Leverage Gen-Z Talent in Your HVAC Contractor Business with Hannah Williams

Josh Crouch: Good morning and welcome back to another episode of the Service Business Mastery Podcast. I am one half of your hosts. Sitting next to me virtually is Tersh Blissett, the founder of the show. And today we’re talking about not only employee engagement, hiring, retaining employees, engaging them, but in a way we don’t really we don’t I don’t think we’ve ever really talked about some of the different generational gaps in the employees that you’re hiring and what makes those generations different, how to attract them, what are they interested in, and those types of things. And today we have we have a Gen Z here on the show who is also an expert in her in her generation. And she focuses on consulting and talking about how to attract, retain, engage employees that are the new generation, which are primarily digital. [00:01:00] Because that’s the way I mean, it’s just the way we grow up. I mean, today’s today’s day and age, whether you love it or hate it, kids are getting tablets at four or five years old. They they literally can make videos and stuff at a super young age, edit them, do stuff that I, I still struggle with to this day. So mixing music, I mean, it’s insane. Like, my, my 14 year old is like, well, you should do this or you should do that. I’m like, I have no idea. Can you show me how? And it’s really unique to to kind of see these generational gaps come together or generational divides come together and and see what we need to do in order to continue to grow our service businesses and bring on that new fresh blood and do it in a way that they actually care about and they attracted to the trades.

 

Tersh Blissett: Aren’t you a boomer?

 

Josh Crouch: I am not a boomer. I may look like a boomer. I’m. [00:02:00] You and I are. I think you’re. You’re a millennial, too, aren’t you?

 

Tersh Blissett: Technically, I am. Yeah.

 

Josh Crouch: Yeah, we’re both technically.

 

Tersh Blissett: Millennial than you.

 

Josh Crouch: But you’re not.

 

Tersh Blissett: I think I’m actually older than you are. You are, anyways. Yeah, but you just had a birthday, so I did.

 

Josh Crouch: So I’m a little closer to you now.

 

Tersh Blissett: Yeah, right. But you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I’m excited about this. And and to learn. Learn more. And like you said, like my kids, I have three boys and all all three of them are like, hey, we’re going to do Twitch and we’re going to stream our video games. I’m like.

 

Josh Crouch: Like what?

 

Tersh Blissett: Twitter? No, Dad, Twitch. I’m like, the hackers. What the hell are you talking about? More so. So. Yeah, I’m excited to talk more about. About this with Hannah, but. Yeah, let’s get started.

 

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Tersh Blissett: Hey there, Hannah. Welcome to the show.

 

Hannah Williams: Hey, thanks. I am pumped up from that music from the intro.

 

Josh Crouch: Good rhythm to it, right? Dun dun.

 

Hannah Williams: Dun. Oh, yeah.

 

Josh Crouch: Josh Good. Yeah. I was going to say welcome and [00:04:00] if you could, I mean, I put down in the bottom the thing that’s scroll on screen that you’re proud Gen-Z or I’m hoping you’re proud to be Gen Z.

 

Hannah Williams: So I saw that I was like, man. Josh Wow.

 

Josh Crouch: Proud or not. Hey, I am. I guess I’m calling you out, so. But if you could take us so you actually have some history back with your father in the trades if you want to kind of start your story and take us to where you are currently and then we’ll start diving into today’s topic.

 

Hannah Williams: Yeah, for sure. I’m excited to get into this. It really, really excited. So yes, I do have some history in the trades. I’m I am now 24, so still a Gen Z or myself on the upper end of the curve. But really my story began back when I was 12. So my dad is a real estate entrepreneur and he started actually as he started in martial arts schools back when I was probably one or two years old, he owned a variety of martial arts schools. He was very high ranking there. And anyway, his that business [00:05:00] just completely flopped. It just wasn’t very lucrative. And so he’s one of those guys who started listening to the the old cassette tape series of how to invest in real estate. And anyway, he’s one of those people. He gets about a quarter of the way through a book or a quarter of the way through a series. And he’s like, Well, why don’t I just go do this? So he gets gets rid of the cassette tapes, goes out and and does it and then finishes sometimes finishes listening to the course. So anyway, I was like four or five years old when my dad started buying houses. Well, fast forward to age 12. This is my first real memory, I guess you could say, with within the world of business and and entrepreneurship. I was sitting in the back of my dad’s blue pickup truck and we’re bouncing down the highway, going to collect rents. I used to go to work with him about one or two days out of the week. I was home schooled, the oldest of seven kids, and I’m very studious students. [00:06:00] So I’m sitting in the back of his blue pickup truck and we’re bouncing down the highway and I’m trying to get my homework done and everything’s rattling around and out of the blue. For some reason this day, my dad decided to hand me his cell phone and he said, Hey, Hannah, this cell phone’s ringing, and there’s a guy at the end of the line who wants to sell his house, and you’re going to close the deal.

