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Agentic AI Can Make You Eight Times More Productive If You Learn To Verify It with Jason Greenwood

Firing The Man · 2026-06-23 · 51 min

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Key moments - from our scoring

Substance score

49 / 100

Five dimensions, 20 points each

Insight Density10 / 20
Originality9 / 20
Guest Caliber12 / 20
Specificity & Evidence11 / 20
Conversational Craft7 / 20

Jason Greenwood brings deep historical perspective to understanding AI's impact on e-commerce and business operations. Having witnessed the internet's evolution from dial-up and manual payment processing to mobile-first design, he identifies clear patterns in technological disruption - broadband, mobile, and now AI - that reshape entire industries. The conversation centers on agentic AI systems (autonomous agents that can execute tasks independently) and the critical skill of verification: knowing when to trust AI outputs versus when human oversight is essential. For B2B operators, manufacturers, and distributors navigating digital transformation, Greenwood's framework is practical: AI can multiply individual productivity by 8x, but only if you've built the judgment to catch its errors. He also addresses the long-standing tension in B2B sales between digital channels and commission-based compensation, and how changing buyer behavior is finally forcing legacy businesses to embrace online selling despite internal resistance.

Key takeaways

  • →Agentic AI can increase individual productivity by 8x, but only when you develop strong verification skills to catch its mistakes before they impact customers or operations.
  • →The B2B world's adoption of e-commerce has lagged retail by 5-10 years primarily due to relationship-driven selling, commission structures, and organizational resistance from sales teams who fear automation.
  • →Historical tech shifts (broadband, mobile, responsive design) follow predictable patterns of disruption; recognizing these patterns helps operators anticipate and prepare for AI's impact rather than being blindsided.
  • →Mobile device adoption as the primary interface changed everything about how users interact with digital systems, and AI agents will similarly reshape how knowledge workers execute routine tasks.
  • →The next wave of B2B e-commerce adoption will be driven by changing buyer expectations and generational shifts, not by perfect technology - younger buyers expect self-service and digital-first interactions.

Guests

Jason Greenwood

Topics in this episode

Agentic AIDigital transformationB2B e-commerceBroadband infrastructurePayment gatewaysE-commerce Edge PodcastGreenwood ConsultingMobile-first designResponsive web designM-dot websites

Questions this episode answers

How much productivity can you actually gain from agentic AI, and what's the catch?

Agentic AI can make you eight times more productive, but only if you learn to verify its outputs consistently. The productivity multiplier disappears if you blindly trust the AI without checking its work, because errors compound quickly in business operations.

Why has B2B e-commerce adoption been so much slower than retail e-commerce?

B2B has lagged retail by 5-10 years because sales are relationship-driven, commission structures complicate digital channels, and sales teams resist digital enablement fearing it will replace them or reduce their compensation relative to online orders.

What does Jason identify as the biggest technological shifts in internet history?

The four major shifts are: broadband enabling always-on connectivity, mobile devices becoming the primary interface, responsive design replacing m-dot websites, and now agentic AI enabling autonomous task execution - each followed similar patterns of initial resistance then rapid mainstream adoption.

What's driving B2B companies to finally adopt e-commerce after years of resistance?

Changing buyer expectations and generational shifts; younger buyers expect self-service and digital-first interactions regardless of whether the company is ready, forcing legacy B2B businesses to digitize or lose market share.

How does Jason approach giving back to the e-commerce industry?

He releases three podcast episodes per week, publishes daily content across LinkedIn and Substack, serves as global MC for B2B e-commerce world events, and speaks at conferences globally - treating it as repayment for mentors who helped him early in his career.

What our scoring noted

Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.

Insight Density

10 / 20

The episode has useful pockets of substance - the B2B e-commerce adoption gap stats, the Manus agentic workflow description, the junior-role-expertise paradox, and the contract-review AI use case - but roughly the first 15 minutes is biographical history and dial-up nostalgia that adds no actionable value for an operator. The insight-to-filler ratio is middling for a 51-minute runtime.

anywhere from 20 to 60% of a sales rep's time is spent on unproductive admin that adds no value to them or their customer
AI still hallucinates, it still makes mistakes, you still have to demand that it provides you with citations

Originality

9 / 20

A couple of genuinely fresh framings appear - the 'expert Googler on a CV' analogy for prompt engineering and the 'know which answers to question' concept are non-obvious - but the bulk of the AI productivity content repeats widely circulated takes, and the career advice (go work at an agency) and entrepreneur success traits (hunger plus humility) are textbook.

give it another 12 or 18 months, it is going to be just as ridiculous to put on your CV that you are an expert prompt engineer as it would be today to say you're an expert Googler
if there are no junior roles because AI is doing all those junior roles, how do you become a domain expert in the first place

Guest Caliber

12 / 20

Greenwood is a genuine long-tenure B2B e-commerce practitioner with real client engagements across manufacturers, distributors, and agencies - not a purely theoretical thought leader. However, he hosts three podcast episodes a week and this is explicitly a pod swap, which signals he is partly on the content-marketing circuit rather than being an operator at scale.

for the last nearly seven years, I've owned my own B2B e-commerce specific consultancy and advisory service, and I work with manufacturers, distributors, agencies, platform vendors, and investors all in the B2B e-commerce space
I tend to work with $50 million plus per year revenue manufacturers like $50 million to $500 million is my sweet spot

Specificity & Evidence

11 / 20

The episode names specific tools (Manus, Claude Code, Lovable, Gemini, Grok), cites concrete figures ($50M - $500M client range, 8x productivity, 40 - 60% B2B e-commerce adoption, 98% retail adoption, 7 - 8x B2B growth vs. B2C), and gives a real deliverable example (32 KDDs built into a web app in under 10 minutes). The weakness is that market statistics are attributed vaguely to 'our research with all of our clients' without external sourcing.

It's outstripping B2C and D2C e-commerce growth by about seven or eight to one, and it's looking to be that way till at least 2030
Only about 40 to 60 percent of the B2Bs in the United States today offer e-commerce at all, whereas like 98% of retailers offer e-commerce

Conversational Craft

7 / 20

The host asks serviceable but generic questions ('what changes have you witnessed,' 'what does this mean for the workforce,' 'what advice for a young person') and never pushes back on a single claim - the 8x productivity figure goes unchallenged, market statistics are accepted without probing, and the host frequently responds with 'outstanding' and 'I fully agree.' The one interesting prompt the host shares ('ask me 10 questions one at a time') is a slight pivot toward peer exchange but does not compensate for an absence of productive disagreement.

SPEAKER_01: Outstanding.
SPEAKER_01: I fully agree with that. I fully agree with that.

Conversation analysis

Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.

Most-used words

commerce37back30speaker26remember25internet24create22help18today18world16phone16client16industry15digital14love14partner13early13

Episode notes

The e-commerce world didn’t get “easy” overnight. Our guest Jason Greenwood has lived every phase of it, from the days when getting a website online was hard, payments were clunky, and technical SEO was the only way to get discovered, to today’s world where a storefront can launch fast and customers expect everything to work instantly on a phone. That long view makes his take on digital transformation and the future of commerce feel grounded, not hype-driven. We dig into the biggest platform shifts Jason has seen, then zoom in on the opportunity most people still underestimate: B2B e-commerce for manufacturers and distributors. He explains why relationship selling and sales compensation models slowed adoption, why so many teams still burn time on low-value admin work, and why the B2B digital commerce market remains wide open compared to saturated retail e-commerce. If you care about modernizing operations, improving customer experience, or scaling revenue, this conversation connects the strategy to the messy reality inside real companies.

