Understanding the Real State of America’s Economy

Key Insight: Despite the prevailing “politics of pessimism,” the U.S. economy is stronger than many realize.

– Data Over Narrative: Statistically, the U.S. leads G7 nations in GDP per capita—double the next highest country. Even Mississippi, the poorest U.S. state, outpaces most G7 nations except Germany.
– Impact of Free Trade: The 1992 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) protected intellectual property and opened global markets, paving the way for tech giants like Facebook and Google.
– Historical Context: Free markets, trade, property rights, and civil rights have fueled unprecedented American economic progress.

Actionable Takeaways:
– Rely on data over headlines. Review credible economic indicators regularly.
– Leverage U.S. advantages: strong infrastructure, legal protections, and access to global markets.

Reclaiming Agency in a Fear-Driven Environment

Key Insight: Fear and pessimism are powerful tools used by politicians and media, but they undermine clear decision-making.

– The Amygdala Effect: Fear triggers emotional reactions that override rational thought.
– Exploiting Fear: Media and politicians use fear to control narratives and public perception.
– Restoring Agency: Seek accurate information, hold yourself accountable, and embrace diverse perspectives.

Actionable Takeaways:
– Audit your information sources for credibility and balance.
– Pause when fear-driven news hits—ask if it’s fact or emotion-driven.
– Engage with differing viewpoints to broaden understanding.

The Power of Perspective: “Compared to When? Compared to Who?”

Key Insight: Perspective is essential for optimism and informed decision-making.

– Challenging Nostalgia: Every past era had unique challenges; no time was “perfect.”
– Global Comparison: Reframe your outlook by asking, “Compared to when? Compared to who?”

Actionable Takeaways:
– Benchmark your business against industry peers and global standards.
– Read data-driven, optimistic works like The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley.

Optimism as a Business Strategy

Key Insight: Optimism isn’t naïve—it’s a competitive advantage.

– Optimism Drives Action: Believing in better outcomes spurs innovation and problem-solving.
– Resilience Through Change: Political and economic climates shift, but American principles endure.

Actionable Takeaways:
– Cultivate a growth mindset focused on controllable actions.
– Celebrate innovation stories to inspire your team.
– Build flexibility into your business plans to weather change.

Empathy and Civil Discourse: Healing Divides in Business and Society

Key Insight: Empathy and active listening bridge divides and strengthen relationships.

– The Dangers of Labeling: Dehumanizing opponents stops productive dialogue.
– Empathy in Action: Stories like the saxophonist who helped a former KKK member leave the group show how patient understanding fosters change.
– Personal Responsibility: Each person can choose to lead with empathy.

Actionable Takeaways:
– Encourage open dialogue and active listening in your team.
– De-escalate conflicts by avoiding labels and focusing on understanding.
– Model respectful, empathetic communication daily.

Action Steps for Small Business Owners

1. Stay Informed, Not Overwhelmed
– Subscribe to balanced news sources.
– Review economic and industry trends weekly.

2. Build Resilience Through Perspective
– Benchmark progress meaningfully.
– Recognize and celebrate long-term gains.

3. Practice Optimism and Agency
– Set clear, actionable business goals.
– Focus on factors you can control.

4. Cultivate Empathy and Civil Discourse
– Host regular team discussions on challenges and successes.
– Encourage diverse viewpoints respectfully.

5. Prepare for Change
– Develop contingency plans.
– Stay flexible and open to opportunities.

Listen to the entire episode on The Small Business Radio Show.

This article, "Can Optimism and Empathy Heal America’s Divides in Business?" was first published on Small Business Trends

Wharton began by addressing the dangers inherent in the current obsession with rapid scaling, billion-dollar valuations, and aggressive fundraising. He described how the startup world often glamorizes so-called unicorns, but the reality is starkly different: very few companies ever reach that status, and most fail or become stagnant. This high-stakes approach frequently leads to unsound business practices such as poor unit economics, high customer churn, and a lack of profitability—all of which make a business vulnerable during economic downturns. Wharton urged small business owners to reconsider whether chasing venture capital and scale is the best or only path forward. Instead, he advised assessing your business model based on its ability to stand independently, generate sustainable profits, and deliver real value to customers.

Looking back at the evolution of venture capital, Wharton noted that prior to the late 1990s, companies were expected to be profitable and stable before going public. But the Netscape IPO in 1995 shifted investor expectations, ushering in an era where speed and growth took precedence over fundamentals. Today, venture capital funding is more abundant but also less disciplined, creating an uneven playing field for small businesses. Wharton recommended that entrepreneurs study how enduring companies like Microsoft and Amazon were initially built—on modest capital and solid fundamentals—and advised being highly selective with any outside investment, ensuring that it aligns with the company’s mission and long-term goals.

At the heart of the conversation was Wharton’s advocacy for the evergreen company model. Evergreen businesses aren’t designed to sell quickly or chase market hype. They are built to endure, focusing on real profitability, treating employees well, and contributing positively to their communities. These companies are less reliant on continuous fundraising and more capable of weathering market turbulence. Wharton emphasized the cultural advantages of this model, where strong internal values foster loyalty, motivation, and long-term thinking.

One of the central principles of evergreen companies is prioritizing profitability over unbridled growth. Borrowing a phrase from business thinker Clayton Christensen, Wharton encouraged entrepreneurs to be “impatient for profits and patient for growth.” Establishing profitability early allows businesses to maintain control, reinvest strategically, and scale responsibly—without being overly dependent on external capital or investor pressure. This profit-first mentality also creates a more stable foundation and better customer experiences, which are critical for lasting success.

Wharton also championed the use of low-cost experiments to reduce risk and promote learning. In contrast to the dot-com era’s high-stakes gambles, today’s smart businesses take a leaner approach: testing ideas through pilots or minimum viable products (MVPs) to gather feedback and iterate. This process allows for rapid pivots and smarter resource allocation. Small experiments not only limit downside risk but also create a culture of adaptability and continuous improvement.

Innovation, Wharton argued, should be pragmatic and intentional—not driven by hype, but by a desire to serve customers better and grow sustainably. He advised business owners to engage in what he calls “learning journeys”: connecting regularly with peers, seeking mentorship, attending industry events, and staying intellectually curious. Importantly, he urged companies to document lessons learned and foster an environment where experimentation is both encouraged and systematically reviewed.

Finally, Wharton emphasized the role of purpose as a guiding force for resilient businesses. A clearly defined mission helps align teams, improves decision-making, and becomes a critical source of strength during challenges. Too often, accepting venture funding shifts a company’s focus to maximizing investor returns, which can dilute or even contradict the founder’s original mission. A purpose-driven company, by contrast, maintains strategic coherence and attracts employees who are motivated by more than just financial incentives.

