Latest / The Elevator Careers Podcast / Elevator Industry Talent from Outside the Trade | Josh Miller

Transcript

Elevator Industry Talent from Outside the Trade | Josh Miller · The Elevator Careers Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we'll get stronger as an industry by bringing in more people, uh, again, from diverse backgrounds, diverse um, you know, uh experience sets and things like that.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I think although we want to kind of keep it for ourselves in some ways, like I want to shout at from the the rooftop that this is a great industry and that instead of going into you know tech um like we do in the Silicon Valley, everybody's trying to get into tech, like this is tech too.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: Hello, and welcome to the Elevator Careers Podcast, sponsored by the Allred Group.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_02: I am your host, Matt Allred.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: In this podcast, we talk to the people whose lives and careers are dedicated to the vertical transportation industry, to inform and share lessons learned, building upon the foundation of those who have gone before, to inspire the next generation of elevator careers.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_02: Today our guest is Josh Miller, Sales Manager, Services and Solutions for Koney in the San Francisco Bay Area.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: Josh has his MBA from St.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: Mary's College of California and spent about 20 years working outside of the elevator industry before joining Koney in 2020.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: Josh's prior experience prepared him to hit the ground running in the elevator industry.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: And although Josh admits he has more to learn, his unique perspective brings a lot to the table and challenges all of us to look outside of our direct competitors in our quest for the best talent.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: Josh, welcome to the show.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, thank you so much, Matt.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Appreciate it.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, thanks for being here.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: I'm excited to be able to talk with you.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: And and I really am excited to kind of explore your perspective as someone who joined the elevator industry kind of mid-career.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's it's kind of unique in its own little way.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, we we talked a little bit before about it, but I came from the environmental equipment world, um, doing mostly membrane separation system stuff.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: And before that, I was in chemicals and laboratory equipment, um, doing a lot of stuff in biotech here.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh yeah, I mean, the company I work for for nearly 20 years moved to northern Nevada.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: And this is uh, you know, before we're all doing remote work.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like, well, time to move to Nevada.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I my own family's here in the San Francisco Bay Area.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so you know, I uh started reaching out for other opportunities in in that industry um in the environmental world.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: And and there's a bunch of opportunities, of course, but they're all um primarily, you know, nationwide or big regions.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it was going to mean that I was spending, you know, maybe three nights in my own bed a week.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so I said, let me let me look at see what else is around.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: And um and uh during well at that at the particular time, Kone had just had a uh reorganization that yielded this uh position, which is essentially a regional sales manager um on the service side for uh most of Northern California.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I kind of threw my hat in the ring there, knowing absolutely nothing about elevators or the industry.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then uh, you know, once I learned about the company and and kind of the the vertical transportation industry in general, I realized I stumbled into a pretty great opportunity.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and it's a you know seven billion dollar market in the US, I think nowadays.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's wild because it's basically invisible to it was to me at that point, and I think to a lot of people, you know, oh you work in the elevator business?
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like, oh, I didn't even think about that, you know.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: Sure, sure.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: Well, after 20 years in environmental, I mean, you talked about equipment, you talked about membranes.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, I don't even know what that means, right?
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: But but you you had all this knowledge.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: How did that that then translate once you stepped into the elevator arena, if you will?