Full transcript

51 min

Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.

1 - > SPEAKER_00: Welcome everyone to the Firing the Man Podcast, a 2 - > show for anyone who wants to be their own boss. 3 - > If you sit in a cubicle every day and know you are capable of 4 - > more, then join us. 5 - > This show will help you build a business and grow your passive 6 - > income stream in just a few short hours per day. 7 - > And now your hosts, serial entrepreneurs, David Schoma and 8 - > Ken Wilson.

9 - > SPEAKER_01: Welcome everyone to the Firing the Man Podcast. 10 - > Today's guest is Jason Greenwood, the founder of 11 - > Greenwood Consulting and the host of the E-Commerce Edge 12 - > Podcast. 13 - > Jason has spent more than 25 years helping brands, 14 - > manufacturers, distributors, and e-commerce businesses navigate 15 - > digital transformation. 16 - > Today we'll discuss the future of e-commerce, AI, digital 17 - > transformation, and what business owners need to know to 18 - > stay relevant in an increasingly automated world.

19 - > Jason, welcome to the show. 20 - > SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for having me. 21 - > I you know I had you on my podcast recently, so it's always 22 - > fun to do a bit of a pod swap. 23 - > SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, absolutely.

24 - > So to uh give a little introduction, what to share with 25 - > the audience a little bit about yourself and your path in the 26 - > e-commerce world. 27 - > SPEAKER_02: Yeah, look, this is my 26th year. 28 - > I, you know, for for I'm in r at risk of dating myself, I 29 - > realize, but it's my 26th year in e-commerce started in in 30 - > 2000. 31 - > So, you know, one of the old heads, so to speak, have a few 32 - > uh gray hairs to show for the pleasure.

33 - > But, you know, it's been an amazing ride. 34 - > You know, I am old enough, you know, I'm 51, and so I remember 35 - > when there was no internet. 36 - > Uh, you know, I'm that I'm kind of in that bridge generation 37 - > where I was old enough when the internet came along that I could 38 - > embrace it immediately, and I remember doing so. 39 - > I remember, you know, a world pre-internet.

40 - > I remember the coming of the internet, I remember the 41 - > mainstreaming of the internet, and now I have been able to 42 - > witness the mainlining of the internet with uh devices like 43 - > this right here in my hot little hand. 44 - > And so it's been quite the ride. 45 - > You know, started out uh in agency land, uh also owned my 46 - > own e-commerce pure play business with a business partner 47 - > many, many years ago, ran that for seven years, went back into 48 - > agency land, have worked brandside managing e-commerce, 49 - > and for the last nearly seven years, I've owned my own B2B 50 - > e-commerce specific consultancy and advisory service, and I work 51 - > with manufacturers, distributors, agencies, platform 52 - > vendors, and investors all in the B2B e-commerce space.

53 - > And it's been a it's been a wild ride, it's been a fun ride, it's 54 - > given me a life and friendships that I could have only dreamt 55 - > about 26 years ago. 56 - > Can't imagine doing anything else. 57 - > You know, I get to be a digital nomad. 58 - > My wife and I love to travel.

59 - > We don't have kids, so you know, being able to work remotely, 60 - > we've always been able to work remotely uh in our digital 61 - > space, but especially since COVID, there's there's you know, 62 - > none of my clients have any expectation that they're ever 63 - > going to see me in person. 64 - > Now, sometimes they do. 65 - > If I happen to be in region or they want me to come on site and 66 - > do a presentation or something like that, then we can make that 67 - > happen.

68 - > But but typically I'm working with my clients all remotely, 69 - > and the amount of freedom that that gives me and my wife to 70 - > travel and do things abroad is just so, so exciting. 71 - > So this industry has been exceptionally good to me. 72 - > I try to put out content every single day. 73 - > You know, I release three podcast episodes a week, put out 74 - > content across LinkedIn and Substack and all sorts of other 75 - > channels every day in an effort to sort of send the ladder back 76 - > down again.

77 - > Because when I first started in this industry, I had three or 78 - > four people that really took me under their wing, taught me 79 - > everything that they know, helped bring me into the 80 - > industry, help bring me up in the industry, and help give me 81 - > an education and get me started on the right foot in the 82 - > industry. 83 - > And that's what I really try to do today is to try to give back 84 - > to the industry every way that I can. 85 - > I'm the global MC for all of the B2B e-commerce world events, and 86 - > I try to speak at as many events globally as I can.

87 - > And, you know, that's just really you know, it's it's it's 88 - > my way. 89 - > Uh it's it's it's like my love letter back to an industry 90 - > that's treated me super well over the last 26 years. 91 - > SPEAKER_01: I really, I really like that. 92 - > And and uh for anyone who hasn't listened, check out the 93 - > e-commerce edge podcast.

94 - > I was a fan of yours long before we podcasted together. 95 - > So uh really excited to have you on the show and excited to get 96 - > into this. 97 - > So one thing I think that's very impressive about your your 98 - > resume is your tenure in the industry. 99 - > There's not many people.

100 - > I mean, you know, twenty you can't get much longer than 101 - > twenty-five years. 102 - > The internet hasn't been around that that long. 103 - > And so um what are, you know, if you if you go back to you know 104 - > 25 years ago uh versus today, what have been some of the most 105 - > significant changes that you've witnessed and what do you think 106 - > is still ahead? 107 - > SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there's there's three or four that 108 - > absolutely stand out to me and like there's specific, maybe 109 - > foundational or core memories of things happening that I could 110 - > sort of waypoints along the way that have led to a pattern 111 - > recognition that now I can sort of overlay over things like AI 112 - > and things like that, and I can start to recognize some of these 113 - > ground shifts that happen in our industry and have happened over 114 - > the last couple of decades.

115 - > The first one is is broadband for sure. 116 - > Like there was always, you know, I I remember dial-up and I 117 - > remember getting kicked off of phone calls when you know you 118 - > needed to use dial-up or phone call would come in and it would 119 - > kick you off the internet uh you know, when a phone call came in 120 - > and you were already on dial-up and and having to share a f a 121 - > phone line, you know, with a with a phone call. 122 - > And so like most people today who you know were mature or old 123 - > enough to use the internet in the last decade, they just uh 124 - > they don't really appreciate how challenging things were in in 125 - > the early days.

126 - > Like everything was hard. 127 - > Like I used to build you know websites on Dreamweaver, and I 128 - > used to, you know, uh just like everything about the internet 129 - > was hard. 130 - > I remember the days of frames. 131 - > I remember like the early days of web technologies.

132 - > I remember entire websites being built in flash and not being 133 - > able to be indexed by Google. 134 - > I remember, I remember when we were all before there were like 135 - > the standards of the internet, like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, 136 - > we were all still trying to figure this out. 137 - > We were trying to figure out secure payments. 138 - > I remember in my first, you know, early days of running an 139 - > e-commerce business, there was no really easy to implement 140 - > payment gateways.