In sum, Wharton’s message is clear: long-term, sustainable success doesn’t come from chasing growth for its own sake. It comes from building a company grounded in solid fundamentals, committed to profitability, and anchored by a meaningful purpose. For small business owners navigating today’s volatile landscape, the evergreen model offers not just a strategic alternative—but a more human, resilient, and fulfilling way to build a company that truly lasts.

Listen to the entire interview on The Small Business Radio Show.

This article, "Is the “Get Big Fast” Mentality Hurting Your Small Business?" was first published on Small Business Trends

This week on The Small Business Radio Show, I talked with  Rich Hagberg, PhD—Silicon Valley’s “CEO Whisperer” and explored the core reasons founders fail and what it takes to build a thriving business. Drawing on decades of experience coaching top tech leaders and helping entrepreneurs overcome communication challenges, their insights offer powerful, practical guidance for small business success.

One major theme discussed was the “visionary’s dilemma.” Most founders are brilliant idea generators but often lack the operational skills required to scale a business. Startups tend to fail not because of a shortage of ideas, but due to poor execution. Many founders resist building systems and processes, resulting in companies that are technically alive but not truly thriving. To combat this, founders must assess their own strengths and weaknesses, embrace operational excellence, and break big visions into clear, actionable steps using tools like Trello or Asana.

Another key insight is the value of execution partners. Founders frequently try to do everything themselves, which leads to burnout and bottlenecks. By recognizing their limitations and partnering with individuals who bring complementary skills—like a strong COO—they can build more resilient organizations. Effective delegation, clearly defined roles, and a culture of feedback are essential components of this strategy.

The episode also debunks the “genius jerk” myth. While the media often idolizes difficult but brilliant founders, research shows that emotional intelligence and adaptability are far stronger predictors of business success. Toxic leadership can ruin morale and drive away talent, so cultivating self-awareness, practicing adaptability, and prioritizing team health are critical.

Personal growth emerged as another powerful differentiator. Founders who commit to continuous learning—through reading, mentorship, and reflection—are far more likely to succeed. Embracing vulnerability and conducting regular “post-mortems” after major initiatives can help leaders evolve and avoid repeated mistakes.

Finally, the discussion highlighted the importance of delegation and trust. Micromanagement slows growth, while systematized delegation, team recognition, and leadership development fuel a culture of empowerment. As companies scale, founders must step back from control and invest in others to move forward.

Listen to the entire episode on The Small Business Radio Show.

This article, "Why Founders Fail: Busting the Genius Jerk Myth" was first published on Small Business Trends

This is one of those comeback stories people love; well sort of.

On The Small Business Radio, I interviewed Matt Antonelli—a former first-round MLB draft pick, professional baseball player, and now a successful coach and business owner. He offers more than just sports anecdotes; it revealed invaluable lessons for entrepreneurs navigating the often-unpredictable journey of running a small business. Drawing from Matt’s baseball career, the interview illuminated the shared challenges of resilience, failure, identity, and leadership that bind the worlds of sports and entrepreneurship.

Matt’s path from top prospect to struggling in Triple-A embodies the roller coaster that both athletes and business owners inevitably face. He candidly shared how one day he was on the rise, and the next, he was fighting to stay in the game. For entrepreneurs, this is a familiar rhythm—periods of rapid growth often followed by unexpected setbacks. Matt stressed the importance of focusing on consistent routines and the day-to-day process rather than obsessing over results. He encouraged business owners to set short-term goals, track key performance metrics, and celebrate small wins to maintain morale. More importantly, he advocated for building a “resilience toolkit” that includes stress management practices, a trusted support network, and regular business plan reviews to stay flexible and adaptive.

One of the most important themes of the conversation was the danger of tying your identity too closely to your business. Just as athletes often measure their worth by their performance, entrepreneurs can fall into the trap of believing that success or failure in business defines their personal value. Matt advised listeners to recognize their worth beyond their professional roles—by identifying personal passions, engaging in hobbies, and nurturing relationships outside of work. Setting boundaries, maintaining self-reflection, and seeking external feedback were highlighted as essential tools for staying grounded.

Failure, Matt emphasized, is an inevitable and necessary teacher. His own experiences in Triple-A forced him to confront tough realities and grow both personally and professionally. Rather than avoiding failure, he suggested normalizing it within company culture—sharing stories, conducting project post-mortems, and encouraging experimentation. Matt’s advice was clear: treat failures as data points, not dead ends, and develop mental routines that help you bounce back stronger.

Another pivotal moment in Matt’s life came when he transitioned from player to coach—a decision driven by honest self-assessment and acceptance of change. He urged business owners to regularly evaluate what’s working in their companies and within their own roles. If something isn’t serving the business or aligning with their strengths, it might be time to pivot. Matt reminded listeners not to fear change but to plan for it—whether that’s refining a product or preparing for a future exit or leadership transition.

Leadership, for Matt, means being transparent and deeply invested in mentorship. He openly shares his past failures with players to help them build resilience. This philosophy translates seamlessly to small business leadership. By being honest about both wins and losses, creating space for open dialogue, and supporting team development, entrepreneurs can foster a more committed and capable workforce. Demonstrating how to navigate adversity with poise can be as impactful as any formal training.

Finally, Matt underscored a truth that many avoid: success is unpredictable. Despite talent and hard work, outcomes are often influenced by timing and luck. For business owners, this means focusing on what can be controlled—effort, preparation, and adaptability—while staying committed to a long-term vision. Celebrating progress, no matter how small, becomes key to sustaining momentum.

Listen to the entire interview on The Small Business Radio Show.

This article, "When You Are a Number One Draft Pick and They Call You a Bust" was first published on Small Business Trends

Amy is known for her skill in the Final Jeopardy! Round, having responded correctly 30 out of 41 times in her run. She has a new book called, “In the Form of a Question: The Joys and Rewards of a Curious Life” which is actually a series of questions.

In eighth grade, she was voted “most likely to appear on Jeopardy!” by her classmates”. (How did they know?)

We discussed:

• Why she always liked to ask the question why and how she became fearlessly curious.
• How she retained so much information and trivia? Do people come up to her and try to stump her?
• How she played Jeopardy! at home with her parents and how it took her over a decade to qualify for the show.
• How she likes being famous and its perks of being well known!
• Why she wrote the book even though she has a love and hate relationship with writing.
• Why the book shows the messiness of your life and when she realized she was a woman. (She discusses how the book is not intended for her youngest fans.)
• How she feels about being a de facto spokesperson for trans people?
• What is society in general getting right or wrong about trans people?
• What her advice is for other transgender people specifically teenagers?

Listen to the entire interview with Jeopardy! champion, Amy Schneider.

