Ryan Englin on Think Business with Tyler: How to Revolutionize Employee Experience and Boost Business Growth

I went on Think Business with Tyler to talk about why employee experience is the real growth lever for trade contractors and small businesses.

Tyler asked about my background, and I shared the story of my dad. He commuted 80 miles each way so he could be present on weekends. He worked 12-hour days, six or seven days a week, not because nobody wanted to work for him but because nobody ever taught him the people side of business. He knew manufacturing. He knew production. But the softer skills of hiring, retaining, and leading people? That was never part of the training. That story is the reason I do what I do today, even though it took me years to realize it.

I told Tyler how I stumbled into recruiting. I was running a marketing company helping blue-collar contractors get leads. Then client after client started canceling. Not because the marketing wasn't working. It was working too well. They had leads they couldn't service because they didn't have enough technicians. Trucks sitting empty in the yard. So I applied the same marketing principles to recruiting, and it worked fast. That's when everything shifted.

Here's the core idea I unpacked on the show: recruiting is a marketing activity, not an HR activity. Stop hunting for people. Start attracting them. Just like fishing. You don't chase fish through the water. You pick the right pond, the right bait, and the right gear. When you make that shift, everything changes. People notice you. People raise their hand. People tell their friends.

We spent a good chunk of time on the employee experience, starting from the moment someone applies. Looking for work is one of life's most stressful events. It ranks alongside divorce and health crises. Most employers make it worse. They let applications sit in an inbox for weeks. They never respond. They run candidates through repetitive interviews that waste everyone's time. Flip that. Get back to people fast. Send a personal video from the hiring manager. Make the candidate feel like a human being, not an applicant number. Little things create massive separation.

Tyler told a story about a friend who left a job after three months because the employer lied about the schedule during the interview process. I wasn't surprised. Both sides do this. Employers hide their worst employee before interviews. Candidates let ChatGPT write their resume. Everyone puts on a mask.

That's exactly why I teach the pullback offer. Before you hand over the offer letter, sit down and walk through every small thing that will drive both of you crazy. Overtime expectations. Schedule conflicts. Communication style. Think of it like sitting in the driveway before you move in with someone and agreeing on which way the toilet paper goes and how you squeeze the toothpaste. None of it is a dealbreaker alone. But unspoken expectations create death by a thousand paper cuts.

I shared the story of a client who followed this process perfectly. The candidate started crying during the offer meeting and said she couldn't take the job. She admitted she was planning to take it as a stopgap, knowing she'd get fired eventually while she kept looking. But after seeing how much the employer invested in the conversation, she couldn't do it. The owner was furious with me. I told him he dodged a bullet.

We also hit on something that fires me up every time. Turnover is the most expensive thing your business deals with. More than materials. More than overhead. More than anything. And most owners don't even calculate it. If you invest in your people, the return is enormous. When someone goes through a personal crisis and you offer flexibility instead of a pink slip, that person knows no other employer on the planet will do what you just did. They will fight to stay.

I told the story of an HVAC technician whose performance dropped to a third of normal. Callbacks went from zero to a pile. The company ran a behavioral assessment and then had a real conversation. Turns out he was going through a brutal divorce and thought he had to hide it. When the CEO said "give us 24 hours notice and we'll cover your schedule," his performance came back. Not because the divorce went away. Because he didn't have to carry it alone anymore.

There's a difference between tolerating low performance and supporting someone through a difficult season. Know the difference.

I closed with a tip I give every audience: niche deep and niche fast. On the customer side and on the recruiting side. Get clear on who your people are. At Core Matters, our niche is stay-at-home parents. Every system, every message, every piece of content is built for them. When you do that, you create a tribe. Communication gets easier. Connection gets stronger. Hiring gets faster.

If you liked this conversation, I go deeper on all of this, the Core Fit Hiring System, building a bench, and creating an employee experience that makes people fight to stay, on Titans of the Trades.