141 - > And so uh your bank was your your business bank was your 142 - > merchant provider. 143 - > They provided your merchant account. 144 - > And so you had zip zap machines that were given to you, and then 145 - > and then for online transactions, they would give 146 - > you a line sheet where you would have to capture credit card 147 - > details from your customer. 148 - > You would have to manually write down the details of the 149 - > transaction, the credit card number that you had captured, 150 - > and then you would ring up their automated phone number at the 151 - > bank and get a transaction approval number for every single 152 - > credit card transaction that you took as an online business.

153 - > And then you would submit that as a bank deposit, that whole 154 - > entire sheet, which had like 50 lines on it. 155 - > You would fold that up into thirds, you would hand that over 156 - > to the counter at your bank, and that would go in as a deposit, 157 - > right? 158 - > With with all the approvals. 159 - > And it would take two weeks before you could even s access 160 - > those funds, right?

161 - > And so, like, just literally everything about the internet 162 - > and e-commerce was difficult in the beginning. 163 - > And uh, you know, that taught us all a lot about patience, that 164 - > taught us all a lot uh about how to work with Google, who kind of 165 - > owned the internet in the beginning. 166 - > And if you wanted to be discovered as a business, you 167 - > had to get indexed by Google and you had to go into link swap uh 168 - > and link indexes, and you had to do, you know, some gray hat SEO 169 - > work to be able to get ahead in those early days, and you had to 170 - > be quite technical because everything about SEO back in the 171 - > early days was technical.

172 - > It was all technical SEO. 173 - > So you had to understand, you know, you had to understand all 174 - > of your meta tagging, you had to understand uh the structure of 175 - > HTML, you had to understand robots.txt files. 176 - > Like you, you, you, you, you, none of this stuff was if you 177 - > were non-technical, you uh you found it really difficult to do 178 - > well online back in those early days.

179 - > Now, obviously, since then, we've had Shopify and we've had 180 - > other platforms come along that have made it super easy to stand 181 - > up a new e-commerce website and get up and running in 24 hours 182 - > or less, right? 183 - > With their own payment gateway and everything. 184 - > And so uh the the first real big change came when when broadband 185 - > came along. 186 - > And when it became mainstream, that now all of a sudden we 187 - > could do, you know, because when I first moved to New Zealand 188 - > from the United States in my early 20s, net to phone was a 189 - > big thing.

190 - > Like phone calls internationally were super expensive. 191 - > They were between 25 cents and a dollar a minute to make an 192 - > international phone call back in the day. 193 - > So a lot of us use what's called net-to-phone, which is an 194 - > application that you could use on your computer, and it would 195 - > cost you like two cents a minute. 196 - > It had a digital wallet, you could load up 50 bucks on your 197 - > digital wallet, and then it was a VO very early version of VOIP, 198 - > and you could call people all over the world, computer to 199 - > computer, and it and it was it was pennies, you know, compared 200 - > to an international phone call.

201 - > But I tell you, when you were trying to do that on dial-up, 202 - > very difficult, very, very difficult. 203 - > You would lose a connection, you would have massive duplexing 204 - > issues. 205 - > And then once broadband became became mainstream, all of a 206 - > sudden that it all just worked. 207 - > And and it was the same with even e-commerce websites.

208 - > They would take forever to load on dial-up. 209 - > Now all of a sudden, once you had broadband, they would they 210 - > would load what felt like almost instantaneously. 211 - > Obviously, YouTube came along on the back of broadband internet. 212 - > So broadband, first big change to the internet, right?

213 - > And and all of a sudden now you had parallel lines. 214 - > You could be online and use your telephone, your landline phone 215 - > at the same time. 216 - > Big change. 217 - > Big, big change.

218 - > Then mobile. 219 - > I remember uh distinctly that Nokia had their proprietary WAP 220 - > browser on their very, very early quote unquote smartphones. 221 - > And uh I remember a friend of mine had, I think it was the 222 - > 8910. 223 - > I think that was the model.

224 - > It was like the latest and greatest, uh, it was like a 225 - > $2,000 phone. 226 - > And this was way back in the day. 227 - > So this is this is like the equivalent of a$10,000 phone 228 - > today. 229 - > And I remember him showing me on this LCD screen this WAP browser 230 - > that he could connect to the internet with and he could load 231 - > web pages with.

232 - > Now it was only like a one-inch by one inch square screen, but I 233 - > remember thinking at the time, this is a crap experience now, 234 - > but this changes everything forever. 235 - > It literally changes everything forever. 236 - > Because if we can we can now do internet things on these phones, 237 - > wow, game changer. 238 - > Don't don't necessarily need a laptop, don't necessarily need a 239 - > desktop anymore.

240 - > Now we can do stuff online from the palm of our hand. 241 - > And I and I just knew it was gonna get better. 242 - > And then I remember uh when the first iPhone 3G came out, I was 243 - > like, okay, now this is the next because I because I had at the 244 - > time that the iPhone 3G came out out of Blackberry Pearl. 245 - > And uh and I remember thinking this is a step change in the way 246 - > that we are gonna interface with devices, everything being 247 - > touchscreen, it is an absolute game changer, right?

248 - > Um and then we we we we obviously had to build mobile 249 - > websites for these new mobile browsers. 250 - > And so I remember the M Dot Revolution revolution, right? 251 - > Because before everything was mobile responsive, we built 252 - > dedicated websites or apps for mobile uh instead of just having 253 - > everything be responsive based on uh on viewport. 254 - > And that that fad of M Dot websites, custom, completely 255 - > custom mobile websites, lasted for about 18 months.

256 - > And then all of a sudden we got religion about uh you know about 257 - > responsive websites, and all of a sudden now you just you just 258 - > accessed it through whatever device you had, whether it was a 259 - > tablet, a smartphone, or or a computer, right? 260 - > Um so so those have been like the biggest, um definitely 261 - > game-changing milestones I can think of as we went through the 262 - > internet and as the as the phone became the remote control of our 263 - > lives.

264 - > And then and then latterly, uh, you know, this there's two other 265 - > things that have really been game changers. 266 - > One is is that retail e-commerce has always been five to ten 267 - > years ahead of B2B e-commerce for manufacturers and 268 - > distributors. 269 - > And that's because in the B2B world, uh all relationships tend 270 - > to be long-term relationships, and they all tend to be based on 271 - > belly-to-belly selling, physical person-to-person selling, right?

272 - > A sales rep going and knocking on doors, meeting people, 273 - > building relationships, building out price lists, etc. 274 - > And and so the the entire B2B industry has been very reticent 275 - > because of their complexity and because of their people-first 276 - > nature, they've been really reticent to adopt e-commerce 277 - > technology, and more importantly, i uh business 278 - > leaders have found it difficult to reconcile, okay, low-cost 279 - > customer acquisition and sales processes done digitally, and 280 - > how do we compensate sales teams for transactions that come 281 - > through digital channels?

282 - > Like, should we comp you know compensate them equally uh 283 - > through physical and digital channels? 284 - > Should we compensate them more or less for digital sales? 285 - > And there's been this tension between leadership and them 286 - > wanting digital enablement and sales teams being really 287 - > resistant to digital enablement because they see that as the 288 - > robots replacing them, right? 289 - > And so uh, you know, but I've I've seen that change radically 290 - > over the last few years that I've worked in this space and 291 - > and you know, everybody's getting religious about digital, 292 - > even in the B2B world, because you know, there's not a sales 293 - > rep alive that likes doing manual admin work.