Image: Amazon

This article, "How Jeopardy Champion Amy Schneider Became Fearlessly Curious" was first published on Small Business Trends

Successful businesses don’t need to be complicated. In fact, Winch Enterprises, which operates under the name Cleanlots, has run a simple operation for decades.

The company provides a much needed but simple service. And the founder even offers expertise in a book to other entrepreneurs. Read more about the business in this week’s Small Business Spotlight.

What the Business Does

Cleans parking lots.

Founder Brian Winch told Small Business Trends, “We’ve been providing a parking lot litter cleanup service since 1981.”

Winch also wrote a book about this simple business idea.

He adds, “I share my experience with others in my book Cleanlots – America’s Simplest Business.”

Business Niche

Field reporting.

Winch says, “Our clients have commented to us on many occasions how they appreciate the way we make their jobs easier. Anyone can clean. We provide extra value to them by reporting any incidents of property damage, graffiti, illegal dumping, burned out lighting or vagrancy while we’re on site cleaning.”

How the Business Got Started

As an easy side project.

Winch adds, “I was looking to start a simple outdoor service business in 1981. One that I could start as a side hustle while still working my day job. I had little money and skills and no college education. My dad (who had unexpectedly passed away at the time) was a janitor who took on various side jobs to supplement his income. One of his gigs was cleaning up litter material outside a nearby shopping plaza. He had taken me to assist him a couple of times when I was a young teen. I recalled how easy and peaceful this work was to do in the early morning hours before the businesses opened. I decided to start my own parking lot litter cleanup business to make him proud.”

Biggest Win

Getting his first paying customers.

Winch explains, “My biggest “win” was getting my first client to clean two shopping plazas. I knew my prospects were property management companies, so I started cold calling them from the information I found in Yellow Pages telephone directory. This was the internet back in the day! I developed an elevator pitch and began calling to introduce myself and briefly pitch the benefits of my service. I made about four or five calls until I got a very interested prospect in my service. Long story short – they became my first client! This provided me the confidence to continue.”

Biggest Risk

Expanding.

Winch says, “We decided to bring in more people to clean in order to more efficiently service the entire city. This put more pressure on me to build our clientele. Many of our existing clients were more than pleased to learn that we could service more of their properties. We have never looked back!”

Lesson Learned

It’s not always better to offer more services.

Winch explains, “We thought at the time that we should offer other services in order to make ourselves more attractive. We spent a few years hating these other services. They were dropped and we returned to our roots – to be seen as the “specialists” for litter cleanup.”

Fun Fact

The team uncovers lots of treasure.

Winch adds, “We find all sorts of interesting, and sometimes odd, items that people discard outside the properties we clean. Wallets, purses, phones, articles of clothing and sometimes money. We try our best to return these valuables, but people are careless with their money. We find paper bills of various denominations outside restaurants, bars and stores. The most I’ve found at one time was $600!”

* * * * *

Find out more about the Small Biz Spotlight program

Images: Image: Cleanlots, Brian Winch

This article, "Spotlight: Cleanlots Finds Success With the World’s Simplest Business Model" was first published on Small Business Trends

Bryan shared a vision of the future of what things like machine learning and deep learning could do to impact the way we experience the world around us. And while some of the things like AI creating things like art and music and human sounding voices get a lot of attention, there are some more practical examples of AI already being used to help create better customer experiences when we need help with a product or service.

With a year going by I was curious to hear how things are progressing in these areas, and I was fortunate to speak via LinkedIn Live with Erik Pounds, Sr. Director of Enterprise Computing and Data Science at Nvidia, around the direction things like conversational and speech AI have moved in since l last spoke with Bryan.  Below is an edited transcript of our conversation.  Click on the embedded SoundCloud player to hear the full conversation.

Brent Leary: What are we dealing with when it comes to speech AI and conversational AI today?

Erik Pounds: You think of speech AI, think of functions like automatic speech recognition where the AI is running in the background and can immediately recognize what you’re saying. It can transcribe what’s being said. It can then act in real-time on that information. And you can provide a lot of helpful things by doing that. Imagine a customer service agent on the back end of a phone conversation. A lot of us on the other end, on the consumer side, we want to… And what do we really want? Well, one, we like talking to humans, and the other is we want to get help quickly, right?

Imagine using on the back end of it, so on the agent side, imagine if I’m talking to an agent trying to get some help and I’m asking a bunch of questions, imagine if the AI is running in the background, pulling up knowledge-based articles, finding information, finding helpful tools, and help me answer my question.

Then the agent has all this information right at their fingertips to help me solve my problem. It’s like having almost like this superpower sitting right next to you, to help someone have a great experience and solve their challenges, right? When we think about AI, especially in that context, it’s not about replacing the human with a robot that you’ll talk to. There’s these incremental steps that are going to be able to help businesses that provide a service to their clients for literally decades to come.

Data is foundational, empathy adds needed human element

Brent Leary: When people think of AI, they have this narrow definition and a narrow view of what it can actually impact. But when it comes to the customer experience when they need help, it feels like not just the AI, but the combination of at least feeling like you’re communicating with a human, at least a human sounding thing or somebody who has some sort of human empathy. It’s just as important as having the right data at their disposal.

Erik Pounds: Absolutely. Data is the foundational element of all of this. If we transcribe a call, that produces data in real-time. But also, there’s other data that is already in existence, often sitting at rest inside of a business that can be leveraged. And I think one of the best strategies any business can take is figuring out, “All right. What is the valuable data that I already have, that I already possess? And how can I leverage that to provide better customer experiences?” Some of it can be just general data.

For example, every time a customer transaction occurs, an engagement occurs, that produces data. You can gain a lot of information from that with regards to trends and patterns and things like this. They could help future customers, right? Often a lot of these calls, interactions are transcribed and stored. We all hear that part of the beginning of any call like, “This call may be monitored.

If you proceed, this is what’s going to happen.” Think of that as almost like crowdsourcing information. You can really leverage that information to your best benefit. So I think a lot of it starts with the foundation of how you leverage and utilize data.

Connecting context

Brent Leary: Can you talk a little bit about the component of this where we’re not just able to have great natural language transcription and understanding, but also the sentiment component, the ability to leverage empathy along with the speech AI as part of the combination. Because part of it is solving the challenge or helping, but the other part is how it happens and the feeling that people get not only from getting the thing corrected, but the manner in which the thing was corrected, the manner in which they were engaged, their community, the empathy going back and forth. Can you talk a little bit about where we are with that?

Erik Pounds: Often when I say one thing, and then you respond, then I say another thing, that following sentence is tied to the first sentence. When you look at how traditionally algorithms have worked, they often don’t understand that context. They’re not processing that or taking that into consideration. That is possible now. For example, we’ve put out some demos recently at our conference just last month, NVIDIA GTC, we put out a demo.

