AI Just Changed Sourcing FOREVER... Don't Get Left Behind

AI Just Changed Sourcing FOREVER... Don't Get Left Behind 00:00:00 I think the key to anything as it relates to technology is, as we always talk about and think about, is to not necessarily replace humans, but find a better use for humans. There are unique opportunities when you introduce humans and human perspective into a very mechanized process. Hopefully through the technology and the mechanization, it will create more jobs. And different kinds of jobs, and better paying jobs with with higher levels of education, so forth, and that we're not regressing but rather we're progressing, we're back, I'm ready, this is the start, we're back, Yes. I have a question, Norm. Is the snow in your backyard the same color as your beard? Or is your beard a little bit more of a grayish color than the snow? 00:01:06 Or does the snow stay white up there in the great white north? You know how many times I've been asked that question? What snow? You know, it's warm enough that I saw my balcony. Reduce from around four feet of snow. Okay. That was, and that's already melted down to around, well, put it this way. Dallas has got to find a little snow patch. He only lies in snow. So, uh, yeah, so it's, it's, it's gone. Thank God it's gone. You need one of these, these new things that, uh, you know, our friend, uh, Melissa, she's from Toronto area too. Melissa Bong. She's been on the podcast. Really brilliant market. Really cool girl. But she was at Market Masters with us, and she made a little video about Market Masters. 00:01:56 She posted it on social media. That was pretty awesome. But she messaged me after Market Masters, Kevin, can I just get your address? I want to send you a gift. I don't know if she did the same for you. If not, I've got you taken care of. But she sent me a little gift, and you know how boxes show up at my house sometimes. You know, it's logistics work that way-things just show up, and you don't know how they get there, but they just show up. And like, cigar sometimes, like you and your cigars or you're like, 'I know that, I know what happens to my cigars.' This happened with Norm; Norm ordered some cigars and sent them to my house, and he came to visit. 00:02:29 He's like, 'Hey, did my cigar show up?' Like, 'Tell Norm no, I haven't seen any cigars show up and it turns out he'd ordered them like a month or something, or a month or two beforehand, so they'd be sitting here some random box just showed up. You know, cigars-like, oh cool, I put them in my human door, and Norm comes and he's like, 'Where are my cigars?' Like, nothing showed up. You might want to track them, so he tracks them, and shows like, yeah, they're Delivered Kevin like two months ago, I'm like oh maybe that's the box that's over here no that's not what happened that's not what happened it was all 00:03:03 right you know maybe it's my mistake I don't know I thought I ordered some cigars and then uh it was let's go have a cigar well Norm pick one okay when I go into the humidor whole humid doors and I go Kev, I was telling you about these Gurkha cigars when did you start smoking these he goes I don't know I go These are the ones I ordered. And then I look over at the other side. There's a case of the other ones. So yeah thanks buddy And then you end up giving one to me so you share. Yeah, that's the way I work. One box is for me. So I get this other package that comes up with stuff. I'm like, what the heck is this? 00:03:43 I open it up, and there's three in there. So that's why I got you covered. I got you one for you. And they're lightsabers that will work good in the snow, but they're like these lightsabers like the size of a flashlight. And you put butane in them, and they, like, shoot up like a huge, like, I don't know, like a Star Wars lightsaber. Picture one of those things, you know, like Luke Skywalker used. And he waved around at Darth Vader. But they can also be used to light cigars. Ah. And so they're. It's a different way of crossing swords. That's right. It's a different way. So we'll cross swords. Perfect. Perfect. But listen. Melissa Vong sent these to me so thanks Melissa for sending those and I didn't know where they came from and she messaged me, 'Did you get the package I sent? 00:04:27 I was like, I'm not sure um what she's like, oh it's these lasers uh laser lighter things, I'm like ah yeah yeah those are really cool. So I just had to order it's a special butane or whatever it is because it has a special lid on the top to fill them so I just it just came today so I'm going to be playing with that and uh I'll let you know how that goes, Norm. You know, I just got to say this. I know we're spending a lot of time on things that show up and you don't know who it came from. Remember when you got that $400 shirt? I like wearing Robert Graham shirts. It's a brand I like. And you get this Robert Graham shirt and you're going, 'I said, well.' Oh, that looks pretty cool. 00:05:13 Uh, when did you get that? I didn't know you wore Robert Graham shirts and he goes, 'I just got it.' Well, people send me people send me stuff because we're known in the Amazon space. I get i got a treadmill like a little walking treadmill; i get people send me stuff and that shirt i'm wearing a lot more Robert Graham now because that shirt really is comfortable, right? Comfortable. Let's talk about brands yeah, talk about brand and they're expensive-that's like a 400 shirt or something uh and for me since I'm a big guy you got double that because I got, yeah, that's 800 shirt-so it's like a tent um but um yeah so yeah it's but it turns out you know as our my buddy Manny his his wife Marianne uh had sent that as a gift you know she said 'Mark some uh some whiskey or something' and then I was all sad. 00:06:04 I didn't get any whiskey as a thank you for this thing and then, but she had sent me a shirt. So, uh, no, it's all, it's all cool. So buddy, how are you going to segue this? So, so I mean, that's it's logistics, you know, when back when I was in the 1980s, I had a catalog company and we used to ship. Uh, DHL all the time back then I could ship overnight DHL for like $3. 75 cents a package because we were doing it in bulk and we were shipping all these, it's like a Sharper Image for college students' catalog that I had. I was always fascinated with how the whole logistics works and I studied FedEx back then and DHL. I liked how this hub-and-spoke system and how it's always fascinating to me. 00:06:45 And our guests today is that's what they do. I mean, that's one of the things they do. They do a lot of things, as you know, Norm, but they're masters at logistics. And a lot of us just take for granted these shirts or these lasers or these cigars just showing up. But there's a whole behind the scenes that's happening from the packaging, like you said, the nice packaging of the cigars to all the way through, that has to happen to get to that end result, that most people have no realization of how complicated and complex that can be. And how much that's where a lot of the margin is; is not in the selling, it's in the logistics and I always say the money's made in sourcing not in selling. Right? And our guest today, uh, um, you know him, it's my first time to meet him, but you say he's like the world master, he's like a master Jedi, you know what I like? We talk about this all the time, yeah. You have to bring up the laser, uh. 00:07:47 So, what I love about Kareem when we get down to introducing him formally is the quality and perception of what he does. So, the company is called the Atlas Network, and he's been the president and CEO of that, the Atlas Network LLC. If you want to check that out, don't go to the Atlas Network, but go to theatlasnetwork. com. It's not the . org one. It's the . com one. Right, right. Yeah. So, it's pretty impressive taking a look at the products, and there's a wide, wide variety. You can see in the Bev merch, or you can take a look at luxury products, but they're all, they've got one thing in common and that's perception. I want to talk about that, but I want to introduce Karim. There's so much to say about him. 00:08:39 It will take a book, like it is a novel, but I'm just going to cut to the chase and read off only the first chapter. So Karim, he started and he's the president and CEO of the Atlas Network. It's a global supply chain enterprise offering comprehensive end-to-end services. He does consulting, product development, factory selection, mass production, quality control, anything that you need, logistics and shipping and storage. He also is an author. I found this out on the Lunch with Norm podcast. He has a really cool book called The Supply Chain Ups and Downs. And he's also the founder of a YouTube channel called Supply and Demand Show. So check that out. But okay, so I got to skip like three or four chapters. 00:09:32 Now, he's got a BA in finance and international business and marketing from Washington University in Minnesota. He's got an MBA in business law and finance from American University. And this one caught my eye, artificial and intelligence in business strategy certification from MIT. So, I can't wait to talk to him about that. But today, I'm gonna bring him on right now. Here he is: Kareem Kafuri. Hey, guys! How are you, sir? Gotta bring my lightsaber, yeah there you go. Give me the sound effects here we go, that'll be the whole next category on your site, right? Star Wars or yeah, space and lightsabers-we're doing it all, including lightsabers these days, I guess! It's great that you could come on. And, I mean, we talk about it so much. It's just you can get the money. 