294 - > There's just they just don't like it. 295 - > And so and it and it doesn't put uh that manual admin work does 296 - > not put any more commission in their back pocket. 297 - > And so uh, you know, and and in our research with all of our 298 - > clients, for the B2B businesses that measure uh activity by task 299 - > with their sales teams, anywhere from 20 to 60% of a sales rep's 300 - > time is spent on unproductive admin that adds no value to them 301 - > or their customer.

302 - > And so things like going out and taking an order in the field and 303 - > then come back and keying it into an ERP system. 304 - > So what we know is that is that for the B2Bs that track uh you 305 - > know sales reps time by activity, we know that most of 306 - > it is unproductive time. 307 - > And so that's what I'm here to do in the B2B world is to give 308 - > B2B businesses superpowers and to give sales reps superpowers 309 - > and to take away all the crap that they don't want to do 310 - > anyway.

311 - > And so those have been some big things, and and the adoption of 312 - > e-commerce within the B2B world is accelerating very, very 313 - > rapidly now. 314 - > It's outstripping B2C and D2C e-commerce growth by about seven 315 - > or eight to one, and it's looking to be that way till at 316 - > least 2030. 317 - > Only about 40 to 60 percent of the B2Bs in the United States 318 - > today offer e-commerce at all, whereas like 98% of retailers 319 - > offer e-commerce today in the United States, so it's there's 320 - > there's not as much greenfield work anymore in in retail 321 - > e-commerce.

322 - > It's a lot of incumbency there that you have to unseat to win 323 - > new deals in B2C. 324 - > B2B not the case. 325 - > B2B, it's still blue ocean as far as the eye can see, and it's 326 - > it's looking to be that way for many years to come. 327 - > So it's been an exciting ride, but the the obviously the latest 328 - > trend that some people thought was just going to be a 329 - > short-term fad.

330 - > But the thing that has turned into a trend is absolutely AI, 331 - > touching everything to do with our industry. 332 - > And uh, you know, it's it's not that I was ever not excited 333 - > about our industry, but it is is given me even more excitement, 334 - > even more to look forward to. 335 - > It is it has reinvigorated me, and I'm as excited to be in 336 - > e-commerce today as I have ever been, especially with AI and the 337 - > and the and the and the tooling that we have available to us 338 - > today is world-class, and it it is so exciting to be able to 339 - > 10x.

340 - > I I just ran a report uh just yet just yesterday. 341 - > I ran a report on some of the tasks that I had done with AI 342 - > over the last, say, two months. 343 - > And on average, on average, uh ranging anywhere from sort of 2x 344 - > more productive to 20x more productive, I I am about eight 345 - > times more productive on those tasks that uh I use an AI 346 - > co-pilot to assist with uh than doing it 100% on my own. 347 - > So that level of productivity gain is just phenomenal, and I 348 - > expect that to accelerate in my own business as I continue to 349 - > automate back office, uh, back office workflows.

350 - > SPEAKER_01: Outstanding. 351 - > Uh, let's go in the direction of AI because it's a really hot 352 - > topic right now, and and I don't know if this has been true for 353 - > you. 354 - > When I I had thought maybe AI is gonna de decrease the amount of 355 - > hours I work per day. 356 - > And what I found is that's not the case.

357 - > Uh, it is almost as if I'm like playing professional sports with 358 - > a bunch of steroids. 359 - > I can be so much more productive, I can do so much 360 - > more work, and and I'm enjoying it more. 361 - > I I really am. 362 - > And so um curious, have you had that experience and and what are 363 - > some practical things that uh e-commerce business owners can 364 - > do with AI to help make them more productive?

365 - > SPEAKER_02: Yeah, a hundred percent. 366 - > Like I'm doing the same, you know, I like I I I probably work 367 - > on average four hours a day on client work, and then the other 368 - > four to six hours a day is on content. 369 - > I still spend eight to ten hours a week on on content, uh, as I 370 - > have done for the last decade. 371 - > Uh, and I don't foresee that changing anytime soon because I 372 - > just love being a creator and it it it's it's it's an outlet for 373 - > my creative passion.

374 - > And you know, I but but what the amount of work and the amount of 375 - > client work that I can get done in that same four-hour span is 376 - > is eight to 10x, right? 377 - > And it also helps me to automate processes that are have 378 - > historically been very manual and very painful in my business. 379 - > So I use I prime I I use lots of different AI tooling every day 380 - > from Gemini to Grok to lots of different tooling in my 381 - > enterprise software and every everything else.

382 - > But the the agentic platform that I have really truly fallen 383 - > in love with and used to automate most things in my 384 - > business over the last six months is Manaus. 385 - > And it is it has allowed me to create agenc workflows in the 386 - > platform that are just mind-blowing in in like it's 387 - > like having an analyst on staff at all times. 388 - > It is like having a PA and EA on staff at all times. 389 - > I can send it off in five different tabs, and it's it 390 - > what's it really interesting about MANIS is it will spool up 391 - > as many parallel agentic workflows as it thinks it needs 392 - > to do a task.

393 - > So it will it will break down a task that I give it into all the 394 - > subtasks that it logically thinks it should break down a 395 - > task into and then spool up uh virtual machines and agents 396 - > within each of those virtual machines to go and go and do 397 - > research on the internet or to draft a document or to create a 398 - > spreadsheet or whatever. 399 - > It break it it it I don't have to tell it how to break down a 400 - > singular task into a gen of agentic subtasks, it does all 401 - > that for me.

402 - > Uh and it and it breaks it down in the most efficient, you know, 403 - > bite-sized chunked subtasks as necessary to get things done as 404 - > fast and efficiently as possible. 405 - > And and I tell you the amount of time savings that that has done 406 - > for me, like I I create the boundaries, I create the the 407 - > brief for the task, I tell it exactly what I want, I tell it 408 - > what type of research I need, I tell it what type of citations I 409 - > need. 410 - > Like I give it all the I give it a good brief because because 411 - > like normally I would have to do this stuff myself, right?

412 - > And so I know exactly I know exactly what needs to be done, 413 - > but then I also am smart enough to realize that maybe it has 414 - > things that it can do that I can't do, and maybe it will 415 - > think of things. 416 - > So I say, is this the most efficient way? 417 - > Or am is there something I'm missing here? 418 - > So I use it as a thought partner as much as an execution partner.

419 - > And and I have even, one of the things that I've done with it 420 - > recently that has made me completely revisit how I price 421 - > and position my business in the market, I I I gave it a task. 422 - > I said, look, I said, here's my profile, here's my profile page 423 - > on my website. 424 - > I'm 51 years old, here's my goals, here's where I want to be 425 - > in five years, whatever. 426 - > And if you were me, how would you structure your business?

427 - > How would you would you even be doing what I do now? 428 - > How would you, if if the goals are these three or four things, 429 - > what would you do with my profile and my experience and 430 - > and how would you build a a business to achieve these 431 - > outcomes? 432 - > And it came back to me and it and it gave me a list, like a 433 - > really, really detailed, well-cited, well-reasoned list 434 - > of ways that it would change what I do to make it more 435 - > productive, to uh monetize it better, to to create more 436 - > freedom in my life, et cetera, et cetera.

