For a business to succeed, you have to find and market to the right customer. Identifying the problem and creating value for your customer ensures revenue and success. In this episode, Stephen Jaye talks to growth strategist John Gies as they explore marketing to your niche. John talks about demographics and psychographics and why you need to pay attention if you want to find your customer. Tune in for more marketing tips and strategies as Stephen and John talk shop.
—
Listen to the podcast here:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 38:55 — 35.6MB) | Embed
Finding Business Success In The Right Customer And Niche With John Gies
One mistake a lot of people make when we start trying to build things on our own is to do everything on our own. In that case, we’re trying to be not only the technical person or the person physically building the objects but we’re also trying to be the person that controls the budget, the person that worries about other aspects of the business. Also, marketing and getting the word out is another daunting task that prevents a lot of people from doing what they want to do.
My guest, John Gies, has a business called RAS, which I believe stands for Revenue Acceleration System. His entire business is based around helping you network your product, network whatever service you’re providing and develop the revenue you need to make it a viable business. John, welcome to the show.
Thanks. I’m glad to be here.
Thank you very much. The first thing I want to ask you is what made you determine that business development was the field you want to be in?
I was like most people. When I was in college, I took Marketing. I wanted to be the Don Draper of Minnesota. He was the head guy for Mad Men. As I went out and interviewed with companies, they all said, “You should sell something so you understand the whole process, why customers buy.” I got into sales. As I went from company to company, I found that I didn’t fit with them or they didn’t fit with me. It was time to move along and help small business owners grow their businesses.
When you talk about small business owners, is this a group of people that you feel a certain passion about? Is there a reason you picked small business owners?
I was in the corporate world. I was what you call a road warrior. I was on the airplane all the time. I watched what happened when investors got involved in businesses. They would come in and put some money in and things would be good for a little while. They’d start cutting back on service and cutting people. Pretty soon, customers and employees would suffer. Back when I was in college, they talked about this. Even a few years ago, I heard a DU professor talked about most workers in acquisitions fail to deliver value to shareholders, customers or clients.
I liked the small business owners. COVID is a good example. The government goes through a lot of stuff at the wall. Some are willing. Someone will work most of their relief on someplace else. Wall Street doesn’t care but small business owners are the people that are going to buy your tickets to your ball game. They’re going to support the community. They’re going to be in the Chamber of Commerce, then become the leaders in the community. My passion is to help small business owners on Main Street thrive so we don’t have to rely on Wall Street.
Would you be able to elaborate a little bit more? This is a topic that eventually ends up affecting almost everyone’s life unexpectedly. What happens when there’s some merger acquisition, some buyout and what impact it has on your everyday worker as well as the product? What do you think causes a lot of these things to go wrong in these situations?
If I knew the answer, then I’d be the guru. I can tell you my experience. We were in the top five of the business when we got acquired. We got acquired because we made some stupid decisions in terms of where we shifted our money and what divisions we invested in. The company bought us. Within my division, we had 10 salespeople and 12 offices. Within eighteen months, they had lost 85% of the clients that were in that division due to poor performance and lack of relationships. Where’s the value in that? If you’re acquiring a company, hopefully, you’re acquiring that revenue stream.
When we have a generative, sustainable, and stakeholder-oriented business, we can raise all boats and make more money. Share on XPeople will make short-term decisions to try and drive a share price so they get a bonus. Years ago, Sprint laid off 12,000 people in their stock and leaped through the ceiling. I asked a finance guy. I was like, “That’s terrible management.” He says, “Yeah but they don’t have those expenses so we can then get better.” That’s the disconnection. Business is the most powerful vehicle we have for change because we spend our lives working at a business. When we can have a business that is generative, sustainable and stakeholder-oriented, we can raise all the boats and make more money.
