The Doing Business in Bentonville Podcast
To create an ecosystem that connects leaders of all kinds – industry, community, student, educational, civic, investment and entrepreneurial – to help overcome Omnichannel Retail barriers through exclusive, insight-rich content.
The Doing Business in Bentonville Podcast
Ep. 107 - Marketing in the Age of AI
Speed has become the defining challenge of modern marketing, as veteran CMO Erika Jolly Brookes reveals in this eye-opening conversation. Drawing from her 30 years of experience in technology marketing, Erika shares how artificial intelligence is dramatically compressing timelines and revolutionizing the way marketers understand their customers.
"I downloaded 10-15 customer calls, uploaded them into our AI instance, and got a complete buyer persona framework in three minutes that used to take three months," Erika explains, demonstrating how AI is transforming marketing workflows. This acceleration matches what's happening across industries, where companies like Walmart are using AI to cut months from product-to-customer timelines.
Beyond technology, Erika emphasizes the critical human element of marketing leadership. She details how building trust through vulnerability and personality understanding creates high-performing teams. "Understanding the full cycle of each individual's personality is really important because not everybody needs to be the same," she notes, explaining how differences in working styles can become strengths when properly understood.
Today's marketers face the challenge of communicating across multiple generations, both within teams and among customer segments. As Erika observes, "The workforce today is more multi-generational than it ever has been," creating fragmentation in communication styles and preferences. This diversity requires marketers to develop nuanced strategies rather than one-size-fits-all approaches.
As CMO of EnergyCap, Erika now helps organizations manage utility costs through data analysis and AI, demonstrating how technology can transform overlooked aspects of business operations. Her insights offer valuable guidance for marketers navigating an increasingly complex and rapidly evolving landscape.
Well, hello everyone and welcome to Doing Business in Bentonville. I'm Andy Wilson and I'm the host today, and I'm so excited to get started with another podcast. I'm going to introduce our guests in just a moment. Before I do, I want to say to all of our viewers and listeners thank you so much for all that you do and thank you for sharing. Thank the message you send me on LinkedIn. I appreciate that. Keep sending me messages. The thing I want to congratulate all of our viewers and listeners on today is that we have now just reached over 100 countries, so thank you. It's amazing. We're humbled by it and we appreciate all that our viewers are doing and listeners are doing. Ok, my guest today is Erica Jolly Brooks. Erica, welcome.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me, andy. This is a real pleasure.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, Well, it's really my pleasure. I want to, let me tell you. I'm going to tell you a bit about Erica, but before this podcast is over, you will understand why I admire this person so much. Erica is a friend number one. Number two we serve on a great board together, a board and a company located in Meridian, mississippi, southern Pop and Supply a phenomenal family-owned business. Mississippi Southern Pop and Supply a phenomenal family-owned business. We get to share our times to board meetings together. And the third thing is she is a marathon runner. I mean, you know, listen, I mean I'm impressed. So, erica, welcome and tell us about your next marathon. Let's just start with that.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know if everybody should be impressed or question my life choices, but yes, I am running the London Marathon, which is exactly 12 days from today. So I'm in what anybody who's done endurance races of any sort biking, running or the trifecta the. Ironman series. This is called the taper window. So I'm currently in the, fitness has been gained, hay is in the barn, so to speak, and just 12 days to go until I line up with a bunch of other folks and 56,000 people in London for the London Marathon. I'm really excited.
Speaker 1:Well, congratulations in advance. I look forward to hearing all the details about that.
Speaker 2:I'll bring my model to the next set of meetings.
Speaker 1:Good, well, great Well, erica, you have a marketing background and we're going to get into that marketing background. It's very extensive. How many years have you been in marketing?
Speaker 2:I have been in marketing my entire career. I was lucky to find marketing, or marketing found me my first job. So I've been in marketing for 30 years, and I've been in technology the entire time too, which probably makes me the old guard. I hate to put old in front of it, but 30 years.