437 - > And and probably half, greater than half of those 438 - > recommendations I'm gonna be executing on over the next six 439 - > months. 440 - > So as a thought partner and an execution partner, uh you know, 441 - > agentic AI is just phenomenal. 442 - > It is really phenomenal. 443 - > SPEAKER_01: I I I really like that, and I really like those 444 - > examples.

445 - > One thing that uh prompt engineering is a relatively new 446 - > term with AI, and and um you had it was very simple, but uh is 447 - > this sufficient or how can I make this more efficient? 448 - > And and I really like that. 449 - > Um I'm curious, are there any other prompts that you find 450 - > yourself coming back to? 451 - > Um yeah, for instance, one of my favorites is ask me 10 questions 452 - > one at a time and then give me your output.

453 - > And that instead of being bombarded with 10 questions, um, 454 - > it asks me number one, and whatever I say number one 455 - > informs what question number two is. 456 - > And so I I've really liked that. 457 - > But any any prompts that you're using and you find yourself 458 - > using it on a uh pretty frequent basis? 459 - > Yeah, what am I missing?

460 - > SPEAKER_02: That that is something what what what am I 461 - > missing in this thought process or in this task or in this 462 - > activity or this strategic approach? 463 - > What am I missing? 464 - > What am I not seeing here that I should be seeing? 465 - > What if it's a piece of content, what angles am I missing?

466 - > What you know, what uh sources am I missing? 467 - > What what am I not seeing? 468 - > What are my blind spots around this thing because I have 469 - > experience and I and I have assumptions based on that 470 - > experience? 471 - > What assumptions am I making that could be wrong that are 472 - > creating a blind spot in my thinking that you can 473 - > immediately identify?

474 - > And so, and so that that what am I missing line, or how would you 475 - > do this? 476 - > Uh you know, and and so for. 477 - > For example, I I have created a new um I have created a new 478 - > entirely new framework for scoring, summarizing, uh citing, 479 - > and doing data visualization for platform selection for my 480 - > clients. 481 - > And so I had I had an idea of what I wanted to achieve, but I 482 - > am not a a spreadsheet guru at all.

483 - > And I wanted to create some custom formulas to create some 484 - > certain scoring rubrics that I didn't know how to write those 485 - > formulas in a Google Sheet. 486 - > So I said, I said, here's what I want to achieve. 487 - > How should I do this? 488 - > And I'm gonna connect you to Google Workspace and I'm gonna 489 - > get you to create the spreadsheet.

490 - > I'm gonna create get you to create the scoring rubric. 491 - > I'm gonna create, get you to create the summary tab. 492 - > This is what I want to see in the summary tab, and I'm gonna 493 - > get you create create the data visualization tab. 494 - > You're gonna help me create the data visualizations, the charts, 495 - > the graphs, and everything else to visually represent what the 496 - > prior 10 tabs uh say.

497 - > And and and all the results we've come to. 498 - > We're gonna create a summary justification tab and we're 499 - > gonna create a data visualization tab. 500 - > Because I always believe in show-don't tell. 501 - > And it helped me over the span of a few hours, it helped me 502 - > completely create all of the data architecture, the formulas, 503 - > the summary tables, the data visualizations.

504 - > And I have went through the thought exercise even on the 505 - > data visualizations. 506 - > This is what I'm thinking. 507 - > What do you think? 508 - > How would this be more human consumable?

509 - > How could we, you know, how can we present this in a way that is 510 - > requires a lot less mental bandwidth than just looking at a 511 - > summary table of information? 512 - > Uh and and here's what I here's kind of the what I'm thinking. 513 - > What do you think? 514 - > What would you do if you were in my seat and you were delivering 515 - > this piece of work to a client?

516 - > What do you think would make this more palatable and more 517 - > valuable to the client if they were consuming this, right? 518 - > And and why? 519 - > Tell me, tell me why you think that. 520 - > Don't just tell me what to do, but and tell me how you're gonna 521 - > do it, but also tell me why.

522 - > What is the justification for for thinking that? 523 - > And then it and then it would cite resources, it would cite 524 - > research, it would like it's just it is you you you do have 525 - > to know what to ask, right? 526 - > But I think prompt engineering, so today, I know that a lot of 527 - > kids coming out of university and school, they're putting on 528 - > their CV, expert prompt engineer, et cetera. 529 - > I think give it another 12 or 18 months, it is going to be just 530 - > as ridiculous to put on your CV that you are an expert prompt 531 - > engineer as it would be today to say you're an expert Googler, 532 - > right?

533 - > I remember, I remember people applying for our to work at our 534 - > agency 20 plus years ago. 535 - > And I remember them on CV saying, I'm an expert Googler. 536 - > I can find anything on the internet, I can find any piece 537 - > of esoteric information on the internet, and I'm an expert at 538 - > that. 539 - > And and that was a valuable skill to have back in the day 540 - > when you, you know, you yes, you had Google, but to find the 541 - > needle in the haystack information was actually a 542 - > skill.

543 - > And it was, and it was query engineering, for lack of a 544 - > better term, back then, right? 545 - > And and and and refining queries to get the actual information 546 - > you get your hands on the actual information that you wanted, 547 - > right? 548 - > I remember, you know, trying to find uh abstracts for medical 549 - > research. 550 - > I remember trying to find abstracts from university 551 - > research that was on web servers that Google had access to back 552 - > then, but you had to know what terminology to use to get access 553 - > to this, to this hidden information, right?

554 - > That was publicly accessible, but you had to know how to query 555 - > it to get access to that information or to find it on a 556 - > web server somewhere. 557 - > So uh, you know, and that's prompt engineering today, right? 558 - > You you know, if you're an expert prompt engineer like I 559 - > think I am, I mean I've been doing this for two years now on 560 - > the on the trot, I'm pretty good at being able to get the results 561 - > from AI that I need. 562 - > But I I think give it another 12 or 18 months, and everybody's 563 - > gonna be an expert prompt engineer, at least in the tech 564 - > space, because you you if you use something every single day, 565 - > you quickly learn how to get the best out of it.

566 - > SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I agree. 567 - > And there are things we're doing now that if you would have said 568 - > six or twelve months ago that this is going to be possible, I 569 - > would have said not a chance. 570 - > And so it's kind of fun to think about what the future is like. 571 - > It's changing so quickly.

572 - > And and so I'm curious, what you know, what resources, what 573 - > content, um, what are you consuming to continue to sharpen 574 - > your sword and and stay at the cutting edge of AI? 575 - > SPEAKER_02: Well, I spend about three hours a day, uh somewhere 576 - > between an hour and a half and three hours a day walking my 577 - > dogs, right? 578 - > I try to get out of the house. 579 - > And and the good thing about my dogs, they're both high energy.

580 - > One's a border collie cross and one's a Jack Russell Cross. 581 - > So they're they're both super high-energy dogs. 582 - > And if I don't get them out of the house at least twice a day, 583 - > they're climbing the walls. 584 - > And so it's it's very because I could easily sit in front of my 585 - > computer for eight hours a day and and and not even realize 586 - > that I've been sitting at the computer for eight hours.

587 - > It's that easy to do. 588 - > And so it's good that my dogs come and bother me uh several 589 - > times a day to go for a walk because otherwise I would just 590 - > be glued to my chair and it would not be healthy for my 591 - > mind, my eyes, my brain, or my heart or my body. 592 - > And so it is good to get them out. 593 - > And so I listen to a tremendous amount of podcasts when I'm 594 - > walking.