What I’m hearing when you’re talking about the differences between these investors and small business owners is short-term versus long-term thinking, but also some attachment. I don’t imagine a small business owner, one that either built this business themselves based on their own passions or someone that bought a business but bought the one that they wanted to do and working on, doing something like that. It’s killing the business over a couple of quarters’ worth of share price and profits. Do you think that there are any investors out there or any VC firms that are investing in a way that’s a little bit more effective, future-focused and fair to everyone but also better for the longer-term bottom line?
What I’m encouraged about is the rise of the B Corp. That’s a benefit corporation versus a typical corporation. Their charter is for a benefit other than shareholder value. Patagonia is a good example. Their primary mission is the environment. Even here in Colorado, there are some sustainable business organizations. There’s an investment firm here that wants sustainable businesspeople that are in that B Corp sustainable practice but like anything, it’s not just that you’re sustainable. They’re looking for good businesses that are running and delivering profit.
It’s like Sister Mary used to say, “If I don’t have any much money, I can’t serve my image.” We need to have money but as we deliver more value to our neighborhoods, communities, employees, vendors and shareholders, not only do we make more money but they all rise up too. There are bigger pots. We get to expand the commons instead of shrinking the commons.
This seems like a common emerging way of thinking around the business world that you see more people talking about whether they’re talking about being more than just money or being a little bit more long-term focused. The most concise way anyone’s ever put is that money should not be your initial motivation. You build a business because you have a certain service that you want to provide. The business world compensates you for effectively providing new innovation and service. Do you see this old way of thinking as on the decline? Do you see it still being very prevalent and that these special VC firms, B corps and stuff are still going to be on the periphery of the main business world?
I don’t have a crystal ball. I sense that there’s a trend, at least in terms of how people are talking. The business round table in 2020 said we were going to be more sustainable than the shareholder. Primacy is no longer the number one thing but I want to come back and say that if you’re going to build a business, you have to have revenue. That starts with clients. You’ve got to get your clients, build the revenue and earn profits so that you can sustain the business.
What I have found is that when it’s all about the money, people can feel that and they’re not quite as receptive. They respond to the intent to deliver value. Particularly for a lot of solopreneurs that I know, that’s a hard distinction because that client’s check might be rent but maintain that focus on delivering real value and identifying can be the difference between success and almost success.
What do you think prevents people? Do you think there is fear? How common is it for someone to deliver client value but unfortunately still not bringing in the revenue in the timely fashion they need for it to become a viable business?
I haven’t looked at the statistics for a while but if you make it the past years, you’ve made it through the valley of death. It takes a while to build your business. What I find where business owners struggle is they think that everybody is their customer. Everybody needs a real estate agent, insurance and mortgage. Think about the real estate agent that says, “I sell commercial and residential real estate up and down the front range.” It sounds like Charlie Brown’s mother.
There’s the guy that says, “I help Millennials find the loft of their dreams in Downtown Denver.” That is a very specific niche. I was doing some research and I came across someone that wants to help healthcare professionals build wealth so they can retire early. She’s a wealth advisor but she’s decided that the healthcare profession is where she wants to focus. She ends up learning their language, understanding their problems, getting into their head.
Most small business owners don’t have the billions of dollars to build brand awareness around the golden arches. We have to get into the head of our customers. That revolves around what’s the problem that they have and the result that they want for house painters, not that I need my house painted. They’ve already made that decision. It’s, “Will they be on time? Will they finish on time? Will they make a mess? Will they person my household? Will they smell? Will they smoke cigarettes?”
How does the small business owner say, “What slice of the business do I want? Do I want to be a high-end prestige boutique firm? Do I want to be the contract that says, ‘Let me go in, spray the walls and be done?’” There’s a place for all of those but it’s getting into the mind of the customer you want to do business with and then messaging them. I feel like I barf a lot of stuff at you.