Speaker 1:Well, that's wonderful and you're going to get to listen and hear and watch today, as Erica really dives in to this whole marketing piece and you're currently a chief marketing officer with a great company. Tell us we're going to come back at the end more about your company, but give us a bit about your company today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm super excited about my new company. The team is amazing and the problem that we're solving is amazing. So the company is called Energy Cap. It's been around for 40 years, which is really impressive. In the technology space you know there's only a handful of 40-year-plus businesses Microsoft is one and Oracle is another, and so it's Energy Cap. So that's another, and so it was energy cap. So that's exciting. But we essentially help. One of the most unmanaged resources actually across every sort of facet consumer and commercial is energy, and we effectively help businesses higher ed retail establishments, federal government, local government, schools, you name it manage their energy costs and their utility costs, and we use technology to do it. So it's a really exciting space to be in. I'm really thrilled to be part of the club.
Speaker 1:Well, it sounds wonderful and we're going to make sure that people can find you, your company, there on our website. But I want to come back to that because I think it's fascinating what you're doing today and large companies and universities around the whole, around the country. So we'll come back to that. Now let's talk marketing. Okay, this 30 years of experience, so let's just jump into it. And you know, currently, today, you know there's so much going on in marketing and it's everywhere, and so, as you look today into marketing, what advice do you have for our viewers and listeners on how to stay ahead in the industry trends and ensure that the marketing strategy remains relevant today with all the change?
Speaker 2:So I think the most difficult challenge facing marketers today is speed Velocity. Today is very different than it was even 10 years ago, and so marketers today have a great challenge in staying up to date, really, on a combination of things not just who they're targeting, who their target customer is, their target buyer and their current customer and how they're feeling, thinking and what their product and brand is resonating to them, but also the tools by which to reach them. So AI has become so incredibly prolific and it can be daunting for marketers, particularly experienced marketers or just anybody Like we learn how to do our vocation, whatever way it is, in a certain sort of process, and those processes and frameworks are being disrupted today. So I think the most challenging thing for marketers today is speed, and you know, sure, speed kills, but it also is a competitive advantage in today's market. So I think that's the biggest challenge.
Speaker 1:So speed. Well, let's listen. I mean you mentioned AI, since we're there for a moment. I mean AI has had such an of dollars being spent on AI and improving it, the research, so is there anything there around AI? If you would tell the marketing experts, this is how I would use AI.
Speaker 2:So in my new role, I've been finding incredibly new ways to leverage AI. So one of the things that's really cool is every company can build their own I'm going to call it LLM or chat sheet PT instance, where you just feed it all this information so that it gets more and more intelligent about your customers, your market, your products, your services and your competition. So that's one of the things that's been really interesting for me is being part of a company that has stood one up a long time ago and able to take advantage of it. So what I've done recently is we use tools here to record sales calls and customer calls and it creates a transcript and these transcripts are incredibly useful and the particular tool that we use is a tool called Gong G-O-M-G.
Speaker 2:So recently I downloaded I'm new, I've got to understand the customer as quickly as possible. I've got to accelerate and ramp my understanding about this business and our market and our customers as quickly as possible, and so it would take a long. I mean I could go and conduct my own customer interviews. I will still go do that, but I downloaded 10, 12, 15 calls from different types of personas from different industries and I uploaded it into the energy, cap, chat, gpt instance and asked for a number of different data points to be synthesized for me, and in the span of three minutes. What used to take three months, andy, I got. Here are their pain points. Here are the solutions they're seeking. Here's the internal mechanism by which they're measured. Here's where you haven't. I mean it just gave me an entire buyer persona framework in a span of three minutes.
Speaker 1:Well, so speed and same thing. You said at the very beginning of our podcast. You talked about speed, and so now you're using AI as a speed. And you know, I was reading this morning that the CEO of Walmart, doug McMillan, was talking, and he was talking about AI and how AI, they're using AI into the retail sector and and he said we can cut months off the time from product to customer months. That's huge. That's that is huge. So I think the word would be embrace it, learn from it how to apply it into your business. Because of speed, because, like you said at the very beginning, speed.
