Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studio in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio, brought to you by Kennesaw State University’s Executive MBA program, the accelerated degree program for working professionals looking to advance their career and enhance their leadership skills. And now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio. And this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, CSU’s executive MBA program. Without them, we wouldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Atlanta Business Radio, we have Neil Bedwell with LOCAL. Welcome.

Neil Bedwell: Hey, Lee. Good to be with you.

Lee Kantor: I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us Tell us about local. How are you serving folks?

Neil Bedwell: Well, we LOCAL. We’re based down here, not too far from the Beltline on Edgewood, and we are a employee marketing company. So a group of marketing folks from all different industries and disciplines now working to try and help companies basically reach their employees better.

Lee Kantor: So how did this idea come about?

Neil Bedwell: Well, um, you probably figured already. I’m not from Atlanta.

Lee Kantor: It sounded it was Smyrna. That’s what it sounded like.

Neil Bedwell: Tennessee. Yeah. No, I’m a Brit, born and raised and grew up in the advertising industry in London, but lived in a few different spots. But like a lot of folks who have similar accents to me, the Coca-Cola company lured me from California to Atlanta, Georgia. So, um, the origin story for this company that we built, and this is our ninth year now, is really the experience of my first ever really big corporate job inside one of the biggest companies. One of the the biggest brands in the world, Coke. Trying to convince colleagues of mine in different divisions or in different countries. All to jump in and participate in one idea. The. And this was the advertising campaign for the World Cup in 2014, the World Cup in Brazil, which Coke is obviously a huge sponsor of. The idea for a marketing company that focuses on employees was that we had a hell of a time trying to reach these colleagues, these employees of Coca-Cola, across all these different divisions and and companies. And with hindsight, we could have used a lot more of the, the stuff we know as marketing folks to cut through and actually create that awareness, to create that adoption, create that interest that we needed around a single idea that was supposed to be activated around the world.

Lee Kantor: Now, what made you think you know what? Employee engagement. That’s really the key here. And companies aren’t leveraging employee engagement enough. They’re not serving their employees in the way that really makes the most sense for the wellbeing of the company. So when did that kind of that thesis. Like, I understand that you were trying to wrangle everybody and it was difficult, but what made you say, you know what? I think that this is kind of where more companies should focus. And and I want to do something about it.

Neil Bedwell: Yeah. I mean, I’ve got pretty thick skin, but, um, being sort of ignored and, you know, enough times by, uh, by colleagues is enough to kind of wake you up and go, hey, we must be doing something wrong here. You know, if all if you’re in the outside world, if the customer if every potential customer walks past your store, your shop window probably isn’t, uh, as good as it should be. Uh, and so we needed, um, that that was the awakening. Um, and then really getting under the skin of of employee engagement. I’ve learned a ton over this last sort of nine years or so. I mean, more than two thirds of us seem to be pretty unhappy with the thing we spend half our waking lives doing as adults with, with, with our jobs. Um, employee engagement is kind of the biggest secret problem in business, I think. Um, because if you look at it, um, for most companies, the employees are both the single biggest asset and also the single biggest cost. Um, when you have disengaged employees, you lose out on, uh, things like productivity or, uh, customer loyalty or profit and earnings per share. Um, things like, uh, you know, retention. Um, you have to hire more people because more people leave you. Um, they don’t serve their your customers, particularly the frontline folks, aren’t serving your customers in the way that you want them to, and living up to the promise that you’re making those customers because they’re disengaged and unhappy. So, um, for me, it’s a root cause of a lot of, of the deficits that we feel in, in business when it comes to growth or when it comes to efficiency or effectiveness. Um, yet we we try to fix those symptoms rather than going to the cause, which is really this the biggest asset in your business is, is pretty miserable and pretty disengaged.

Lee Kantor: Well, it’s interesting you say that because if you, uh, I’m sure if you looked at the mission statement of 100 companies, 50 of them would say that people are their most important asset. So they’re they’re at least giving lip service to the importance of their Her team, but what are some symptoms that maybe they aren’t really, um, delivering on that mission statement or promise?