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, um in my case, I worked for a company that designed, manufactured, installed, and serviced complicated machinery that was often the most important piece of equipment in the building.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so while I didn't know anything about elevators um before I got this job, I brought a significant body of experience that helped me to add value pretty quickly.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's a lot of transferable skills in there.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that there's probably, you know, thousands of other people like me who um could work in the elevator industry successfully, but you know, A, don't know it exists.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think B, a lot of the folks uh like me who are constantly hiring for uh um positions um are primarily looking, primarily looking for people who have like the exact experience to fill the role that's open.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, while that is the dream, I mean, um that there are a lot of talented people uh around who um have transferable skills.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, absolutely.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: Tell tell us a little bit about this equipment that uh, you know, highly technical, highly expensive.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: Well, what was kind of the nature of that, just so we can kind of understand at a basic level what what it was you were doing.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: For sure, yeah.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so that was mostly um membrane separation systems.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, we all probably know about reverse osmosis um for turning salt water into drinking water and stuff like that.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: So same kind of technology and other filtration technology, separation technologies that um were often, you know, either uh um, you know, in the beginning of the plant creating clean water for, you know, for example, you know, um ultra-pure water for um semiconductor fabrication facilities, or in the middle of a factory, separating um, you know, liquids from solids or liquids from liquids.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: And um and at the end of the factory doing wastewater treatment or resource recovery.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um so we worked on a lot of different industries.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, anything from uh, like I said, on the clean side, semiconductors on the the dirty side, you know, oil field and stuff like that.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, it was um, you know, definitely an interesting um uh you know industry to work in, met a lot of uh cool engineers and a lot of people who are a lot smarter than me.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I was able to uh to to bring something to the table with um with the kind of niche knowledge that I had there.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, it's and thank you for for describing that equipment a little bit because I do see certainly a lot of uh commonalities, very expensive equipment, very specialized, very technical.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, the the the common user or you know, common person probably doesn't know a whole lot about you know membrane separ uh separation, I think you called it, or you know, it's like okay, what it is that I I you know understand filtered water, but but that's really about it.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: And so yeah, if you were in sales, you you have a a pretty deep knowledge of of what this is, how it works, so you can speak to the uh the customer and and selling it.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so stepping in Elver, yeah, is is very similar, just learning some of the differences of the of the equipment and how it works and what's important to the customer, I guess.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, definitely.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, at the end of the day, you're solving problems.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, they have a challenge that they they need to, you know, they've got a slurry that they want to separate the solids from the liquids.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: Or, you know, we did a lot of environmental stuff where it's like, well, at the very end of our process, you know, at a natural gas plant, we have selenium and we discharge that to a wetland.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, selenium happens to soften duck eggs so that the hatchlings can't get out of the egg.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so, well, okay, how about we stop discharging that and then we cover all the water and we'll reuse it in the plant.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: We, you know, stop discharging water entirely.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, we never thought of that.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's it's a it's just solving problems with technology.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and you know, it it's somebody who comes to you that's a person that is having an issue at work.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's the same thing that we do with elevator service.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_02: So um I it sounds like you just saw the the ad and you applied and just kind of walked through that that process, is that right?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: And when I I saw the ad, I thought, um, well, I I can sell capital equipment.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: I guess, you know, I could be a sales manager.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'd done sales and marketing management and stuff.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I guess I could sell elevators or help people sell elevators.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it turns out that it was a service job, not a new equipment installation job.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh I didn't, again, know that that was a thing.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'd seen, you know, probably the Otis vans or whatever.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I probably didn't know what a Tyson Krupp or a Kone, you know, van did um as I as I was driving around with them on the roads.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but then I start to see, you know, wow, okay, just in these two branches that I work in, primarily, there's, you know, 7,000 elevators or so that we take care of.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, in the state of California, every single conveyance needs uh service contract of some sort.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: So like, wow, you know, my eyes got as big as saucers.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like, this is a huge opportunity.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: So as you were kind of going through the the interview process, learning a little bit about what the company is, what they do.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, at what point did you say, yeah, I I think I can do this?
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: Because I would have just imagined that you're like, hey, you know, I've invested my half my life into environmental systems.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, this is I I can't just it's like switching majors halfway through your college career almost to say, you know, you've just invested so much.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: Am I gonna lose all that?
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_02: Was that part of your what you were thinking at the time?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely, yeah.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, that's why I started my search out at that time, um, looking for stuff that was closer to what I had known and you know, reaching out to people that I had met, you know, in my travels.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but but again, it's you know, the San Francisco area is not um the uh a hub by any stretch for um environmental equipment.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we were actually manufacturing in Emeryville, California, um, which is a ridiculous place to manufacture anything um nowadays, um, which is one of the reasons they moved up and got you know way more space up up in in our neighboring state.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it's probably a lot less expensive, right?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: You're not dealing with the the the same real estate costs in northern Nevada.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: 100%.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and a lot of you know other tax issues and and employment issues and things like that.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh, you know, it's hard to find machinists and everything like that.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um a lot of people are moving away from from the urban areas who are good at that sort of thing.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it all makes sense.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: But for me, you know, a lot of the companies that um that do that sort of stuff are based back east or you know, in the south.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and you know, and again, at that time, um the the the opportunities that presented themselves to me were regional, this and that.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: And uh it's like you know, 75% travel.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just I'm just starting to get too old for that stuff.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: So why not software, right?
