Through my work over the past 15 or more years in property restoration, I have appreciated the good work that our friends at Restoration & Remediation Magazine (R&R) do. Through their monthly publication, blog posts and collaboration with industry professionals R&R and their parent company BNP Media produces resources that help bolster the efforts of the restoration community. We recently saw a post from Restoration & Remediation Editor in Chief Michelle Blevins regarding a conference that the BNP Media group will be producing in October of 2018, Preparing to Respond, so we wanted to follow up to learn more about this endeavor. Our thanks to Michelle for taking the time to share with us. Jon Isaacson (IZ Vents): How long has the R&R team been discussing the concept of an annual conference and what was the catalyst for deciding to take this adventure on? Michelle Blevins (BNP Media): We have actually be talking about this for a couple years now! However, with so many other conferences and events in the restoration industry, we wanted to be sure we were doing something different and something needed, not just trying to add another event to everyone’s already very busy schedules. Everyone’s time is so valuable! R&R is part of BNP Media, a publishing company based in Troy, Michigan; we have an incredible events staff here that has been putting together top-notch, high quality events for decades. Once we honed in on the focus of the conference, we knew the event planning and marketing team would have our back, and they sure have! We are still a full year out from the event, and are confident it will be a success – and valuable to everyone involved. What is the target audience for the Preparing to Respond conference? This is a great question! I want to be sure people understand this is NOT about storm chasing, at all. Disasters, big and small, hit close to home more often than they hit far away. I could tell countless stories of restoration companies caught up in disasters at home - like a restoration company in the Carolinas that ended up being at the center of Hurricane Matthew’s devastation, or hit by a tornado outbreak – like Hattiesburg, Mississippi, or the wildfires happening right now in California. The list goes on and on. Some communities are hit with major spring flooding almost every year! At some point, nearly every restoration company will need to know how to “scale up” to respond to a disaster of some magnitude. This conference will teach them how. Who are the initial collaborators that are assisting you with putting this together? As I said in the first answer, BNP Media has a fabulous events department. So on top of myself, our National Sales Manager Darlene Balzano, and Publisher Randy Green, we have a whole events staff working on the day-to-day details of this event to make sure it goes off without a hitch! For those interested in coming what are a few key things you believe they will come away with that will make the trip a worthwhile investment? I believe they will come away with three key things:
Obviously our nation and our industry has been hit with a heavy storm season this year and you all have been doing a great job of trying to capture the stories and efforts from our property restoration community. Are there a few positive stories that stick out to you from the most recent hurricane response? Oh my gosh, when I saw the photos of water rescues from Blake Moak at ServiceMaster by Century in Houston, Texas, all I could think is: that is why this industry ROCKS. Isn’t this an industry full of people with servants hearts? When the water was too high after Hurricane Harvey hit to start the drying out process, Blake and his team used trucks and boats to rescue people stranded in their homes. I know other companies did the same. I’m really looking forward to hearing more success stories from Irma and Harvey once things settle down a bit more. In fact, I hope to have a panel of contractors at Preparing to Respond who are willing to share their successes – and failures – doing CAT work. Read more from R&R regarding positive stories from catastrophe response - Lessons From Hurricane Matthew Are there a few cautionary tales that stick out to you as well? From these recent storms, no. But in just the 2.5 years I’ve been in the industry, I’ve heard several stories from people who have lost everything doing CAT work, or who have thought they were going to lose it all. These are also stories we hope to share at Preparing to Respond to help prepare other contractors for the realities of catastrophe work – like just how long it can take to get paid. There are ways to safeguard yourself and your company, and still do catastrophe work! Read more from BNP Media regarding Cautionary Tales from catastrophe response - The Big Gamble What are some of the newer resources from R&R that people may not be aware of. Jon – you ask the BEST questions! First, we currently have a landing page dedicated to information related to responding to Harvey, Irma, and Maria (HERE). Secondly, we have a super awesome new microsite, if you will, dedicated to odor removal HERE. Seriously, that page has anything and everything you could ever need to know about removing odors of any kind! Read more from Michelle and the team at Restoration & Remediation magazine through the website links in the interview above, follow them on Twitter @RnRMag or LinkedIn. You can also read our prior interview with Michelle for the LFMC facilities management networking group HERE.