00:10:37 You can pull out these margins. Like Kevin just said, you know, the profit is really found in the logistics, the sourcing. And so many people we hear right now are grumbling about margins on Amazon, or through Shopify, their D2C brand. Yeah, tariffs-let's talk about that, you know? Do you have to be worried right now about tariffs? It really depends, I mean this is this really depends and I say that because of the fact that it can be very industry specific, um. First and foremost, you know where you source in the world will obviously impact whether you have these tariffs or not. We know that this is not the first time in history that economic sanctions have been used between the United States and other nations to curb behavior or even to generate revenue. 00:11:31 Quite honestly, it was one of the primary sources of federal revenue before the 1930s in the U. S. and helped to fund a lot of development and projects in the United States. Obviously, we opened it up to globalization after the 30s and kind of became more of the free market era. And that ushered in an entire realm of global opportunity for us today. And for most businesses, there will be impacts because let's just take, for example, Amazon, you know, the second largest company in the United States, 70 percent of the products that are bought and sold on there come from China. So, with that in mind, I mean, that's that's a six hundred and thirty billion dollar a year company. Where 70% of the products are coming from a nation that's now being tariffed up to 50, 60, 70%. 00:12:22 And so what are we going to do with all this excess cost? Well, there are choices to be made. And businesses will have to either have firm discussions and negotiations with their suppliers where they either absorb some of these costs or the costs are shared between them because If you can't pass those costs off to the consumer because it's a very narrow margin business, then your choices are to either eat it yourself or to go out of business or build a new supply chain entirely. There's some other areas where you can look at things like the HS codes and are they being properly classified, and the declared values because in the end of the day, you're really tariffed on the declared values. 00:13:09 There may be some industries like the luxury goods space where you may decide to absorb it because maybe you make 200% margins and you'll eat 10 or 20% of profitability to keep your customers happy. Or maybe you'll end up passing it off to your customers because they're not really price sensitive to begin with. They're willing to pay $1,000 for a shirt. So $1,020 for a shirt won't really break the bank for people like that. Um, so there again it's industry by industry, product by product, um, and it really will be dependent upon who's going to navigate the tariff, um, the supplier side, the business side, the consumers who end up you know maybe having me be passed along to them. 00:13:52 I mean, you know we look at things like the Super Bowl, and we say all right well next year you know that guacamole is going to be 10 times more expensive because those avocados are coming from Mexico. Or we look at just these different areas where it impacts our lives in the agricultural products, in the electronic side. We know that areas such as automotive can be dramatically impacted by some of these changes. Are there opportunities because of it? There could be some opportunities, too, regarding development within our own nation. You know, that requires infrastructure and may require, you know, time and resources and technology that we may not even have in place right now. So tariffs are going to definitely have an impact. And we're just going to have to see how far and how wide reaching. 00:14:42 And that will, again, be industry to industry, product to product, where you really see the ebb and the flow of that. When you look at Walmart, just recently went to their suppliers and said, 'Hey, you've got to help us out here. We need a 10 percent reduction.' And the Chinese government got involved and said no – they called Bravo Sierra on that and said, 'Uh-uh, no, you're not. We're not going to give you a 10% reduction.' Walmart was like – their big office is in Shenzhen trying to go back and forth. And so I don't – that didn't work for one of the biggest brands in the world where price is very sensitive for most of their customers. Walmart is the number one, is the largest company in the United States, followed by Amazon, like we said before. 00:15:26 And I think we talked about this before, you and I, Norm, but where it really hits home is where you have this concept of disproportionate leverage. So like you just said, Walmart says, 'Hey, we're the biggest company in the United States. We're going back to our suppliers and we're asking for this.' And they're saying, 'Hey, you know what? You, the United States, you represent maybe less than 15 or less than 20% of our entire global exports globally. And so we can afford to lose your business and we won't really care too much about it because for us, it's about saving face and we're being penalized.' And so why shouldn't we just do the counter tariff and penalize you or not really do these discounts in the way that you would like to have them be done? It's a push and it's a pull. And sometimes you can only push so much without being pulled the other way. And that's where you get caught in the crossfire, and a company like a Walmart, not being able to meet those kinds of demands and other businesses not being able to be able to navigate the way that they would like to is going to be part of the collateral damage of doing this kind of an activity. 00:16:47 Let me tell you about a platform that's changing the game for Amazon sellers. That's right, it's called 8Fig. On average, sellers working with 8Fig grow up to 400% in less than a year. 8Fig offers both funding and free tools for e-commerce growth and cash flow management. And here's how it works. 8Fig provides flexible, data-driven funding tailored to your exact needs. You know they can fund anywhere from up to $50,000 all the way up to $10 million. 8Fig gives you free tools to forecast demand, manage inventory, and analyze cash flow. Visit 8fig. co, that's 8fig. co, to learn more or check the link in the show notes below. Just mention Marketing Misfits and get 25% off your cost. That's 8fig. co, 8fig. co. See you on the other side. 00:17:47 And we saw that we were hoping that some of our clients were going to change. And some of them were already going to Canada for cosmetics and into Mexico. So a couple of years ago, we put a real push on seeing what we could do in Mexico. Well, in Mexico, I found out something very quickly. It's not like doing business in China. And they were really, at least the factories that we were talking to, they weren't set up to really. Produced the way we were expecting it in Canada, I mean, that's it's fine, uh, they've got that atmosphere, they know what you're looking for. But now you're going to get both of them are going to be hit with tariffs, and even in the states, we talked about this as a manufacturer in the states, and I come from a manufacturing background, my family was in manufacturing. 00:18:38 It's who wants 500 units, who wants 15,000 units? Manufacturers in the states unless you were supplements or something like that that are already uh set up for private labels really don't seem to want business, and that's a that's a problem, so it's it's re educating the manufacturing sector to see even if they want these orders. So what do you think about that? Yeah, I mean, you know, if we really are trying to move towards becoming more of a manufacturing nation again, which, you know, has not been that case for 50 years or more. Yeah, we're going to have to basically be willing to do things that we wouldn't want it to previously do. We're going to have to be able to reduce the cost of the goods in a way that still makes businesses competitive because for several decades, they essentially have been selling at a certain price point. 00:19:35 So you can't be selling a $20 shirt at Walmart and all of a sudden have to sell it for $50. Everyday Americans may not be able to afford it. Well, that's where I think the role of government can step in and all of these additional dollars that are being recouped or so on via this tariff process, maybe that's then allocated as subsidies. To these businesses who can then be able to reduce their costs to keep the cost of that shirt still at $20 and not have these businesses get hurt too badly because they still have to pay their employees, not according to salaries in Asia, but according to salaries in the United States. So it's a thing where you basically are going to have to have the pendulum swing both ways. 00:20:17 And if the government is going to, let's say, take in additional funds and so on through this tariff mechanism, they need to take those funds and reallocate them back into the U. S.-based economy that may be trying to work towards manufacturing. But more importantly than anything else, which is what you said before when it came to these nearshoring opportunities in Canada and Mexico, is with any manufacturing equation, you're going to need to look at those five key factors that I talk a lot about, which is basically going to be the access to the materials. Can you get it? The output from the actual equation in the nation you're trying to manufacture within, whether it's Mexico, Canada, United States. Do you have the resources, do you have educated people who know how to be specialists in doing that kind of production? 