It’s common and there’s a psychological reason behind why a lot of people will try to please everybody. I always make references. I’m a big fan. I like to listen to a lot of music but oftentimes there’s music that I don’t enjoy, some things that are mad or the songs that try to appeal to everyone, as opposed to picking a genre and appealing to them. There is the possible issue of having too narrow of a target and too small of a base. How often do you encounter the reverse issue amongst the people you talk to where someone’s thinking of only such a small subset of the customer base that they’re never going to have enough customers to make it a viable business?
To be honest, most of what I see is the narrower and more specific you can be, the better off you are. In fact, there is a term called micro-niching. People are advocating that you get super small. There was an essay a few years ago called 1,000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly. The premise is if you find 1,000 people and it might be 500 or 1,500 people that know, like, trust and buy from you on a regular basis, you’ve got a successful business.
If you think about a mortgage lender, for example, if the average person switches up their home every five years and I can get them to come to me every five years, the first five years I’m working hard. From five years on, I’ve got a steady stream of satisfied customers coming back. They know and like me. They trust me and I’m giving them value so I can build and sustain that relationship.
If you're going to build a business, you have to have revenue. And that starts with clients. Share on XWhat was the name of this article in case any of my readers want to go in and check it out?
Look up 1,000 True Fans.
Is that a good guideline as far as this micro-niching? There’s a way to dive down too much but if you can get to 1,000 raving fans, that’s generally enough. Whatever your demographic is, which has 1,000 people in it, you have a broad enough target to potentially start a business.
It’s not 1,000 people. It’s 1,000 raving fans. It might come out of 5,000 or 100,000 people. If you think about it, the average marketing gets you a 1% or 2% response rate, which is okay but you can do better when you get specific. A good example, let’s think about the plastic surgeons that are trying to attract mommies for a makeover. It’s a pretty picture of a young woman that says nurture the body that provokes ending, that doesn’t call out to mom.
If you put a picture of a woman that’s in her late 30s, early 40s and you ask, “Would you like the body you had before you had kids?” That’s pinging the emotional part of your brain. That’s getting down to what mom’s thinking about at 10:00 at night after the kids are in bed. That’s what’s like saying, “Stephen,” across the crowded room where they’re paying attention. That’s the way we attract people to our business.
When you do it that way, I’m guessing you get a much better rate than 1% to 2%.
I’ve seen it go as high as 1,100%. The plastic surgeon went from 35 leads a month to 400 leads a month just by making that change.
Is this an oversight when you talked about showing some attractive 25-year-old woman and they were going to resonate more with the 40-year-old that wants to get their body before children? Is this a common general oversight of people not sufficiently trying to get into the mind and empathize with their customer base?
Think about the edges here. The big guys aren’t immune to this but it’s either they get a talking lizard or a yellow emu to try and capture our attention. Most people say, “I’m the best. We are the brightest. We have the most experience. We’re convenient. We have the largest selection. We’re bonded.” What the consumer is saying when you do that is, “I hope so.” Who wants to do business with the person that shows up and says, “We’re just getting started? We don’t know what we’re doing.” Nobody so we try to put these platitudes out there but platitudes are platitudes. What that does is the buyer then says, “I’m looking for the ball of price.” When we can give specific, name the problem that resonates with them and then promise them a solution, they’re willing to pay for the right value. The customer is not looking for the price. They’re looking for value.
Thinking about this, is this something that people should be thinking about? Say any of my readers are vetting some ideas in their heads. They’re trying to figure out what business idea to pursue or they have an idea in their head to try and decide whether they want to pursue it and how. Is this something that should be factoring into the equation from the very get-go of empathizing with your potential customer and figure out what’s going to make them want to get the service and also get value out of your service?
Yes. Who do you like working with? A lot of the people that I talked to that are above a certain age are looking more towards retirement. They’re not interested in doing more work to grow their business. That’s probably not my customer. My customer is someone who wants to either increase the value of their business before they sell it or they’re getting started. They want to build something that is wealth and an asset, but you want to stop and think. Those are two pieces.