 

Tersh Blissett: Wow. No pressure.

 

Hannah Williams: And I’m just. No. Yeah, none at all. I’m sitting there scared out of my mind, like, what is my dad thinking? I mean, granted, he was a few years into his business, but most of it was referral based. It wasn’t like we were getting 50 of these calls a day. It was usually a few per week. And he handed me this business development opportunity and I, I gave him this scared look, and I took the phone and I said, you know, I was like, Dad, what do I do? I took it and I trusted him. And sure enough, I fumbled through this call. It was a guy selling a duplex and [00:07:00] we ended up getting a contract. We got under contract that day and closed on it and my parents still own it. So when I drive, drive by the duplex, I can look back on that memory. Wow. So that led to just my mind was just opened as, oh, my gosh, I’m 12 years old. How many houses can I buy before I’m 18? Was kind of Michael. So I started at a very early age working with the contractors who were working on these homes HVAC, plumbing, we worked, landscaping, etc. And fast forward to today. I actually at 12 years later, I came back from a career in corporate for a few years and decided to help my dad transition out of his company. Now he’s in his in his late fifties. So I’ve actually come back and basically digitized his whole property management company and and I still kind of. A part time role in that or manage the company. We outsource [00:08:00] everything to virtual assistants and they work with our contractors and all that jazz, but so that I can focus on what I do now, which is helping companies from all different industries attract, retain and engage my generation.

 

Josh Crouch: So how did you how did you realize that there was a market for talking to people about unlocking the potential of Gen Z and stuff like that? I mean, is that something that.

 

Tersh Blissett: At first can you explain what’s the difference in Gen Z and Millennials?

 

Josh Crouch: Yeah.

 

Hannah Williams: Yeah. We could actually spend an entire hour on just that topic, but so Gen Z ears, just to go back to the very basics. So I’m at the upper end of the curve, but a Gen Z or this year is ages 10 to 26. So and then of course the generation after us is Gen Alpha. So, Josh, how old are your kids?

 

Josh Crouch: 14 and 11.

 

Hannah Williams: So they’re both Gen Z solidly and then Tersh. How old are yours?

 

Tersh Blissett: Oh, [00:09:00] man, you should have answers before you know. Julie Right.

 

Josh Crouch: 13, 12.

 

Tersh Blissett: Eight and seven or six and seven.

 

Josh Crouch: Seven.

 

Hannah Williams: Seven.

 

Tersh Blissett: Seven, eight, seven, eight.

 

Hannah Williams: Roundabout, roundabout. Okay. So you’ve got some solid Gen Z ears and some and some alphas.

 

Tersh Blissett: So basically it is Memphis and Alpha because he already acts like an alpha, like I.

 

Hannah Williams: Hope not. Which agency?

 

Tersh Blissett: He’s the eight year old.

 

Hannah Williams: Yeah, he’s an Alpha.

 

Tersh Blissett: Oh, gosh. It was not going to be good.

 

Hannah Williams: He got it coming. I don’t honestly, all the generational names are so dumb to me. I that’s kind of why I’ll give you I’ll give you some of the differences between Gen Z and Millennials. But what I much prefer to talk about is to frame it in the terms of native digital versus native analog. So let me let me position it for you this way. [00:10:00] So a native digital when I say native digital, I mean we are native to digital. A native digital is someone whose primary life experience is digital digital worlds, I think. Tersh You mentioned a second ago that your kids stream on Twitch. That is a I mean, how many hours a day do they spend on Twitch?

 

Tersh Blissett: Oh, 2 hours. And they’re constantly begging for more. They’ll send me I’ll get notification text messages and emails. It says Memphis has requested for more hours. Aaron has requested three more hours like no decline. Decline.

 

Hannah Williams: I’m going to be I’m going to be that person who tells you should give it give it to them. So here here is here’s where I’m coming from. So native digitals are are human beings who have a primary life experience that is digital and a secondary life experience that is analog. Then on the flip side of [00:11:00] that, you have native analogs, which are anyone over the age of 35, and that would include some millennials. I love how you guys were saying I’m millennials, but you were never telling your age. I’ll tell you my age. We can do that on this podcast. So I so anyone over the age of 35 is someone I would consider a native analog. So here’s what I mean. You have these two categories of human. And the reason I had to define it this way is that native digitals are literally the first group of human beings that is 100% integrated with technology, with machines. We’re not just adapting to technology. I think both of you mentioned before we got into this like you’re you kind of figured out technology as it came, right? Social media. Right. And I know some native analogs who are very proficient with technology. But when you have a native digital, what I mean is our tech world, our digital worlds are literally our primary [00:12:00] experience in life, which means we spend more time in our digital worlds than we do in the analog world.

