Building trust is not easy, but when you are consistent, unique and true to yourself people take notice. No Bull RV has done this very well.
Dave Young:
Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I’m Stephen’s sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today’s episode, a word from our sponsor, which is … Well, it’s us, but we’re highlighting ads we’ve written and produced for our clients. So here’s one of those.
[Tommy Cool Air Ad]
Matthew Burns:
This is not Stephen Semple or Dave Young. I’ve commandeered the entire podcast at the request of Stephen. So I am here for a reason. I’ve got with me a client of Stephen’s, Rick Showers of No Bull RV in the Edmonton area of Alberta, and you guys have heard us talk about him before, he’s been on the podcast before, but we’ve had a very specific topic that we want to talk about today, and we’re talking about the amazing use of social media that him and his team, we have one of his team members here, her name is Natacha. Natacha, what’s your role with No Bull?
Natacha:
Technically by title I’m HR.
Matthew Burns:
That’ll be part of what we talk about. Great. And then what are some of the other things that you’re doing there?
Natacha:
I’m doing anything I can to support Rick, I guess, and just build the business and making sure all our pieces are aligning together and that we’re really approaching things from a whole business level, not just bits and pieces at a time.
Matthew Burns:
Okay, fantastic. And Rick, that’s a very politically correct answer. What is Natacha to you? What does she do for you?
Rick Showers:
She does pretty much all the stuff I don’t want to do.
Matthew Burns:
There we go. That’s the answer. That’s the answer we wanted.
Rick Showers:
She sees to it that it gets done. Let me put it that way.
Matthew Burns:
Exactly. Well, no, and her job is to support you and all the things that we’re honestly, truly … Business owners, especially entrepreneurs, we get caught up in doing everything at the beginning and then we realize I’m really not good at this list of 20 things, so I’m going to get somebody else who’s much better at it than me. I’m going to concentrate on what I’m good at. And that’s your Natacha. What we really want to talk about today is how you guys are using social media and its effect, the kind of the bonus effect it’s had on your recruiting and the onboarding of new staff members. Rick, talk to me a little bit about your perception of this and how it’s affected you guys there at No Bull.
Rick Showers:
The perception of the social component?
Matthew Burns:
You got it.
Rick Showers:
Well, as a user, I always thought it was a bit of a pain in the ass, frankly, because there’s one more social channel coming after another. As a business owner, I was always skeptical and never really liked the fact that competitors, for example, or other business categories were actually using it to try and flog product, which to me always seemed a little bit counterintuitive because it’s not really a social thing. They’re looking at it as an advertising channel. So we approach it a little bit differently and wanted to stand out by just being different.
Matthew Burns:
You’re highlighting your people on social media, you guys are spending time talking about the vulnerabilities of some of your units because you guys are in used RVs and you’re pointing out the negatives and saying, “Hey guys, well, we take care of this for you.” And you’re very upfront. I remember one post where you were trying to do a video when a bird was squawking in the tree next to you and you’re like, “Come on, man, we’re doing a video.” It was so funny. But yeah, I mean, social media really is meant to be social. So what are the social things that a company does? What are the things for engagement and how do we treat our employees and how do our employees react with us? Everybody should go and check out your social media and follow you guys and emulate and copy. Guys, steal from No Bull because they’re brilliant at what they do.
Natacha:
They can try, but it’s not going to work.
Matthew Burns:
Right. They can’t do what you do. They have to try and find a way to do it for their best purpose. But then you guys put out a new radio campaign with a recruiting message, correct?
Rick Showers:
Yes. We started that about six months ago.
Matthew Burns:
I mean, it’s fair to say you guys have a very short season, so you’ve got this long down period where it’s what are we doing when we don’t have used RVs coming in and are refurbished and ready to go, and top of line RVs going out the other door? You’ve got this winter downtime, and so you ran a campaign to bring on some new people to help you guys out. What was the experience like when people were coming in and reaching out, saying that they’d like to apply?
Natacha:
The thing that I’ve noticed, whether people have looked at our social media in the past or anything like that, what those two things did in combination are people are talking about it now in the interview process. They’re expecting us to be certain people. They’re coming in and they’re recognizing Rick, and so they’re like, “Where’s Rick?” Or they’re recognizing so-and-so and they’re saying, “Hey, I saw you. You like to …” whatever their hobby was or whatever it was, so they’re already feeling connected to us before they even come in the door.