595 - > And everything from the operator's pod to specific AI 596 - > podcasts to financial podcasts to, you know, This Week in 597 - > Startups, to, you know, all in to, you know, I try to, I try to 598 - > live, I, you know, I have I have a I have a lot of high-end, high 599 - > thought comp uh, you know, comp uh podcasts on repeat uh that I 600 - > listen to every day that they have a new episode that comes 601 - > out. 602 - > I'm a religious uh follower of those podcasts.

603 - > And so I I try to have that coming in as kind of new, you 604 - > know, it really helps to prompt new thinking in new ways when 605 - > you're hearing the thought process that some of these 606 - > people are going through in their own businesses, in their 607 - > own content, in their own everything, and and also in 608 - > their own daily use of these tools. 609 - > Like they they highlight the things that they're learning 610 - > every day by using these tools. 611 - > And and so I'm like, oh, I'll go and try that.

612 - > I'm gonna go and try that in my own system, I'm gonna go and try 613 - > that in Manis, I'm gonna go and try that in Gemini, I'm gonna go 614 - > try that in Grok, I'm gonna go and you know, try that in 615 - > ChatGPT or whatever it is. 616 - > And so um that I I you know, since and Claude, I'm using 617 - > Claude Code, I'm using Lovable, you know, so I'm I'm using 618 - > coding agents, I'm using using answer agents, and I'm using 619 - > action agents every single day.

620 - > And it's it's man, as somebody who's a very, very, very 621 - > technical non-developer, the kind of stuff I've been able to 622 - > create using coding agents and using action agents is wild. 623 - > So I I needed to create for a client. 624 - > We had a we have a uh a whole entire architecture that I built 625 - > alongside one of my SI clients for a clo for an end client, and 626 - > there was a whole series of what we call KDDs or key design 627 - > decisions that they need to make uh across this entire 628 - > architecture before we can move forward with proof of concept 629 - > and a whole bunch of other things.

630 - > And uh there was about 32 key design decisions they would need 631 - > to make to move forward to the next phase of the engagement. 632 - > And we we we could have just dumped this all into a Google 633 - > Sheet or into a Confluence doc or something like that, and with 634 - > little drop-downs, and they could just they could just 635 - > select, right? 636 - > And maybe put some notes in there. 637 - > But we wanted to make this a more engaging experience.

638 - > And so we decided to build this out as a web app using uh Google 639 - > Apps Script. 640 - > And so I I told Manis what I wanted to do. 641 - > I connected it to my uh to my workspace and I said, look, this 642 - > is what I want to build, here's what I want it to look like. 643 - > We want sliders, we want some, we want radio buttons, we want 644 - > comment fields, we want drop downs, and we want all this 645 - > stuff, right?

646 - > Oh, and here's the raw data of the key design decisions we want 647 - > to put on this form, this really interactive form. 648 - > And I said, go build it, deploy the Google app script, uh, link 649 - > it to a Google Sheet on the back end to track and be able to 650 - > recall all the responses by email address uh of the because 651 - > on the client side, they had like three or four people that 652 - > needed to respond to these KDDs. 653 - > And we wanted to track who was providing the responses, what 654 - > decision they had made, and is this a high confidence or low 655 - > confidence decision or a final decision, right?

656 - > We want to track all that. 657 - > And and and in about less than 10 minutes, it had built it had 658 - > built the HTML front end form with all the JavaScript on the 659 - > front end, it had built the apps script to deploy it to the front 660 - > end, it had it it had created all of the logic in the back-end 661 - > Google Sheet, it created the Google Sheet, it had linked them 662 - > both together, and then it had deployed it to a URL where I 663 - > could test it.

664 - > unknown: Wow. 665 - > SPEAKER_02: Just phenomenal. 666 - > Just like, you know, and and I'm a non-developer, but I know what 667 - > the software development lifecycle looks like, so I know 668 - > how to create a really good brief. 669 - > And and uh and of course, because I'm a solution 670 - > architect, like I I I get how you have to speak the language 671 - > of a developer to get a good outcome.

672 - > And like just like if I had tried to do that manually with 673 - > some instruction list off of a website somewhere of how to do 674 - > it, like it would have probably taken me a day to do it. 675 - > Uh, but you know, uh using Manus as my co-pilot, 10 minutes, job 676 - > done, ready to test. 677 - > Boom, ready for me to test, and ready for me to surface to the 678 - > end customer. 679 - > SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

680 - > Uh the yeah. 681 - > That's an incredible example and and a good a good example of of 682 - > how your productivity can 10x or or greater. 683 - > Um what do you think this means for the workforce and human 684 - > beings in general? 685 - > SPEAKER_02: I think the biggest challenge is entry-level roles.

686 - > So I I'm a I I guess I would consider myself a domain expert 687 - > on like e-commerce, particularly B2B. 688 - > And like I've been in the industry for a long time, and I 689 - > started at the bottom. 690 - > I started as a real super junior person working in a in a digital 691 - > agency and kind of learned everything along the way through 692 - > some trial and error, and it was, of course, it was really 693 - > early in the industry, so nobody had all the answers.

694 - > And so uh, you know, and and and I was like super, super junior. 695 - > You know, when I when I started, I I like I was an internet user, 696 - > but I was not an internet expert by any stretch of the 697 - > imagination. 698 - > And um, but I saw the writing on the wall back then, even, and I 699 - > said, This is this is going to change the world forever. 700 - > And I don't even know how fully it's going to change the world, 701 - > but it will change the world forever.

702 - > And I need, not want, I need to be a part of this. 703 - > And and I was compelled, I felt compelled to figure out how I 704 - > could play a significant role in the future of the internet right 705 - > from day one. 706 - > I felt that. 707 - > Um and and I I I'm a little bit concerned.

708 - > Uh I'm I'm both concerned, I'm equally concerned and excited. 709 - > So I'll just caveat up by saying that. 710 - > I'm a little bit concerned about all the super junior roles in 711 - > most companies, because because I think AI can replace most 712 - > juniors today already. 713 - > Like it can replace a lot of seniors too.

714 - > Uh, but in particular, like all that grunt work, that manual 715 - > grunt work with spreadsheets and and SEO work and all that stuff 716 - > that I did back in the day manually, and all the manually 717 - > emailing, you know, webmasters at the time. 718 - > Hey, can we swap links? 719 - > Hey, can I get your directory? 720 - > Hey, you know, that that all the people skills that I developed, 721 - > all the communication skills that I developed, all the, you 722 - > know, uh all the collaboration skills that I developed back in 723 - > those early days, and all the research skills that I developed 724 - > back in those early days, like that that was years of 725 - > repetition that that taught me all those skills back in the 726 - > early days.

727 - > And I'm just concerned, if there are no junior roles because AI 728 - > is doing all those junior roles, how do you become a domain 729 - > expert in the first place? 730 - > That that to me is probably my biggest concern. 731 - > But the cool thing is that with AI, uh, if you have an interest 732 - > in something, it can be a thought partner, it can be an 733 - > education partner, it can be a learning partner, uh in equal 734 - > measure. 735 - > And so that you know, what used to be tribal and institutional 736 - > knowledge only is a lot of that is now global knowledge that is 737 - > surfaced through AI.