00:21:02 Do you have the technology, not just for today, but also for the future? And then finally, how does the cost structure look when you facilitate it across those various elements? Wasn't that what's happening in Mexico, right across the border from Texas? You have these Chinese companies coming in. This may change with all this. And they're building these like little miniature cities. There's some of these in Italy. There's some in Vietnam. But they're doing one in Mexico where it's like, I don't know, it's a huge district. It's just nothing but Chinese factories. And they're bringing in Chinese engineers and Chinese system operators. And they're basically trying to set up to cover three of those five that you just mentioned. But they still have the problem of raw materials having to come still mostly out of China. 00:21:43 And they still have some of the other issues there. So, they're trying to counter that in not not just in Mexico, but they're doing it in Vietnam. They're doing it other places too. Are you seeing that's not really working or is that's going to get turned on with all this this tariff stuff, too? Well, it's so funny because, I mean, that was one of the big misnomers that a lot of people didn't understand about a year ago, where everyone was like nearshoring, nearshoring. Let's do it in Canada. Let's do it in Mexico. Let's not do it in China. And to your point, I actually wrote an article about this, that the vast majority of those nearshoring opportunities were through via foreign direct investment. So you're buying from the Chinese, just not in China. 00:22:25 The Chinese in Mexico, the Chinese in Canada, the Chinese in the United States. I mean, you remember back when COVID happened five years ago, Italy had one of the worst situations with COVID right at the beginning. Remember, there's a lot of people don't realize that's because of the Chinese. Because in Italy, there's a whole area I forget the name of it, it's a huge industrial area where everything is Chinese factories. So this 'Made in Italy' you know, you have this idea in your head this is made by some Italian craftsman, but actually a Chinese factory. In those factories, there's a lot of traffic between Wuhan and that's what spread it, the transmission happened via their employees going back and forth. Yeah, no that's 100% true, I mean to your point... 00:23:12 Yes, where you have some little bottlenecks could be with potentially the materials on some with some industries and some products. And that obviously then creates the increase in cost because you have to pay those transit fees to get them from those nations where the materials are to where they need to get to. And that can sort of manipulate the equation a bit or make it maybe not as as feasible as it would have been if it would have originated in Asia entirely. But they were at least better scenarios. And the idea was that the offset would come with not having the tariffs, especially if it was between, let's say, Mexico and the United States. So the offset to the increased cost of the transit of the materials would be via the fact that there wouldn't be tariffs between Mexico and the United States. 00:24:01 So it would kind of cover the cost of the transit fees. But now that we've got, you know, we're at sort of a trade war with our neighbors here, with Mexico and with Canada and China; we're just, we're kind of closing off a lot of doors. And I wonder, you know, whether that opens up the doors to South America, whether that opens up the doors to Africa. You know, these are nations that have access to a lot of workforce. But Indonesia. And India, Indonesia, Indonesia, Indonesia, sure I mean India is a really good uh option to be honest with you because they have a large workforce and they have a lot of technology there too, you know. They've been ahead in tech for a while now too, which is great. 00:24:44 The quality control still needs some work and you know it just could open up some new foreign markets which is which is great uh maybe some new ally nations with the United States which could be good. But I do struggle with this, you know, 'made in America' concept. And I just don't really know, you know, if we'll see that ever swing back in a way similar to what we used to have in the United States, you know, 40s, 30s, you know, when we were a manufacturing nation, when we made things. Well, wouldn't it be the immigrants probably that would be working in a lot of these factories because they’re willing to work for the low fees that can make this model work? 00:25:24 Wouldn’t it have to be, in a lot of cases, the uneducated or the immigrants because they’re the ones that are willing to work for the lower fees that can make the economics work? Well, there’s that idea or what I was saying previously, which is that the government would step in and would subsidize. Does that work like in Argentina? Argentina, that’s the kind of model because they have trouble collecting sales tax. Their version of the IRS has trouble. A lot of third-world countries like Colombia, a lot of them. They, you know, so what they do is they tax it coming in, so like there's like an 80% tariff or something on almost everything that goes into Argentina, yeah electronics and so that's where the government is making their money, and so that raises the cost of everything. 00:26:06 That's why all the a lot of people from South America when they come to the US, they're taking back TVs and computers and Levi jeans and everything else because they're just taxing the heck out over there. So does that model work though too or like you're saying where they they give some of that back to subsidize... well, the way I see it when I talk about subsidizing is I mean that in order to make let's say, not the less educated or only just immigrant population be those workers, and so forth that the United States may invest in creating manufacturing hubs and manufacturing um you know uh districts and industry areas and maybe training giving training to people who want to go into the realm of manufacturing, I mean it's interesting but right now one of the hottest majors that you can do in in college today is supply chain management, you know, and production operations management, so the the swing is happening 00:27:08 in theory and in education and ideology but not so much in practice yet, so I just wonder if there will come this time where maybe the investments will be made in the country. To actually be able to build more factories and more opportunities, the issue comes with things like regulation around certain things like EPA regulations and FDA and other things of that nature which are supposed to be accounted for appropriately any corner of the world, especially if they're goods that are being imported into our country. But you know we always want to look at kind of the grass is greener on one's own side of the fence, and so are we going to want to pollute our own skies in particular ways? Can we get things done with alternative energies and opportunities? 00:27:53 Is the technology there enough? So even if we had The money and the technology and the resources. Would we say, 'Hey, let's start like turning these factories on, these ovens on, you know, producing smoke and things of that nature that, you know, may create additional pollutant environments in our nation? That's another conversation that has to come about out of this that maybe isn't being talked about as well. What's up, everybody? Your good old buddies, Norm and Kevin here. And I've got an Amazon creative team that I want to introduce you to. That's right, Kevin. It's called the House of AMZ, and it's the leading provider in combining marketing and branding with laser focus on Amazon. Hey, Norm, they do a lot of really cool stuff if you haven't seen what they do, like full listing graphics, premium A-plus content, storefront design, branding, photography, renderings, packaging design, and a whole lot of other stuff that Amazon sellers need. 00:28:51 Yeah, and guess what? They have nine years active in this space. So you can skip the guesswork, trust the experts, there's no fees, there's no retainers, you pay per project. So if you want to take your product to the next level, check out House of AMZ. That's houseofamz. com. House of AMZ. If you take a look at what's happening with manufacturing right now, I grew up in a manufacturing environment. And yeah, it was lower wages. But I don't see that. What I see is if people are coming in and they're rebuilding, the government, like you said, might subsidize. You get the automation, which is going to help with the factories. And who do you have run it? It's not an unsophisticated person, an uneducated person. 