Matthew Burns:
Right. Whether it’s a customer or an external customer, somebody you’re selling to or an internal customer, somebody that works for you, with you. When they’re first hearing of the opportunity to come in and deal with you, the first thing that most people do now is they run to the website, they go and [inaudible 00:05:54], “Hey, what are they all about? What do they do? How would I fit in?” And then the next place they go to get that second level of proof is they run to social media. “What do they act like? How do they behave? What’s their social construct look like?”
And so that’s what you’re noticing is that people are coming in saying, “Wow, wait a second. The ad is funny or entertaining or It’s interesting. It sounds good. I don’t know. Let me go see what they look like on the website.” By the time they get into interview mode with you, they’re like, “Oh my gosh, I saw this. This team member loves to do these things, and I love doing those things. I’m just like that guy.” They come in and they’ve pre-qualified themselves as somebody who would potentially be a good fit for you.
Rick Showers:
That was a very important thing, Matt, if I may, for us, because what we found, we’re in our 10th year of business now, and what we found is that our best employees are culturally aligned with who we are and what we represent and leveraging social to do that, it wasn’t necessarily deliberate. It was just something that started organically and turned into one of those things where it’s like, “You know what? These guys have some personality. These guys have quirks just like me,” and they can see themselves fitting into the culture because our end game is to have everybody within the company aligned culturally and working together as a team. And I think on Natacha’s side, instead of her necessarily having to look through 100 resumes, which are a lot harder to get 100 resumes nowadays. Finding those people that automatically align if the skill set matches and meshes with us, perfect. We’ve got somebody that would be a great team member.
Matthew Burns:
Yes. So Natacha does it make the onboarding process quicker for you, the decision making?
Natacha:
Absolutely. I had someone come in the other day for an interview, and I always ask, “What do you know about us beyond we sell RVs?” And he mentioned TikTok specifically and said, “Nobody does what you guys do on TikTok. You’re not even trying to sell me anything. How could I not want to work here?” And I thought, ding, ding, ding. You’ve just erased three quarters of the questions I have to ask you. It’s fantastic to see.
Dave Young:
Stay tuned. We’re going to wrap up this story and tell you how to apply this lesson to your business right after this.
[Empire Builders Ad]
Dave Young:
Let’s pick up our story where we left off. And trust me, you haven’t missed a thing.
Matthew Burns:
I mean, the reason why we wanted to do this was I was having a conversation with Stephen, I’m going to say three weeks ago, four weeks ago, when the idea first came to us. And when I was asking him, I said, “When you were putting together the campaign for the radio to start this new recruiting campaign, could you have said, ‘Hey, listen, your social media is going to be the thing that makes you guys more attractive than the next guy down the rope.'” It blew me away when I was out there last fall, and the amount of RV places there are, and you guys are by far the largest. I mean, it’s crazy how big you guys are, but getting ahead of the game and being able to call the shots, and Steve, he said, “You know what? I had this feeling. I can’t say why. I can’t say how. I just know that Rick’s guys, the bravery that they put forth, the things they’re willing to share, people are going to connect with them faster, better, stronger.” And it seems like that’s what’s happened.
Natacha:
It also nicely disqualifies people.
Matthew Burns:
Oh, brilliant.
Rick Showers:
That’s 100% [inaudible 00:09:29].
Natacha:
Which for me, coming from HR perspective is huge. Sometimes it’s not the right fit, and I’d rather you just … If you’re not interested in who we are and you don’t like what you see, then let’s not waste anybody’s time.
Matthew Burns:
Right. That’s an interesting point. We’re part of the Wizard of Ads, and we have a sign at our academy down in Austin, Texas that says, “We’re totally not a cult.” And if that doesn’t block some people from wanting to be a part of our community. So no, but that’s exactly right. If you have somebody who comes in and I mean, let’s call it, there’s people out there who are just stick in the muds. They’re not fun people. They’re a little bit boring and they’re like, “Oh man, I don’t know. That place is a bit much. I don’t know if I can go over there.” Because you guys are big, loud and bold, and you want big, loud, bold employees that are going to fit the mold. So that’s a brilliant observation. So let me ask you a question. When you guys first started really leaning heavily into social media, you hired a content creator, correct? You have somebody on staff full-time, that’s all they do is they’re videoing, taping, creating the content, posting, doing all that work? Do you regret that decision? How long until you were kind of fully on board with it?
