about is in, in this online marketplace is everything, you know, you see feature, function and price and, and in nowhere, when you kind of go through this is, well, here's the best way to use the product, or here are the applications, or, you know, these, these are what were designed or, by the way, we're open to, you know, your suggestions. I, I love running.

I'm doing a lot of consulting these days, and I'm working with a. How do I describe it? They're really a, A rented development shop and strategic planning shop. And they were really having trouble going to market and thinking about things. I said, okay, we're going to do a customer council. And we brought in eight customers, couple other good ones, couple ones in the middle, and I got two to come that they weren't doing business with. And we just started talking about, you know, the whole marketplace of fundraising. These were all nonprofits and, you know, where, where is your pain point? Where are your challenges? And what emerged out of that was a really wonderful need statement. Like, well, you know, I can't afford four people in my advancement department. You know, I can only go after the big grants, not the little ones. There were, there was just, you know, and feedback about where I go.

And then the customers that were doing business with us started talking about where the company, you know, had some abilities with some things they'd like to see tweaked. And maybe we spent three, three and a half hours. I know we went through a hell of a lot of coffee and it was just this great discussion. And then at the end, I said, okay, now you got eight people you got to go back to and engage. And we locked down all eight customers or grew each customer because they had told us what they wanted and where they were struggling. So then if we're going to go design a new product or a new offering or a new hire, it allowed us to do so with a level of intelligence. And, you know, this is where market research, I think it's been going on as long as you and I have been around and way longer than that. I don't think we, we really listen to customers because of all this online stuff and discussion.

You know, I, I read a lot of bland stuff out there and, you know, I go, I go on LinkedIn and I see the articles or I see this or that, and I'm going, jesus, this hasn't even been written by a human. So things I think, you know, it's.

Iran. Hang on one sec. Do you want me to go with you at four? Okay. Sorry, the boss just walked in.

Well, and, and, you know, here's a no, it's exactly right it's just, you know, no, we have win reviews, we have lost reviews in the old days and you know, was a pretty, pretty formal process. And the, the thing that I, you know, you talk about the parts business. My son runs the online parts business back, back at Modern. And you know, he's, he's built an AI model now that, you know, they, the team built and helped and we're using it. And so if customer calls up and wants this part rather than searching through all the parts catalog, it immediately gives him all the likely parts that that guy's going to need if he's doing, doing this. So the upsell opportunity is huge and the opportunity to say, hey, look, you know, you decide what you want to do. But this is what people typically will order with this part and why, you know, you're going to rip out the gaskets. You got to put new ones in. Oh yeah, okay.

Add that and you know, I, I marvel at, at that's where, you know, you would kill for technology. But it's, you raise an interesting point because the, you know, it's the human thinking and problem solving with domain knowledge that, you know, maybe AI is going to get there, maybe not. I, I just, You know, and then where's the accountability? Yeah, that's the other problem that's going to get really, really interesting. Well, AI told me to do this. Well, except I'm hiring you to do it.

you know, he, he's motivated, let's put it that way.

that's the common sense. And, you know, my fear is that these systems, you know, the, the real art in these systems is going to be to train them and move that domain knowledge and that information. And then, one would hope, would free up your time for think time, customer interaction, thinking about, what's the next campaign? What's the next deal that we want to run? And, you know, what I worry about is that we're going to double the speed of transaction, but we're not going to double the availability think time. And to, you know, what you want. Is everybody looking at the big picture and saying, is there a better way? Is there an opportunity that just blew by here that we want to grab hold of? And, you know, I think the other side of that is giving people permission to do that and pushing down, you know, one of the great values of, you know, as, you know, Ron, we're 100% ESOP now, so every employee of Modern is an owner.

Well, and, you know, it's been. It's coming up on 20 years, and what, what we've had a chance to see in a major way is that everybody owns it and everybody understands what drives the share price. That's not an easy thing to get across. But every year we train, we talk, but you see people come up and saying, hey, you know, we could do this for safety. We could, you know, could we look at these kind of things in the van that might save something? It's interesting. You know, we put cameras in all the vans and we were able to really. We had two or three folks who were causing us a lot of problems with speeding tickets and you know, and it goes on. But the one, the one that really cracked me up. You'll enjoy this. Getting know our history. We the, the camera also monitors whether the engine's on or not. And we had a couple guys who literally they be at a job and the, the engine was never turned off and we find. So what are you doing?

He says well it's really hot out here and when I get back in I like the air conditioning to be running. And in the winter they were running the heat. Now you can imagine the gas we were burning and the pollution and all that. But you know we got guys out on the road and we said, you know dude, yeah, let's think about this. It, you know it but it's you know, as you well know, you make money by chipping away at the low hanging fruit and you know there's a case where technology gave us visibility and I guess why are you spying on me? I said well why are you running gas the whole time? Wasn't me, it was the guys who are running the business now. But they tell me that story and you know I think there's opportunities with technology and monitoring and, and just self awareness, you know and training people that you know, that's why I love, you know, I always loved, you know, if we did well, everybody did well. Yeah.