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: That's one of the first questions that bounced in my mind.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you're in Silicon Valley area, you could you could probably sign up with any one of those companies, but uh what was the thought process there?
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, for sure.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, in in the kind of like 99 to uh well, like maybe 98, 2000, uh at the height of what we used to call the dot-com boom before we called it the tech industry.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I worked for a couple of dot-coms.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I got laid off from both of them.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Oh wow.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it, you know, it left a really bad taste in my mouth.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: And now I've got um, you know, friends who have been recently laid off, one of whom has, you know, uh MBA, PhD, JD that got laid off from Google.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, it's like if they're laying her off, then you know what hope do I have?
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and uh so you know, we just lost a bunch of people at Salesforce and all these big, you know, local uh tech outfits.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um so you know, it that that's really what gave me pause for that.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: What I wanted to get into is is more stuff that actually exists in time and space, like not software.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that was one of one of my criteria.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um that what I was looking for, okay.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: If I'm gonna do something different, you know, what's it gonna be?
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: And like, yeah, I do have experience.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like I was a product manager for for an internet company way back when.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but uh A, that was a long time ago, and B, um, like I said, it's it's pretty fickle, um, especially for the venture-backed companies.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, if you don't meet your metrics, then the whole thing just kind of goes away.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: Well, or you it gets bought by a bigger company.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that happens a lot, right?
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, oh, wait, we don't need your division because we already have one.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_02: And so, yeah, the the volatility, I think, is certainly something to to think about there.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: So the idea of staying with something tangible that I love the way you said it exists in time and space.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: And um and the thing I've seen in in the elevator industry is that it is stable because you know, even even during COVID, right?
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: The the hospital had to have the elevators going up and down, right?
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: Because hey, people are sick, and you know, we we've got to get the patients to the to these floors, and um, it's just such an essential part of the economy that it's like, okay, no, this is this is gonna keep going.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: So that was definitely something that I was worried about.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh my my short time in this industry has been marked by some odd uh happenings.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: I started in January of 2020 and in March 2020, you know, the world shut down.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and uh I myself got COVID right as one of the first people that got it around here.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: Right once we had tests and knew what it was.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so here I am, you know, a couple of months into this new job, and I'm like, you know, on my deathbed, but no, no, fine, I can still type.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um it was a weird time, but I thought, oh geez, you know, uh well, I mean, in the immediate aftermath of that shutdown and everything, and San Francisco and California in general is way more shut down than other parts of the country.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I thought, oh geez, what are we gonna do now?
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we're not gonna be able to sell anything.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and uh, but but you know, the the maintenance still needs to get done.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, elevator techs were some of the only people that were allowed to be driving around, you know, and doing work at that time.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um so um it really highlighted the importance of you know vertical transportation, and and we saw that in the residential buildings, you know, there's higher use of the elevators than ever before.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, people go up and down to get their DoorDash uh deliveries three times a day, you know.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: So the the we're having you know more more issues in the residential properties um just because of use went up.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: And and the you know, the big office buildings, um, which everybody has heard a lot about in San Francisco going empty uh is still largely the case in in many places.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but nevertheless, who there are some people in every building and they they're not gonna take the stairs and the uh state inspectors are still gonna come by and you know everything else.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's really resilience, which is um one of the biggest uh attractors for me.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: Very cool.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the things I I saw in different different areas, different parts of the country is that, hey, if our building's empty, well, now's the time to modernize.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: So I I wouldn't have anticipated that, hey, we're gonna you know drop a few million here and here and here or whatever to to to modernize, but why not?
