Ryan Englin on The Kee to Growth Podcast: Why Your Customer Marketing Repels Your Best Future Hires

I went on The Kee to Growth Podcast with Jen McKee to talk about something most trade contractors get backwards: they spend all their marketing dollars attracting customers and accidentally repel the very people they need to deliver the work.

Here's the reality. When your website says "24/7 emergency service, nights and weekends, lowest price guaranteed," your customer reads "great, they'll be there when I need them." Your technician reads "I have no life. I never see my kids. There's no career path for me." Same message. Two completely different audiences. And one of them walks away.

I shared a story from about 10 years ago. An HVAC company ran a radio commercial that didn't brag about their prices or their guarantees. It bragged about their technicians. Background checked. Trained. Clean uniforms. Checklists. Communication skills. The call to action wasn't "call us to schedule your AC inspection." It was "if you're looking for a place to call home, call us because we're looking for great people." The phone rang off the hook for new booked appointments. Customers wanted the company that invested in its people. That's recruiting as marketing in action.

Jen and I dug into what this looks like practically. Above the fold on your homepage is the most valuable real estate on your website. Most contractors fill it with seasonal specials and promotions. What if instead you had happy technicians talking about what it's like to work there? That's not going to turn away the consumer. But it will attract the person looking for a place to belong.

We also talked about the careers page being the most important page on your site. One client spiffed technicians every time they got a customer review, with an extra bump if the review mentioned the tech by name. Their careers page filled up with those reviews. Whether a consumer or a job seeker landed on that page, the reaction was the same: "Wow, that looks like an awesome place."

But here's where I don't pull punches. Attracting people is only half the battle. The bigger problem in the trades is retention. Most contractors can hire. They can't keep people. And the root cause is almost always the same. Most owners and leaders in the trades were never taught how to lead. They wing it. They duct tape it. And incidentally, they end up treating people poorly and pushing them away.

People ask me all the time: "What's the silver bullet for employee engagement?" Care about the things your people care about. That's it. Sounds simple. It's not easy. You're worried about payroll and vendors and getting trucks on the road. They're worried about making it to their kid's baseball game. When you start caring about what they care about, the law of reciprocity kicks in. They start caring about your problems too.

I also talked about one of the fastest ways to diagnose what's broken. If you feel like you can't trust your people, it's almost never because they're bad people. It's because there's a lack of clear expectations on both sides. Most human beings wake up wanting to do a good job. The problem shows up when the boss's definition of a good job and the employee's definition don't match. That's not a trust problem. That's a clarity problem. And it's fixable.

We got into behavioral assessments too. I use three in my business. Clifton Strengths to make sure people are applying their strengths in the right seats. ProScan for communication gaps because the way I communicate and the way you communicate are different, and having a report that shows the difference takes the judgment out of the conversation. And Kolbe for understanding how people work. But the best assessment is the one your team actually uses. I stopped caring about which one. I just care that they use one. And not just during hiring. Pull it out for team building, communication, and engagement. That's when it becomes valuable.

Jen asked about finding experienced electricians, and I gave the answer nobody wants to hear. The good ones aren't looking. They already have a job and they're either happy or paid extremely well. You have two choices. Become the company that seasoned tech wants to leave their current job for. Or build an apprenticeship program and develop the right people from the ground up. I shared how one plumbing company built a six-week drains program to get new hires productive fast, identify the ones who were in it for the long haul, and wash out the ones who weren't. That's building a Core Fit Profile in practice. Know what you're looking for. Then build the path.

The key to growth, in my world, is people. Your people will take you further and faster than any ad campaign or consumer marketing play ever will. But only when you focus on what they care about first.

If you liked this conversation, I go deeper on employer branding and the full hiring system on Titans of the Trades.