00:29:50 It's somebody that's getting the big bucks to make sure that the floor runs. Is running and keeping the the uh the product line going and everything from it was a nightmare every time my dad asked me to do inventory well now you know your your bill of material in your inventory is so easy based on automation and it's it's a different world than the old belts going and yeah yeah by the way I I just want to say like I know this guy I know this factory It no longer exists unfortunately But they were one of the big factories over in China that were making shoes for Adidas New Balance like a bunch of them They came over here and they automated the process So this goes back to early 2000s maybe late 1990s-ish maybe They automated the complete process from making the last to completing the shoe with a human not touching it but at that time it cost 10 cents more and they shut the plant down. 00:31:05 The government shut the plant down in Florida. And, you know, if you, I wish I could get some information about this company. I don't know if they'll allow me to talk about it, but it was a completely new experience for me, and I'm from that area, that was my dad was into was the shoe industry. And to see how, and by the way. Not only did they have these shoes that they could do automatically, they had these scanners that, oh, if you needed a pair of shoes, high-end shoes, you could scan your foot at any airport lounge and it would come up with all these leather options. You wouldn't even have to go to the store, just be delivered. So I just wanted to throw that in there. That was 20 years ago. 00:31:47 Yeah. And I mean, and that's the reality of what you said. The industry is changing in a way; that maybe manufacturing will be exciting and it'll be a high-paying job in the United States and it'll be based upon AI and technology and right-sizing of boxes and fully autonomous vehicles and fully autonomous warehousing and people that are smart with a college education and know how to push the right buttons and get analysis out of the computers and blockchain-enabled inventory, and all this kind of stuff. That, you know, essentially ends up being almost a job for more engineers than just, you know, guys with a big wrench that are just kind of smacking a belt when it isn't really working right, the way you said. 00:32:34 So, I mean, you know, I can see that and the educational landscape is changing around that where I said more and more majors. And master's degrees are coming together in almost every major university around the realm of supply chain. I've been lecturing a little bit. I did a lecture at Harvard. I'm supposed to do something at MIT around my book that you mentioned before, Supply Chain Ups and Downs. There are young, very talented minds that want to know how to capitalize on the manufacturing and supply chain industry today. It's interesting. We have a friend Perry Belcher, and Kevin; you're probably better to tell this story, but he goes out there and my dad always told me to do the jobs-find the jobs that nobody else else wants to do and that'll make the money. 00:33:26 But, uh, Kevin if you want to talk about like what Perry does; he goes out and finds like the pool table story. Uh, there's a variety of different stories that even in local environments where you can really pull off what we're talking about today. Yeah, he moved from Vegas to Austin. One of the main reasons he moved back to Austin is because of the opportunities in Texas where you have Houston, San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas all within a geographical like three hours of each other versus Vegas is like Vegas and then it's five hours to Reno and then five hours to California. It's not as close. And where he's looking at is two things. One is print on demand. So in manufacturing and that hasn't taken off as quick as a lot of people thought it might 20 years ago. 00:34:14 I mean, you still got the tinkers and the people doing it. But on a mass scale, it really hasn't taken off as fast. But with AI and with some of what's coming, and they're building houses, manufacturing houses in Austin, completely with 3D printing. Big houses, and so I think that you're going to see a shift there in AI. We'll talk about this in a minute, it's going to make a major impact not only forecasting but supply chain management and everything else on getting products to market quicker, but he so that's one thing is he's looking at big on print-on-demand and right now it's still a lot of the smaller trinkety things, but it's going to be where you can do some pretty sophisticated stuff if it keeps evolving. 00:34:53 But he's also looking at local like where the opportunity is is not in the glamorous stuff that everybody's doing on e-commerce and it's in the jobs that nobody wants that are aging out. It's the you know I think it's Facebook or not no, it's uh people that repair uh telephone lines or whatever their age they're retiring and no one's going into that field anymore so the 65-year-old guy retires from repairing AT&T phone lines and electrical boxes and the new 25-year-old has no clue what he's doing. So now they're the technologies coming where they're wearing Ray-Ban glasses uh, and they can look at the box and the guys can sit down on his lazy chair that's retired make a little extra money drinking his beer and saying 'No hit the yellow cord not the green cord um so when you go and so Perry's doing that where he's actually going with jobs that don't require manufacturing and saying there's a massive opportunity with that like 00:35:45 piano uh setting up a pool table, he gives a story where he took a pool, he's moving his pool table from Vegas and it cost him 300 bucks or whatever to put it on the truck to move the pool table to Vegas when when he gets to Austin he needs to take it up a couple flights of stairs and put it all back together, and he called some people to do it, it was like $1,800 bucks uh he's like you gotta be out of your mind and the first first available opening was Six months six weeks from now for someone to come by and do it, he's like this is ridiculous, six months for now 1800 bucks. How many people need pool tables are put back together or big things moved upstairs? 00:36:19 So he looked into and discovered, like holy cow! All I need to do is buy a fleet of trucks that have all these mechanical things inside, these special little lifts or whatever, that will walk up a staircase. And I can do a huge business by focusing on Austin, do all the marketing. I know how to out-market everybody else local. And I'll conquer Austin. I'll conquer San Antonio. I'll conquer Houston. I'll conquer Dallas. And I have this whole massive empire right around me. So, that's what Norm is talking about, where there's a lot of opportunities going that direction. But in a world of AI, it still requires that human touch versus let's automate everything and just manufacture the heck out of everything. And to be clear, Kareem, we're talking Kevin King money. 00:37:06 Yeah, I mean, it's you know, it's very interesting and I think the key to anything as it relates to technology is that we always talk about and think about is to not necessarily replace humans but find a better use for humans and this idea of of computers and humans working in tandem with each other rather than just full replacement. Why not just because of the fact that there are certain efficiencies or creativities or other things that can be garnered from that? But at the same time, you know, There are unique opportunities when you introduce humans and human perspective into a very mechanized process where you're able to see things that happen by accident and by mistake, but in the end, end up creating improvements that no one would have ever thought of. 00:38:00 Because if we think about it. Computers and mechanization, for the most part, no matter how much we develop AI and generative AI, I mean, it's still a bit binary, right? There's still some feeders and there's some inputs and there's some outputs. And yeah, it's going to look at reference tables and databases to create particular algorithms that are going to make some level of a judgment or some level of a concept as to an extrapolation of data. But what if that set of data doesn't even exist yet? Because Mozart hasn't been born yet, or Galileo, or whoever, you know, and that could be an additional source of inspiration or ideation or otherwise. So we have to continue to work through this idea that hopefully through the technology and the mechanization, it will create more jobs and different kinds of jobs and better paying jobs with higher levels of education and so forth, and that we're not regressing, but rather we're progressing in a way. 00:39:00 I think that's a big fear is a lot of people, especially in the media, that they're just worried about AI and manufacturing-you're going to say AI and automation is going to take jobs away. But it's going to be a shift and it's going to be a little painful transition. But like you said, finding a better use for these humans and retraining them, perhaps the ones that can be retrained. Some of them may be difficult to do that. And getting them into something else um is the way to go, I mean it happened at the industrial revolution, it happened, it's happened many times in history uh where things completely changed. You know we didn't have this 401(k) go to work a 40-hour week office culture 100 years ago that didn't exist. 00:39:42 I mean if we weren't willing to embrace change, we'd still be on horse and buggy. We wouldn't have the automobile. We wouldn't have gotten in an airplane and got up in the sky or taken a space shuttle to the moon or Mars or wherever we're going to. I mean, we have to be willing to evolve and change in this way. And human beings are going to find their own and new place in this world as we develop and become more and more innovative. Now, a quick word from our sponsor, LaVonta. Hey, Kevin, tell us a little bit about it. That's right, Amazon sellers. Do you want to skyrocket your sales and boost your organic rankings? Meet LaVonta, Norm, and I's secret weapon for driving high-quality external traffic straight to our Amazon storefronts using affiliate marketing. That's right, it's achieved through direct partnerships with leading media outlets like CNN. Wirecutter, and BuzzFeed, just to name a few, as well as top affiliates, influencers, bloggers, and media buyers, all in Levanta's marketplace, which is home to over 5 ,000 different creators that you get to choose from. So are you ready to elevate your business? Visit get . levanta . io slash misfits. That's get. 00:41:11 And book a call and you'll get up to 20% off Levanta's gold plan today. That's get . levanta . io slash misfits. If you take a look at those stagecoaches and wooden buggies, the ones that didn't adapt. You don't even know their names. But people like the Dodge brothers went ahead and said, hey, something's going on here. We got to check out this new thing. And, you know, Dodge was created. They kept going. So I think there's so much opportunity here. Even like one of the things that you were saying earlier on, materials. I told you about this on the podcast. A friend of mine was looking at a job. He was innovating a product for somebody and they were using wood and they were manually putting it together over in China. 