And, and so you know there was a built in incentive model that, that people would pay attention to the little stuff.

Which adds up to be big stuff.

You knew my expression of that one is make it safe to name the elephant and especially if you're the elephant.

And we, I think we've talked about this before. We literally had little stuffed elephants around and they were in the conference room. If you grabbed the elephant, people knew that you had something to say. And I made damn sure I have holes in my tongue on this one that you were safe and, and really was an interesting culture change. But, you know, the worst thing you can do is overreact to something. But, you know, that's interesting. Used to be one of my favorite phrases that I had to think about it, but people on, People on the ground, you know, know it, but it's. And that's a cultural bias. And that's not going to come from technology.

And that's where the issue is. How do you make it fun and how do you make it safe?

Yeah. And, and you know, everybody has options. And you know, you know, the other great lesson is people are just wired differently. Thank God, because if we're all one type, we never could build a business. And I, I never forget we had a guy who worked in our parts counter for 30 years and he went to become manager of the parts department, but he knew parts inside and out. And I, and I asked him, I said, why, you know, you bright guy. I said, why, why here? He said, look, I, I have a, A secure job with good benefits. I, I love what I do. And you know, I, you know, is there stress? Yes. But for me, this is a job I can handle. And by the way, I coach in the evenings. I have, you know, my family and you know, I. Money isn't the most important thing to me. And you know, he needed to pay the bills, but it Just struck me, here's a guy who's got his shit together a hell of a lot better than I do. When you think about it.

And there's the challenge of management, because how do you hire a mix of that and how do you respect that so that everybody is valued? And the recognition that without people like that, the parts shop doesn't work. Without people who, you know, everybody has, you know, a place and a gift and a role and, you know, the arrogant salesman used to drive me nuts, you know, come in. Well, I'm the most important guy in the world. I said, okay, nobody's going to fix your truck. What's going to happen? Or, you know, and it's just, you know, this. This idea of respect for the team. You know, there's not a quarterback alive that doesn't love his front line and

Oh, yeah, I made it, you know, and. And, you know, it's just. I think there's, you know, there's a lot to be learned in that lesson, you know, and it's. I'm always fascinated by the dynamics of the sports team, you know, and so that, you know, that. And again, that's where this isolation and technology gives me pause. You know, it's. It's the. I love the productivity. I love the fact that you and I can do this 15,000 miles part or whatever the hell we are, probably 10,000. And, you know, it's. It's, you know, all to the good. But how do you maintain that human interaction, that relationship building,

The ability to assess and really evaluate a customer's needs or an employee's needs. And. And to my mind, you can use technology, but then you got to be intentional with your time and say, hey, I want to, you know, I want to connect with you. You know, I. We run a scholarship program. And, you know, I. I called the dad the other day and I said, hey, you know, your daughter has gotten it in. And he says, yeah, thank you. I had no idea. I said, well, look, I mean, she's obviously really smart, given where she is, you know, I'd love to see her compete. And, you know, I probably got hell from the daughter, but I really didn't care because I want to make sure she, you know, she had the opportunity. But, you know, it's, it's, it's those kinds of things that build, you know, a family at work.

And I just really think, and this one of the reasons I love smaller businesses and, you know, IBM, there's no way you could do it, but in a company of 100 people, you get to, you get to know everybody if you're intentional about it. And to me, that's, that's a pretty big lever that you can pull.

You know, it's, that's, that's a, a great question, Ron. And, you know, my, you know, I'm going to give you two answers if, if, if.

Yeah, I know, I know. But, you know, if it's a mechanic, I'm going to look at mechanics.

Yeah, okay, well, there's still deadlines, there's still work parks, there's all that stuff. What I would tell you around is if you're walking around, they look up and they smile and they're excited and they tell you something they're doing or they want to share something. Whereas the people who, like, oh, here comes the boss, and I hope he's not walking into my cube. I, and I think people, you know, if they're willing to engage, if, if. I'm kind of thinking on the go here. That's a great question.

You know, people who, hey, let me show you what I'm doing. Let me, you know, how's it going? And you don't get a pat answer. I mean, that, that would be, you know, just kind of my, my experience. And, and probably the other way I know is do I know their story? Because they've shared it with me, I think might be the way, you know. How's your son doing? You know, he was in the hospital, you know, how's he feeling? You know. Yeah, yeah. Everybody's got something they're proud of. And are you aware you were president

One year. Yeah, I was on the board for a long time.

Oh, yeah. No, no. I mean, most trade associations have all kinds of education. I was President Mejita in 05, so that's making me feel really freaking old. But don't do that, don't do that. It's 20. 20, 21 years.

Yeah, I graduated in 76 and in August of that year I went to work for IBM.

You know, I, the systems engineer me has got to ask question. I mean, I don't.

What are the nature of the questions?