Speaker 2:I think the organizations that encourage their team to engage and utilize AI tools and find new use cases are going to have a true competitive advantage. Actually, something I was talking to our CEO, sean Rayton, about last night, that is something that we're doing a pulse survey right now. What's our employee satisfaction? What's engagement like? Every time I could see it's easily, and we've added in some how comfortable are you using tools and what tools do you use? That's a starting point for making people feel like it's okay to use these things that work to do my job, but then also providing learning and capabilities In addition to tools. The companies that think about how to utilize AI to deliver to their customers faster and more efficiently and cleaner and better are going to be really the ones who are going to win. This whole AI business is really going to disintermediate companies.
Speaker 1:Right, okay, as you stepped into your new company now and I know you're excited about it Again, we're going to talk more about it as you step into it, share with us, you know, what's your overall vision of the marketing department. How can you align that quickly to a company's broader goals, things like that. So, if someone is new and you've been in multiple marketing jobs in your career over 30 years so you can use other examples, of course but what advice would you give someone stepping into a new organization and a new role today, and how then would you, you know, create the overall strategy and vision for that organization?
Speaker 2:So the first thing that I would say is I'm a. My philosophy of marketing is and it's interesting because my, you know, I've talked to people who've had different experiences in their career and marketing of I'm gonna call it, you know, 1990, and marketing today are I'm going to call it, you know, 1990 and marketing today are very different, particularly in the software world. So you know, I do software as a service. They call it SaaS today. But my belief is that marketing is a significant contributor to the growth of a company. That means everything from how do we help build what we call pipeline, which is prospective customers who will buy from us. How do we build brand and what's its role in building pipeline. And then how do we deliver new products and services to the market to be successful for our customers.
Speaker 2:That's a much broader remit for a marketer than probably the marketer of 1990. Than probably the marketer of 1990. The marketer of 1990 really thought about how do they build top of funnel awareness and didn't think as much about how do I help activate those prospects and customers all the way through the cycle. And then, once they are a customer, how do we ensure that they're happy? We want really happy customers because advocates are a really big part of driving your overall brand message back to the market. So that's my general view and philosophy about marketing, and so it's a broader remit. It's not just hey, marketing contributed X to the company. It's what are we doing together with sales, with product, with customer success, in order to be successful against our market opportunity.
Speaker 1:Great advice, great advice. Let's stay with that just a moment, because you know customer success in order to be successful against our market opportunity. Great advice, great advice. Let's stay with that just a moment, because you know, what brought come to my mind was, as you started into this new organization, how do you take and really look at what I would call structure and collaboration as you enter a new team like this? How did you do that in the past and how are you currently doing it?
Speaker 2:It's a really great question. So I think I just came from an offsite the team had in New Orleans. We activated quickly around a customer slash prospect event like let's get together. So one of the things that I think is fundamental is know thyself and then to know others. And so we spent some time using some personality diagnostic tools and and basically said this is an open dialogue. If you're comfortable sharing. This is not forced, but everybody was interested in engaging around. Here's my profile and there's a lot of different tools out there today. You can use DISC, you can use Emotionetics there's a whole bunch. You can use Gallup Strength Finder.
Speaker 2:But understanding the full cycle of each individual's personality is a really big deal, because a not everybody needs to be the same. In fact, it's better if there's differentiation on the team. Someone who's really good at concept and somebody's really good at details. They can be a great team if they understand that that's where their strengths and opportunities come from. So we as a team went through and shared our personality frameworks and we had a really open discussion about it, and what's important about that is there's no right answer. There's no wrong answer. You are what you are. You can work on your weaknesses, but we can also maximize our strengths and leverage other people's augmented strengths to your weaknesses.