 

Hannah Williams: That has some very interesting implications for businesses, because if you’re in if you’re in the contracting world, what are you mostly doing? You’re doing analog work, right? You’re physically at houses, physically at commercial buildings, you’re physically doing work. Well, now you have this whole generation whose primary life experience is digital first, meaning we can’t wait to get back to those digital worlds where we’re living our best lives, whether it’s in video games or Snapchat or now the metaverse like we are living in those worlds. So when we come to the analog world, it’s actually as uncomfortable an experience as a native analog, say a boomer or Gen Xer coming into a digital world. That’s how different the experience is. So like right now, what you and I. You’re doing here on on this stream. This to [00:13:00] me is equally as robust, equally as engaging as if I was sitting physically in person with you at a table drinking coffee with you. That to me, this is my world.

 

Tersh Blissett: What you’re saying right now is I love what you’re saying, because our business I didn’t even tell you this before, but our business is remote. So we operate remotely. And we one of the things that we have, we have meetings like this every week. And when we do, it’s very people ask like, how do you how do you keep and maintain culture whenever your business isn’t like you’re not touching each other each day and physically seeing each other every day. And it’s like this is this is very normal for all of us that work together. And we are all millennials, but. It [00:14:00] just it’s it’s weird for me to hear that question sometimes because and a lot of times it is from people who have had brick and mortar businesses for 20 years and they’re like, I can’t not have an office for everybody comes and meets every single morning. And so what you’re saying makes complete sense that it’s just it fits naturally because a lot of times I struggle with explaining the answer to that, because a lot of times people are like, They’ll ask you that question. I’m like, I don’t know. It just works. Like the people that are here, we all get along just fine and you know, we all like we’re more comfortable meeting on Zoom every morning than we would be coming together to meet almost. And it’s and for forever I thought that maybe I just hired a bunch of introverts that didn’t want to go out anywhere. And, and so, like, I don’t know if I didn’t know if that’s the case or not, but something like I was watching [00:15:00] a tick tock this morning, actually, and it was hilarious because this guy, he was filling out his registry and his checkbook and and his girlfriend or something was like, what is that? What are.

 

Josh Crouch: You doing? Like, I was going to say, what is that? I haven’t I haven’t done one of those in like.

 

Tersh Blissett: I haven’t either. And the thing about it is, is it was like he was explaining. He was like me growing up like this is what I’ve done and I just can’t break that habit because he is naturally a native analog. And so it makes perfect sense to me what you’re what you’re explaining here.

 

Hannah Williams: So I do want to elaborate on that because this is, again, so crucial and it doesn’t only apply to the employee side, this is also the customer side. So to give you some data around this, we are now at a point where by 2025, a projected 27% of every employee is going to be Gen Z in any any [00:16:00] given company. So if you think about that and some companies probably like yours that are run by millennials, that percentage is going to be way, way higher. So when you think about it, if you have an entire staff, let’s say a quarter to a third of your staff is natively digital and you have a customer base that is natively analog, you’re going to you’re going to get some conflict. Similarly, if you have employees who are natively digital and other employees who are natively analog, you see this happening in the school system, in the political system you have this happens everywhere. You have native analogs, designing curriculum systems, processes for native digitals, and then they wonder why the native digitals are so checked out. And to me it’s like, duh. Like you guys don’t understand that, for example, within education and this would apply to companies who have training and development as part of their culture [00:17:00] as well. You have companies and and education systems that don’t realize that a native digital can learn more in a 32nd Tik Tok video than they can sitting through a four hour session on something. And that conflict happens all the time because what are we used to in I don’t know if you guys take like company date daytime retreats or a daytime culture something or I see heads nodding.

 

Josh Crouch: So yeah.

 

Hannah Williams: So you guys have that culture, whatever. I speak with hundreds of Gen Z employees who say I’d so much rather have a higher paycheck. I’d rather get home earlier than do things like that because I’d rather get back to my twitch streaming where I’m making money on the side. Or I recently spoke with a native analog guy who had just ordered native digital, 23 year old who started his own tree. And he’s [00:18:00] an arborist. He’s certified arborist. Arborist came out of working for like nine years for a bigger company, came away from that, cut his overhead and now he does side jobs, tree work whatever works a few days out of the month and makes six figures just doing tree work. So your Gen Z staff, it doesn’t matter if you’re in white collar or blue collar situations, your staff, your native digitals are thinking in our heads. Over half of us want to be entrepreneurs, about 54%. So we’re thinking, how fast can we get out of the job we’re doing for the other guy, for the company and go start our own business? So if you approach hiring that way, just understanding Gen Z is trying to get out of working for you as fast as possible, but they’re going to put in 100% effort while they’re there. If you hire the right ones, then your entire perspective around hiring shifts and. And honestly retention [00:19:00] as well.