Okay, with the job. So they, I, I'm going to guess depending, you know, the guys who have been there for a year, 20, 30 years. Okay, so a 30 year employee, it better be somewhere in the 70s.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's, there's sales manager schools. But I often wonder what they're really. You see, my. In my experience, the best salesmen often make the worst sales managers.

And the best. And the, and the best sales managers sometimes are salesmen who didn't do so well. And, and I, I think there's absolutely a linkage there.

You thinking about Bill Russell? Oh, yeah. I was thinking football. Yeah. No, that, that is a good example.

He couldn't teach what he did.

I would think. I mean, that's just fundamental. You know, I'm a huge fan of co op education. I just stepped down after, I guess, eight years being a trustee at Drexel University. They and Boston are two of the. The really strong co op programs. And I had a student, excuse me, a faculty member. We were just talking about the attributes, and he said there's two great gifts in a co op. One is if you know what you want to do and you go co op and you discover that you hate it. You haven't spent four years, get a job, and then, you know, be well down the road before you realize that you. It's. It's not a match, if you will. And the other side of it is if you do find your love it, you then tune your curriculum. Yeah. You know, for the next. Yeah. You. You go, man, I'm going all in on this. But I. I'm doing it with a passion because I've seen what, you know, I've seen the future and I like it. And, and the, the other one that I love is.

And we did this when I was running the nonprofit is but interns who need a thousand hours of field work. And it was almost criminal. We would have eight or 10 interns at the end of their cycle. I would always hire two. And if six had busted their butt, I would pick up the phone and make sure my colleagues in the industry interviewed them. And I was committed to trying to help them get the job. And when that word went out, boy, we got the best and the brightest, and it was almost illegal. We got great, great talent.

Yeah, I. Yeah, there's, there's. And I, I 80% agree with that. But I also think sometimes you gotta compete to learn, if you will. You know, you gotta. You. And compete's the wrong word. But shadow or partner.

Yep.

And. And that's. And that's really kind of my. I mean.

What I always prided myself on was the ability to see a spark in somebody and. And really challenge him to. To light the fire, if you will, to totally butcher that analogy. But, you know, I remember when I was running the nonprofit, I had somebody come in who wanted to volunteer, and she was a rock star, but a new mom. And we figured out how to make that work. And she wound up becoming my chief operating officer. And, you know, it was just because, oh, my God, this is. This person has got just enormous time, but let's figure out how to solve her family need. And we were able to work that out. Turn this off. Sorry.

There's a lot of life. Yeah, just go look at the tax code if you want to see.

Don't get me started. No, I mean, I, I, well, in regulation and you know, all that stuff, I mean, there's, well, anyway, that, that, that, that gets gross. Well, I think we've wandered all over the place here, Ron.

I'm, I'm not at all. I'm surprised it's that low. I, I actually think. Let, let me give you an analogy. Go back 1985 and somebody asks you, do you know Microsoft or do you know Apple? And you know right now, if you don't know how to use a PC, you're a freaking dinosaur. And, and you know, I, I go back to, you know, when the first, you know, intelligent phones came out and the ability to use Salesforce, for example, to be a deal. I mean, there's just some technologies that are going to become part of our infrastructure and our work tools. And I think AI is still,

know, I'm spending a lot of time in the AI space just trying to really understand the impact on early childhood learning and how do you get a child to learn rather than learn how to use AI to get an answer? And there's a huge challenge in my mind and that I'm working with some of the inner city schools and they're out of school time programs. And how do you, you know, I want to teach you how to use a ruler before you use an electronic tool to measure. I want you to know what an inch is, what a foot is, what a yard is, a cubic foot. I have no trouble if you use the device to go, but I want you to understand the logic and back of it. And, and I could give you that in multiple disciplines. And I think AI is going to become or is becoming the tool. You know, I, I'm not shocked at that at all. The question is, now the next question I ask is, well, what do you mean by AI?

Really?

So in that, okay, I did punch cards for coding.

Well, but, but you know, look, you know Moore's law, right?

Four times the power, four times less price and apparently 55 times electricity and heat. It's, you know what I'm, I'm waiting for all these guys building data centers and electrical grid and somebody's going to come out with a low power chip and, and the model is going to just change. Yeah, you put that in the file. I'm telling you, that's coming.

Well, and that's part of that. Yeah. And in their lives, the logic for solar, wind and short grid reach. But that to me is going to be the speed of that change and how it gets used to. And you know, I want to, I want to be the judge in court when he gets a brief that's done by AI. And, and you know, there's, there's some cases where AIs, you know, kind of killed the lawyer because it was wrong. But you know, think about the industries, you know, what's going to happen in the legal industry when paralegals can do it in a minute. What used to be a hundred hours.

And that is a really.

Yeah, well, it's 302 and it's 54.

And I'm. And I'm closer to the equator than you are.

You know, I don't know. I've been. Again, we've just been kind of catching up on a lot of stuff this week. Well, look, I don't know who's going to benefit from this deal, but I got to tell you, I have. I always enjoy matching notes with you.

It's the hairline and the beards

Take care.