B2B product led marketplace with Rick West

Welcome to this fantastic new episode of talk commerce today. I have Rick west, the CEO and co-founder of field agent. Rick, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself and tell us maybe one of your passions in life. The spirit. Thank you so much for having me. I started by telling people I am. Father of three husband of one granddaddy to two. 
 

And so from a family perspective, I spend most of my time chasing my grandkids. Now, if you jump over to the business world and what that looks like gusta passionate for me, if you have for decades has always been that creative side of things. So there's, I've never met a. I didn't love sitting down on a whiteboard and trying to figure things out. 
 

So whether it's a personal problem, a business problem, whatever it may be. I love lowering my head with a whiteboard, figuring things out. That's great. So I know that you're involved in marketplaces. Tell us a little bit about what you're involved in right now. Yeah. So fill an agent. I tell people we started field agent well over 10 years ago in the pre selfie days, brands. 
 

Before you had a front facing camera. Alright. No video, iPhone 3s kinda days. And we started that work is really around data collection and capturing information. And what we've seen over the last 10 years is that we really created a marketplace, a B2B marketplace for our clients to go and find retail solutions. 
 

And it's been pretty cool. It's it's the same B to C concept that people see every day when you shop on Amazon. You find what you want when you want it. We've created that same type of experience from a business standpoint for all of our clients that are wanting to engage at retail. So it's been pretty exciting journey. 
 

This is so I, when I think of B2B marketplaces, I think of something like Alibaba is it something like that? Or how does that go here? Here's typically think of Alibaba and you you go down that path for many businesses. When you look for a marketplace, it is click on a link that takes me to a phone number to call a plumber, click on a link. 
 

It takes me to a business consultant, click on the link and take me to someone that can do graphic design in our world. We've taken those services and those products and say, log in to our marketplace. And after you make two or three clicks, we take you to. We actually have you check out Brent, which is crazy, right? 
 

Because all of the B2B marketplaces are going to take you to a connector to have two or three other phone calls, two or three other meetings. And we've done this work long enough that we know the questions to ask. We can take you right to check out. And by the time you check out two or three minutes later in near real time, you're getting data and results coming back your way. 
 

And so that's the revolutionary change of spam we put on the marketplace. Interesting. So this is a product, more of a product led marketplace than traditionally what we've seen in the past. Maybe you could explain what that means. Product led marketplace, or if I move in going down the right street, listen, you are astute and listen. 
 

That's why you're on this podcast brand. That's why you do what you do. But no, in all fairness is that. When you look at the concept of product led, I'm going to use the example that most people use with around COVID and zoom. If you are not a zoom user during COVID you probably became one. 
 

So I think they went from somewhere around the numbers of 30 million users to 200 million users in six months. In order to do that kind of growth. If they were a click and get to a salesperson or click and do a demo instead of being able to knock out that growth in six months, it would have taken them 10 years and 103,000 employees working six days a week just to go from 30 million to 200 million. 
 

So product led growth in its simplest term says, can you get someone to the point where they can buy something? Without a sales person engaged. Brent, think about our world today. I was talking to a guy the other day. He just purchased a car on broom, no sales person, three clicks. He spent $45,000 on a car. 
 

He never touched, never seen. And I've got another friend in real estate that just sold a home last week to a person from overseas coming into the U S bought a home sight unseen. Now, if you can buy a car and a house, surely to goodness, you can buy research, marketing, sampling trial for the B2B perspective. 
 

So we know the industry is going that way, but the concept of product led growth is just that you do not need a sales person to tell you how to buy a car. Vroom has automated it and it's truly product. Yeah, I know that a lot of our clients are, have moved to B in the commerce space. And one of the worries that sales people have is that this is going to take away from one of their key roles, which is doing the selling. 
 

Do you see this as being a extra tool that a sales person could have at that end, whatever that end B2B merchant is, or do you see this. Something that's going to replace the sales person. And w you can imagine I'm trying to do the work that uniquely designed for, and there's a guy that has interesting leadership podcasts and Mr. 
 

Andy Stanley, and he talks about if you are in your sweet spot, you are doing things that only you are uniquely designed to. And Amazon has figured out it's not designed to sell a $10 pack of batteries. Okay. We've also figured out it's not to sell other items, but what it is designed for, if you're a salesperson, you look at truly what that, that DNA, that the things that are driving for you is that you're still going to have custom work. 
 

You're still going to have enterprise engaged. And you're still going to be looking at longer term, how do you scale within a company and how do you continue to grow that way? But most of the initial contact I would ask. It's going to be product led, marketplace driven because I don't think from a sales perspective, you need to continue to try to send emails, send people, text messages, and call them. 
 

Hopefully you're gonna get someone on the phone. None of us want to shop that way. That being said. There's more than ample opportunity for that same salesperson to help someone go broader to renew, to look at subscription. How can you grow the business in that way? Yes, I think it's going to be a tool for a sales person. 
 

It's going to be amazing lead generation aspect for people that really. More of handholding. And so I'm excited where this is going to go. Yeah. I think you hit the main thing there is that lead generation and that tool, or that an extra channel enablement for the sales person. And I think as a store owner, or as an entrepreneur or business owner, you have to be aware that you need to include. 
 

That aspect when, I mean that you have to include the salesperson aspect in it. But then not to scare the sales person by saying, Hey, this is going to be a new channel. You don't get any credit for this because they're like the post-sale, there's always questions that are going to be the client. I think part of this is having the client. 
 

Speak to the person and on their own terms, rather than the traditional model of a B2B sales person is calling out, making sure that they're in front of them at the time they want to purchase. This lets the client dictate some of those terms and when they would like to purchase and and lets the sales person then go back and do the best, the better part of customer relationship. 
 

Maybe you could walk us through, what does the journey look like now on the marketplace for for the B2B? Yeah. So I think in many ways Brent, the Amazon has taught this well, okay. Now whether you like Amazon or not. You can look ...