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: Because, you know, this building fills back up in the next year or two, we've we've dodged that bullet of of having to displace everybody while we're doing this work.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, indeed.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and even like you know, big door packages and things like that, we definitely um did a lot of that work and you know historic buildings um where it's a little bit more complicated um to do that sort of thing.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: I've for you know being an ignorant um non-elevator guy, I thought, wow, we're gonna sell tons of purification devices and you know all these uh solutions that were coming out, like you know, the holographic um uh you know COPs and all this stuff.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, oh, they're gonna be buying these like hotcakes, but in reality, everybody was just kind of sitting on their uh hands and not wanting to spend money because they didn't know what was gonna happen next.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: But like you said, that there were some smart people on there who who understood that they had an opportunity to have a down car uh and and nobody yelling at them about it.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly, exactly.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: So how off how how long did it take before you joined Kone that you were like, wow, I really made the right decision?
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well, um that's a really good question, Matt.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: I have no idea.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um I was so um just like the you know, we we often say drinking from the fire hose.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's how it felt for for quite a while.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's so many um systems that I had to learn.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, forget all the elevator stuff.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, yeah.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh just the corporate system.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Pretty easy.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: Corporate systems to know, like how am I gonna get my job done, you know, looking at some um, you know, some legacy systems that um when I show to you know 20-something new hires, you know, it's it's like looks like DOS or something and they freak out because they like never seen anything like that.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah, it looks pretty normal to me.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, I'm 50.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but uh so yeah, just learning all that stuff.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: Fortunately, I'm fairly tech savvy, so it didn't take too long.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: But um uh I think you know, you start looking at the numbers and and you realize that just one branch, you know, um in a major metropolitan area can can do really well um on the service side, um, just with maintenance.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, there's all this extra work for you know, standby for fire life safety and and all these other things.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: And and um it it you know, it just you just start seeing dollar signs like an old cartoon, you know, uh in your eyes.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: And and um it it's pretty it doesn't take too long to see that you know you're in a pretty good spot from an opportunity standpoint.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then I think the the technical stuff came later, although I had a hunger for that knowledge, um, you know, pretty pretty obvious quickly that you're never gonna be the the most technically adept or the most um you know knowledgeable about elevator systems when you work at a at a company like this.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: So um it's the technicians that I've learned the most from.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, because they if if you show an an earnest, you know, an honest interest in in learning about what it is that they do, um, they're some of the the nicest, most uh helpful people.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, they'll they'll literally take you by the by the arm and say, you know, this is why this door operator is better than this one, or you know, um, yes, that that cab that you just got out of might look brand new, but let me go show you the hundred-year-old machine that's hoisting it up those 50 floors, you know, um, and stuff like that.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: So that that was probably pretty uh one of the most eye-opening things going to job walks in San Francisco and seeing, you know, again, shiny COP, nice car with obviously, you know, brand new snap cab in there or something like that.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then you go up to the machine room and and it looks like something out of a museum, um, you know, with the flyball governors uh and and all this stuff.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: It I mean, it's wild that it all still works and some of that stuff is is um you know more reliable than some of the solid state stuff.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: So um, yeah, there's a lot to learn.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think um my uh willingness to show my ignorance about all the stuff and just be honest about what I don't know um has helped me a lot in in gaining gaining people's um you know trust and and uh and and getting their you know them to be willing to to teach me what they know.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: That's cool.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: No, it's great.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: And it's it's I think it's uh awesome that you've been able to bring what you have, but also be open to to all this new new knowledge and information and and certainly having the uh the mechanics there that you can actually talk to that they'll take you on a on a walkthrough and hey, let's go, let's go check out this this machine room.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what an amazing resource to have.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um so one of the things I see um sorry, one of the things I see with some of my uh clients is is sometimes there's a reluctance to to even give somebody like you a chance to to interview, right?
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_02: Because you're you're not from the industry, you didn't you know walk out of college right into our training program or you you know you um and and yet uh I think there's a I think we said it a little bit earlier, just a lot of people with with you know super sharp, a lot of a lot of good uh transferable skills and knowledge um that to your point didn't even know this was a thing.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_02: Didn't know in fact I heard that question this morning, the elevator industry?
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_02: Is that what what do you mean by that?
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, well, it is an industry and and there are companies who specialize in building, installing, maintaining elevators.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: Really?
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um but uh sometimes uh you know, being on this side of the business and just trying to help uh bring talent, I I see that not always, but but sometimes as an obstacle because no, we want to start with somebody who who has experience.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_02: Even though, you know, maybe maybe performance has been mediocre through you know the two, three, four companies they've been through.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um sometimes that's given preferential treatment to and maybe it's because of hey, we we know what we know.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um do you see that yeah, you know, where you're at still?