There are the demographics, geography, age, income but then there’s also the psychographics. What are they reading? What are they listening to? Where are they hanging out? What are their concerns? What are their frustrations? What would they like to do with their life? It’s not like we have a magic eight ball to look into the mind of the customer but it’s thinking about in your ideal world, what would they look and feel like? When I market to Stephen, I’m going to attract Stephen, Mary and Bill. If I market to everybody, I’m marketing to nobody.
Most people are pretty familiar with demographics. We all know the tools. Could you point the readers on a good tool to look at if someone looked into psychographics and how to conceptualize it best if we’re going to think about everyone that lives in your home city? How would we divide up the population along with psychographics?
That’s a soft skill and there’s not like where you buy a psychographic database. Talk to the people that you like and that you would like to do business with. Where are they hanging out? Do they play golf? Do they not play golf? I knew a wealth advisor that played golf one time a week as a single. They’d walk in and hook up with 2 or 3 other guys that they’d make a foursome. At the end of each week, he’d walk away with 1 or 2 appointments because, over the course of that 4 or 5-hour golf game, he’s building relationships.
He likes golfers. Golfers tend to have a certain amount of money. There are some common interests, common ground and, for lack of a better word, common vibe. It’s easier to do business with them. When we sit back and think about that, who are those people? Do I like people that are learners? Do I like people that are salt of the earth? Do I like active people that are mountain climbers and hikers? Those things come through time and as you interview people.
There are a lot of personality tests and other types of things going on. Would you say it’s a mistake to think about it along the lines of a previously conceived framework as opposed to more thinking for yourself like the kind of people that we want to attract? Does this activity and the people that tend to hang out here, go here a lot, watch this show or anything else?
Perhaps the relationship you and I developed is a good example. We met through an online vehicle and a networking event. We’ve had a couple of follow-up conversations. We have a similar mindset. As we’re meeting people in our networking, if we were doing business with people that we’ve done business with, we develop a profile of the people that we like and want to do business with.
For myself, I like people that like to learn, are driven and want to build a business, not just to have a practice. I also want people that are frustrated. They have been sold social media marketing, Facebook marketing and SEO digital marketing. They’re going, “What have I got?” Those are the people that I can help by creating a message that regardless of how they market, their customers will hear them.
If people aren’t messaging and it’s all word of mouth, that’s probably not my best client. It’s the demographics. They have the money and the budget. That’s the psychographics. “Who do I want to do business with?” Who can use what you deliver? Who has a need? A painter, for example, might have two markets. They might have the end consumer, the homeowner but they also might have the real estate agent that wants to get a home sale-ready. Those are two different messages, campaigns, psychographics, demographics and all that.
That’s a good segue to give you a chance to tell my reader-base a little bit more about the specifics of your services, as well as what website and everything else and how to get ahold of you if they are inclined.
First of all, your readers can get a copy of this book that I published in 2020, New Clients, New Revenue and New Profits, without spending more money on marketing or advertising. They get that by going to www.RAS-Squared.com. It’s going to cost you your email address. This gives you strategies to grow your business without spending more money. What I do is I help small business owners that are overwhelmed and frustrated go from, “This is more work than my job,” to having a business that runs while they have the time, freedom and income that they desired when they set up their business.
A lot of my readers out there might be thinking and I’ve covered this in some previous episodes that motivation towards having that individual and that personal autonomy over your life, not having a boss always telling you when and where is this whole concept of growing your business without spending more money on marketing. Commonly, people like to say, “If you want to grow, you have to spend some money on marketing. You have to throw some money down on some campaign like the ones that you’re referring to when we’re on blast Facebook, blast SEO or something like that.”
Here’s a perfect example. For those of you that love Groupon, apologies. Groupon takes about 1/3 of your revenue. They also offer a big discount. That leaves a very little piece for the business owner. If you’re a restaurant that serves booze, that might be a good idea. Booze has got good margins but when you discount, you’re taking away your profit. Why wouldn’t you want to create a message that’s compelling, that pings that limbic system and that emotional hot button that you have?
