Stop Selling, Start Solving (Compact Appliances Keynote Address)

So I want to ask a question as we get started with this session.

You can see the title indicates where we're going to go.

But the question is, how does a local horse shop, a specialty retailer, win in the age of AI, when everything is changing, when technology is moving? How does the local retailer win? As me and Matt have been at the booth talking with folks, like the advent of AI and how people are thinking about it and using it has been like the number one thing, like unprompted that people have been talking about.

And I'm sure that every single one of you has been thinking about this yourself.

that we're in the midst of a shift right now.

And there's a lot of questions about, can our local businesses still be viable as everything is being turned on its head? And as we jump into this today, I want to start by going through three numbers, okay? I'm going to go through each of these numbers.

First number, 2002.

So this is the year that a small startup company called Google invented a brilliant business model.

And that business model was the way that they have auction style advertising, okay? So show of hands, how many of you have advertised on Google before? You pay for a keyword, you know, most of the manufacturers, this is the game that you're in, right? This business model was invented in 2002.

And basically the way it works is, is Google's getting all these hits of people asking questions and Google says, we want to cash in.

So let's go to company A and say, hey, if you'll pay us X amount of dollars for these keywords, we'll show you first.

And company A goes, oh, that sounds great.

So they pay it.

And then Google goes to company B and says, hey, company A is paying this much for the keyword.

Do you want to pay more than that? And company B goes, shoot, heck yeah, we'll pay more than that.

Okay, then they go to company C and they go, hey, company B is paying this for the keyword.

You guys see where this is going, right? Then they go back to company A and this whole thing starts to spin.

This happened in 2002.

Second number, 120X.

Any guess what that is? This is how much Google grew in the five years after adopting that business model for advertising.

Okay, 120X, unbelievable growth.

I mean, I don't think that any of us have ever experienced something like that, but that was the ride that they went on.

They saw a company that was still large by many of our standards explode into the stratosphere because of this auction style business model that they created.

Now, Google really likes this, right? They become a publicly traded company.

They're making all this money hand over fist.