It’s a customer service demo using an AI framework that we call NVIDIA Tokkio that shows exactly how this works with regards to providing an interaction that is lifelike, that understands what I’m saying, what I’m asking for, and be able to do it in a natural type of flow of a human conversation. And that is critical. As we automate more of the complete process, that’s absolutely critical. Because like you said, we want to interact with humans, right? Like you said, someone calls in, they want to hear a human voice, they want someone that is friendly, that understands them, that appreciates what they’re saying.

If the AI is built to that level, it needs to be able to do that. Otherwise, the experience isn’t going to be good. I think this is important when we’re talking about AI technology. When it comes to speech AI or conversational AI, there’s a lot of technicalities of like, “All right. Well, what percentage of the words are you saying do I understand? Am I able to understand your words in a noisy environment? I’m able to do all this stuff.” And that’s how the technology works.

But what really matters is, is it a great experience or is it not a great experience? You can apply amazing technology to this challenge and still not provide a great customer experience. And that’s the most important thing, right? So we’ve taken the approach with our technology that one of the most important things that we can help our customers do is take the AI, take these pre-trained models, and be able to customize them for their own domain and their own environments.

If you’re running a call center where most of the discussions are around botany, I can’t remember the names of the plants that I’ve changed through times of my front yard, right? But if that’s the case, you need to make sure that this AI understands certain terminologies and phrases and context around that domain. Or if it’s a medical devices company, you can imagine there’s a lot of things that will be discussed in that conversation that are not in a normal conversation that an AI model would be trained in.

So customization is super important as well as lingo, right? So based on the areas of the world that your customers live in or call in from, you want to be able to understand dialects, lingo, things like this and be able to handle that properly. So a lot of this is not… You can’t just take a stock AI model and deploy it to work in an environment and it provides a great experience everywhere. Customization is going to be very important.

Don’t overlook the data right in front of you

Brent Leary: What are some of the things that are how maybe companies are still trying to get their head around in terms of moving forward with this?

Erik Pounds: In the context of this conversation, like you mentioned, you have good relationship with a bunch of companies that build these CRM platforms that are used by many different enterprises and organizations. Often an enterprise, they have their existing service stack or tech stack, and then they want to do something new. Sometimes where they are today has some limitations.

So that often adds some complexities because part of it is, “Well, I can build this my own on my own and plug it into my existing platform.” Or sometimes you got to go back to your ISV, make a feature request like, “Hey, we really want to do this. What are your ideas?”

I think most importantly, as you get those conversations going, understand the data that’s at your fingertips. Understand what you can do on your own, what your ISVs are capable of doing, what you could even possibly be able to do if you had just a little bit of consulting help. And I think just having a full understanding, so you can make positive steps forward.

Most first AI projects inside enterprises are used to… They cut their teeth with them, right? They’re not always successful. This is a new technology. So I would say being prepared as much as possible, so you have the greatest chance of success in your first project is super important right now.

Brent Leary: From a CRM application perspective, particularly if you’re a salesperson, they hate using CRM. They don’t like putting in stuff. They didn’t sign up to type or swipe or click. They really want to go out and build relationships and sell things. And my fantasy is, wouldn’t it be cool if you could just talk to your enterprise application, whether it’s CRM or ERB or whatever acronym you want to throw out there, if you could just talk to it like we’re talking right now and get your stuff done, is that just mere fantasy? Or do you see a day when we actually could do that kind of conversation with our apps?

Erik Pounds: No, it shouldn’t be. Especially nowadays when most of these… You mentioned like, “Okay. I’ve got go back into Salesforce and update this record after I have this conversation with this customer or prospect.” And we all know a lot of times these records aren’t that well updated, and then the business doesn’t have the intelligence it needs to move forward, right? The pipeline’s not up to date. You’re not able to learn from that. A lot of these conversations now are like we’re having, right? They’re remote. They’re not in a conference room in some building. Or even if they’re in a conference room in some building, there’s often somebody who is remote. And so there is a system listening to this conversation.

Just being able to transcribe that conversation and be able to do that for, in this case, the account manager or whoever’s involved would be great. And that’s all capable today.  Just like this conversation, this conversation is transcribed. You’re using some ASR function to transcribe the conversation, then you’re applying some NLU or NLP function to understand the context of what the heck we’re talking about. And then you could pretty easily go and update a lot of those standard fields. And this is all repetitive stuff. The more repetitive an activity is, the easier it should be to apply AI.

This article, "Erik Pounds of Nvidia: Traditionally Algorithms Often Haven’t Understood Context of Conversations; That is Possible Now" was first published on Small Business Trends

Ecommerce expert John “ColderIce” Lawson and I recently transitioned our Watching Amazon show/podcast into Pass the Mic.  The new name doesn’t mean we’ve grown tired of, well, watching Amazon, as we still plan to do plenty of that with all the things the company is into.  But by rebranding it as PTM it allows us to broaden the topics and companies we can dive into, and of course TikTok is a great example of that.

In fact, there have been a few recent reports of TikTok potentially following in Amazon’s footsteps by building out their own fulfillment centers and capabilities in order to support the growing digital commerce of creators using their video platform.   And though there haven’t been any formal announcements that this is happening, it got us to thinking if TikTok could really pull this off.  And if they did what would be the potential impact for creators and small retailers trying to reach the billion-plus monthly visitors to the platform.  Or why would TikTok fare better than Shopify who tried to build their fulfillment capabilities only to fail fast.

John and I went round and round on this one, as the thought of the fastest growing video platform taking on such a huge infrastructure project is intriguing. And we probably came away with more questions than answers.

Below is an edited transcript of a portion of our conversation.  Click on the embedded SoundCloud player to hear the full conversation.

You Ready for FBT (Fulfillment by TikTok)?

Brent Leary: What do you think of this news about TikTok potentially building fulfillment centers?  Could they be a real competitor to Amazon?

John Lawson: I don’t think they have to be a competitor to Amazon. I do think that they could be the definition of social commerce. I think that is an opening that Facebook has failed miserably at. Instagram has tried. Pinterest has tried. Right? But I’m seeing from a lot of people that have e-commerce businesses and doing ads on TikTok, that TikTok is actually driving buyers to their independent website. Let’s see if they can harness that and put in … because I mean basically what are they trying to do? They’re really just trying to ensure that their customer, their user, gets their products.

Brent Leary: Like Amazon, if they can control the fulfillment and order process of their TikTok creators to run their shops and fulfill orders that take place… If they can do that, they’re not trying to take over the world, they’re just trying to maintain control over the ecosystem that they’ve built basically.

John Lawson: That’s all they need to do.