Neil Bedwell: I mean, if you look at the data, you said it. Lip service. Um, you say it, but I don’t see you do it. Um, I don’t see you say that. That, um, people are at the center of this company, but it looks like profits at the center of this company. Um, you say that, um, that the, you know, we are human centered, but we restructure and lay off people on a regular basis. You know, it’s on a day to day, um, a day to day sort of experience. Um, if you tell me something, um, from a, you know, in a business town hall with a group of executives talking about the future and telling you what’s going to happen, but then I see something different happening in my day to day. I’m going to believe what I see versus what I hear. Um, and so those are some of the symptoms. Um, and I can tell you, um, how we approach some of those symptoms, uh, which is really if you most companies, successful companies, are pretty good at understanding and engaging their customers on the outside. They’re pretty good at getting those folks to stop walking past the store and get them in the store. You know, um, and most successful companies are pretty good at keeping those people. Um, we need to start to think of as our employees, our people inside as customers, too. And actually, if you think about it, the in order to win the customer on the outside, I kind of have to win the customer on the inside first. I have to win over my employees so that they will then do the the customer engagement on the outside every minute of every day, in every location. Um, so we our philosophy, um, really is that employees are not just customers, they’re your first customer for anything that you’re doing. Um, if you if you can reach them and engage them, you’ve got a lot better chance of engaging every all of the other customers that you need to spend the money to drive your revenue to get the growth that you want. So it’s a first customer principle.

Lee Kantor: Now that I would imagine takes. That’s a mindset shift for most organizations, because most organizations spend a lot of resources in trying to get the brand new customer. They don’t even spend as much resources in nurturing the existing customer. And now you’re asking them to not only nurture their team and and emphasize the people that are already there, rather than focus on anything new. So how do you kind of help them understand that what you’re saying is true, that your employees are your first customer, and that’s where you really should invest time when they’re typically they’re not spending time on their existing customers. They’d rather find a new customer.

Neil Bedwell: And, you know, all the data will tell you that finding new Finding new customers is way more expensive than keeping the ones that you have. Same goes for employees, by the way. Finding new recruits is way more expensive than keeping the one the folks that you already have and keeping keeping them happy. Um, you just got to look at the data. The Gallup huge, hugely respected organization produce a report on employee engagement every year. And, um, whatever metric you’re trying to move, whether it is a revenue or profit metric, whether it is a customer loyalty metric, whether it’s an earnings per share metric or any other thing in companies with engaged employees, outperform those with disengaged employees on every metric. Um, and it’s not just about keeping your employees engaged and keeping them retained as, as employees. It’s all the other stuff that those happier people do because happier people, when people are happy and engaged at work, then they’re more they’re more productive. Then they show up and go that extra foot or mile for the customer. They sell more to the customers. Um, anything that you’re trying to do is done better if your employees are engaged.

Lee Kantor: Now, how do you kind of measure the level of engagement your employees currently have? I can’t believe that just by asking them or giving them a bunch of smiley faces on a form is going to tell the truth. There has to be actions that they’re taking that are kind of illustrating whether they’re engaged or not. And I’m sure that, um, you know, if they’re quitting a lot, that’s probably a clue. But are there clues for engagement?

Neil Bedwell: Oh, absolutely. And, you know, you can go from the hard, hard, um, if you like, lag, measure of retention or of, um, Customer success or or revenue growth or profitability. But really, what you’re trying to do first and foremost is, um, as a as a leader, make sure that you reach every single one of your employees. A lot of internal messaging doesn’t reach most of the people inside companies. Um, I’ve been lucky enough to spend time with with companies in almost every industry. And, uh, often there’s a common theme where where leaders will stand on a stage physically or, or digitally and sort of project a message of, of, of, of the story of the next quarter or the story of the next year. They’re often called town halls. Um, and we’ve been, uh, able to go out into the field for some of the companies that we work with and, you know, meet folks who drive trucks or, um, work in maintenance or handle, you know, handle baggage for airlines, things like that. They don’t see those things. They don’t see the town halls. They don’t go on the internet.

Neil Bedwell: They don’t look at email. They talk to each other. Um, and so the message, first and foremost is often not reaching the majority of employees, particularly in industries that have a lot of frontline folks, not just sort of head office folks. Um, then what you’re looking to try and get is, well, okay, did we get what was the response to that messaging? Was it understood? Um, and then if you have understanding, then you’re going to to if you like, the harder, more tangible, um, elements. Are people adopting new behaviors because of this? Are they using an online system or are they following a process more? Um, are they actually taking actions based on, um, the reach and engagement that you’ve created? And if they take those actions, do those actions, then drive to these hard, if you like CFO level metrics of revenue, profitability, uh, employee churn, all of those kind of things. So you’re you’re looking at sort of lead and lag measures all the way from, first and foremost, did your message even reach all of your people?