00:42:08 Well, he came over and he said, 'Well, maybe we can find some automation where the company will do everything like just robotically automated flow, did that more precise, better product.' But then he came back and he said, 'Well, you know, Maybe we change the material and we go to resin.' And that's cheaper, like it was even 30% less. And then he even looked at aluminum. So between aluminum and resin, the problem was solved. Better product, way cheaper. In fact, it came down from the original price by 70% at the end of the day. Right. Right. Yeah. And that's cost engineering, right? That's part of the process of supply chain management. And that's why you may need people who will have a level of education or knowledge around materials or around engineering and structures and components and things like load bearing and engineering-related concepts that are going to be able to step in and say, 'resin will be better'. 00:43:16 Because it's lighter and it costs less, and we can control it in a way, and we can mold it and shift it, and do different things that we just can't do with wood. But you need someone who has that intellect to be able to go to that place. And I think that that's really where manufacturing is going to go. Because we can think about those things instead of just making sure that widgets are coming out okay. We can say, hey, we can take for granted the fact that widgets are going to come out okay because we've got the machinery that does that part. who's sitting back and saying how do we make our business 00:43:47 better how do we make our business more efficient how do we make it you know um how do we come up with the next big thing well you need people that are have the bandwidth to be able to do that and the reason why they have the bandwidth is because they're not swinging a sledgehammer anymore you know they're they're they're thinking about things and then the machines are swinging the sledgehammers right how's globalization and Where do you see globalization going? I mean, 50, 60 years ago, most countries were making their own stuff. The United States, you know, in the 40s, 50s, we were a big industrial country and making our stuff. And you see China come around in like the 80s where they said, 'Hey, why don't we become the world's factory?' Let's double down. 00:44:32 Let's build all this stuff and build all this infrastructure and build all these systems to where we can be the world’s factory. And now with the tariffs and everything. you have other countries trying to step in but they just can't do it the same like we talked about mexico the problems there that norm was talking about and you have vietnam and indonesia and turkey and some of these others are like raising their hand like we'll do it we'll do it but the but the the amount of money and the time that china and effort put into it to become that that agrees those wheels so it's so efficient and so good i don't know that anybody's gonna be able to really quickly replicate that right now, even with AI and machinery. 00:45:09 So where do you think this is going? Is it going to become more everybody protect their own ass? Or is it going to be where everything shifts? Or do you think it's just going to normalize out? I think that technology has made the world smaller than ever before. And communication has never been at a higher level. Between translation softwares, the ability to video conference, the ability to really get on an airplane and go anywhere super quick if you need to. And with this in mind, that provides opportunities that exist globally. And if we don't look at the most efficient places in the world to make certain products, then from an economic standpoint, we are creating an inefficient equation. Right. And this is really where I think it becomes quite interesting because, you know, why did why did China become the world's factory? 00:46:17 Well, they did a significant amount of investing. But beyond that, you know, we also sent them a significant amount of our business opportunity, intellectual capital and so on and so forth. There was a lot of like sharing. That got China to then be where it got to be, um, through time, it was not like just one day all of a sudden China became the world's factory; it was on the backs of great ideas, uh, great business capabilities, you know, mergers and acquisitions that took place, development, you know, that happened as kind of joint efforts, um, globally global joint efforts where it wasn't just the United States but other parts of the world said, hey, you know, we're pointing our way here, and I think that. 00:46:59 As long as we have an insular way of thinking where we only try to do everything ourselves, We will always be at a disadvantage from the opportunities that may exist or come about by using the world as an opportunity. By not doing it, by depending on someone else, though, aren't you putting your own country and your own nation at risk to some degree? I mean, look at the us with oil; we have the largest oil reserves in the entire world, not Saudi Arabia, not Venezuela, not all these others that are always in the news and OPEC. We do, we choose to not use it to save it for a rainy day in case something happens, so we're not going to be dependent on someone else. 00:47:41 So, it's the same thing happening with logistics and manufacturing, where there's some any kind of fear there. Most people are just like, oh, just status quo; let's just keep going and it'll work itself out. I mean, I think that there are certain industries that have to be hands-off for reasons of national security. I think that there are definite areas where we just have to make the products here because of the fact that we can't be overly reliant upon a foreign nation to produce widgets that we need for our military aircraft or whatever it may be, NVIDIA chips, NVIDIA advanced chips or whatever, something like that. Correct. I think that there has to be sort of like, 00:48:20 hands-off industries and then outside of that everything else that's more of a commoditized product um yeah it's a matter of it potentially being more expensive or lesser quality or otherwise by shifting from one nation to another nation and that unfortunately comes at the detriment of the consumerism of the world right and in this case American consumers but um you know I do believe, as you said, that we need to protect ourselves in particular industries where we can't have a reliance upon another nation. And that I firmly believe in because that's just matters of national security. What about the Coca-Cola model where they take, they develop, it was invented in the US, in Atlanta, I think. And then they manufacture in the US instead of shipping it from the US. 00:49:15 All over the world, they set up manufacturing plants and like little licenses all over the world. Couldn't the Chinese and couldn't the chinese and couldn't that happen in manufacturing logistics? Where the Chinese, hey we got the systems, we know how to do this, that's what they're trying to do, I guess, in Mexico. But could that be a model where they pop little things like Coca-Cola does all over the world so you don't have to ship and don't have all these complicated logistical things? Yes, something that... yes companies are not really paying attention to or looking at because it's too cost prohibitive or something? Well, no, I mean, I do think that that is I do think that that is an opportunity, where basically, the Chinese, let's say can invest or export their manufacturing know-how. 00:49:56 Um, to other parts of the world and be able to set up factories and be able to build out opportunities. I mean, I look at... there was a movie in the 80s that you may remember which was called Gung Ho. Do you remember? Oh yeah, yep! It's like in that movie, what was that? That was the Japanese basically exporting their manufacturing know-how, saying like we're going to set up in, you know, rural America or Midwest or whatever. And we're going to try to teach them sort of the Caretsu way of doing business, and, and so on, and so forth. And, you know, it was this East meets West sort of, you know, culture clash, one's bowing, the other one's giving them a bud, like funny interplay. 00:50:37 But the reality of it was, is in the end, the idea. Was that here where some great automobiles coming off of this this machine plant that was a mixture of cultural combination and ideological you know combination, and that's really where I guess the best opportunities come about, it's through collaborative um opportunities, and that's what I would hope um but I don't know how welcoming the United States is going to be in the future to these ideas, and that's a shame because What is the United States? The United States is supposed to be this melting pot, right? Everybody come from anywhere in the world and you're able to really have opportunities grow and develop. But I don't really know what the future is going to look like with regards to the openness of our borders to those opportunities. 00:51:28 I would hope that that would not so much be the case. The environment right now is a little bit anti. And I think maybe swinging a little too far. But, you know, it's funny. I grew up in the D.C. area. And because of that, I'm the most non-political person ever. Because when you grow up in an environment like that and you just see sort of like, hey, you know, that guy's in there for four years. And basically, by the time he really kind of gets going, you know, two or three of the four years are already done. And then he inherits the previous president's agenda. And how much do you really get done? And then you got. You know, this whole kind of slow bureaucratic system to even get rules passed. 