Brent Leary: TikTok is like a runaway freight train of sorts. I think the hardest thing for these social networks to do is to go from being social platforms where people really don’t go there to shop, to being able to handle commerce and also now being able to handle fulfillment.

John Lawson: But if you really think about it, this is not the place you go to seek to connect with your friends and family, but it’s where you go to be served content.

Brent Leary: Yeah. But the original reason you go to TikTok is not to buy something like with Amazon.

John Lawson:  No. Bro, see, I think there are people now that are going there not necessarily to buy per se, but they are going there to research product.

Brent Leary: To research product really?

John Lawson:  Yeah, research product and discover product. I definitely think that because there’s a lot of influencers over there that are doing TikToks about different products or how to prepare foods. Things like that. They’re going there to be informed and if there’s a product in the mix, they’re buying it.

Brent Leary: Just like Amazon, you get to a certain point where if you want control over the customer experience, if UPS messes up on Valentine’s Day, people don’t go to UPS. They come to us because that’s where they ordered the stuff from. That’s the problem for TikTok so you want to have all of that.

All Sellers Aren’t on Amazon

John Lawson: The other thing, too, all of their people are not necessarily Amazon sellers or don’t have stores and don’t have the wherewithal to be on that platform.

Brent Leary: Right now, TikTok’s algorithm is geared towards serving up videos to people the algorithm thinks would be interested in. How can that algorithm be tweaked to not only serve up videos for people to watch, but things that they may want to buy? Because if they can do that, now you really got something.

John Lawson: Well, I think they’re already doing that. That’s why people are seeing good results on their advertising.

What about YouYube?

Brent Leary: YouTube allows, whatever you call them, creators influencers, whatever, they allow them to cultivate a community. TikTok isn’t doing that. TikTok is still algorithmic focused. You’ll see what TikTok wants you to see… and our buddy, JB’s son said it so well. He uses TikTok to create new audience members. He cultivates and builds a community for engagement over on YouTube.

TikTok, it feels like they need to do something more on that end of it but I also do like this fulfillment angle too. It’s like fulfillment is more transactional if you don’t have the community component that allows you to build a real relationship.

Prospect of FBT is exciting

John Lawson: This is a rumor so there’s nothing concrete. But I find it exciting because I think there is a lot of “there” there, and so many others have tried and failed to make a buzz and I think TikTok might be one of the ones that could win this game.

Brent Leary: I still look at YouTube as one that should win because look at all the connecting pieces that Google has on top of YouTube and they allow their folks to build real communities, though.

John Lawson: I don’t know. I mean the ability to advertise a product on YouTube, you can actually have a scroll bar with your products on there. People can order directly.

Brent Leary: But that’s just the advertising element. I’m talking about the actual community engagement element. That’s the thing I think TikTok is missing the most. It’s not allowing their creator to build that kind of community.

John Lawson: But Amazon doesn’t let you do that.

Crossing the business model chasm

Brent Leary: But Amazon is a shop first thing. Their business model is business. The first business model for any of these social platforms has not been to go have people buy something on the platform. That’s why I think Facebook has always struggled with this.

John Lawson: So maybe that is the problem. Maybe because people come there to do the community thing and that becomes a detractor from the community thing when you’re marketing and advertising all the time.

Brent Leary: I never go to Facebook because I want to get hit up by ads and buy something.

John Lawson: Exactly. But neither do we watch a game or anything because you want to be hit with advertising.

Brent Leary: Well, we’re conditioned for that.

John Lawson: Right. That’s what I’m saying. So maybe TikTok is already a little condition for you to see stuff that you’re not subscribed to necessarily.

Brent Leary: Yeah. But like I said, if you’re the creator, and I’ll just keep going back to Jeb the Boxsmith, because he just said it so eloquent – TikTok drives me new viewers, but YouTube is where he can do longer form videos and build out a community. Then he also talked about how he used Discord and even Twitch. I mean I guess you got to figure out the optimal mix for all this stuff.

John Lawson: But the mix between building community and selling goods. Everybody’s not good at both.

Fulfillment ain’t easy, ask Google

Brent Leary: Right. But that’s why I’m like why isn’t YouTube doing some kind of fulfillment thing? Because they have their own stuff. Look, Google’s got Google Pay.

John Lawson: They tried, bro. They tried.

Brent Leary: Yeah, but they didn’t try in conjunction with letting the creators do that on their … I mean you can sell your merch, I guess. You can do some kind of direct e-commerce on your YouTube channel but you can’t go like full bore. You’re not doing a whole lot of crazy stuff.

John Lawson: But I’m saying they did try. They tried product delivery, they tried warehousing consumer products.

Brent Leary: It’s a hard business. That’s why I’m-

John Lawson: It is a hard business and they’re like, “Screw that. We don’t need all that.”

How long would it take?

Brent Leary: That’s why you got to wonder will TikTok do you think … Like you said, it’s not completely a hundred percent, but if they say, “Yeah, we’re announcing TikTok fulfillment and we’re going to help our millions of creators sell stuff from the platform and we are going to make sure it gets to people,” how much chance do you give them of actually pulling that off? Because fulfillment is probably the hardest thing for these businesses to try to do.

John Lawson: It’s a slim chance.

Brent Leary: Amazon, I have to say one thing that people really overlook. Amazon built a complete distribution shipping network in five years?

John Lawson: No.

Brent Leary: Is it longer?

John Lawson: They’ve been doing this ever since they’ve sold their first book.

Brent Leary: I’m talking about the actual being able to go from somebody who pushes a button on a website to buy something to them delivering. No hands other than Amazon hands touching it until it gets to the person’s hands.

John Lawson: Yeah. Well, it’s been more than five years.

Brent Leary: Well, maybe, but because there’s an air component, there’s a boat component, there’s a truck component. That’s hard for most companies that aren’t in that business solely to replicate.

John Lawson: Yeah, and to put that amount of money behind it.

Brent Leary: That’s why I don’t know.

John Lawson: Even Amazon is stumbling a little bit there.

Brent Leary: But that even proves the point even more. Even they are stumbling.

John Lawson: Right.

Brent Leary: That’s a really complex thing.

John Lawson: Very complex.

Brent Leary: And when it’s not your sole business, and when your sole business has been serving up videos, to go from serving up videos with algorithms to that, uh-huh. I don’t know, man. That’s a tough one to do.

John Lawson: It is. But if they do this, they have something up their sleeve. I don’t know.

Brent Leary: Well, yeah, if they do that, yeah.

China adds complexity

John Lawson: They are a Chinese company. So I mean they have other resources.

Brent Leary: But that raises another point too. Last year I guess we had that big thing. Well, TikTok is owned by ByteDance, the Chinese company. They got the servers. They can see all the data. So what’s going to happen if they start doing fulfillment?