Lee Kantor: Now, who is your ideal client? Are they kind of these enterprise level organizations that have kind of like a global presence, or are they like startups or are they like, where do your customers lie?

Neil Bedwell: We we found a sweet spot as local with large companies, with distributed workforces, you know, in in head offices, different offices in on locations, out with customers, um, that have a desire to change, to transform to, to, to take on new behaviors or use new technologies but struggle to reach their employees and in, in so doing, not reaching those employees hampers then those initiatives. I’ll give you a you a very simple example. If you have a new piece of software, a new piece of technology that is going to increase efficiency for 50,000 people on the front line across the country, the what you actually have to do in order to unlock that value is get those 50,000 people to actually use the technology successfully. And a lot of companies spend all of their money on the technology and the integration of the technology, and nothing on actually getting people to use it. And if you think about employees as customers, if you think about external customers, you never create a new product without thinking about how you’re going to sell it. And so we really urge any of our clients to think about what they’re doing as a product, and the fact that whatever new thing that they’re trying to bring inside that company is a new product, and you’re trying to sell it to this audience of employees. And we will work with, um, leaders across every discipline to do that. So if it’s a piece of technology, it’s often with the technology team, with the CIO and her or his group. Um, if it’s a new brand or, um, or product launch, maybe it’s with the marketing team. If it’s a new, um, learning program, it’s with the chief learning officer. If it’s a new, uh, new vision or values or, um, sort of working processes, then maybe it’s with the HR group. Um, we’ve we have experience across all of those different, uh, disciplines. And really, we’re a marketing team for anybody that’s trying to make change stick.

Lee Kantor: Now, is.

Lee Kantor: That usually your typical first point of entry, that they’ll have an initiative that they want to roll out and then they need help kind of getting the buy in throughout the organization. So they hire local to help them execute that.

Neil Bedwell: Yeah. There’s really, um, like three different ways. There’s that, which is, hey, we’ve got this new thing. We want to make sure everybody knows about it. We need a, you know, an employee marketing company. We and we’re there for that. There’s. We tried it. It didn’t work. It failed. People aren’t using it. What should we do? Maybe we need to do something different. And we are different to traditional consulting firms in terms of the approach to change. Um, we actually have a trademarked process which we call change marketing, which is everything we know about marketing to customers on the outside, but pointed at customers on the inside and sort of with a little hybrid, um, of some of the progressive change management thinking, too, so that we’re actually bringing some of that understanding of organizations. Um, you know, so it’s it’s, um, we’ve got something new and we want to make sure people see it. We’ve launched something and people aren’t using it. Um, or we’re seeing negative results in our employee engagement research, and we want to turn things around. So if you like launching something new as a tangible thing, or trying to sort of win over hearts and minds a little bit more on the intangible side so that you can foster more engagement so that you can actually achieve some of the goals that you have.

Lee Kantor: Now, what are some of the, uh, the qualities of a leader that is a good fit for local? And what are some of the qualities that are probably you’re not going to be a good fit.

Neil Bedwell: If I come back to that point I made earlier about standing on a stage and projecting a story, um, and not thinking about whether people hear you, I think it’s that I think, um, good leaders understand that the most important thing is reaching their audience versus, um, saying what they want to say. Um, and so listening and understanding the audience, understanding your, your whoever you’re leading is the most important thing. And then I’m a big believer personally in, um, doing versus saying. So if you if you model behaviors, if you show what matters and you and you do it with courage and confidence, that is a better way to lead others to want to do that versus to mandate or instruct. Um, and then the final thing is recognition. Um, your job as a leader is to, is to model and show the right way to behave and work and then recognize, celebrate those who do that so that others will follow. People follow people more than they follow leaders. So if you can model something, show others doing it, and then have them basically, um, lead for you the rest of the organization, that’s, that’s that’s the way forward. I think, um, for me at least.

Lee Kantor: Now, you.