00:52:07 And, you know, it's this whole thing of just kind of like passing the baton. If you're like a two-term president, you know, consecutive two-term president, maybe you get some things done. You got enough runway to be able to get something done. So, but I just don't really know. I mean, the sentiment in America these days; I really hope will will swing back to an idea of global citizenship, not just insular thinking. And that we will look to make great opportunities in our country and in these industries and manufacturing and so on. But to just kind of cut out the rest of the world to that process, I think will only do us more harm. I've offered to bring donuts and Tim Horton's coffee when I come to the United States, but. 00:52:51 I told you we don't need it. Tim Hortons is opening in Austin. It's not the same. It's not the same. Yeah, it's true. Tim Hortons is pretty good, though. I mean, I'll still go with Duncan. Or if you really want to get into globalization of business, go and see the donut shops in California. And there's a great movie that I saw. It was on the plane called, like, The Donut King or something like that. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, that guy. Yeah, that guy. Laos or somewhere like that. Correct. But what was interesting is that like 70% of the donut shops in California, you know, these creative, unique donut shops were all from that like community in that country of the innovation. And that's a perfect example of the melting pot. 00:53:35 Like, I mean, look at that. Like the donut culture exploded because foreigners came in and just kind of took it to another level. And we have so many stories like that. So, you know, we're going to close ourselves off for the rest of the world and opportunities to develop. I don't know. I think it's too a disadvantage. So, what's happening in the world of logistics right now? I mean, you guys that's one of the things that you guys are specialists in. What do you see happening there, um, logistics-wise, because the whole like you said earlier, basically you can get anything from anywhere in a day, you know? You can have something from Shenzhen here via FedEx the next day or things can be moved to the most rural places you know overnight. 00:54:12 You look at Amazon who actually just recently said everything's about fast delivery-get it as fast as possible, get to the person in two hours if you can, or if not, four hours if not okay, first thing tomorrow morning you want it at 4 a. m click the little button if you live in a big city we'll deliver it between 4 and 7 a.m. I'm like they do in Austin if you want that. They just backed off of that, and they just, they just are now the new head of that department said, 'No, no, we're not going to be so much about putting our number one priority on how fast you get it now. We need to make sure we actually make some money on this.' And look at the numbers. 00:54:44 What do you see happening in logistics? You see upsizing, downsizing; you see FedEx, uh, you see all these things um happening there. What's going on logistics-wise in the US and worldwide that's paying attention to, I mean. The positive side of it is, is that the rates are down-that's a good thing-I'm talking about for sea transport. And that's in kind of that's in reference to the shipping and logistics partners looking to offset these increases in tariffs and anticipating A decrease in business. So because of it, you know, the shipping and logistics companies have really started reducing their costs. So, you know, what was formerly during the pandemic, a container rate of 20 or 25 thousand dollars at its hyper-inflated levels. 00:55:35 You know, down to then, let's say locking in around seven to eight thousand dollars now is back down to those like three to four thousand five thousand dollar levels which were like pre-pandemic levels by two or three years previous in, in contradiction to the increases in tariffs. So we're saying some of that's happening though like you said though to get the cost down, like the port of was it long beach or LA one of those is doing a lot of automation, Or they're actually taking the guys that were moving the containers and having to drive the big forklift things or whatever out. And then other ports are fighting that. So, no, that's going to eliminate jobs. Back to that thing we talked about earlier, people don't want to change. 00:56:14 Yeah, I mean, I think that that's a small part of it. And that could be a part in the future as far as like efficiency. So then cost structures come down. I think really what we're dealing with here is that there's increased technology that's looking at more efficient routing. Of shipping and vessels on the water, avoidance of storms, avoidance of heavily trafficked routes, and things of that nature too, that are reducing the amount of fuel that's being used as well. More and more vessels are going to start moving towards more of the renewable fuels and more sustainable fuels uh and maybe some alternative energy sources that will come online that are starting to move towards. Remember that in the COP 28 conference that was in Dubai 00:57:00 you know a year ago, you know it was stated by the top shipping and logistics uh companies Maersk and Dwell and all these large-scale groups that by 2050 they want to be carbon neutral and that they really wanted to move toward because because shipping and logistics represented the seventh leading cause of greenhouse gas emissions on the planet. And we're not slowing down with the amount of things that we sort of buy, so I mean there's a lot of innovation that's happening in the realm of shipping and logistics with regards to technology, with regards to traceability, visibility, reduction of carbon footprints, and reducing of costs. And I think that it can't come at a better time, quite honestly, when other things are increasing in cost to basically have some levels of offset to allow businesses to still continue to do business. 00:57:53 Are you looking to quickly boost new Amazon product launches or scale up existing listings to reach first page positioning? The influencer platform Stack Influence can help. That's right. Stack Influence pushes high volume external traffic, sales straight to Amazon listings using micro-influencers that you only have to pay with your products. They've helped up-and-coming brands like Magic Spoon compete with Cheerios for top category positioning, while also helping Fortune 500 brands like Unilever launch their new products. Right now is one of the best times to get started with Stack Influence. You can sign up at stackinfluence. com or click the link in this video down in the description or notes below and mention Misfits, that's M-I-S-F-I-T-S, to get 10% off your first campaign. 00:58:56 Go down a a different rabbit hole right now and we started talking about it a little bit, and that's perception. Uh, just I talked to you about this on my podcast, uh, your website oozes it, but uh, it's just getting higher dollars, bigger dollars, just by packaging and making a better product. So everything that I see, I mean they're simple things, it could be a watch which you have, it could be the knives that you have, I mean you've got a million different things on your site but they're all high-quality, high-quality images, which you probably get I'm guessing 40 to 300 percent higher than the competitors. Yes, I mean it is absolutely essential to have a great presentation when it comes to your 00:59:54 products and really your services as well, I mean people buy with their eyes, you know we are simple creatures here and um, you know, you mentioned before, you know, we do a lot in the spirits and beverage industry, well I mean go into any liquor store today and see what people are gravitating towards, they're gravitating towards That really cool bottle with that really cool look! It tells a story without you even knowing about it. They're not going towards that just common bottles with some random labels slapped on the side of them. We are intrigued by the beauty of the presentation. And that's with regards to how we dress, the way we look, the way we present ourselves in the world. And products are a big part of that. 01:00:43 So in a realm where manufacturing needs to almost justify particular price points to make sense for consumers, you have to create some level of way to stand apart. And the way that you do that is through effective marketing and through effective presentation, especially if brands are going to have to increase their prices. You know, you've got tariffs, you're a high-quality brand, you haven't really represented yourself maybe as appropriately as you should. And now you need to command a higher price point so you don't go out of business. Well, you better take some really good photos, have some great videos, maybe have some influencers involved, invest in yourself a bit more, not necessarily to dupe consumers, but maybe more so give a more realistic picture of what the real opportunity or the benefit is. 01:01:33 And in doing so, then you'll be able to command those dollars, especially when you may have had to increase your prices. So rebranding, retooling, re-perception, all of that stuff I think is super important as we continue to move forward in this environment of potentially higher cost structures. And we know about that because if you look at the PPI report and the CPI reports, you see the increases and the increased costs for producers of goods, and how it's impacting consumer spending. So we need to really create those offsets wherever we can. I had a A person talked to me the other day, a brand that approached me, and they were talking about a commodity, Dead Sea Salt. And they said, 'We're having a problem. 