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Foreign. Welcome back Monday Dirt Talk podcast. We've got another Bill Wit update for you. This is number 28 titled Bring Back the Trades. AI and 1300 plus attendees. Very exciting stuff. This is, if you haven't listened before, an attempt at giving you all a look behind the scenes as far as what Bill Wit does and how we're making decisions. A lot of people ask what Billwhit is. It's a great team of about 50 brilliant individuals working to build the dirt world's next generation. And we're doing that through what I do on the influence side, storytelling, but most importantly, through a legitimate business. That is our Bill would improve daily training and development product. And the Ariat Dirt World Summit, the premier leadership event in the industry, elevating all sorts of leaders across the industry. It's really exciting stuff. This is an update. I've written updates for our investors for years now. I write this as a newsletter that's sent out every week. But this is what the heck is going on. Good, bad, indifferent. A little peek behind the curtain. First up, I had the opportunity to speak to students and parents at the annual Bring Back the Trades event this Saturday. The organization Bring Back the Trades was started by Steve Turner, who's an automotive upholstery small business owner. He is obviously a fan of the trades. He put Bring Back the Trades on a hat. Someone said, can I buy that? He said, sure, I can make some more. He made some more. 1, 2, 6. Now he's gaining some serious momentum. They're a legitimate nonprofit organization. They have full time people working for the organization now and they are hosting and impacting thousands of kids in the Northeast. It is crazy. This year's event, it was spectacular. All sorts of vendors talking about all sorts of trades, from excavation to mechanical type stuff to cooking. It was really cool to see. It was at Gillette Stadium, which is where the New England Patriots play. And not only was it to expose kids and parents, it was held on Saturday so people could come down to the trades, but they also offer trade scholarships. Um, it's awesome. It's really cool. I love being a part of events like this. And so it was. It was pretty cool to, to be able to talk to students. I love speaking to companies, I love speaking to associations, but speaking to the next generation is what it's about. Having an opportunity to potentially impact even just one person who's considering what to do with their life is a really big deal. And that is how you change the world is just one person at a time. That's it. You know, the big numbers put up the big audiences. They're great. And that is an opportunity to impact people. But what it comes down to is one individual, one handshake, and one piece of impact at a time. And so these opportunities, I think are, I don't take for granted and, you know, big picture this year, I found myself disappointed in the industry and in the lack of vision. I understand everybody's in this fight. It's survival mode. The margins aren't all that great, but there's also a lot of people that have been here for a very long time that have a ton of money that are not really building the trades. You know, they've built great businesses and then they just leave. And it's like, what's the point if we don't make sure the future generation is better than our generation is better than today? Like, what. What's the point in all this if we're not ensuring the future is, is. Is. Is bright? And that's why I really admire somebody like Steve. You know, he doesn't have these extravagant means. He's a small business owner. He's doing the work himself. He's been doing it for over 30 years. But he just said, hey, I. I think I can go beyond me. This is much bigger than me and I can serve an important role here in inspiring the next generation. And with an idea, with hard work, with finding the right other people around him, he's making a huge difference. And it's, for me, really inspiring. So that's a little bit about bring back the trades. Check out their website. If you want to learn more about them, just search them online. I'm sure you'll find them pretty quick. Next up, our proactive approach with billwit Improve Renewal Conversations is already bearing fruit, which is very exciting. We're still early in the quarter, but most conversations with existing customers have been very positive. Proactive relationship building and support are the norm going into 2026. I talked about renewal conversations last week. We're being much more proactive. Conversations are fun right now because we've transitioned from training to improve. We have just one product. It's a great product. There's a lot of relationship building that we still need to be doing, but our team is doing a great job. We have the fortune of working with great companies in the industry that are very receptive to building the next generation, building their workforce and their people, and I think it's going to be a lot of fun going into 26. So conversations are going great on the renewal front. Next up, Dan attended a conference dedicated to the to future CROs, which are chief revenue officers. That's his role and much of the event focused on AI and