I had a client whose opportunity cost on his Groupon clients was about $750 a month. That’s what he was giving away to bring them in. He stopped doing Groupon. He reinvested that money in a little bit of marketing. He gets 2 to 5 new customers every week. All because he changed his messaging and his targeting. He’s not giving the discounts so his margins went up as well.
Would you say that your overall message for any small business owner or solopreneur, entrepreneur, someone starting up a business when it comes to the idea of marketing is to be a bit more intelligent, smarter and targeted about it as opposed to throwing a bunch of money at anything?
Look at the back of your local community paper or magazine. A lot of business owners have their business cards or a photo of their business cards back there. They’re hoping that someone will call them. They put together an ad and got a number that says, “Call me.” Instead of using all the platitudes about quality, bonding and insurance, stop and think. “What is keeping my customer up at night? What are they frustrated and afraid about?” For a financial advisor, how do I know he’s not a Bernie Madoff? For a house painter, how do I know it’s going to be done on time? For a roofer, how do I know I’m not going to find a bunch of males in my backyard and that they’re not going to disturb the dogs?
People have certain frustrations with the industry. If you can identify the frustration that you want to solve for your client, you become the bell ringer. Domino’s, Pizza Hut and Little Caesars are great examples. Domino’s is fast, fresh and quick. Pizza Hut is where you can drive in, eat-in and take it out. Little Caesars is cheap but owns that space in the marketplace. Each of them is over $1 billion in revenue. All because they clearly identified their client’s emotional hot buttons and went to that versus where’s the best, freshest and warmest platitudes.
We have to get into the head of our customers, and that revolves around what's the problem they have, what's the result they want. Share on XWhat you’re saying is to be wary. People generally are wary about these overall general platitudes. Anyone can say, “I’m the best,” or like that scene in the movie Elf, “World’s greatest cup of coffee.” What is the chance that you woke into this random place in New York City and that was the greatest cup of coffee in the entire world?
It depends if you like a dark roast or medium roast. It’s the best cup of coffee for your customer. When you can identify what’s the best for your customer, that’s where you’re with.
It seems like what you’re saying is that there are a lot of people out there who are trying to serve. Anyone can say, “We’re a pizza place,” but if you try to serve the pizza that everybody wants whether it’d be the fancier, more expensive, higher-quality pizza or whether it’d be that cheap, quick pizza or anything else, they’re likely going to fall short because they’re to spread out too much and say, “We’re the best pizza ever,” as opposed to we’re the ones that do this particular niche of the market the best.
Restoration companies help you mitigate smoke damage. They all used the same kind of technology. Here in Colorado, we have a lot of cannabis dispensaries. I had a colleague that instead of doing general smoke remediation, did cannabis smoke remediation. They created a whole new niche. Anybody could have done it but they created a whole new niche because they talked about something. My hypothesis, my strong belief is that each and every one of us, if we take the time to slow down and think about our business and our ideal customer, we can create that market-dominating position. When we create that market-dominating position, it amplifies everything else we do to drive our revenue.
It’s the market-dominating position within the niche that you want to serve. It takes me back to your initial example that we served commercial and residential real estate all up and down the front range. If I hear that statement, my first thought is, “What does that mean for my house in Denver?”
I got a loft in LoDo. We bought a home in a community and the real estate agent that had that community lived in the community. She was in the community talking to people. If there was a home that fall into that community, 75% of the time, they list it in return.
That’s a lot of the businesses that market share in just that one community.
She specialized and got micro-niche.
What is the danger of finding a micro-niche or a small, specific target and already seeing that person that already has 75% of the market share? In that particular case of those lofts in LoDo, is there any room in the market for a new person to serve that exact niche? Does a new person have to come in and serve a different niche to have a chance at success?
This person sold to Millennials. There’s another market that’s moving in the lofts and that’s the Baby Boomers. They’re getting out of their big homes. The kids are gone so they want to go live downtown. There might be another market to target. If the market is full, part of it is looking at your competition. Who’s there? What do they do or not do that you could do?