Speaker 2:And then the last piece of it is understanding where points of friction come. Points of friction come on team, when you have differences. And once you understand what your differences are, you can increase trust and decrease mistrust. And so we spent half of a day-ish, two or three hours, just talking through that and even identifying areas. Where do you remember when we had a conflict over blah? Now it makes sense to me. You were talking concept, I was looking for details, or you're massively extroverted and I'm an ambivert or introverted, and so I you know you were ready to check out and I was still, you know, like let's, let's talk. Those things really matter, and I do think it is a fundamental step in building trust. And ultimately, with building culture and teams, you have to have be vulnerable, you have to trust and you have to seek to understand. And if you do those three things, you can really start to build a framework of beliefs that we, we as a group, can do anything together.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that's excellent advice and you know, I'm so glad you mentioned trust, because trust is the foundational, as you mentioned, it's a foundational principle and you know everything, everything, everything sets on that trust. You know, there it is and so wonderful. So, as we, as you think about, continues to think about a new team, what KPIs would you recommend people to measure at the very beginning, you know, to get them on track? What are some advice there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a great question. So we certainly track brand awareness. You know how aware, and there's sort of a couple categories of brand awareness. There's awareness that there is a solution that exists to solve my problem, so we call that solution aware. Then there's actual brand awareness how aware are people of Energy Cap? And there's two categories inside of brand awareness. There's what we call aided, which is if I say the words did you know Energy Cap does X, y and Z, oh, yeah, yeah, I've heard of them. And then there's unaided, which is without recall. If I said describe for me a utility management platform, I would say, oh, I know one. It's called Energy Cap.
Speaker 2:So brand awareness is a really critical measure. You can't sell something to somebody if they don't know the solution exists and they don't know you exist. So that's a pretty big one. These are problems that companies like Walmart do not have, but they are challenges for growth-based companies, which is thinking about you know what do people know about us? So that's the first one. The second one and this is a bit of a differentiation, I think, for marketers across different market segments is pipeline. Pipeline Are we building new and prospective customers and do we close those customers and how are we contributing to that revenue? So I'm a big believer that marketers can be directly tied to revenue. So those are the two biggest things, which is building a framework for one and then building the analytical support to be able to have a conversation with your counterpart in sales or growth, which is how are we, as a team, building new revenue for the company?
Speaker 1:Well, ok, wonderful. You mentioned customers. Let's talk about that for a moment. So what approach do you take customer feedback and market research? You know what are your thoughts there and advice.
Speaker 2:So I'm customers are your first and fastest path to find a new customer. Yeah, and today, with social and e-commerce, that's never been more true. I mean, when you look back at what happened with social, it really put customers in the driver's seat of driving, purchase, consideration and intent, and so to me, that relationship with the customer, it should have always been important. We shouldn't have needed a relationship with our customers through, you know, the various social media platforms are out there, but that really was a reckoning for many of us.
Speaker 1:Right yeah.
Speaker 2:And so to me, the key there is our. Once they have purchased your product, do they have an amazing or average or better than average experience using the product average or better than average experience using the product? And then, where and when do they get their surprise moments, delight that they weren't anticipating, and how do you talk to them about that and how do you maximize that for future customer growth? And then, where were there places where maybe there wasn't a delight factor that you can refine and do better for the next time? So that customer experience is paramount to me in understanding how to actually find additional customers, but also convey the right message to prospective customers and also deliver on the customer experience that you promised.
Speaker 1:Are there specific touch points around positive customer, positive or negative customer experience? You know anything there that you would call out to really focus on?
Speaker 2:One of the things that we measure specifically in the world of software is the time to value. It's actually specific. We talk about TTV or time to value. If you buy a product in retail, you know, and it's Easter so I go buy some great chocolate products. At the end cap I eat it. I've had. You know, the Sarah Cohen boost is complete. The time value is pretty quick In the world of software. Often, particularly if there's data involved in the success of the product, the time to value can take longer. So if I sign a contract with a customer or or even as a buyer, when I've signed contracts, and it takes me greater than 90 days or greater than six months to actually see the value of the product, that's not great.
Speaker 2:So, one of the key metrics that we talk about a lot is what was the time to value for the customer? They're spending a lot of money for these products. You know how are we ensuring that they feel very quickly they got the value for what they purchased. And it needs to be.