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: Does that kind of have some sway?
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for sure.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, because I'm you know an outsider still, um uh I don't have those biases.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: And like one of my most recent hires as an account manager, because I managed like 10 account managers, um and There they're invariably somebody's moving away or you know, taking a different opportunity.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it feels like I'm always hiring.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I look for people with the kind of skills that would work as an account manager in a service sales role.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, one of my most successful recent hires is from um a completely different industry, but the workflow is pretty much the same.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: It was like selling site services and things like that.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like interesting.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so you have, you know, not technicians exactly, but you know, people who are performing the work, you're you're selling their work and arranging to have those services done at a particular time in a particular way.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, maybe you're selling uh a sort of a subscription model um of doing some of those things.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: And like this is this is basically the same stuff.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, bring him in and um and and again, he's he's worked out marvelously.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so I think I I definitely bring a different kind of perspective when it comes to hiring folks.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, I've also hired Dyed in the wool elevator guys um who are fantastic.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but uh I'm lucky in that Koney's um like diversity, equity, inclusion model um, you know, obviously focuses on cultural differences and and things of that nature um as it should, but it also incorporates um diversity of experience and diversity of thought.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: So um has a has a like a uh you know um uh systematic hiring approach that includes looking at people um from outside of the elevator industry that have complementary skill sets.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: And um so you know they they actually live that value, which enables people like me to to jump into something, even though I did something completely different for 20 years.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_02: That's interesting, yeah.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_02: Cause I haven't seen the uh the diversity of experience uh be be part of a a diversity and inclusion model uh very often.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_02: So it's uh kind of refreshing that that they're willing to bring that in and and to your point, um maybe bring in uh you know some talent, some ex you know, some uh a perspective that you that you didn't have can actually make your team stronger, it sounds like.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: Completely.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: Different, different um, you know, I don't know.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's funny because sometimes I'll I'll have conversations with with folks who have only ever worked at one company, you know, in one industry, and and I say something that I think is pretty, you know, dumb or basic, and they're thinking, oh, that's a good idea.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, we don't we don't do that here.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh and so you know I'm I'm I'm probably never gonna be the smartest guy in the room, but I might have a different idea than than the rest of them.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: Very cool.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_02: So you said something a minute ago about I'm an outsider.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_02: I'm curious, is that ever gonna change for you?
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: Do you do you feel like at some point you'll say, Oh, I'm I'm an insider now?
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's funny.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, considering a lot of my my colleagues um uh have been in this business for you know 25, 30 years.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh I feel like I'm still like a new guy.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't know if I'm I I I'm probably not gonna be an outsider in even in my own mind for too much longer.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but uh I think the fact that I worked in a different industry for so long is always gonna, you know, um keep me in a different kind of bucket as people think about um the the folks on the team.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: But um, you know, it's uh I I think for about the first year I had no idea what I was doing with respect to you know elevator technology and things like that.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: I was just really just trying to take it all in and sure um and and do a lot more listening than talking.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh and after about a year, I I kind of had a minor clue.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: And after about three, I thought, okay, yeah, I I I think I've got this down uh you know reasonably well.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um so hopefully over the next you know three or so years I'll I'll uh get more expert in some of these uh facets of of the job.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: And uh but uh but yeah, I mean, there are career elevator people and there are not career elevator people.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think at least me being in on sales side, you know, there's that opportunity to make that jump um on the the technical side or on the operational side, you know, it's a little bit more difficult.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: Although we do see, you know, people from other trades uh you know still showing up um at uh at the elevator union hoping to get in, you know, after doing 20 years of electrical or welding or whatever else, there's a lot of other complementary um technical skills that uh they think they learn about um the IUEZ and how great it is to be uh a member of that union and and uh they're willing to make that switch.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: So um, I think I think we should be willing to do that uh on kind of the business end of it too.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_02: No, absolutely.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I think um, you know, you're you're a testament to that, that hey, I I can come in, bring what I I had and and learn all all the all the new pieces.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I think the uh what I try to to steer my clients, especially those that are really reluctant to uh to consider anyone from outside is just thinking in terms of uh of of talent, of just kind of raw, you know, somebody who's who's who's sharp and and you know, do they bring more?