 

Josh Crouch: So what would you say? So obviously us as business owners, we want to keep employees and engage them for long period of time and hopefully we can bring Gen Zers on board, treat them well enough, get them the things that they like and they stay right and they pay them well. They don’t have to worry about getting their own business. What kind of things would you give advice on as far as like what kind of things should we be looking at for engaging them, keeping them, retaining them?

 

Hannah Williams: Yeah. So you’re going to hate me for saying this, but so so my first suggestion in talking about shifting mindset a little bit is the goal for and for any employer in terms of how we’ve been looking at things for decades is you want employees to be loyal, right? Like you think you want you want loyalty, you want retention, you want people to stay with you a long time. I think that’s all B.S. And here’s why. If [00:20:00] you’re talking about hiring a Gen Z year, your first conversation with them when they come in the door should be, Hey, you know, Bob, I know you’re not going to be with us for a long time. That’s why we’ve designed our entire process, our entire hiring and our our everything we do as a company around processes that allow you to come here, make, make, earn a bunch. I don’t know what you guys pay or who’s listening and whatnot, but.

 

Tersh Blissett: Million dollars.

 

Hannah Williams: Per hour. So, you know, I say, hey, Bob, you know, I know, I know you’re not going to be with us forever. I know you may you may only be here for a year. Whatever. You know, that’s not what I care about. What I care is I know you’re going to come here and you’re going to deliver your best work every day for our company. We’re going to pay you fair and square. You know, you you’re a valuable asset to our team. And when you’re done, I hope I wish you the best. Let [00:21:00] me know how I can help you grow. Let me know how I can mentor you. But I know you’re not going to be here for that long. And if you can have that conversation with them up front, what you’re doing to the Gen Z are in our head is number one, you’re building loyalty by not expecting us to be there for forever because we’re not. And then number two, you’re instilling a sense of trust from the very beginning. And number three, you’re instilling a sense that you’re there as a mentor and as a founder. And I know so many founders of especially in in the trade world that are able to tell they’re there, their Gen Z staff coming in, hey, you know what we’re working on building out name a program. Maybe it’s an apprenticeship program for high school stuff, maybe it’s a new social media strategy and they’re putting the Gen Xers in charge of it and not micromanaging them.

 

Hannah Williams: And they’re inherently building loyalty [00:22:00] so that those Gen Zers might want to eventually take over the company someday. But that’s not the the intent going into it. And I’ll give you one illustration here and then I’ll you can poll me with questions. But so one of my good friends is he works for a landscaping company and he’s 19. And he decided right out of high school, I’m not going I’m not going to go to college. I’m not getting into debt. I’m not blah, blah. And honestly, his story matches what a lot of statistics are showing us, which is that over 62% of Gen Z doesn’t want to go to college. So trade, trade companies, you guys have an impact, a massive opportunity with Gen Zers because we’re the that compared to I believe it’s under 20% of millennials who are open to that idea. So Gen Zers are saying I want to be I want to be running my own twitch streaming [00:23:00] business and making money off of it. I want to be I want to be gaming for a living, creating content. I want to be working, owning my own small plumbing business or whatever it is. So anyway, to go back to this story, this guy’s name is Micah. He’s 19. He got out of high school. He said, I’m not doing that whole college thing. So he found himself a company that is run by young people.

 

Hannah Williams: I think his boss is 30. They own a company with about 30 employees and they do great landscaping work. Well, Micah waltzes in at 19 shows, promise shows, initiative, and within like a year and a half of him being there because he loves what he does, he has autonomy, he works from anywhere, has a remote office, you know, putting out contracts. Sometimes he’s in the field, sometimes he’s not. And and his his the owners of the company said, hey, man, you want to take over, you want to take over the business in a few years. And so anyway, he’s on the track to take over this company. Within a couple [00:24:00] of years and actually operate it. And I see that story time and time and time again. I don’t know if you guys are seeing this in your world, but I have seen 19 and 20 year olds who company owners, particularly in the trade businesses, are saying, oh, my gosh, you know, most of these millennials I never would have considered this for, but I’ve got these 19, 20, 21 year olds coming in who already have either a background in social media, maybe they already have a business, they’ve been running on the side, and now they come work for a trade based company and are just amazed by the amount of natural entrepreneurial skill these kids are coming in with and they’re able to convert, turn their businesses over to them. So anyway, I’ll stop there.