738 - > But but I think what is really, really worth pointing out is AI 739 - > still hallucinates, it still makes mistakes, you still have 740 - > to demand that it provides you with citations, you still have 741 - > to demand that it provides you with links, you still have to 742 - > demand that it provide you with its reasoning and how it came up 743 - > with the conclusions it gave you. 744 - > You have you you you just have to structure your prompts in 745 - > such a way that it has to justify everything that it does 746 - > and says so that it doesn't just spew bullshit that sounds 747 - > really, really believable.

748 - > And so I have coined a term, a phrase, which is that with AI, 749 - > you not only need to know the questions to ask, but you need 750 - > to know the answers to question. 751 - > And I am concerned. 752 - > So I as a domain expert, I I know which answers to question 753 - > because it's something inside me, there's some intuition 754 - > inside me when it spews BS at me, I go, I go, that no, that's 755 - > not, that's not, that's not right. 756 - > And I know to ask follow-up questions to get it to prove 757 - > that it that it made something up and made it sound really 758 - > believable.

759 - > But I'm concerned that juniors will not know which answers to 760 - > question. 761 - > And I'm already seeing that in some of the people that I work 762 - > with on some projects where clearly they're using AI for a 763 - > lot of their work, and I don't have a problem with that. 764 - > But but when the deliverable is so crap and it's obviously crap, 765 - > I'm going, you didn't you didn't even take the time to review the 766 - > final deliverable before you handed it over.

767 - > You know, it's fine to use AI as a thought partner, it's fine to 768 - > use it as an execution partner, but ultimately the buck stops 769 - > with you when something goes to a client. 770 - > And so therefore, you must review it all. 771 - > Otherwise, it's your name on the line, not AI's name on the line, 772 - > it's your name on the line. 773 - > And and so those are the those are the kind of the pros and 774 - > cons that I see about AI right now.

775 - > Uh, you know, it's it but it you know, it's AI's coming after 776 - > white-collar jobs. 777 - > You know, I haven't paid a lawyer to review a contract in 778 - > two in over two years. 779 - > You know, I I I I just have I haven't needed to because I've 780 - > told it all the gotchas I'm looking for. 781 - > I upload the PDF of the contract.

782 - > It's a 60-page contract or whatever it is with a partner or 783 - > something like that. 784 - > And I go, here's the gotchas, here's the things I want to get 785 - > out of this contract. 786 - > Does this contract give me that? 787 - > What am I missing?

788 - > What thorns am I not seeing here? 789 - > You know, and it'll come back in 30 seconds or 10 seconds with 790 - > all the things I want that it doesn't give me, all the things 791 - > that that tilts it in the in the in the third party's favor, all 792 - > the things that I should add with exact legal text in the 793 - > jurisdiction uh of that contract. 794 - > Like it's it's it's pretty phenomenal, dude. 795 - > So, you know, I I'm not just saying juniors are at risk, but 796 - > seniors are at risk if you do not adapt to bring more value to 797 - > your clients by using AI than they can use AI themselves, then 798 - > you are gonna find yourself out of a job.

799 - > And I'd like to think that I still, today, with my 26 years 800 - > of experience, because my 26 years of experience doesn't live 801 - > in AI anywhere. 802 - > It lives in my head. 803 - > And so uh I'd like to think that by using AI, I still bring more 804 - > value to my customer experience and customer relationship than 805 - > they would be able to get by working with AI directly. 806 - > SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

807 - > Yeah. 808 - > No, I I fully agree with that. 809 - > I fully agree with that. 810 - > Now, final question before we get to the lightning round.

811 - > We've established that AI is is changing e-commerce as we know 812 - > it today. 813 - > You also have established, which I made a ton of great points 814 - > about uh B2B being a blue ocean. 815 - > What advice would you give to a young person with interest in 816 - > getting into e-commerce with those two things in mind? 817 - > SPEAKER_02: I would say go to work for an agency for uh two to 818 - > five years.

819 - > So if I look back at my career, agency work was simultaneously 820 - > the most stressful, the most hardcore, the most demanding, 821 - > the most hours I have ever done in a week of work was inside 822 - > agency land and and client engagements where there were 823 - > deadlines, where there were deliverables, where there were 824 - > resource constraints, where there were, you know, just 825 - > agencies are the absolute pinnacle of a pressure cooker 826 - > environment in e-commerce delivery.

827 - > There's just no two ways about that. 828 - > Um, but on the flip side, I learned more in say five years 829 - > of working in agency land than probably 25 years working in 830 - > industry or working inside of a specific brand or working, you 831 - > know, or working inside of a vendor even. 832 - > And so I I would say most people cannot do agency work forever. 833 - > It's just it's very stressful.

834 - > It's it's it's just hard. 835 - > Any any client-facing services like that, it's really hard. 836 - > And oftentimes, especially in agency land, and especially if 837 - > you have a team of, say, 20 or more people on your team, 838 - > there's mouths to feed, and as a result of that, sometimes you 839 - > take on work that you would otherwise say no to to keep the 840 - > mouths fed, to keep people working, to keep the the money 841 - > rolling in, to keep payroll paid.

842 - > And so sometimes you have to take on clients that aren't a 843 - > great fit just because the work is there to be done and you can 844 - > make money off it, right? 845 - > Uh as an independent consultant, I don't have that problem, 846 - > right? 847 - > I've only got to be feed me and my family. 848 - > And so I swore when I started my consultancy, I swore I will 849 - > never ever take on a client or a job or an opportunity that does 850 - > not feel right to me, that I don't think I can move the 851 - > needle quickly in a client's business, that doesn't seem like 852 - > it'll be fun, that doesn't seem like the client's a good, good 853 - > company to work with, that I don't think I'll enjoy.

854 - > And I had a second rule, which was I will never work with 855 - > public companies because I I've worked with public companies 856 - > before and I know how challenging that is for a whole 857 - > litany of reasons. 858 - > So sometimes I'll work with public companies via an agency 859 - > client that I'm that I'm helping them with a project, and the end 860 - > client happens to be a public company, but I just do not work 861 - > with public companies directly as a consultant because I like 862 - > to see my work make it out into the wild.

863 - > And in public companies, oftentimes that does not happen. 864 - > And so uh uh, you know, and so uh it's an exercise in futility 865 - > and frustration oftentimes dealing with public companies, 866 - > and oftentimes they think they can do it themselves anyway, so 867 - > oftentimes they won't hire a consultant anyway. 868 - > So uh, but but it but it you know that is is kind of where 869 - > I've landed on this thing is I'm gonna continue to use AI, I'm 870 - > gonna continue to adopt it, I'm gonna continue to learn from it, 871 - > I'm gonna continue to teach it just because of that's that 872 - > that's the two-way give and take with AI, right?

873 - > Just with your prompting, you're teaching it, right? 874 - > And so uh yeah, it's it's a really, really fun time to be 875 - > alive, but that's kind of where I've landed on all this. 876 - > SPEAKER_01: I think that is great advice. 877 - > That is great advice to young people.

878 - > And I had a similar experience. 879 - > I I had seven years in in corporate consulting, 80-hour 880 - > weeks. 881 - > I'm so grateful for that that time and what I learned. 882 - > I'd never go back.

883 - > Um, but I do like I I think that's really sound, solid 884 - > advice. 885 - > And and so, all right, Jason. 886 - > We've covered a lot today. 887 - > Before we close out the episode, we have something called the 888 - > Fire Round.