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Trust is currency in the business world. How them can an individual optimize trust into professional advancement? Whether you are in the hunt for a career or looking to advance in your profession, the currency with the highest rate of exchange for both employment and advancement is the same – trust. Trust requires hard work and consistency to establish but is even harder to regain if you have devalued your trust ratio with poor or inconsistent performance. At the core of proving your trustworthiness are three simple concepts (many parents will resonate with these values): 1) Do what you’re told 2) Do it when you are told 3) Do it with the right attitude Regardless of where you are at on the ladder, there is usually someone on the rung(s) above you. Trust in its most basic form is the transaction of turning a request/order into an action. For example, your boss instructs you to do something and you do it. There was trust that you could understand the instruction, trust that you were a person that may be capable of accomplishing the task and trust that you would be a person that would follow through to completion. When you are hired by an organization, they trust that you can fulfill certain functions. If you have the desire to move upward within the organization, you need to communicate that you are capable of additional responsibilities. Your ability to move forward is proportionate to your ability to master your current tasks. As you desire to communicate your advancement potential, take an inventory on how well you have completed your current functions – doing what your are told, when you are told and doing so with a good attitude. If you have never been asked to do something outside of your everyday functions, this should be a red flag for you. What are the options? Is there really nothing outside of what you’re already doing that the organization needs help with? Not likely. Are you so important in your current functions that they cannot spare you for any other task? You are important, probably not that important. The lack of interest in you likely means you haven’t communicated that you are capable or trustworthy in some fashion. If you haven’t been asked in a while, you may want to rewind the tape and see how you performed the last time your were approached with an opportunity. So often when our vision is on the big assignments, we miss the small steps that get us there. A good organization will give you chances to grow through a process. This process of maturation in an organization better prepares you to grow at a pace you can maintain. Regardless of what you are being asked to do, as long as it’s not illegal, recognize this as your moment to do what you are told, when you are told and to perform with a good attitude. Every opportunity to perform a task outside of your regular duties is an opportunity show the leaders in your organization what you’re capable of (often times a few small steps/tests at a time). What if you have been doing all this and you are still getting all the crap assignments? Either the organization is telling you what your communicated value is – you will have to judge whether this perception of you is accurate or not. If you believe you deserve more then you may want to request a review and ask some questions about your performance as well as what your opportunities are within the organization. The other option would be to walk yourself through an honest self evaluation and enlist the feedback from people you trust to give you sincere constructive criticism. If your self evaluation and the input from those you trust have led you to a place where you are confident that you have done all in your power, it may be time to find another team to work with. Professional advancement is built one step at a time, establishing trust by mastering the tasks you have been assigned as well as taking advantage of the opportunities for additional responsibility that come your way. We often counsel people that life is about opportunity not convenience, as often the opportunities you will get to move yourself forward will likely come at many of the most inopportune or inconvenient times. You need a big picture perspective for setting your goals, but don't have your head so far in the clouds or your heart so far down the track that you can't see or take advantage of the opportunities that are right in front of you. If you have found something to be true from your professional experiences and then find a respected publication that echoes those concepts, is this still confirmation bias? The reason many industries fail to innovate or self-disrupt before it's too late is that they only look for industry insiders to add to their organizations. We want the books of business and the low hanging fruit of a professional who is ready to hit the streets from day one. Many leaders know from painful experience, hiring carry overs from a competitor carry their own challenges and/or baggage. Hiring from a short list within an industry bubble does not create a lot of room for introduction of new ideas, perspectives and strengths. While I strongly believe that an organization should promote from within they also should be looking to extend their pursuit of quality individuals beyond the industry bubble. A company that spends all those resources to build a culture and a team that rallies around core values are too valuable to thin or disband through the lack of local