01:02:19 We want to do this.' It fits in with our brand, but the typical price on Amazon is $10. We want to sell it for $20. And I'm looking at it going, 'All right, well, why don't you?' The perception that they had is, 'Well, we have to go out like the others, package the same, you know, the same photography, the same everything.' And I'm going, 'If you do it that way, you're already set up for failure. You have to come out and have that perceived value.' One of the things I told them was, 'Look, I can show you on Amazon products that can have a much higher price point.' They've priced themselves out of the ballgame because. 01:03:05 They don't think that they have that perception or they don't want to take the chance or they're a new seller if you think that way, don't get into it; you have to just spend a little extra get the marketing around it drive some traffic to it and you'll always notice on Amazon there are three pricing tiers main pricing tiers and if you want to do the product Cannibalization. Sure. Go for it. The average and then the top tier. It's whatever you want to choose, but just make sure that your product looks the part. If you don't do that and you have a high price and you're just going to get one or two star reviews, yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's the difference between being a leader or being a follower in space. 01:03:48 And then those folks, we're going to have to basically make that conscious decision to say. We're going to spend an extra $1 or $2 in the packaging, put it in some gold foil or make it beautiful or throw some lavender in there with the salt. And when we do that, we're basically going to be able to get it for an extra $8 of profitability because we invested $2 more in a place where others would not. And now we're not playing in that sandbox with everybody else, but we've created our own little territory, our own little sandbox. And that comes back down to perception and creativity and innovation, especially in a time where people may be struggling to pull out their wallets. You gotta make 'em, you have to create FOMO. 01:04:28 You have to create a fear of missing out. And that can really save a business, save a company. I agree. I agree. So that's where I've been messing up, Norm. To get you to come to things, I need to actually change the way I have the little show models doing things. Instead of being in a mumu. And uh, some sweatshirts, I need to have them; I need to change the packaging and have them put some makeup on, dress up in a little little uh mini skirt and some high heels and a little low-cut top, and that that's all in the packaging, same thing just all in the packaging, right? And that'll get you to buy in and come, come to more of my events. I got it, who has learned; I just learned the trick! Hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it. Who has gone to almost 100% of your event? Who has? Your buddy. Look at me. Look at me. Who's your buddy, Kev? Who's my buddy? Who do I swap swords with? 01:05:36 I want to talk to your marketing people to know how they could allow models to walk around in Moomoos. You got to see the models. He's got to pay more. Yeah, right. Hey, you have another area I want to talk about. You were the number one supplier for Alibaba. You were the first in North America, correct? Correct. First U. S.-based verified supplier of Alibaba. And now, which is wonderful. They have um requested that I be an ambassador of Alibaba, which is an even bigger sort of uh it's just a nice honor that they're asking me to do that. They get you a mumu with that, yeah maybe get you all the rumors you need a nice box more like we got it uh at the at the restaurant here in Austin, ah yeah well that I mean that's incredible. 01:06:30 So tell can you tell us a little bit about that? What Alibaba, people think of Alibaba as China, you know, just going and getting a Me Too product. So what's your take on this? Why are they spending so much money now coming over to North America? Well, the reality of it is, is that Alibaba is the world's largest B2B trading commerce platform. And you can it provides a place for buyers and sellers over 90 million, I think it is per day, to interact with each other in a global capacity on sourcing and being able to navigate global trade. And originally, Alibaba had a lot of challenges with this because they just didn't have the technology and the protocols in place. And it wasn't that Alibaba was bad, but there were a lot of bad actors on Alibaba. 01:07:25 You know, groups that would come in and pose as factories, and they were really trading companies that were five levels removed. And you know a buyer had no recourse when and if things went wrong. They worked diligently to really build in their verification processes, their trade assurance policies. They've built logistical arms through their uh relationship with Alibaba Logistics and Senao, and some of these other large trade groups. They do warehousing now, picking, packing, and they've gotten extremely sophisticated. You know, the idea here around US-verified suppliers was back to this concept we were talking about with Kevin for about near short. So what really came about was that Alibaba said, you know what, we know we've got hundreds of thousands of suppliers from Asia. 01:08:13 But what we really want to have is we really want to have groups from other parts of the world. That know their market, and have levels of comfort and trust with their populations from that region that want to work hand in hand and essentially be able to, you know, produce products or goods or whatever else it may be. And so we have been obviously working in the United States, we've always been a US-based company for more than 20 years. And the vast majority of our clients are US-based clients that wanted to take advantage of the global economy. So, We are a supplier of services and of goods as a collateral part of the process that's based in the United States. 01:08:54 And so why not be listed on Alibaba to be able to be represented to any buyers who are looking to work with a US-based company that can help their ideas become reality, which is what we do. And that was the whole concept there. And we were the first. Um, in this program for the United States, they've thus continued to develop more and more their manufacturers; they're all different kinds of groups, obviously, and they're building these other networks that are in Mexico and in Canada and in South America, Africa-different you know continents as well, to be able to service their local markets. So it's it's a way for Alibaba to take advantage of its platform and its technology on more localized ways that can then be able to produce better high-quality services, levels of more streamlined communications operating with each other in your similar currencies, time zones-all of those kinds of things but through the technology and the platform of Alibaba. 01:09:54 Alibaba's become much more than just a logistics company or a matching company, suppliers. To uh people that want to make products, but they're they're big in the technology now. They've got their own LLMS; they just uh launched Uh, what's it called? AsiO or Aco, uh, that's an AI-generated uh platform worldwide for search sourcing um. They're pretty big and a lot of areas beyond just what a lot of people listening to this might think is like oh that's just where I go to find products to sell um, yeah they really branched out and to double down on that, they absolutely have been. And um, you know all of these products and different kind of facets and ways that Alibaba can be used is part of some of the things that I'll be talking. 01:10:42 About in this ambassador role, This AI sourcing tool is one of those key new developments that they're working very hard to push. And then Alibaba has also been starting to get into things like the large-scale trade conferences as well. So this year will be the third year for the Alibaba co-create event. In Las Vegas. I was there last year and the year before on the main stages, and I'll be there again this year. And, you know, it's a live streamed trade show that goes out to, I think, 100 million people. And it's a matter of education and exchanging of ideas. And it's a real hotbed of activity in the realm of supply chain and 01:11:29 procurement. Uh, that's becoming you know a very, very hot event so they're starting to do more and more of this to keep it not just tech and you know nations apart but really create those face-to-face interactive um opportunities so I think that that's that's also kind of smart on their end as well obviously they're facing some levels of challenge today with the sort of things we're dealing with between the United States and China. But, regardless, the vast majority of businesses that I work with that are based in the United States are still working with Asia, still working with China. They're figuring out ways to sort of handle this tariff question in so many different ways that we talked about before. And business is still getting done. Hey, Kevin King and Norm Farrar here. 01:12:19 If you've been enjoying this episode of Marketing Misfits, thanks for listening this far. Continue listening. We've got some more valuable stuff coming up. Be sure to hit that subscribe button if you're listening to this on your favorite podcast player or if you're watching this on YouTube or Spotify, make sure you subscribe to our channel because you don't want to miss a single episode of the Marketing Misfits. Have you subscribed yet? Norm, well this is an old guy alert. Should I subscribe to my own podcast? Yeah, but what if you forget to show up one time? It's just me on here, you're not gonna know what I say, I'll buy you a beard and you can sit in my chair too and we'll just you can go back and forth with one another, Yikes. 