John Lawson: I think there will be pretty … They’ll have a lot of routes here in the US if they can do it.

Brent Leary: That’s complexity on top of complexity on top of complexity.

John Lawson: For some reason, though, I’m not negative on the idea. Matter of fact, I was more negative on the idea for Shopify than I am for these guys, which I can’t even tell you-

Brent Leary: Really?

John Lawson:  … I can’t tell you why.

Brent Leary: Yeah. I would’ve thought Shopify would’ve had a much better handle on fulfillment.

John Lawson: They have zero handle on fulfillment.

Brent Leary: Well, what do you think of video, social video and fulfillment expertise?

Shopify

John Lawson: I don’t know. I don’t know why. I’m just trying to compare. When I heard Shopify do it, I was like, “Oh, that ain’t going to work. Oh my God, that’s the worst idea.” Where this one, I’m kind of like, “Oh, that’s kind of exciting. Let’s see what happens.”

Brent Leary: I think you’re caught up in the hype.

John Lawson: Maybe. Could be.

Brent Leary: Because you like TikTok. You’re doing TikTok.

John Lawson:  No, I’m not. I tested TikTok. I’m not a TikTok … No, I don’t. I’m not a two-minute kind of or one-minute video kind of guy. I watch long format stuff. Matter of fact, I’m almost at the point where I’m like, “Dude, I don’t even know if I need cable anymore. I just need to subscribe to YouTube.”

Brent Leary: Oh, you mean like … Well, I YouTube TV.

TikTok Advertising

John Lawson: I have a lot of T-shirt people and one of them is just having a ball with the advertising on TikTok. It’s amazing.

Brent Leary: Really? Are they working with an influencer or are they just doing their own videos?

John Lawson: No, they’re doing their own videos. She gave me some of the insight, but then the deal was at first it was all organic, but then she started doing ads and now the ads are really, really performing.

However, we looked at the customer value of a TikTok person and it was about 27% lower than the value of a Google customer.

Brent Leary: So anyway, yeah. I’m really … This TikTok advertising, I-

John Lawson: So you’re not bullish on it at all?

Brent Leary: On TikTok advertising? Absolutely. On fulfillment, I’m not. Thank you.

John Lawson: You’re not, okay.

Big investment and commitment needed

Brent Leary: Not on the fulfillment because that’s just a whole other animal. That is a beast of an animal. And like you said, let’s say they announce it. How many years will it take for them to actually be able to pull it off? Remember years ago when we were sitting at the Panera Bread in that one quarter where Amazon said, “We’re going to invest $800 million in our fulfillment,” and their stock price took this deep, huge hit and we were like, “That’s a smart move.” [inaudible 00:16:08].

John Lawson: Yeah. It was like they’re building the infrastructure.

Brent Leary: How much is it going to cost TikTok to do that? It’s probably like a 10-year difference possibly in starting this from where Amazon did it to where they do it.

John Lawson: Two years? But they’re already working on it now. So it’ll be within that. It’ll be by the end of this … It’ll be within a year or about a year.

TikTok Prime?

Brent Leary: Are they going to do TikTok Prime membership? I mean there’s so many things. Amazon is-

John Lawson: They don’t have to do all that.

Brent Leary: But if you want a loyalty program, you have to have people sign up for stuff and then be able to shoot them stuff. I mean this is why-

John Lawson: It’s not like they can’t partner with somebody.

Brent Leary: Yeah, but then when you bring in partners, then we have clashes of culture and things don’t work the way we thought they were going to work. Walmart has tried. Boy, have they tried. I mean, who knows? I don’t know, man.

John Lawson: It’s hard.

Brent Leary: I am suspect on the TikTok fulfillment. I love the advertising and I love the e-commerce, and I think it does make sense for them to try the fulfillment, but that’s such a tough business. That’s all I’m saying.

John Lawson: Okay. So it makes sense for them to try.

Brent Leary: It definitely makes sense. To me, it made sense for Shopify. It didn’t work out the right way, but you know.

John Lawson: Yeah, it was horrible.

Brent Leary: Sha, do you think it makes sense for TikTok to try to create their own fulfillment and distribution and shipping network for you, for TikTokker you?

John Lawson: Yeah, for you and your T-shirts.

Would creators want FBT?

Brent Leary: Would you be psyched if TikTok offered you FBT – Fulfillment by TikTok – and you pay a certain amount? You put your stuff with them and let them handle fulfillment, logistics, all that stuff. Would you be more excited about TikTok doing that? Or would you be more excited about Amazon doing that?

John Lawson: Companies like CafePress have been doing this fulfillment thing for years. Well, even before Amazon was doing it. Print on demand is a huge … Maybe they’re thinking more of the print on demand business, TikTok.

Brent Leary: Yeah, if they are very narrow maybe.  Then yeah, maybe they do. If it’s digital 3D printing kind of stuff, not actually moving too much stuff from all around.

John Lawson: I don’t see them doing refrigerators, things like that.

Brent Leary: Maybe there are these narrow instances where it would make sense and they would be able to have a better shot.

John Lawson: I can see that. I can see that.  Not necessarily handling the hard stuff like candy and shampoo bottles and all this kind of stuff, but print on demand, I could see it.

This article, "John Lawson of Pass The Mic – Fulfillment by TikTok Would be a Positive for Growing Number of Creators Looking to Sell Merch" was first published on Small Business Trends

As the year has gone on I’ve been dipping my toes back into the industry conference scene more and more.  And while I’m gearing up for my first trip to Vegas in three years for Oracle CloudWorld, Hurricane Ian kept me from getting there a couple of weeks ago for Oracle NetSuite’s SuiteWorld conference.

SuiteWorld is a conference I’ve attended a number of times over the years, and with it being physically back I was looking forward to sitting down with company founder and Oracle EVP Evan Goldberg face-to-face for a conversation, instead of virtually for the past two years (2020 and 2021).  But I was appreciative that even during this year’s event, Evan made time for another virtual conversation on LinkedIn Live, as I was really curious about his perspective on the current economic uncertainties of the economy – and what it means for the 32,000 small and midsize enterprises using his company’s platform to run their businesses on.

Below is an edited transcript from a portion of our conversation.  Click on the embedded SoundCloud player to hear to full conversation.

Integrated platforms even more valuable during economic uncertainty

Brent Leary: When you think of the economic uncertainty, the specter of a recession… inflation just won’t go away. Does it become even more critical for businesses to have an integrated platform that allows you to bring together front office and back office?