the new tools available for sales teams. However, his biggest takeaway was the importance of a human centric approach as technology continues to dominate. So I think there's a lot of great digital tools that we can use. One of them, for example, is Ask Elephant. It records conversations, it gives you coaching, it summarizes things for us. So I think we can use digital tools to free up the time of our people to then invest further in building relationships and communicating effectively. AI is, is, is just another tool and I think we're applying it as such within our business to again give ourselves, give our people more time, more freedom to focus on the human side of the business, which is the real secret, which is the moat around everything. That is why we'll be able to do what we do. Construction is still very rooted in words. Handshakes, lawyers have ruined that, insurance companies have ruined that for, for most people. But it still really is a handshake business, as close to it as possible. And we need to meet the industry where it is. So developing relationships is everything going forward. AI very important. We're using it all over the business. It's a great tool, but it's a tool and it is not to substitute anything. And you better believe that I practice what I preach. I do not use AI to write anything. If you see any writing of mine, it is written by me and I did not use a tool to write it. I did it the old fashioned way, one letter, one word at a time. Because I believe my ability to communicate is essential. So no fancy prompts, no bullshit, just me sitting down every day asking myself, what am I going to talk about today? What am I going to write about? And here we are next up with less than two weeks to go until the Ariat Dirt World Summit. As I'm recording this, we have officially registered over 1300 people and that's excluding our team and one day exhibitor passes. So it'll be well over 1400 by the time it comes. That's a big event. It's the biggest one we've had by a long shot and it's really exciting at this point. The work is kind of done. I'll get into it in the next point here I have a few weeks that I can chill out. The sales done, the people are coming, everybody signed up, whatever it is, and it's just the best three days in the industry for me. Personally, and hopefully for our attendees. So really cool to have such an audience. I mentioned it last week, but going into next year, we're actually reducing the size of the event to about 1250, substantially smaller, to keep it intimate, focused, and focused on the companies and leaders that are hungriest. I'm a little tired of selling that's necessary to create something new. But at this point, we have a great group and we just want to invest in those that are hungry. But we have those people, so now we can focus on those individuals, which is really good news. Finally, since we're less than two weeks out from the summit, a lot of people have asked, are you stressed? The answer is no. Our incredible team has put in a lot of work all year long. And the cool thing about putting in the work, doing the work, is that when the event comes, you can walk into it with a sense of earned confidence. I learned the difference between perceived confidence and earned confidence years ago. Perceived confidence is like the popular kid in high school. They haven't done a lot to have this swagger that they have. It's basically rooted in their position. Earned confidence is held by those that have done the work in whatever category it is. Maybe they're a speaker, maybe they're an athlete, maybe they're a musician. Whatever it is, they've put in the work and we've put in the work so we don't have to stress going into it, because we know we have that confidence in our work, in what we've put in. You get out what you've put in. We know what we've put in, so we don't have to be stressing. And I. I'm a very small part of this. A very small part of this. It's really thanks to not just our internal team. They're great, but pxp, our events partner, highly recommend them. If you're planning an event, let them take care of everything for you. They'll do a great job. And I really look forward to our attendees benefiting from that work here. So I think the work will be apparent when everybody shows up. And, boy, will it be cool. And if you were there, thank you. And if you weren't there, I hope you saw it everywhere and I hope you wished you were, because again, there's no better three days in the industry right now. There isn't. I've been to all the cool events. I've been to them all. Nothing beats this. So thanks to those who are coming, and that's everything we have for this week. So thank you for listening. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks for following along. I appreciate your care, your desire to know what the heck we're up to here at billwhit. We're nothing without the industry. That's why we exist, to support the dirt world, to build the dirt world's next generation. So I really appreciate what you all do. If you have questions, want to talk to me anytime. Aaron A a r o nildwit.com I try to make myself very accessible. Send me a message, an email on LinkedIn, Instagram, etc. We'd love to chat. We'll see on the next one. Stay dirty.