In the case of the smoke remediation company, there’s a whole host of them out there. This lady looked around and said, “What are they not talking about? What are they not saying that I can say?” There are some equations and formulas. Everybody’s unique and has to spend the time with themselves or with a trusted advisor to hone-in on what I can do differently. If you’re thinking of getting into a business, I will look at the website for the people you think are your competitors. What are they saying? What are they not saying? What do you like or dislike? It’s the things that you don’t like where you’re going to find the place where you can be a niche to compete with them.
Let’s say there’s someone reading this episode. They’ve read a few other episodes and they’re fired up to start a business. What do you think is the number one most important thing that that person needs to make sure they do before pulling the trigger on something and they’re even going through thinking about your market more consciously? What do you have to do? What’s the most important thing that most people neglect to do before they get started?
You have to develop an attitude. “I’m a salesperson because I have to sell my business.” I can’t tell you how many people I talk to that say, “I’m the senior. I’m the owner. I don’t sell.” I’m going to say baloney or BS. That’s a Belief System. Show me a CEO who’s not willing to sell their product and I’ll show you a CEO that doesn’t believe in the product. You have to believe in it. You have to have your heart, soul and passion. Go out and learn what makes people buy. People love to buy. They don’t like to be sold. You have to figure out in conversation with the buyer, “What do you need? What would make your life better?” You have to sell something. You have to produce something, get it into the hands of the customer and make the exchange.
I need to bring this up because there are a lot of people out there in the world and you’re probably well aware of it that had a negative impression of sales. That likely comes from the fact that people like to buy but they don’t like to be sold to. We all had that experience of getting that phone call with a person that wanted to give you a new extended warranty on your car when that was the last thing on your mind. Even if you’re not going to be in sales, if you’re going to start a business or if you’re going to believe in something, you’re eventually going to have to sell it in some capacity or not. What’s the number one thing that people need to do to adopt the right mindset and overcome this aversion to it that they may have from all these other cold sales calls that they didn’t appreciate?
The advice I got from my coach was to ask yourself a question. Will your customer’s life be better if they do business with you? If the answer to that is yes then you’re doing them a disservice by not helping them make the decision. You’ll get a bad name because some salespeople take shortcuts but if you go back to the very beginning of the sales profession, it was a profession. People were servants. If you come to it from a servant mindset where it’s like, “How can I help you achieve your goals or do a better job of keeping your business running, keeping your house clean, getting rid of bugs in your home?” Whatever that place is, it’s remarkable how many different ways we do business in America. Whatever that service is, your customer needs that. How can you best help facilitate their successful achievement of solving their problem? Do that with a servant mindset and without being economically driven. Remember, you need to make a profit but not being all about the money. Your business will do just fine.
I need to point this out again because I love your statement pointing out, “Will my customer’s lives be better if they buy this product?” It seems like your product is one where you’re helping these small businesses grow without having to spend a whole ton of money on some of these not as effective methods of marketing. Trying to market to everyone and use those generic phrases seems not too effective.
Therefore, the message to all my readers out there is when you believe in the product and you know that this product will make your customer’s lives better, your customer is in a dead niche that you would establish through this specific subset of humanity. They are going to have a better life because of your product. There’s nothing but greatness around the idea of selling your product to them and getting them informed about the service or product that you’re giving them to make their lives better.
It’s pretty simple. You have to capture their attention. They’re asking themselves a couple of questions. You’re saying, “Do you understand?” The way to catch their attention is to show them that you understand them. That’s the problem. If you can explain their problem better than they can, they know you have the solution. They’re then asking themselves, “Can I trust you?” If the answer is yes to that question then they’re going to say, “What would you recommend?” That’s not the salesman pushing something at them. It’s the salesperson helping them solve a problem.