Evan Goldberg: That’s such a great point, and let me give you a great example. What’s the productivity of your sales people? I mean, the only way you’re going to be able to figure out is if you take the sales information and combine it with the financial and HR information. How much do they cost, both in terms of expenses as well as salary? Obviously from the sales system, how much are they bringing in? What’s the sales cycle look like? How many can they bring in per year? And just what’s the ROI of adding a new salesperson? They’re hard to find. They can be. Wages are up, they can be expensive. And the only way you can get that sort of real ROI assessment is when you pull multiple systems together.  Some try to pull it all together with spreadsheets, but usually that doesn’t work, and that’s where NetSuite really excels.

Even during economic uncertainty fast growing businesses are always optimistic

Brent Leary: Talk about some of the things that you’ve heard recently from customers in terms of their… What are they focusing in on right now, particularly as we sit here with this kind of pins and needles environment when it comes to what’s going on with the economy?

Evan Goldberg: Fast growing businesses are always optimistic, and they’re always focused on growth. I don’t care what’s happening in the world. I mean, the aliens could be invading, and they’d be like, “Where’s my next sale coming from?” And maybe I can sell to the aliens. So there always is that optimism and still asking, “How do I find my next customer? How do I make sure I deliver our great product to them so they go and tell two friends and so on?”

But certainly there’s a little trepidation out there; “I just got to batten down the hatches a little bit, I think. I don’t want to be caught unaware if this big storm comes”. And so that’s a time where you just, again, want to focus on some of the places where you could be saving money.

It’s probably why we’re getting these kinds of requests from customers; Again, “hard to find great people. They’re expensive. I don’t know what the future’s going to bring, so I want to make sure I’ve really got my ship running as a smooth running whatever”.

Use whatever transportation analogy you want. But I want to make sure that everybody’s doing stuff that’s really valuable for the business because I don’t know how much I’m going to have to constrain things over the next coming months, quarters, and years.

The rise of the composite company

In my keynote, we talked about this sort of composite company that we came up with based on talking to so many of our 32,000 companies/customers. And this is a company that was delivering a product, delivering an internet service, and delivering people services, professional services.

Thank goodness we decided early on at NetSuite that we weren’t going to bias ourselves to product companies or service companies or not for profits or software companies, that we were going to try to really handle all the needs of all of them. And the modern company, I think that they come up thinking this way. Obviously our younger entrepreneurs bring incredible freshness, and it’s amazing to see. They also often talk about the digital generation, the digital natives and all that. And I kind of feel like there’s the hybrid company natives, these young entrepreneurs that just think that way. They’re like, “I’m not going to pigeonhole myself as a product person, a product company, or a service company. I’m going to do it all because I know that’s how I can deliver on this great idea I have in the best possible way.” And it’s great to see these organizations adopt NetSuite and get tons of value out of it.

Passionate after all these years

Brent Leary: Just from hearing you, you’re extremely passionate about this stuff. When did you found NetSuite? 1999, 1998?

Evan Goldberg: ’98.

Brent Leary: So we’re talking about 24 years. You’re 24 years into this, man. Why do you still have this passion? Why are you still doing this?

Evan Goldberg: Well, it’s the ultimate, I guess you could say,  job security. But really it’s the ultimate of not being able to do another startup. Because if you’re interested in business offerings for fast growing businesses, we kind of do it all. Not like I’m thinking about starting a company, but I do kind of laugh when I have a good idea. I’m like, “Well, I mean, it’s obviously a feature of NetSuite, so I can’t start that company.” I kind of put myself in a position where I just have to stick with NetSuite, but it’s my baby.

We are investing really, really heavily in the next generation of NetSuite. I don’t want to undersell what we’re doing this year, but every year we have so much good stuff in upcoming NetSuite because we’re investing so heavily in the technology, next generation, business user experience to make it for these entrepreneurs.

They now come from the world of TikTok and all these great tools that they’re using for marketing and just in their personal lives. They’re like, “Why don’t my business systems work like this? And there’s all this great AI out there. Why is AI not being applied to my business?” So we’re really, really pumped to take some of the great technology advances that people are seeing in their everyday lives, these great user experiences that people have in their personal lives with their technology and taking it and applying to business. And the good news is all the bad stuff that people talk about, we’re not putting any of that in. Only the good stuff.

Thoughts Five Years after the Oracle Acquisition

Brent Leary: It’s been about five years since Oracle acquired NetSuite.  Looking back, any surprises being a part of Oracle?

Evan Goldberg: The biggest surprise for me was Oracle was never known as a company that put a huge amount of effort and energy into user experience. It was more like, “We have the best technology and we sort of dare you to use it.”

And I don’t think Larry Ellison would deny that – if he’s tuning in today – but they’ve done a 180-degree flip. They are like, “We are going to make our products the best products to use for everyday users.” And I had no idea this was going to happen. I used to joke that I know Larry personally and I go into his personal… Meet with him personally or go into Larry World, whatever. And I’d be like, “Oh my God, this has the best user experience of anything anywhere.” And I’m like, “Why don’t we have that in the products?” And now they’re doing it.

It’s not an exact analogy, but I mean Larry has become very passionate about it. And they’ve invested heavily, and we’re drafting off of that for sure. And we have our own great ideas as NetSuite, and Oracle’s been incredible at keeping us independent enough that we can continue to drive our ideas. We have a different market than your traditional Oracle product. And yet let us also liberally beg, borrow, and steal from all the great stuff that they’ve developed over the years.

Tech still isn’t as easy to use as it should be for businesses

Brent Leary: You’ve been in the industry for a long time. What are some of the things that you’re surprised that haven’t changed for the better yet, 24 years since you started NetSuite? What things are like, “Really, we’re still dealing with this?”

Evan Goldberg: That’s a great question, and I have to think about that for a bit. So much has gotten better…but some things have been over-hyped. Everybody thought when the internet came along and business started using the internet that it was going to fix all the problems of the world because, “Oh look, everything connects.” Well, it turns out it’s not quite that simple. What we see, and maybe this is a little self-serving, but we still see companies dealing with the complexity of using tons of different business systems and tons of different systems and, yeah, they’re all on the internet, but that’s kind of saying, “Oh, here’s a cell phone.” Before it was a landline, now it’s a cell phone. So now you can talk to this person in France, yeah, but they’re still speaking French.

I think the promise is moving everything forward together, and we just try to do our part in our little realm to make things work better together. But there’s still tons and tons of work because we see businesses really getting swamped in technology. And I think that really ties to the other thing that I’d say is that technology in a lot of cases has just not gotten easier to use. In some cases it’s gotten harder to use. And that’s because everybody tries to build every bell and whistle into their technology. That’s their way of competing.  And as a result, it just gets more and more and more complicated.

I feel like this revolution in the business user experience is about, I don’t want to say dumbing down, but just sort of going more minimalist. Do the 80/20 rule and make sure that what users see is what they need and they don’t get overwhelmed and just give up.