Speaker 1:It can't be immediate if it needs to be good but it needs to be progressively showing value along the way. You know one of the things that in my previous role at Walmart, we traveled, we stay, we traveled all the time to, uh, you know, listen to the customer, the talk to the customer, to ask questions. We're all. We're in the stores, the clubs, uh, listening, listening and talking, asking questions. Uh, today, you know, technology can help with that so much, and especially with all the e-commerce online we talked about earlier in our conversation, before the podcast. So is there anything there? You know a couple of touch points there that you would say this is critical.
Speaker 2:So there's a couple of things I'm a big believer in community and I'm both believer in community and niche communities for driving a real understanding of customer and customer pain points. We actually spun one up a while ago at Energy Cap and it's called you know, it's called our Energy Cap Heroes, you know, and they it's a community of our customers where they can engage online with one another but also engage with us, and so what I like about that is you get your product organization, your customer success organization, your marketers, you get everybody more closely aligned with our customers and you can hear them really quickly. So I'm going to call it niche communities. Another way for me to explain this is I'm part of a CMO community. That CMO community, which is run by a technology vendor that I have certainly used but I don't have to use. They bring me together to find peer-to-peer sharing and we're very quickly saying that worked, this doesn't work, try this, talk to that person.
Speaker 2:So companies that actually harness their own communities, their own niche communities, very quickly and there's technology to facilitate that have a real quick touch point that can be accelerated throughout the organization. Again, it's about speed and how quickly does the understanding get throughout the entire workflow of the organization. So I think that's a really critical path. You can do CSAT surveys and tracking studies and all that kind of stuff, but those are really point in time and when you put a community in place, you get to hear those voices just like you went to stores in a way that you didn't before. So I'm a big believer in leveraging technology, community platforms and bringing your audiences together.
Speaker 1:Now let's talk future for a moment. Okay is so good. You're doing a great job. Thank you, I. I knew you would, erica. This is good. I'm learning a lot. I am learning a lot, um, and I know our guests are. So, as we think about, uh, this whole, this whole industry, um, as we think about it, let's look forward to three years. That's a long time. I should say one to three years, right, because it's changed so rapidly. But let's just talk to the future for a moment. What do you see the biggest challenges in the future of marketing?
Speaker 2:So I have some macro themes and then I have some specific so let's go macro things okay one of the things that you and I've talked about, and we've talked about as part of our our shared collaboration and board work, is today the what. The workforce today is more multi-generational than it ever has been and that means that common understanding and context is really fragmented across all the different sort of functions that bring up an organization and adeptness or skill set and communication styles and preferences. So I think that's an interesting challenge for us over the next one to three years how quickly do we as an entire multi-generational workforce adapt together in this changing ecosystem that's around us? So I think that's a pretty big deal. I always joke around my husband's like I'm just going to call them, I'm going to go to the store. I was like I'm definitely not doing that, I'm going to go to the store. I was like I'm definitely not doing that, I'm going to send a chat message. So I mean you know there is a, there is a communication preference, there's technology enablement for it. So when you think about that and you think about how you deliver customer experiences and products and make people really happy, that's an adaptation for every business has to think about, about. I think you've got multi-generational workers and you have a multi-generational buyer audience.
Speaker 2:I think that's a pretty big challenge for us over the next one to three years. So things are getting really sophisticated. You know, you see an instagram story, you can buy straight from instagram now and you use your apple pay and the next thing you know it's sitting on your front door. The ability to return something today is as easy as I print the label at home and there is Dropboxes at Whole Foods for Amazon delivery. So this whole sequence of change is a pretty big deal.
Speaker 2:I would be well maybe not the last person to ask, but I'm not the best person to ask how much that's going to change. I think there are. Some of the cognitive abilities of AI is going to be a real game changer for us in that timeframe that you talked about, and how that plays out will be really fascinating. How tools are enabled, what that means for the type of work we do, what that means for speed of delivery is going to be really interesting. But the AI tools are only getting smarter. I also believe the AI tools are going to get more expensive. So right now it's a real adoption, adoption, adoption model. It's going to get a lot more expensive to deliver AI tools within our organization in the next one to three years.