889 - > It's four questions. 890 - > We ask every guest at the end of the show. 891 - > You ready? 892 - > Let's hit it.

893 - > All right, what's your favorite book? 894 - > SPEAKER_02: Uh it is a book. 895 - > Uh um it is called At Shrugged by Ayn Rand. 896 - > unknown: Okay.

897 - > SPEAKER_02: What are your hobbies? 898 - > Uh, I have a lot of hobbies. 899 - > My wife would probably say too many. 900 - > Uh I love motorcycles and dirt bikes.

901 - > I love four-wheel driving with my my with my Wrangler. 902 - > I love um I love jet skiing, I love water skiing, I love snow 903 - > skiing, I basically I love bungee jumping, basically I love 904 - > action sports of pretty much all types. 905 - > Uh I love action sports. 906 - > So anywhere we go and anywhere we travel in the world, there's 907 - > almost always some sort of an action sport involved in that.

908 - > Uh, and I have no fear of heights. 909 - > I like skydiving. 910 - > Um, I like, yeah. 911 - > I have all my almost all of my hobbies are expensive and 912 - > involve some sort of physical activity.

913 - > I'm not a go and sit on a beach read a book kind of guy. 914 - > That's just not the way I'm wired. 915 - > SPEAKER_01: Very nice. 916 - > Very nice.

917 - > Uh what do you think sets apart successful e-commerce 918 - > entrepreneurs from those who give up, fail, or never get 919 - > started? 920 - > SPEAKER_02: All of the successful e-commerce 921 - > entrepreneurs that I have ever met they equally balance hunger 922 - > with humility. 923 - > And they generally have an outsized empathy gene, an 924 - > empathy muscle versus their competitors. 925 - > Meaning that they care for their people, they care to create a 926 - > supportive environment, an encouraging environment, a sure, 927 - > it might be high pressure, it might be high demand, uh, but 928 - > you know, that equal parts hunger and humility, the 929 - > realization I don't know it all and I'll never know it all, I 930 - > don't have a monopoly on good ideas, even though I might be 931 - > the founder of this company, and understanding the good ideas can 932 - > come from anywhere at any time.

933 - > And the final thing I will say is that the people who travel 934 - > the most tend to be the most balanced in that regard. 935 - > Because I tell you, when you get outside your comfort zone, when 936 - > you get outside everything you know, when you literally 937 - > physically walk a mile in someone else's shoes because you 938 - > visited where they live, where they buy groceries, where they 939 - > do their sports, uh, you eat their food, you speak their 940 - > language, when you do those things, you see the world in a 941 - > different way, but you see yourself in a different way, and 942 - > you see your place in the world in a very different way.

943 - > People that, you know, grow up, live and die in their hometown, 944 - > nothing wrong with that. 945 - > But I tell you, it tends to make you a little bit insular, it 946 - > tends to make you a little bit ignorant, and it tends to get 947 - > make you arrogant. 948 - > Based on ignorance. 949 - > And that's a really dangerous when you start drinking your own 950 - > Kool-Aid, there's nothing that will humble you more than 951 - > finding yourself in the middle of Mexico City after your cell 952 - > phone's been stolen from you.

953 - > Right? 954 - > There is nothing that will humble you more than realizing I 955 - > don't speak this language. 956 - > And uh, you know, they have every right to expect I come to 957 - > their country and I speak their language because I'm in I'm in 958 - > their I'm in on their turf, right? 959 - > And so I tell you, you know, travel and living in other 960 - > countries, I'm now living in the third country after, you know, I 961 - > I I grew up in California, born and raised, lived in New Zealand 962 - > for almost 30 years, been living in Mexico now since 2023.

963 - > So it's my third country that I've lived in. 964 - > Every one of those experiences has taught me massive life 965 - > lessons, right? 966 - > So I think travel and living living in different places to 967 - > where you were born is the single best education you can 968 - > give yourself. 969 - > And it it will help grow both the hunger and the humility.

970 - > Because when you see things done in a certain culture and you go, 971 - > wow, I I could take that idea and I could tweak it a little 972 - > bit and I could take it back to where I operate. 973 - > And I could it it is just so inspirational. 974 - > Uh, as an entrepreneur, I think you'll get more inspiration by 975 - > traveling than you will by reading a business book. 976 - > Let's put it that way.

977 - > SPEAKER_01: I that is very sound advice. 978 - > I I really like that. 979 - > Uh last question, Jason. 980 - > If if people are interested in working with you, what's your 981 - > typical client and what's the best way to get in touch with 982 - > you?

983 - > SPEAKER_02: Yeah, look, it's it's pretty straightforward. 984 - > Uh it's all on greenweedconsulting.net, but uh 985 - > for manufacturers and distributors, I tend to work 986 - > with$50 million plus per year revenue manufacturers like$50 987 - > million to$500 million is my sweet spot. 988 - > Um, you know, because larger than that, they tend to have 989 - > very big internal teams and they tend not to necessarily need 990 - > somebody like me.

991 - > But$50 to$500 million, maybe a billion at a stretch, uh is is 992 - > in terms of annual revenue across all channels is a great 993 - > sweet spot. 994 - > High growth companies that are struggling with scale, maybe 995 - > they're looking at uh implementing self-service 996 - > e-commerce or a portalized experience for the very first 997 - > time, or they're looking at seriously uh leveling up their 998 - > e-commerce and digital commerce game and creating a much better 999 - > experience for their customers.

1000 - > Um and I think the other thing that sets me apart as a 1001 - > consultant is I don't just consult on e-comm, I consult on 1002 - > the entire commerce stack. 1003 - > So ERP, CRM, CDP, PIM, OMS, IMS, WMS, point of sale, system 1004 - > integration, enterprise architecture, I do the lot. 1005 - > And so uh that that's really where I can help. 1006 - > And then of course I work with agencies who oftentimes they 1007 - > maybe have historically been a D2C, B2C agency, they want to 1008 - > get into B2B, but they don't know how.

1009 - > I help them with that uh transition and I help them to 1010 - > develop their B2B e-commerce delivery capabilities in-house 1011 - > and their customer engagement model. 1012 - > Uh and then I work with platform vendors in a similar way to help 1013 - > them roadmap uh you know their their technology, to uh to help 1014 - > them with their go-to-market, to help them with their partner 1015 - > model, et cetera, and then investors in the B2B space. 1016 - > So but from a manufacturing distribution perspective, that 1017 - > 50 to 500 million, fast growing, uh don't know where to go next, 1018 - > don't know how to use AI, don't know uh, you know, they they 1019 - > need help with technology selection, they need help with 1020 - > solution architecture, um, and they need help with AI 1021 - > implementation.

1022 - > Uh I don't do any implementation, so I'm a pure 1023 - > consultancy. 1024 - > Uh, but I help with with you know platform search and select, 1025 - > I help with partner search and select, I help with solution 1026 - > architecture and all the rest. 1027 - > SPEAKER_01: So outstanding. 1028 - > Outstanding.

1029 - > Well, Jason, it's been an absolute pleasure chatting with 1030 - > you today. 1031 - > I will post links to uh all of your content. 1032 - > Um to the listeners, check out e commerce edge. 1033 - > It's an outstanding podcast and uh definitely in my top five.

1034 - > So all right, Jason, we'll chat with you later. 1035 - > Thank you. 1036 - > Love it, thank you.

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