01:12:58 But that being said, don't forget to subscribe, share it. Oh, and if you really like this content, somewhere up there, there's a banner. Click on it and you'll go to another episode of the Marketing Misfits. Make sure you don't miss a single episode because you don't want to be like Norm. You know, you're a misfit. We all know that, uh, you have a partner that's a misfit; he's a shark misfit. Why don't we talk a little bit about, uh, who your partner is and how you got involved, and you know, what he's doing to help you grow this company? You know it's funny you said that because, uh, I was gonna mention him as the misfit that I had in my mind. 01:13:47 Oh, that would be a great misfit; that's that's a misfit that I would I would definitely suggest consider as a misfit, which is Damon John. Damon John from Shark Tank and obviously the founder of FUBU is a misfit in my mind because of the fact that he was unwilling to let anyone tell him that he couldn't achieve or dream big. And he started that with his company, FUBU, where he started his clothing line and had very little, turning it into a multinational, multibillion-dollar organization that really transformed some levels of fashion and trends for several decades. Obviously went on and took a lot of that business acumen and got into books and got into keynote speaking and mentorship, and then obviously 16 seasons on Shark Tank and being very recognizable in this industry, so you know he has a program which is called CEO Access and he takes on a CEO for you know a period of time, usually around two years. 01:15:03 And works hand in hand with them to help them to grow and expand, build further brand, and develop themselves. And so, you know, I have engaged in this. I was chosen to be part of this program. And so we work together. And basically every month we get together and converse. We work on different projects together and deals. He obviously has a lot of deal flow that needs supply chain related assistance and so forth. And we're working hand in hand to essentially be able to grow and develop the interest in the realm of supply chain, of which there is a significant amount. I mean, we are at a time right now where we need a relatable voice to supply chain. We need more and more visibility around this. 01:15:51 And to be working hand in hand with him on this platform is something that I think is very special. You know, he allows me to have a pretty large microphone or a megaphone to be able to broadcast good knowledge, which I'm putting out every single day and content, so forth. And so it's a really good relationship. It's early days, but it's going very, very well so far. Very good. Well, you know what my last question is going to be? You know, we ask this of every misfit that comes on, but do they know a misfit? Well, I was – you already took the wind out of my – I did. I did. Well, I was – yeah, I was going to – I was absolutely going to suggest Damon John as a potential misfit just simply because of the fact that, you know, he was a person who didn't operate according to the status quo or the rules or otherwise. 01:16:48 He said, you know, I'm just going to go ahead and climb to the top of this mountaintop no matter how hard it is. I'm going to kind of march to my own beat drummer. And he does that. He does it every single day. And he's one of the most straight shooters that I've seen. He doesn't really care about popular opinion. He really just is very factual in the way he does his work and his business and his mentorship. And I think that that's very refreshing and people really respect that a significant amount. So that would be my suggestion for you. Oh, very good. That would be a big suggestion. So thank you so much. Now, where do people get a hold of you? 01:17:30 Yeah, I mean, for the global supply chain solutions, it would be at the Atlas Network . com. That's the Atlas Network . com. And for any of the kind of thought leadership side of things or consulting also in the realm of supply chain and otherwise. That would be at my website, which is KareemKafori . com. And if anyone has an interest in the book you had mentioned, it's simply on Amazon or at SupplyChainUpsAndDowns. Com, which is the name of the book. All right. Very good. All right. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. Kev, I guess we could have probably made this two or three podcasts, huh? I'm sure we can. We could keep geeking out on Karim for quite some time. 01:18:18 It's always, always cool to talk with people that are doing this kind of stuff. Thanks for coming on, Karim. Thank you so much for having me. And I get to Austin quite a bit. I was there maybe three or four times last year. Maybe we'll get together for a bourbon. One of my clients is still Austin, actually. So I make all the glass for those guys. Awesome. I'm always up for a good bourbon. Sounds good, guys. All right. Thanks, I'm gonna remove you, but don't go away, thank you, guys, so you know. Norm, I always think when we talk about supply chain, how many people, especially in the United States and Canada, in North America, don't understand this world and don't understand, you know, his company is called Atlas, and they don't, they don't even know, and I just saw something on Tick Tock where people are like 'names uh' just yesterday I was just scrolling around, naming seven countries that start with a P. 01:19:11 And, you know, most people couldn't do it. And most people don't understand this world that we live in. They understand it through movies or through TV shows. But you and I have traveled. I mean, you've been to, what, 60 some odd countries. I've been to 96. We understand and we get that. Yeah, there's cultural differences. Yeah, there's language differences. But technology is bringing us all closer, like Graham said, with the translation and all this. There's much less barriers than there used to be now, and we're becoming one globalized planet. And if you're not realizing that and not taking advantage of that and not understanding that like he does and his company does, I think you're gonna get left behind, uh, and you're gonna be playing uh with one hand behind your back, uh, trying to compete in your business. 01:19:58 Would you agree with that 100? Or if you're just going and just getting me too products and trying to sell them, and not understanding how to make it different or better ways of shipping, there's so many things that you can do, uh, you know when you're when you're sourcing products nowadays, supply chain is so important, it is. And it's the unglamorous thing, it's like nobody, you don't see people on YouTube some goober like, 'Hey here's my Lambo' and I made all this money, uh, doing supply chain, uh, they're all there, you know, talking about the sexy stuff but it's it's it's the underbelly it's like in football american football you know the the games 01:20:39 and one of the line of scrimmage it's not with the glamorous positions necessarily of the wide receivers and running backs and quarterbacks although they they do matter but the ultimate they can't do what they can do if those linemen uh aren't doing what they're doing and that's that's the unglamorous part the part that nobody knows and that's the same thing here when it comes to marketing and supply chain and manufacturing and packaging that's where the money's at. And that's where the opportunity is because there's a lot of people just not doing it right. Um, and working with someone like Kareem and his company, um, you know, if you just did a kick Kickstarter and you're like, 'Where do I go?' Uh, I'm sure he would be happy to help. 01:21:14 You can guide you to all the best places, uh, of where to do that. So that's what we like to do here on The Misfits is, uh, We don't just geek out on email and YouTube and stuff, but we talk about all the other important things as well, like supply chain. Right. I'm just thinking about that scrimmage line and just pushing the heck out of you through the quarterback sneak. I would help you, Kev. Yeah, we would be doing what's the Philadelphia where they do the little push push. You'd be signing up like, 'I want to do it.' Yep. Just don't bring your – I would make sure that there was pain. Pain. All right. So let's close this out, shall we? Yeah. 01:22:05 So, you know, Norm and I are here every Tuesday with another edition of the Marketing Misfits podcast. We also – by the way, Norm, did you know this? I have a surprise for you. You want a surprise? Other than my lightsaber? No, we have a newsletter coming soon for Marketing Misfits, a weekly newsletter that will take you behind the scenes and in front of the scenes and dive deep on some of the cool stuff that we talk about and have a few more cool marketing things that we don't have time to talk about on here. So look for that coming soon. And you can find that. Where did they find that? What's that website? It's called marketingmisfits . co . co. That's right. Marketingmisfits . co. Marketingmisfits . co is where it's at. 01:22:52 And you and I, I don't know when this is coming out. Maybe it's already come out. But you and I are doing a live podcast event here soon. What, what, what? Whoop, whoop. I know. That's going to be a lot of fun. We're doing that in Vegas at Resorts World during a show. So that's going to be cool. So we'll have a recording of that episode for you guys coming out here soon as well. That's going to be a lot of fun. You don't want to miss it because you just see what Norm is wearing. He went and bought a special outfit. It's going to be pretty cool. At least I'm going to be wearing an outfit, Kevin. All right, everybody. Until next Tuesday. We'll see you later. Take care.