Speaker 1:I think that's great advice. And back to your multi-generational discussion. You know, I see that in my work, where you know we're cross-communicating to multiple generations, one size does not fit all you know, and that's. I think that's where you can't package it and push it down everyone's throat. It does not work. It's got to be multi-generational. I think that's critical. And if I had to call out the number one Opscar, the number one for the future in my work as doing business in Bentonville or as a consultant, it's multi-generational.
Speaker 2:It is, and people are working longer than they used to yes, definitely.
Speaker 1:I'm an example of that.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:You know, yes, I'm an example of that. So many of us, and I think it's you know, thank, thank goodness. The health issue is, you know, and all of that, but absolutely, people are really working longer because they're enjoying it Many in many that you're just still healthy enough to enjoy and they embrace the learning.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I think some folks myself included, and I think you too, like I look at the change that's happening now and I've always enjoyed it Like, oh great, Internet's the thing, let's go do that. Cloud's the thing, let's go do that. So I don't want to miss this. So for me it's an exciting time to be part of what is a significant change in how we work, how we? Engage how we connect how we find so.
Speaker 2:To me it's exciting and I think there's a lot of other people who feel that way, and it's more. There's actually a woman on my team. She loves to make fun of me and this other gentleman because we put two spaces after a period. It's more significant than the Oxford approach to grammar to your point about you can't package it and think about delivery and distribution of information enough right now how, when, where and best will this be received? It's a pretty significant issue.
Speaker 1:OK, I have a couple more questions, as I want to, I want us to, I do want us to talk a bit about your new company and that you're a part of it, because it's fascinating. But before we get to that, ok, maybe, maybe another, another question for sure, but as you look across the board, let's just talk general marketing for a moment. And what, what would be if you can do this, and I didn't ask you earlier, so here we go. If you can do this and I didn't ask you earlier, so here we go. But what, what? What marketing campaign you see today? This absolutely great that you would call out, you know, just over, the broad, broad view, and maybe one that needs some assistance, yeah, oh, one that needs assistance, oh, hater yeah, right funny though my we'll.
Speaker 2:We'll be watching some program which I may or may not be paying attention to, and then an ad will come on yeah and my husband wants to speed three of those and I said, can you do? Can I want to watch that?
Speaker 2:yeah, he's like you're like I said I'm not the only person who likes to watch ads.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of marketers out there who want to see what other people are doing and what it looks like. So you know, I'm a runner and I think some of the very targeted runner persona campaigns that are out there today are really, really good and what their message is on point and their use of influencers and social media is on point. But then even in an environment like I was in New York last year for the marathon running the marathon, they, they did an entire because we're the finishers for New York city marathon, these brands and I'm telling their new balance Hoka, nike, puma, they all do this amazing job of just doing an entire takeover in New York City. It felt like runners were running New York for three or four days Everything from the turnstiles and the subway to the billboards to the bus stuff all targeted to runners. What I think that is a good example of is understanding, very persona focused, and it's a large, adjustable market. It's not a tiny market Right.
Speaker 2:Understanding that addressable market and being clever and creative specifically to that experiential opportunity. Sure, there's 60,000 people running, but there was probably of those 60,000 people, let's say, everybody brought two people to watch them. That's another, you know, 120,000 to 200,000 people plus all the city people in New York City and all the people who are home who wanted to get in, who couldn't get in because 800,000 people applied to that race and couldn't get in, and so then they see that content. So it really was a mass consumer execution and I would say all of those brands did an exceptional job doing it and as a marketer, I can't wait to see what happens in London. I'm guessing it's this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can't wait. I can't wait to hear about London from you.
Speaker 2:One of the billboards I saw was you've run hundreds of miles. You only have 26.2 left to go. And you know you run three or 400 miles as part of a training cycle. So like you're like from a marketer's perspective, but also runners, I'm like, yeah, 26.2.
Speaker 1:Where do you?