progressive opportunities for people who have earned such through building the team. This commitment to internal growth does not mean that an organization should only build itself from those who are already versed in the field of operation. I am glad to hear a respected publication promoting this idea of recruiting candidates who either have no direct experience or who may be a bit of a gamble as they are not industry versed prior to joining your team. Author and CEO/Founder, Liz Ryan shares this challenge and insight, "When you hire someone who lacks industry experience, it challenges you as a manager. You get to see your new hire encountering your world, and that is an instructive thing to experience. You have to train your newcomer differently. You have to ask and answer questions you may not have considered for years — or ever." Too often we come to a point in our career where we are confident, if not comfortable, with what we know and we begin to first assume that everyone should know what we know (we got our elbows deep in the mud earning our experiences) and secondly that we forget to re-invest those nuggets of wisdom into our teams. We forget that it took many years for us to get where we are and we want immediate results from those who are working on our teams, we lose a bit of our patience when we lose our connection to the ground floor. We want a mix of backgrounds, perspectives, ideas and strengths on our teams so that we will continue to challenge each other to be the best that we can be every day. Business is sport, its a competition against our opponents as much as it is against ourselves to not settle in the victories already won. Unfortunately, in the current climate you are either growing or you are dying, there are no other options. So what do we do? Do we just hire the next ugly duckling that comes along and turn them into the star quarterback? That's not the concept as this should not be about bolstering our already inflated egos but rather a means to challenge and build our organization by infusing it with new perspectives, strengths and potential. In our experience we believe the criterion has been fairly simple, is the candidate 1) honest, 2) hard working and 3) willing to learn? If they can bring these three character traits, items that we cannot give them, then we can train them to have the opportunity to be successful in our industry. Anymore we are looking for relevant as opposed to direct experience. Someone may not have the technical skills in our industry but if they have the work ethic, relational strengths, a track record of team building, or other strong qualities that will help our team, we want to bring them in. "You will shake up your own thinking," states Liz Ryan, "When you hire outside your industry -- and that may be the best gift of all!" Resources: Liz Ryan - https://www.forbes.com/sites/lizryan/2017/09/24/five-reasons-to-hire-someone-with-no-industry-experience/#720b80656de3 More from izvents - Attracting Talent, What To Look For and Hiring, Three Character Keys. We love reading the stories of the successful once their journey has reached a point that they can drop bombs of wisdom on us about how they reached a level that we can admire. But what does innovation look like at the ground level, while it is still happening? What does it look like when you have an idea, you connect with a few people who get it, you begin to collaborate and build towards conquering your dreams? Tony Canas and co-author Carly Burnham (read our interview with Carly HERE) have found a piece of the puzzle that they are skilled and passionate about, they have collaborated to create InsNerds and co-authored a book, Insuring Tommorrow, to share their insights and story. To interact with Tony is to engage with an aspect of innovation that is gaining momentum through hard work, creativity and collaboration within an industry (like all industries) that is in need of innovation. Tony is digging into a subject that many are reticent to touch, the recruitment, development and retention of Millennials. In doing so, Mr. Canas has become a known blogger, author and speaker on the topic with his session "Recruiting and Retaining Millennials" being delivered at the CPCU Society Leadership Conference and Annual Meetings for 2014. Our thanks to Tony Canas for taking the time to share with us. (Jon Isaacson / IZ Ventures): When kids are asked in high school what they dream of becoming, the insurance industry is not one of those top 10 career choices, what brought you into this field? Tony Canas: Like almost everybody else I fell into insurance by accident. It was 2009 and I was living in Des Moines, Iowa, one of the top insurance cities in the US, and got downsized from my job as a fleet manager with a transportation company when the economy crashed. I started applying to a bunch of jobs and it just so happened I landed at the Farm Bureau Claims Call Center and immediately fell in love with the industry. What aspects of insurance are you currently engaged in, what does your day-to-day look like? In my day job I’m a middle market underwriter for a major national carrier and I manage the state of Mississippi. We have a lot of verticals (energy, public entity, construction, healthcare, etc) so I end up underwriting a lot of manufacturing, retail chains, wholesales, restaurant chains and hotel chains. You are building quite a presence through blogging at InsNerds.com, having written Insuring Tomorrow and with