There’s been a lot of great revolutions though. It’ll never end…

This article, "Evan Goldberg of Oracle NetSuite: Fast Growing Businesses are Always Optimistic, Focused on Growth No Matter What’s Going on in the World" was first published on Small Business Trends

This week marks the 31st year of celebrating Customer Service Week, an international celebration of the importance of customer service and of the people who serve and support customers on a daily basis.

Many companies are participating in the spirit of the week’s salute to customer service workers with a look toward improving the service experience from both the customer and the employee perspective.  Pegasystems, a leading customer engagement platform vendor, is hosting a free webinar on the trends driving the future of customer service, with the results of a survey on the same topic coming later in the week.

Fortuné Alexander, Senior Director, Product Marketing for Customer Service and Sales Automation at Pega, recently shared a few of the upcoming findings from the report in a recent LinkedIn Live conversation and talks about why the future of service isn’t about replacing humans, but humans leveraging AI and automation for better service experiences, and to be more human with each other when the need arises.

Below is an edited transcript of a portion of our conversation.  Click on the embedded SoundCloud player to hear the full conversation.

Brent Leary: When you think of customer service week, what does that mean to you?

Fortuné Alexander: It means just giving a tip of the hat and recognition to everyone, from the people who are leading contact centers. The people working in the contact center.  To IT. People having to make decisions on what technology to deploy in the contact center to vendors like P&G and others who bring products to market to meet customer service and contact centers jobs easier and more rewarding.

So it’s kind of a week to just celebrate customer service professionals. Customer service cuts across all the industries. So it’s a fun time for us. We enjoy it. We get up and hang out for this week with a lot of fun content, interactive content. And we just we’re putting the finishing touches on this report called The Future of Customer Service and talking about the 3 to 5 year time horizon.

We surveyed over 750 customer service leaders all around the globe (primarily 1 billion+ annual revenue companies) to see what’s on their minds, where they think the trends are heading and how they’re preparing for customer service in the near future. A lot of insights in there.

Brent Leary: I know the report hasn’t been published, but is there anything you can share with us now about the results?

Fortuné Alexander: Surprisingly, 70% of the customer service leaders said that they’re going to be optimizing the customer service experience around Gen Z and millennials. Gen Z and millennials are the guys that make up the majority pretty soon here. So contact center leaders are definitely looking to make sure that they optimize their experience for those target audiences.

Brent Leary: But those same generations are also making up a bigger, bigger part of the employees that are going to be helping with these experiences. Maybe you could talk a little bit about not only the expectations as a consumer for Gen Z and millennials, but also them as employees that are going to be interacting as service agents.

Fortuné Alexander: I have a lot of fun with this one because we talk customer experience for years and now it’s the employee experience, and some people are talking total experience. But you’re absolutely right. You’ve got Gen Z and millennials coming into the workforce and they’re going to be working in customer service.

They’ve got iPhones in their personal lives. They don’t want to have these green screen antiquated systems that they’re trying to help do their jobs with. So that’s what I’m super excited, as we start to apply AI and automation more broadly in contact centers, they’re not having to swivel chair and stick their head up and ask a colleague; or get on Slack.  The system is really guiding them through the whole process. It’s like you’re just watching the system and you’re getting a much better employee experience as well.

Brent Leary: So how are the expectations for customer service changing when you think about these two new generations that are not only coming in to being the ones who are buying the most, but also they’re all they’re going to be the ones doing all the servicing?

Fortuné Alexander: I think a couple of things come to mind –  Fast and everywhere. People overwhelmingly want fast resolutions if you work in customer service. That’s pretty obvious but it’s still top of the list in terms of, hey, I want a fast resolution. Ultimately, I think where we’re trying to get to the future customer service is no service, because you’re going to be proactive and preemptive.

Now we know we’re not going to get there anytime soon, and people have said that for a while. But it is a good aspirational goal to say, hey, we’re not going to have a contact center with 2000 agents. We might have 50 people and they’re going to be managing the AI and the AI is going to be doing all the interaction.  And it’s going to be like, you get stuck at the grocery store trying to check out in self-service and you’ve got a pack of beer and somebody has to come over and make sure you’re 18. But then they don’t take over. They just approve it and walk away and the machine keeps going. And that’s kind of how it’s going to be.

Most of the interaction is going to be AI. And you’re going to agents just dealing with either managing the bots or handling the super complex stuff.

Brent Leary: Do you feel like these new generations are going to be more receptive to working in conjunction with AI and with bots. Not feeling like the bots are going to take over their job, but really looking forward to working with bots to hand off the tough stuff and allow them to have more of the more human interactions with the folks they’re servicing?

Fortuné Alexander: Absolutely. And, poking fun at my own generation, Gen Xers, if I look at my daughter who’s ten, she’s digital native. And this this is second nature. I think this whole worry about our jobs being taken away is going to be less of a concern for these younger generations that come into the workforce because they’ve grown up with AI and technology at their fingertips since they were babies.

I do feel like jobs will change, and they always have and they always will. There will be jobs. They will evolve and they will look different.

Brent Leary: What are some of the surprising things you might have found in this report? I know you can’t tell us a whole lot, but were there anything that would make you do a double take? You’re like, wow, really?

Fortuné Alexander: One little signal we picked up on is more and more contact centers are thinking about revenue generation, cross-selling, upselling. And if you think about that, that’s been prevalent in some industries for a very long time.

You call your mobile phone provider and they’re always trying to sell you a new phone or get you on a different plan or what have you. So that’s not new, but what was new and that’s a little bit eye opening for me is to see that across other industries. We saw some of that data coming on where people are saying, yep, we want to measure customer lifetime value and we want to make sure that we’re engaging with our clients when they reach out for service on how they can use other services.

So that was the one nugget that came through.

Structural Changes Needed to Service Millennials and Gen Z

Brent Leary: What kind of structural changes do companies need to make in order to fully embrace some of the findings? You know how millennials and Gen Zers not only will consume, but also how they want to work.

Fortuné Alexander: We touched on a minute ago and I’ll just circle back to it. This is weird because as a vendor, and every vendor does this, you assume the market is where your latest release is at, but the market is still ten years behind.

Ten years ago, if you look at the average contact center and what they’re running and what they’re doing, a lot of them are still using stuff that’s not modern. I feel like we really need to see the industry invest in more technology to be able to use AI powered decisioning and guidance that allows that servicing process to be more seamless and faster.

That’s what people want. They want to get in and out, and ultimately they don’t want to have to call you at all. They want you to know that there’s an issue and fix it before they even know it.

READ MORE:

This article, "Fortune Alexander of Pega – 70% of Customer Service Leaders Say They’re Optimizing Experiences for Gen Z and Millennials" was first published on Small Business Trends