Ryan Englin on The Revenue Throughput Podcast: A Smart Culture Saves Money and Grows Business

I sat down with Jose Palomino on The Revenue Throughput Podcast to talk about why culture and hiring are revenue problems, not just HR problems, and why blue-collar business owners need to stop treating recruiting like a chore they do when they're desperate.

Jose asked a question I hear all the time: does the skilled labor shortage just get fixed by paying people more? The answer is no. The modern workforce has traded a paycheck for a purpose. Thirty years ago, workers wanted a pension, benefits, and 30 years at the same company. That world is gone. People want to feel like they belong somewhere. They want to get out of bed excited about the work. And here's what most owners miss: we actually have clients where key hires take a pay cut to come work for them because the alignment to the company's vision and culture matters more than the dollars.

I told Jose something I tell every audience. Employees don't leave jobs. If you're a machine operator and you go be a machine operator somewhere else, you didn't switch jobs. You switched who signs your paycheck. You switched the culture, the leadership, the vision. The job itself barely changed. That reframe matters because it puts the responsibility back where it belongs. On the employer.

We spent time on a topic that surprises people. Blue-collar workers are emotional about their work. One client pushed back hard on this. "Ryan, these are HVAC techs. They don't care about hopes and dreams." So I asked him how many of his techs were family guys. All of them. How many spent weekends with their kids? All of them. You don't invest in your family unless you're emotionally connected to something. Then I asked when the last time one of his guys cursed out the boss was. "That happens ten times a day." That's emotion. We're just channeling the wrong kind.

Jose made a point I really appreciated. He said culture is how people behave and make decisions when management isn't around. That lines up exactly with what I teach. Whether you've been intentional about your culture or not, it exists. Your people know what it is. I shared a story about a pool service owner in Arizona with 40 guys on the road. He told me "We don't have a culture." Then he described exactly what it was: autonomy, perfecting the craft, no boss breathing down their necks. That IS the culture. He just never named it.

The danger is when you're not intentional. I brought up what happens when private equity firms acquire small trade companies. They buy a 6-to-10 truck operation, and within six to eight months the entire team walks out. Those people chose to work for a small company. They didn't want corporate. When the acquirer tries to assimilate them into the bigger culture, the response is "this isn't what I signed up for." The lesson: culture is always there. Name it. Own it. Communicate it. Or lose people to someone who does.

We also talked about the Core Fit Hiring System and how it works. It's a 12-week engagement where we partner with a client to implement a complete recruiting process inside their business. At the end of 12 weeks, they own the whole thing. We teach them to fish. We don't fish for them. The results speak for themselves. Our clients reduce turnover by about 60 percent just from making better hiring decisions. Some of them come to us with turnover in the 300 to 500 percent range. For every five people they hire, one sticks around in a year. If you don't think that's expensive, sit down and do the math.

I closed with one of my strongest convictions. If you're struggling to recruit, take it away from HR and give it to marketing. Recruiting is a marketing activity. Writing job ads, promoting open positions, crafting interview questions. That's marketing work. HR is a compliance function. Marketing knows how to compel people to action. That one shift changes everything.

If you liked this conversation, I go deeper on building culture, hiring systems, and employee referral programs on Titans of the Trades.