Some of those shortcut cold calls, whatever you want to call them, exemplify the exact opposite of what you’re saying. We’re calling anyone that has a vehicle in this zip code because of your numbers disk and we’re telling you something. I like how you approach everything and how you’re helping these small businesses, the people who are passionate, wanting their business to succeed and wanting them to serve the purpose that they’re looking to serve. It’s my belief that every small business owner or business starter started with this desire to bring that thing into the world. You’re helping a lot of them to amplify that impact. Growing your business, you’re amplifying the impact of your business idea.
I want to come back to something you alluded to. Cold calling. It is not a bad thing. The secret to making cold calling work, though is to be sure you’re calling the people that are most likely to be interested in what you do. It’s the same formula. How do you capture their attention? Whether it’s a headline in a newspaper, a Facebook ad or a cold call, you got about three seconds to get them to give you another fifteen seconds where you can engage them.
The customer is not looking for price; they're looking for value. Share on XIf you get through those gates then you get to educate them on the business, problems, solutions, challenges and why you’re the best to help them solve that. You then get to the point where you get to make a runoff. This is not just advertising. This is also when you give your elevator pitch in a networking conversation. It’s when you pick up the phone and call the client in the B2B world. We have to think about what’s on our customer’s minds. If we can capture what they’re frustrated with and we get them to recognize their problem, they’re going to want to solve it.
It’s all about having the right niche and understanding the people in that niche. Once you do that then a cold call would be something that they’re going to want to hear. They’re going to want to get that call and get back to you.
When you’re cold calling, you’re in an interruption. When the talking gecko walks across the screen, that’s an interruption. Something pulls you out of your revelry in focusing. The key is to have something that the consumer whether it’s an executive or a homemaker, is going to say, “I feel their problem. I want to solve the problem.” You then get to have a conversation about it.
Before we wrap up, are there any other final messages you want to impart to my readers about growing businesses and properly targeting their markets, properly thinking through and empathizing with their customers?
A lot of people I’m talking to would like to grow their business but they feel constrained by the employee talent pool within attracting good employees. Let me suggest that all of the things we talked about in terms of marketing to your customers apply to your marketing to your ideal employee. You have to show them why they want to work with you. For this period of time, they have a little bit of power. They can sit back and wait. When we make ourselves attractive to them, we can attract the talent that we want.
You’re selling your employees on providing their time, energy and talent to your organization as opposed to somewhere else.
Let’s take a mechanic. They’re looking for a good solid tech that’s been a great technician. Most of those are working for a dealer or another mechanic. What’s in their mind? They might not be happy where they are. What might be frustrating to them? How can you frame your recruiting conversation in such a way that they’ll go, “You’re right. I don’t like that. Will you offer something different? Tell me more.”
I am hopeful that this period, whatever’s going on with the talent pool, is going to help bring more people to a job and place that they’re happy with. I’ve seen some of those Gallup surveys, even before the pandemic, about what percentage of workers in this country are “disengaged.” It’s a huge drain. We’d be so much more productive if most people love their job and want to be doing it. Someone disengaged was the exception rather than the rule. I hope that this trend brings us to that place.
If we take time to slow down and think about our business and our ideal customer, we can create a market-dominating position. Share on XIt could be another whole rabbit hole the way it could go down. You show me a disengaged employee, I’ll show you a disengaged management team.
The problems go up and down. It’s my hope that more people find that place where they’re more likely to be engaged but that’s another rabbit hole. John, I would like to thank you so much for joining us on the show.
Thank you.
It is RAS-squared.com for everyone that wants to get ahold of John. Is the book on the site too?
Right on the front page, there’s a place where you can get it.
I would like to also thank the readers out there for taking the time to read my show. Stay tuned for more conversations with interesting people who have pursued their passions and found a place where they are engaged.
Important Links:
About John Gies
Our speaker today has spent a lifetime in business. First in college working with small business owners in Minneapolis St. Paul and then moving into the corporate world. Where he has had the opportunity to serve clients in a variety of industries.