Lee Kantor: Mentioned early on that you saw an opportunity when you were working with an organization that it was difficult to roll out your idea. What was kind of a clue when you were had this idea of employee engagement and focusing in on the importance of that, that you were like, can you share maybe that first time you did an initiative that worked and you were like, okay, this is something this isn’t just in my head. This is something that I can see really working here. And then it could work in other organizations.

Neil Bedwell: Yeah. And I have the Coca-Cola company to thank, not just for the experience of of working through something as big as the World Cup. And I, you know, I it was incredibly hard work, but I loved it. Um, but also when we first started local, obviously we had a lot of friends, you know, inside the Coca-Cola sort of ecosystem. And we got offered the chance to look at it at a employee engagement program that wasn’t working. Um, and we we were trusted enough by a leader to say, you know, what would you guys do with this? And that’s where we were able to actually show that a marketing approach, which is really about focusing on the audience, in this case the employees, how they’re feeling, what they’re thinking and then leaning into them. Maybe, you know, more emotionally first than rationally. So more about inspiration than than instruction and taking that slant on it actually did unlock some real wins for that program. And we were able to say, well, look, we made something work at one of the biggest, most complex by the sheer size and, uh, geographic spread of the company that that worked. We think that we can do the same thing for you. Um, and I’m very grateful for that opportunity to do that. Um, and it’s still we regard that that experience back in 2015 and 16, I think, as the sort of genesis of what we’ve been able to build since then.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there any advice you can give an organization? Uh, maybe not an enterprise level, but just a small to small to mid sized company. Is there some low hanging fruit that they can be doing better in terms of employee engagement?

Neil Bedwell: Yeah. My um, uh, my old boss from my Coca-Cola days and and are still a very good friend. You you have this great mantra which is you have two ears and one mouth for a reason. You should use them in that ratio. Um, so listen, so many people don’t listen. Your employees, whether you have a team of 5 or 5000, are telling you everything that you need to do. And they’re also capable of doing it. Um, so if you can listen and understand them, you know, and we always say that in marketing the, the, the, the single greatest competitive advantage over any, you know, any competitor is a deeper knowledge of your audience. And I think the same thing goes for, for for leaders inside companies to the more you know about your, your people, um, the more you understand them and what they’re what they want, what they need, what they’re capable of. The more chance you have of of leading them successfully to the outcome that everybody wants. Um, so that that’s, that’s the same no matter what company you’re in, if you’re a smaller company, you can do it quicker. I think you can be more nimble.

Lee Kantor: So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Neil Bedwell: Well, local, um, we are happily growing. Um, we are, um, investing a lot in the community here in Atlanta. So, um, we think of our clients, uh, as change makers. So a change maker, is anybody in any, any, um, discipline or division inside any company that is trying to make it better? Um, and using employee marketing is change marketing. Uh, sort of process that we have is a tool in the toolbox of a change maker. Um, and what we what we recognize is that an HR leader from a technology company, um, a technology leader from a product company, um, a marketing leader from, uh, you know, a sportswear company, they’re all change makers, and they can all can learn from each other. And we get the benefit. We benefit from knowing those people, um, in terms of growing our business, too. So, um, we are hosting change maker gatherings, events. Uh, we have a really cool, um, house space, a clubhouse space, um, down here on Edgewood that, um, the last event that we did was, uh, just before the holidays, and we had 60 or 70, um, really interesting change makers from across different industries and, and and companies all coming together, talking, sharing, um, sort of contributing, uh, to, to a dialog, but in a really fun, informal way with some really good wine. Um, so if you’re interested in being part of that, we’re also doing virtual ones because we want to reach people, you know, further and wider. But for the Atlanta community, we’d love to meet you. Um, you can find us on LinkedIn local, the change marketing company. Uh, you can find us at Local industries.com. Um, there’s plenty of ways to get in touch with us. Myself, Neil Bedwell on LinkedIn, and we’d love to meet you and understand what change you’re trying to drive and bring you into this, this burgeoning community. And I really mean this as a Brit, uh, transplanted into Atlanta. There is some incredible, um, people here doing really interesting work across a lot of different industries. And, and we, we get so much goodness out of bringing everyone together.

Lee Kantor: Well, Neil, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Neil Bedwell: Thanks, Lee. Really enjoyed it.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.