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_02: And and not that not that that's always gonna be the person from outside, because it's certainly not, right?
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_02: But uh in certain roles being able to consider that okay, you know, this this perspective may help us and this you know, this person's hard charging.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_02: I think I can get them up to speed.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_02: And and I think that's part of the the challenge is just that how long am I gonna have to train this person?
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_02: How long before you know they're actually ready to to contribute on their own, and and that can be uh certainly uh a a challenge at times.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: Completely agree, yeah.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think there's some selfishness in there too, right?
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: Because we know that it takes a while to onboard people.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: And if they don't have any experience in the industry, you know, it's it's on you as the hiring manager um to do that training.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: And not everybody, I mean, there's a lot of great individual contributors out there who are not great at managing or or training people, and you know, they'll fall back into a different role because of that.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think um there are some companies who are better at onboarding than others, and I make it a particular focus um in my hiring to spend the first you know three weeks or so with the person in concert with all the other corporate compliance training that they have to do, you know, um dutifully on their uh web browser, but to um intersperse that with you know talks about sales and negotiations and you know, somebody comes to to us that um that has elevator knowledge, you know, where I feel like I can add value is to um help them learn the lessons that I learned the hard way about, you know, um getting bogged down in certain aspects of deal advancement and things like that.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, that's the kind of stuff that that you know a guy from outside the industry can can bring you.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it turns out that that's the important stuff.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because again, you can get the technical stuff from elevators 101 or you can get the technical stuff from uh, you know, a seasoned supervisor or mechanic or whomever.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: There's always going to be elevator experts around.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so as long as you can talk to people and you know be uh friendly and congenial, um, then you can probably be a decent account manager, provided you're organized enough to keep all the plates spinning, you know, as you go through your day, because there is a whole lot of firefighting going on while you're trying to sell stuff, you know, you're also trying to um do a whole lot of coordination and things like that.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: But um again, most of the the day-to-day activities that the people that that work for me uh engage in um are about um managing expectations more than they are about managing um, you know, technical aspects of an elevator.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_02: True.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, very good point.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_02: So as we as we kind of you know are running out of time, I just wanted to ask a question.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: You know, what would you what's something you've learned that maybe you would pass on to those who who maybe do come mid-career?
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um what's one of the most valuable lessons you've learned?
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's it sounds silly, but that this industry exists, you know.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think um the elevator industry is pretty insular as we know.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's a lot of people who run around with the same last name in any given town who, you know, their grandfather started out in the elevator industry, and you know, like, oh, are you related to so-and-so?
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, I am.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so that's great because it makes, you know, these sort of like generational um elevator families uh of of you know, which there are many.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but um, you know, we'll we'll get stronger as an industry by bringing in more people, uh, again, from diverse backgrounds, diverse um, you know, uh experience sets and things like that.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I think although we want to kind of keep it for ourselves in some ways, like I want to shout it from the the rooftop that this is a great industry and that instead of going into you know tech um like we do in the Silicon Valley, everybody's trying to get into tech, like this is tech too, you know what I mean?
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like the the it's electrical, it's mechanical, it's programming.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if if you're a especially if you know, if you know somebody who is 18 and doesn't necessarily want to go to college, um, but but you know, they want to learn a trade.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, can you imagine a better place to start out than than in the elevator union as a technician?
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and for for those who want to get into business and want something that is stable and um you know can can uh be resilient in a downturn.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I'm really happy to be on the server side of the business because it's kind of steady as she goes.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think people, you know, there'd be more people interested in getting into this industry if they understood that.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, that's awesome.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for that.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_02: Those words of wisdom.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_02: It does seem like uh, you know, that the elevator industry has it all for those who are are able to see it.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_02: So um Josh, thanks so much for being on today.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's great talking with you and uh wish you the very best as you continue to uh to build your career.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much, Matt.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: Really appreciate it.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, take care.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for listening to the Elevator Careers Podcast, sponsored by the All Red Group, a leader in elevator industry recruiting.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_02: You can check us out online at elevatorcareers.net.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_02: Please subscribe and until next time, stay safe.