Speaker 2:go, let's get that done.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Really cool right.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I think also, you've given us great advice, Erica. Thank you for that. I mean you've given us really broad advice. What comes to my mind is you're talking about some of the best campaigns and some of the advice you've given us to know their customer, and so many other things you shared with us today. So wonderful. Now let's talk about your new company. Let's talk about Energy Cap. What do you do there? And tell us about the company.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I'll tell you what what's really cool about what we do. Okay, we've been around for four years, but you know energy and maybe we'll just roll up utilities inside of energy. So this is power, electricity, water, sewage. But really, if you just started with energy as your primary utility, it's one of the most overlooked data sets and really, if you think about it from a, we think about a lot of from a consumer perspective, because we get those bills which, if you live in the South in the summertime, if you live in the North, those bills in the wintertime, we're like wow, like all of a sudden, my so and so power bill is really out of control.
Speaker 2:The reality is that's true in businesses, every building, every department, every dollar of operations is basically overlooking this massive expense, this utility expense, which is largely driven by energy, and so in most organizations can't answer very basic questions about this cost, and part of it is we get these bills after the fact. You consume something in point A, you get the bill in point B or sometimes C as it relates to water. So it's really hard. So utility costs make up 10% of the operating expense of most businesses, and sometimes larger if they have a huge footprint in a lot of buildings and rates are really volatile. Rates are volatile for a whole bunch of reasons, including consumption and the cost of producing the energy. It becomes a really, and there's decarbonization mandates still in existence. The reality is it's no longer predictable expense and most businesses really need to get and it's not optional to manage anymore. You have to get it. So we talk about how do you get the chaos of your utility costs under control and, specifically, how do you move, move out of spreadsheets.
Speaker 2:So today, most energy managers if there is one, or a building facilities manager they're trying to track these expenses in a spreadsheet. And think about that. You have University of Georgia that's why I'm wearing red today has hundreds of buildings and those buildings are various different ages and so their HVAC systems are various different ages, and so now I'm trying to track a data set. And you know, if I'm a building manager, I have a lot of great skills. I probably started as boots on the ground, doing squish tests where there were water problems, and my way up to being now the VP of operations or VP of building management. I'm not necessarily an Excel spreadsheet jockey, and so my ability to actually analyze this data. It's really challenging. I might be able to look at one month prior or two months prior or three months prior, but finding the anomalies is really challenging.
Speaker 2:So what we did was we basically capture all that data for you.
Speaker 2:We literally ingest years worth of Excel data called we call it bill capture into our platform and then very quickly, using AI and machine learning, help you identify, first of all, anomalies. Where do you have a problem, like we call it the oopsies, something that is broken, a waterline that is broken, an HVAC system that is operating at overcapacity? So fix that, first and foremost. Second thing we do is we help you start to evaluate rates, and rates is the most volatile outside of errors, building maintenance, things that you just can't know, by managing 100 plus buildings. And after we fix that, we help you understand. Wow, my rate here is really different than it used to be two months ago or two years ago, and now it's a conversation for me to have with my utility provider about why. So we univide all these bills, meters, operational data into a single source of truth and it really puts building managers, controllers, ap managers, into the driver's seat on managing what is basically, you know, like I said, 10% of their overall operating costs. It's really cool.
Speaker 1:It is Now what's the website? So people can go to it wwwenergycapcapcom.
Speaker 1:Okay, we'll put that on our website for sure, and all that. Erica Brooks, it's been such a pleasure having you on Doing Business in Bentonville. I can't tell you how wonderful it has been. And one other thing I have to say about you before we let you go is that, to all of our viewers and listeners, one of the people behind helping me make this decision around doing business in Bentonville podcast was this lady right here. I went to her for advice and I asked her advice. I said I'm thinking about a podcast and she gave me great advice and we had multiple conversations and, erica, I will never forget and I appreciate you so much for your wonderful advice. Thank you.
Speaker 2:That's really gracious of you. As I said, you will never forget and I appreciate you so much for your wonderful advice. Thank you, that's really gracious of you, as I said, you're the talent. No, you're the idea, you're the operation. I was just facilitating use for distribution, yeah you did it.
Speaker 1:You did it Well, erica. Wonderful job today. Again, thank you so much. Best to you in London and I'll probably see you at a board meeting prior to that, hopefully. But, erica, great job today. It's such a pleasure, and best to you and your family, thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me, andy, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Okay, thank you.