In the conversation
Ryan Englin on Contractor Cents: The Apple Framework and Why Your Employee Experience Is the Core of Your Business
Key takeaways
- The core of your business is the employee experience, not the brand, not the customer experience. An apple grows from the core outward. If the core is rotten, there is no fruit and no new trees. Invest in your people first and they take care of your customers.
- Recruiting is a marketing function, not an HR function. The same principles that attract customers attract employees. Treat job postings like advertisements and interviews like sales conversations.
- When you hire people aligned to your core values and culture, you don't have to beg them to show up on Saturday. They volunteer because they know you're not just in it to make a buck.
- Every employee is a walking, talking billboard for your company. When you take care of your people during life's hardest moments, they tell their friends. Those friends become your next great hires and your next customers.
- If you aren't attracting good people and you have retention issues, the problem is you. You have the power to fix it, but you have to look in the mirror first.
I sat down with Ruth King on Contractor Cents to talk about the real reason most contractors can't find good people. And it has nothing to do with the labor market.
Ruth and I had been on each other's shows before. She's sharp. She knows numbers better than anyone in this industry. And she set up the conversation perfectly: hiring provokes a lot of discussion, but most of it focuses on the wrong problem.
We started with my background. My dad was in manufacturing. Entrepreneurial guy. Worked six, seven days a week. I grew up in that shop. All I knew was I did not want to go into the family business. I went to college, majored in HR, thought I'd build teams for a living. Then I realized college didn't prepare me for anything in the real world. I bounced into the mortgage industry, watched the bubble burst from the inside, and came out the other side with my dad's entrepreneurial bug and a mission to help small business owners build something better.
I started a marketing company for home service contractors about 12 years ago. Four years in, I had a realization that changed everything. My clients didn't need more leads. They needed people. Trucks were sitting in the yard because there was nobody to drive them. That's when I discovered that recruiting is a marketing activity, not an HR function. And that insight became the foundation for everything I do now.
Ruth asked me about the Apple framework, and I walked her through it. Picture an apple. The skin is your brand experience. Vehicle wraps, website, uniforms, social media. Entrepreneurs pour money into the skin. But the skin is not why anyone buys an apple. The flesh is your customer experience. That's why people come back, why they refer you, why they leave positive reviews. Most companies put effort into the flesh too. But here's what they miss: that apple grew from the core outward. The core is your employee experience. If the core is rotten, there is no fruit. There are no new trees. There is no business.
Most companies work outside-in. They polish the brand, invest in customer experience, and forget the people who deliver all of it. Flip it. Put all your effort into building a solid core. Take care of your people. They take care of your customers. Your customers take care of your brand. The order matters.
Ruth shared a story about one of her clients that brought this to life. An employee's father was really sick, and the company let her be present with him. They didn't hold it against her. They didn't dock her. They gave her space. When her dad passed and it was time to come back, they had an honest conversation about expectations. She appreciated it. She's loyal for life now. And here's the part people miss: she talks about that experience. Her friends hear it. Those friends become potential employees and potential customers. Every single person that works for you is a walking, talking billboard.
Ruth backed this up with her own clients. She has companies at full employment right now. That sounds crazy, but it's real. These companies take care of their people, make sure every person knows how they impact the bottom line, and create an environment people actually want to be part of. The result? They have waiting lists of people who want to come work for them. Friends of employees come knocking on the door. And those friends tend to be like the people who referred them. That's how you build a company from within.
I told Ruth something I tell every owner: if you aren't attracting good people, if you've got retention issues, if you're not at full employment, it's all up to you to solve it. You have the power to fix it. But you might have to take a hard look in the mirror. You might have to admit that you're not just part of the problem. You are the problem.
Ruth corrected me on that one. She said, "No, you ARE the problem." She's right.
That's where we left Part 1. The foundation. The core. The employee experience that everything else grows from.
If you liked this, I go deeper on building culture, the Core Fit Hiring System, and what it takes to become an employer people actually want to work for on Titans of the Trades.
Listen to the full conversation