 

Josh Crouch: Yeah, well, it’s interesting because if you think about it, like kids these days and my kids have dabbled in it, you know, it’s never really gone far, but they are creating, promoting their own videos. It’s an entrepreneurial skill, right? You have to create something, whether it’s [00:25:00] a video or it’s something that you can actually hold in your hands. And then they’re trying to promote it to their friends and they’re trying to get more likes and subscribers and all of these things, which in a way is promoting. Just like we would promote any business, we’re trying to get it in front of eyeballs, right? We’re trying to get more people to look at the brand. And you don’t think about it from that perspective because like older generation, even myself, sometimes I’m like, what are these kids doing? Like, what are they going to focus on? Anything that’s actually going to make them money. But the problem is they make more money doing that than they can do working 9 to 5.

 

Tersh Blissett: Here’s my whole question with that process and that thought, that thought process in general is to be an influencer there. There’s only so many influencers that there can only be so many influencers like my kids, they watch these other kids play video games and they’ll have millions and millions of downloads and stuff like that. And so like all of [00:26:00] my kids and I wondered if this was their age or if it was because I’ve owned multiple businesses, if they if that’s why they thought that way. But based on what you’re saying is it’s pretty normal in their generation. And I can see that if you’re all the people that you’re following are all these entrepreneurs and and they’re starting up their own businesses, but at some point you’re going to run out of employees if the entire generation is going to be entrepreneurs, you know? So that’s seems like a challenge. But I like what you’re saying there, where if you bring bring that person in, in the forefront and you’re saying, all right, let’s like go into this relationship knowing that you don’t have there’s a good possibility that you won’t be here very long. And then they have buy in and maybe they get comfortable because my sister is the exact opposite of me. She’s an accountant for a large lumber company and she’ll never leave that place like the security of having to check every. And she’s [00:27:00] six years younger than me. Seven years younger than me. She has a house. She’s never married, does it? No kids, anything like that, and doing great for herself. But she’s never going to start her own business. She doesn’t want to work more than her 9 to 5. And so I’m like, just wondering if I guess that’s a bunch of loaded questions all in one there. But I guess. What’s your thoughts on that? Yeah.

 

Hannah Williams: Yeah. What loaded question me up with bacon and potatoes and all that. So basically I’ll kind of react to several parts of this. Number one, remember that this statistic is 54% of of my generation wants to be entrepreneurs. That’s not 100%. It’s 54%. So essentially the way I would look at it is this, number one, you as trade [00:28:00] based businesses have a massive opportunity with native digitals because we recognize that traditional pathways are not the only way to go. So if I can say that again, your opportunity with Gen Z, forget all all the things that make this wishy washy, forget digital for a second, all that you have an entire generation that’s saying the system, basically that’s what you have. You have a whole generation that’s saying, I don’t want to follow traditional education. I’m not going to follow traditional career ladders. I’m not going to follow traditional paths of my parents that I had to. So because of that and the tools that have not just enabled us to say that, but to actually do it, you’re ending up with a generation that is ripe for the picking within trade based careers. Because what. So to answer your question, Tersh or your thought about the [00:29:00] whole marketplace is very saturated with digital content creators and all of that and influencers. I 100% agree with that. And so I guess what I’m not saying is that every Gen XR wants to be a content creator.

 

Hannah Williams: In fact, I’ve found lots of Gen ZERS who, because we are natively digital, are pushing away technology because we’re so fed up with it. So what I was trying to kind of paint a picture of for for everybody listening is that when you’re inside the mind of a native digital, your outcome, the outcome of a thought process because we’re still human is going to be number one for for nearly every gen year. There’s a trend of the system. But what you choose to do with that is going to go in a variety of different ways. So for some that might be I’m not going to get a white collar career, you know, I’m not going to get my master’s degree [00:30:00] and then follow this pathway of working for a giant company. Instead of that, I’m going to create content and live as a digital nomad. For some, they say, I’m not following that for your master’s degree path, career ladder, whatever I’m going to go work for, I’m going to go work in a trade. I’ve heard that my you know, my friends, my 16, 17, 18 year old friends are apprenticing with an HVAC company or plumbing company and they’re making $25 an hour or $30 an hour. I’m not going to school. So what we choose to do with the system mentality is very different depending on our interests. You know, I have I have plenty of friends who have started apprenticing with, say, a carpentry company.

 

Hannah Williams: But guess what they’re doing on the side? They’re starting their own business, their own side hustle. Another thing to point out here, and hopefully this will answer your question when Gen Z says we want to be entrepreneurs, we’re [00:31:00] not saying we want to be only entrepreneurs. The new way of security. The new way of getting security is not necessarily open. Opening a giant company that has hundreds of employees, it might be bringing in 40, 50 grand on the side inside income while they’re still working for your company. It may just mean that they’re not looking to take over your company or they’re not looking to have a long term career with your company. They may bounce from Tersh company to Josh’s company to I think Leslie’s here on the chat to Leslie’s company while still starting their own business on the side. Right. So it’s it’s this it’s this new world where they honestly it comes back to how does a generation define security? Like what is job security? And for Gen Z, job security is not the pathway we’ve seen our parents take, which, as we saw in the last couple [00:32:00] of years, they were getting laid off of their jobs. They’d been in for 20 years, 30 years. So that’s not security to us. What is security is having a broad skill set of different things, different trades, different skills that we can apply to anything.