your speaking engagements, what are your goals with these entrepreneurial endeavors? I spend a lot of my free time growing and promoting InsNerds, our two podcasts and marketing our book Insuring Tomorrow. I also have keep evenings a week devoted to “micro-mentoring” other insurance professionals. I help them figure out where they want to go and how to get there and see if I can open some doors out of my 10,000+ LinkedIn connections. I’ve been doing it for a few months and some of my mentees have already scored better jobs which is incredibly rewarding! Anyone can grab some time on my calendar at ChatWithTony.com, although at times the wait can be a couple of weeks. On the writing side I work on bringing in new authors to InsNerds and writing some of my own articles (mostly about career growth) and we’d like to write a second book. On the speaking side I speak at insurance conferences about Engaging Millennials in Insurance as often as I can. The speaking invites have really picked up since the book came out and I love it! I've talked to several people that have ideas or some level of desire to write a book, for you what was the catalyst that brought you to writing Insuring Tomorrow? I waited five years for somebody to dedicate a book to the important topic of how to engage Millennials in our industry, and nobody did. Finally one day my girlfriend came home and told me “It’s time to write the book”. I called Carly (my co-author) and said “it’s time to write the book”. Then we just did it. I’m not saying it was easy, but after years of being passionate about the topic and collecting reference material actually getting it done wasn’t too bad. We wrote it in about 90 days and sales have been better than expected and the reviews very positive. In that process of formulating your thoughts into a book what was easier than you expected and what was harder than you expected in that process? It was both… What I mean is that while it was hard to sit down and write a table of contents to plan the different chapters, once that was done it was easy to write the draft for most chapters. The tough part was having to cut some of the chapters we originally planned for because we couldn’t find enough data and outside resources to really back them up. We wanted the book to leave the reader with a pretty airtight case, not just our opinion, but rather ideas backed by tons of outside research. Overall it took a LOT of time, and we stayed up late very often during the process, but it was mostly enjoyable and incredibly worth it. What have been some of the positive responses to your book? The topic of Millennials is rather charged, has there been much opposition to your publication? While there is absolutely a lot of “millennial fatigue”, the response has been almost completely positive. I think most people in the industry recognize that while we have talked a lot about the topic, we really haven’t solved it and we MUST solve it. Some of my favorite reviews said, “It is truly outstanding.” “Every insurance CEO should read this.” and “Essential reading for insurance executives.” One early reviewer called it, “The best book on understanding culture since Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers.” The book is available at InsuringTomorrowBook.com The subject matter that you are speaking to centers around the topic of Millennials in the workforce, as such what is one key piece of advice that first you would give to leaders working with millennials and then to millennials who are either entering the workforce or seeking to better themselves? It’s hard to digest five years of research into a 250 page book, let alone a one hour talk and even harder into a couple of sentences, but I’d say the best way to understand Millennials is think of them as a different culture. Not better or worse, just different. And try to understand them in that context. Also, look at the numbers and realize that this will be a MASSIVE change for our industry. The business world in general has been dominated by Baby Boomers for decades, there were 25% fewer Gen Xers so they will always remain a minority, as the Boomers retire business will have to reinvent itself to survive in an era where Millennials will be the bulk of the workforce for at least a couple of decades. What is next for Tony? Now that’s a hard question! My plans have changed a lot over the last few years and I’m sure they will continue changing. I do know that I’m staying in the insurance industry for the rest of my career and will continue running InsNerds. Chances are many other projects that I haven’t even imagined yet will emerge from the InsNerds umbrella. I will continue being a positive voice of change for our industry and will continue my efforts to help us recruit and retain a new workforce. Tony Canas regularly writes for InsNerds.com, he is on LinkedIn and tweets as @TonyCanas4. Insuring Tomorrow has many applications outside of the insurance industry and is available for $20, you can find our review of the publication HERE. |
AuthorThoughts on personal and professional development. Jon Isaacson, The Intentional Restorer, is a contractor, author, and host of The DYOJO Podcast. The goal of The DYOJO is to help growth-minded restoration professionals shorten their DANG learning curve for personal and professional development. You can watch The DYOJO Podcast on YouTube on Thursdays or listen on your favorite podcast platform.
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