Every conference has some session about AI. And every reception at every conference has someone asking about what you’re doing with AI. So, imagine being at a conference that is all about AI and where everyone is talking AI 24x7x3. This is what will happen next week at DSG’s Applied AI conference in Chicago.

If you are attending get ready to hear from many AI companies about how they can help you automate X, Y, and Z process and that they can improve your productivity to help you optimize the performance and/or re-task people.

For most, AI is “business process optimization.”

This is important as it is one of the lowest levels of the ladder on the AI journey.

First you start with tactical, one-off, initiatives to get comfortable with the concept. Some even call this “playing / testing” the concept.

Simultaneously, or perhaps slightly before, personal journeys using AI are undertaken. Think of how you use ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, or Co-Pilot for yourself.

Then it gets to productivity improvement when you begin to link various tools or processes into workflows to gain more significant benefits. Some companies are offering these solutions; some companies are developing them in-house (or with consultants) and this can include using Claude Code.

Few are doing much with using AI tools to generate revenue. Generating revenue can span from lead generation to research to consummating transactions. Why are few doing it? Because it is hard and it requires having a relationship with the customer / prospect.

When you are at Applied AI, look for Mark (Nudge) McGready from IDEA and ask him about Data Whispers. They’ve figured out a way to provide a virtual sales coaching assistant for your outside sales team that is system agnostic and personalized to the salesperson and the account. Further, it’s more than extracting data because it closes the last mile and gets them what they need, when they need it, for whom they need, in a format that is easy, and the process is iterative.

While Data Whispers is an advanced sales, profit, and operational analytics tool, it is also being trained to share information.

Given how it can help accelerate your sales and is deployable today to help you with the second half of the year, I asked Mark to introduce Nudge to the industrial supply industry. If you are attending Applied AI, look him up (you’ll see the humanoid avatar of Nudge in the physical manifestation of Mark). If you are not, reach out and ask for a demo.

The Future of Sales Coaching in Industrial Distribution

“New disruptive technologies move fast. At first, they seem like fads that will come to nothing, then they feel like they could be used to solve small problems, and before long they change everything and permanently integrate with our lives. We can only absorb so much change at a time, so this cycle can take years or even decades. With AI it feels like we’re going so fast we want the ride to stop.

As a result, most folks are getting tired of the endless opinion pieces and thought projections about AI, and it’s understandable. It’s overhyped, oversold, and feels like software reps are fast-talking, hoping that you’re not paying attention to the details or asking important questions. It can bring a state of euphoria, and many companies have been caught up in the wave, only to find big investments that don’t really pay out with AI systems that don’t get used.

It was with this caution that IDEA looked into the role AI could have with data – both product data from the IDEA Connector and the data insights and analytics from the Data Whispers system. AI needs to be grounded, to be substantive, and to sell not on the promise of replacing people but simply making folks more productive by making their job easier. We looked at who could impact revenue the most from real-time access to intelligent data analysis – particularly salespeople preparing to engage with industrial customers and MRO buyers.

Nudge is Customized for the Industrial Supply Industry to Deliver Actionable Insights

Industrial distribution sales is a high-complexity business where product breadth is vast, customer relationships run deep, and the cost of a stockout or missed opportunity can be significant. A plant maintenance buyer needs to know if you have a specific bearing or motor in stock today. A purchasing manager sourcing safety supplies for a facility expansion needs to know what you’ve sold similar accounts, what’s on contract, and what volume pricing looks like. An MRO specialist managing multiple facilities needs category-level insights to know where consolidation opportunities exist. That knowledge has always been built upon years of experience and diligence in pulling reports, reviewing order histories, and cross-referencing account data. Most distributors have invested heavily to provide the kind of data they feel their salespeople need – all with varying levels of adoption and success. Delivering the data isn’t the answer if it’s laborious to access it.

Sales reps work hard, always trying to balance improving service to their accounts while calling on more customers. There’s never enough hours in the day.

Nudge, and Data Whispers, Close the Last Mile in the Communications Link

That’s why with this in mind we’re announcing Nudge, the Data Whisperer. Nudge is an AI chatbot loaded with the sales history of your customers, analyzing their transactions to reveal hidden opportunities to strengthen the account. And we’ve trained it on the industrial products and services your customers buy. It can tell you how products work, what their features and benefits are, and how to ask the customer the right discovery questions. It can even research companies for you, looking up news articles, corporate reports, and it utilizes systems like LinkedIn to identify key role players.

It’s not doing anything an individual person couldn’t do themselves, but that’s kind of the point. Rather than spending time going to all these sources one at a time, Nudge delivers it all in one place. And it’ll deliver it conversationally:

“Hey Nudge, I’m heading into a call with this industrial account. What should I talk to them about?”

“This account spent over $300,000 with you last year across MRO and safety categories, but they haven’t purchased any power transmission products – bearings, belts, or drives – even though facilities like theirs typically source those from their primary distributor. You should ask about their current supplier for rotating equipment components and whether they’ve experienced any unplanned downtime recently. Your company has strong inventory depth and a local repair service for motors and drives that could be a real differentiator. You also have an open quote for safety cabinets you should follow up on. There’s also a vendor promotion running on PPE through end of month – good timing to bring it up.”

That looks simple, but let’s break it down. It has sales reporting, wallet share gap analysis, peer comparison, product intelligence, sales prompts, quotations, and marketing communications all delivered in about 100 words. With no time required to look this up – just ask and get an answer. The 60-second sales coach.

It feels like science fiction, but that’s the power of these new AI data-gathering tools. Like all technology revolutions, this will be obvious and commonplace in just a few years. Unlike some of the others, this can have an immediate impact from day one. And since it’s an IDEA offering, it’s ERP and CRM neutral, and trained specifically for the industrial distribution industry. Our team has combined decades of experience selling and leading in manufacturing and distribution – understanding the complexity of large SKU catalogs, multi-location accounts, and contract pricing structures. That gives us the insights to build something we ourselves would have wanted. A marked change from outsider software companies building systems to serve as wide an audience as possible. Data Whispers and Nudge are built with that expertise and those real-life experiences in mind.

If you’d like to learn more, or get a chance to test Nudge yourself, feel free to reach out (and yes, nudge him at Applied AI.) And you can click HERE to learn more.”

Mark McGready is the Director of Data Analytics at IDEA. He’s a data “geek” who understands sales and how to turn data into top and bottom-line dollars. He used to work for Schneider Electric and has worked with many distributors. He knows distribution.