 

Josh Crouch: So interesting.

 

Tersh Blissett: What do you say about the thought process of. A jack of all trades is a master of none. Because I love the thought of, hey, let’s make sure that I know how to to change out the water heater in my house. I know how to fix this. Fix that. Josh is not so much that type, but no, I’m just kidding. Josh.

 

Josh Crouch: I’m not. You’re absolutely right.

 

Tersh Blissett: But but I love the fact that like my boys, they could work outside and help me tear down the motor in one of my mustangs. They [00:33:00] could help me. I mean, we have a some four wheel drive limousine that they they help me weld on. They also can use the the elgato stream board thing that they twitch on. And so they know the technology side of things to and. But I love the fact that they can do it. They can do it all. And they see and I think some of that comes from the fact that they think that I can do anything to a fault almost because they’re like, No, mom, don’t worry about it. Dad can do it. And I’m like, No, let mom do it. Like, that’s not like don’t, don’t, don’t bring that nonsense over to me. And so, I mean, let me preface with I love that thought process and I love the fact that very independent. But at the same time, if I had focused on just one [00:34:00] thing back when I out right out of college or right out of high school, I would be even more proficient in that field than I am now. Call it I call it influencing. I mean, if we had done YouTube back when I started the podcast, we’d have just as many followers on YouTube as, you know, as we do on the podcast. But I did not focus on podcasting, so I don’t know what your what’s your thoughts on that? And by the way, talk about Tik Tok, the queen of Tik Tok. That’s Leslie for the trades. So she does an amazing job when it comes to Tik Tok and all that. Good. Yes. But anyways.

 

Hannah Williams: Leslie, I love to know the name of your company if you want to chat that so I can look you up. That’s super cool. Okay, Tersh. I want to make sure I understand your question. So are you just asking for like, what’s the thought on being a jack of all trades versus a master of none and.

 

Tersh Blissett: Pretty.

 

Hannah Williams: Much that mentality? Yeah. So I don’t think there’s a clear cut [00:35:00] answer. I mean, gen-z gen-z gen z-ers are human in every respect too. So some of us are going to choose master. We’re going to choose to be a master of a skill and others are going to reflect back maybe 20 years and think, why didn’t I do that? Just like just like you were saying? I don’t think that’s a generational thing. What what I guess, to to kind of back up and paint the big picture here. Gen Zers, if you can think about it, and Gen Alpha as well. So native digitals have been exposed to more things, more ideas, more trades, more opportunities than any other generation before us at a young age. So to, to kind of answer your question without directly answering, because I have no idea who knows what Gen Zers are going to do. A lot of us are still very young, but when you think about just the access to ideas [00:36:00] and look at what your kids have access to and think about how it compared to your childhood or even your parents or grandparents, the exponential exposure to opportunity is just increasing by the day as more tech and more social media comes out. And so what that ends up doing is creating a generation who is so fearful of missing out. There’s so much FOMO that our idea of growth is horizontal instead of vertical. It’s How many different things can I get good at so that I impress my friends so that I make sure I don’t miss out on a way to make money.

 

Hannah Williams: There’s just that that mindset. That’s why I’m trying to like take you a little bit into the mind of a Gen Z, because if you can look at this from our perspective, it’s going to help any business [00:37:00] owner understand just how how the world works in terms of how we see it. Because again, it is through a digital lens. So we’re just literally thinking as a generation, how many things can I expose myself to to make sure I’m not behind? If you can imagine it, my generation, as young as we are, feels like we’re so behind on life by our early twenties. And you guys may experience this too, as entrepreneurs. I think to some extent every human being does. If you’re if you have a certain lens through which you look at life. But my generation, again, it’s just exponential because if you’re nine, ten, 11 years old and you’re already seeing hundreds of career opportunities, it’s not like when my parents grew up, they tell me, your options are doctor, firefighter, nurse, teacher. Like it was so limited. And now you have these nuanced careers that honestly Gen [00:38:00] Zers are creating for ourselves. I mean, who knew you could have a career in I don’t know. I met some of the other day who’s literal job, and she’s a millionaire and she flies all over. Her literal job is having, like, sessions where people sit around a fire and and connect with each other. Like, that’s all she does. She created a career out of getting. Groups of people together and helping them connect with each other in one hour session.

 

Tersh Blissett: Just like a mastermind group.