Rick Showers:
Well, we started it out small. Now we’ve got three people involved within the organization doing bits and pieces of it. Some of it is writing, some of it is videoing, some of it’s editing. So there’s enough going on digitally for us to have and warrant having three people. But we didn’t start it that way. We started it with one person, and like you said, Matt earlier, and I would do a portion of it myself. And then as it sort of evolved out and we saw … It actually surprised me. Natacha mentioned TikTok, that it actually surprised me how much engagement we get. And every now and again when I’m bored, I’ll go and I’ll look at the comments that people make on TikTok, for example. And you can tell you’re eliminating people by the content. And the funny thing about social is though they still want to comment. And no press is bad press as far as we’re concerned when it comes to social media.
The last thing we want to do is try to be everything to everybody. That has never been our objective or my objective as a business owner. We are not for everybody. We’re not a perfect fit, whether they’re an employee or a client. And we do things that going forward from now, supporting social media, for example, in the Edmonton area where we are in Alberta, Canada, we just developed probably the coolest selfie station with three-dimensional component to it that’s painted, and it’s absolutely stunning. It’ll be open in probably a week so people can start using it. But that’s just another one of those engagement things, because I’ve always been curious about how to persuade people or what persuades people to do the things that they do. And social media has given me an insight into what really moves people. And that sort of dovetailed with the recruitment component that Stephen had talked to me about a year ago.
He talked to me about a year ago about it, and he said, “Let’s think about this.” He says, “I can’t explain how it’ll work or why it’ll work. I just think it will.” Stuff like that, I usually just jump into it both feet and say, “Okay, let’s go for it.” And it’s turned out really well.
Matthew Burns:
That’s incredible. I’ve been a partner with Stephen for many, many years, and I’m going to be honest with you. Every time he says, “I just have a feeling,” I’ve learned to not argue. So that’s incredible. I appreciate all your time. If there’s a takeaway, if there’s something that we want everybody listening to know from your perspectives, what is it? How do we use social media? Why do we use social media? And what’s the effects when you go big?
Rick Showers:
I would say this, if it was a business owner or presumably who’s listening to this or somebody that wants to, forget about what everybody else in your category is doing and find that wonderful story that puts you into business in the first place. Why do you do what you do? Why do you love what you do? Why do you feel you can do it better than anybody else? And don’t tell people that. Start showing them that. And that’s exactly what social media allows you to do in 30 second little clips, is just build a rapport online with people that make you genuine, make your story real, and brings you the clients that are going to be a perfect fit. And the client, like we said earlier, can also be an employee, but that they’re a perfect fit for your organization. So tell your story and don’t be afraid of it.
Matthew Burns:
There’s a huge part of that that allows for this intimacy of the potential with you guys. You guys are giving up a lot of yourselves in the social media stream that allows them to feel closer to you before they start to become interested in getting to know you. They’re already do. They’re there.
Rick Showers:
Well, we sell used RVs. We sell imperfect RVs. So for heaven’s sakes, we’re imperfect people selling imperfect RVs. It just kind of makes sense. So we don’t have to pretend we’re something we’re not. And like we said, we’re not a fit for everybody.
Natacha:
It’s better not to pretend because people will hold you accountable to it. Especially if we’re talking social media and recruitment, they already have an idea. You’ve shown them who you are, so it better be true.
Matthew Burns:
Awesome.
Natacha:
Because otherwise they’re not going to … They won’t be fulfilled, and it’s not going to be the right fit. If you’re saying this is who I am, make sure you can stand in that, honestly so their experience really is that.
Matthew Burns:
That’s incredible. I mean, I’ve been slowly but surely [inaudible 00:14:37] the Trust Wizard, the label that Stephen’s been giving me lately. And that’s how you build it. You let everybody know who you are, always the same way. Then they can trust you before they get there. You guys have built it in spades. For anybody listening, please go to nobullrv.ca, find their social media links, go check out their Facebook page. You’re going to see all the incredible paintings they’ve done inside their building, which Rick was alluding to a little bit ago about his selfie station that’s coming out soon. So you’ll be able to see it there. And again, I dare you. Try and copy and paste and use the techniques that these guys have developed on how to engage on social media, what kind of content they’re putting out. It will help you because these guys have adopted it and brilliantly become the most popular thing in Edmonton.
Awesome. Well, listen, I thank you both for your time. I know you gave it up freely, and we appreciate that. I look forward to the next crazy social media post that I see from you guys.
Rick Showers:
Thanks so much. It was a pleasure helping you out.
Matthew Burns:
You guys are brilliant. We’ll talk soon.
Natacha:
Thanks.
Rick Showers:
Bye now.
Dave Young:
Thanks for listening to the podcast. Please share us, subscribe on your favorite podcast app and leave us a big fat juicy five-star rating and review. And if you have any questions about this or any other podcast episode, email to [email protected].