 

Hannah Williams: That’s interesting. Kind of like that. But with strangers. So it’s like and they don’t ever see each other after that one event. So it’s like you can create a career out of literally anything. And so all these analog companies and trades that keep telling. They’re almost like tossing out a fishing line and saying, some days those gen zers will get into their heads what the real world is, and they’re going to bite the lion and then I can reel them in. That is not going to happen. The fish just aren’t in that pond anymore.

 

Josh Crouch: So can I go ahead? Because [00:39:00] I know we’re getting a little long here, but I wanted to ask you, since you mentioned putting that line out there, where should we be looking for Gen Z online or in other and other methods? So that way we can try to get in front of them so they know that these opportunities exist in a plumbing or HVAC company.

 

Hannah Williams: Great question. Josh and I actually have an entire like one hour free masterclass I do on this. So anybody actually listening, if you just go to Hannah G. Williams dot com forward slash get that shit there’s a masterclass you can sign up for.

 

Josh Crouch: I love it. I love it.

 

Hannah Williams: I actually have one coming up this Thursday and it’s literally about that exact question. Josh It’s where do you look for Gen Zers like what? Where do you look for candidates? I will tell you, because I know we’re running low on time. It’s not where you think. It’s not social media. So just just so you know.

 

Tersh Blissett: It was for the old people.

 

Josh Crouch: Facebooks for the old school, we get [00:40:00] told anyways.

 

Hannah Williams: No, it is. It is. It really is. So go yeah. Go to that forward slash get that shit. And there’s, there’s a masterclass on Thursday. So, but, but to answer your question Josh, there’s a lot of misconceptions around things like that, whether it comes to recruiting, hiring when we get into retention and engagement. And I actually this is the reason. So going back to this whole idea of native digital and native analog, there is a gap here in the middle, right between native digital and native analog. And these perspectives and I make the claim that if you as a business owner or as a leader are not native, digital, fluent, your business will be irrelevant within 15 years. So basically that, I mean I have a podcast and I talk about this all the time is like if you if your company cannot cross that bridge because it’s now up to the native analogs to come to the native [00:41:00] digital world, not the other way around. Native digitals, just as a matter of pure age, are outpacing native analogs. This sounds morbid, but it’s true. Native analogs are dying like that entire generation. We all can’t stop time. So native digitals are taking over and we are actually at the point this year there are now more native digitals than native analogs, period, period. So if that’s the case and you’re not native, if you’re a native analog, so over age 35 and you’re not native digital fluent, then your company is not going to be around in 15 years. And so that masterclass is like a first step. And where do you find these Gen Zers like where are we looking for jobs? How can you hire us? And then I actually have an academy as well that literally is you jump into this native digital fluency. It’s it’s called analog academy so that you [00:42:00] can come in as native analog and then get native digital fluent. Because these types of questions are what I get all the time from leaders who are like, how do I not become completely irrelevant to this new generation of employees? So those are helpful resources then absolutely check them out.

 

Tersh Blissett: So this is Mike Maybury. He’s HVAC reefer guy on social media, but he he said he uses social media for employee efficient apps like Be Real, which honestly never heard of Instagram, Tik Tok and all of his platforms. He has a lot of a lot of trade followers, trade specific followers, which is cool. I, I wonder from Mike how many people come from outside of the industry because I know he has a ton of followers that are HVAC technicians that are already in the HVAC trades. [00:43:00] I wonder how many new followers he gets that are not in the trades. And and Mike is a great guy. He’s, he’s an educator at heart and he’s always talking to people. I mean, we’ve hung out together at several different conventions. And we were in Ohio for a week together last year at Emerson, which is a manufacturing plant. And. We talked a lot in depth about bringing in people as apprentices and stuff like that, and I’d love to hear how how Mike’s doing that, but it’s a great point. And you mentioned, you know, not necessarily being on social media. So obviously I’m super interested in hearing exactly what you have to say about that, too. Yeah, obviously, we’re running short on time, but I maybe another conversation for another day there about that.

 

Hannah Williams: Come to the Masterclass. Tersh. Yeah, your expectations will be disrupted. It’s that’s that’s kind of the point.

 

Josh Crouch: Well, it’s funny because [00:44:00] I’m looking at your on the other screen here. I have your that that landing page up and it’s I’ve seen plenty of posts about candidates ghosting. They have all these interviews lined up and nobody shows and all this other stuff. And it’s it’s just one of those things. I think there’s there’s a lot more here. This is literally just scratching the surface of what is a different generation. Like we we cannot think the same way about native digitals versus analog. And I think it’s important for anyone listening to this to just start opening your mind. Like, I get that if you’re even older than Tersh and I and you run a business, this is going to be even harder for you to probably process because him and I are kind of like because we love we love our technology and automation and all these things, right? But it’s not native to us. But if you it’s going to be harder for you to process this and change your perception. You’re like, well, it’s it’s worked for the last 20 years, so it’s going to work for the next 20, right? Things [00:45:00] are happening so fast. Like, I mean, I see it because I’m a digital agency myself and it stuff happens so fast. Like what we did two years ago is completely outdated to what it is today. So if you’re not keeping up with that, that stuff, that changes, like you said, you’re going to fall behind and eventually it’ll be completely irrelevant.

 

Hannah Williams: Yeah. It’s happening extremely, extremely quickly. And I’ll just say this as we kind of close. If you’re someone that this idea is intimidating and it’s like I’m I know many most of my clients just put this in perspective. Are our boomers. They’re running very successful or in the past very successful companies, and they’re realizing they’re losing the foothold on the next generation and they’re not able to hire or they’re struggling with it, or the people they hire are leaving quickly because they weren’t great. [00:46:00] They weren’t great for the organization to begin with. And so what I’m finding is like the one piece of advice I can give is if you are a native analog, if you’re over 35, it doesn’t matter how well you use technology, how many social media platforms you’re on, you fundamentally come at the world from a different vantage point, and that’s okay. I come at the world from a completely different vantage point as well because I’m natively digital. So if you if whatever side of the equation you’re on, if you’re a native digital, go talk to someone. Make it a part of your regular weekly routine to get advice from someone of the other category of human. If you’re a native analog, make it a point.

 

Hannah Williams: I talk about a personal board of directors. I don’t know if you guys have ever talked about that on the show, but this idea of a personal board of directors is people in your life who you trust to help you make decisions, who you regularly meet [00:47:00] with, who really guide your personal choices in your life. And most people have 5 to 7 people who are very close who do that, especially as business owners. I would encourage you, if you do not have a native digital on your board of directors, whether for your company or your personal board of directors, you are missing the greatest marketing and business trend that is here to stay. You’re missing the perspective of the new category of human. That’s the literal first first group of people who are 100% integrated with technology. And if if it’s hard to get inside our mind based on this 45 minute conversation, you need to be spending more time with the native digital and preferably someone who’s not your kids, because your kids aren’t going to give you necessarily the most honest advice. Maybe maybe they would I would say go find a native digital that’s not related to you, whether that’s someone you hire.

 

Tersh Blissett: And be a creep and go down to [00:48:00] the elementary school or asking kids to be on their board.

 

Josh Crouch: Get in my van.

 

Hannah Williams: I have twitch in there. No. So base like but somehow find a native digital in your sphere and ask them if you can be mentored by them and you’re going to get more from that than you would from probably anything else you could do. So that would be like my piece of advice besides getting advice for me, because you guys probably love me, probably hate me, but it like if you don’t have a native digital in your sphere, then your, your company is a dead man walking. So I would get I would get on that get someone on your personal board of directors who’s who’s got this perspective.

 

Josh Crouch: Well, in your point to the different generational gaps and stuff is I put it up on the screen while you were talking, one of our commenters on Facebook said, a lot of my gen sees Gen Z.

 

Tersh Blissett: Ty Brennaman.

 

Josh Crouch: Oh, is that Ty? Yeah, you must. He must be connected to you. I can’t [00:49:00] see his name. A lot of my Gen Z students get so upset of how Gen X treats him at work. Gen X gets mad. They quit because it’s too like they look at it totally differently and what one sees the other doesn’t see and they don’t connect because there’s no bridge connecting that. Those two. The generational divide, I guess is what I’m trying to say. So anyway, that’s listeners and obviously we’re not going to have the episode out before your masterclass, but I’m assuming you have these somewhat regularly.

 

Hannah Williams: Every two weeks.

 

Josh Crouch: Yeah. Okay. So once this goes live on the podcast, catchers and stuff like that, go to the link that we’re going to put in the show notes. And worst case, you waste an hour of your life. Best case you’re going to you’re going to like totally be opened up to something that is going to help you grow your company in the future here as we get a lot, lot of changes in the job market the last couple of years. So I think it can be beneficial for everyone just to spend an hour of your time. See [00:50:00] what you can learn and what you can pick up from that master class.

 

Tersh Blissett: Absolutely. Cool. Thank you so much, Hannah, for coming on the show again. It’s Hannah Ji Williams. And if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to Hannah. Connect on LinkedIn and connect there. Ask us any questions. We’re just going to send you to Hannah. So just be aware of that.

 

Josh Crouch: Because we don’t know what she knows.

 

Tersh Blissett: But thank you again for watching or listening to this episode of Service Business Mastery Podcast. If you found value in this, please share it with your friends like and subscribe. With that being said, I hope you have a wonderful and safe weekend. And thank you again, Hannah, for coming on the show.

 

Hannah Williams: Thanks for having me.

 

Tersh Blissett: Absolutely.

 

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