Living in your industry, not off of your industry

RCS Influencer Randy Chaffee says it is key to develop a mindset of getting involved in the industry.

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Randy Chaffee of Source One Marketing. You can Read the interview below, Listen to the podcast or Watch the recording.

Jenny Yu: Hi everybody, this is Jenny Yu with RoofersCoffeeShop®, and I'm here for an influencer response with Randy Chaffee of Source One Marketing. How's it going, Randy?

Randy Chaffee: Hey, Jenny, it's going well. How are you?

Jenny Yu: I'm doing great. Thank you so much.

Randy Chaffee: Awesome. Great to be back on chat.

Jenny Yu: Well, this February we're talking about workforce disruption and labor uncertainty. So, we were wondering if you could share your thoughts on using associations and peer networks for guidance and for language.

Randy Chaffee: That's a great question and a great place to start because anybody that knows me knows I'm involved in a lot of associations, and I think they're incredibly valuable. And I think too many times probably that we need to promote them more. And I know many of them that I'm involved with are trying to do that. But I think the builder really needs to look at these as something not just, it's there and I get some newsletter now and then maybe I go to a trade show and they sponsor. There's just so much more there, but you have to be open and willing to reach out to the association, join and be involved.

I say this often because I really believe it: you have to live in your industry, not off your industry. I think too many times — and it's not just builders, it's manufacturers, it's reps like myself — we tend to take from the industry, but we don't involve ourselves and give back. If you give back to the association, you join, you go to the meetings, you do their webinars, there's so much valuable information that most of these associations have that can help you with a lot of those situations that you're running into with labor, because labor's shortage is not going away. That is probably, if it does anything, in my opinion, will continue to be as is or get worse. It's a challenge to find people to work for whatever the reasons those are.

So, I think it's silly, I guess is the word, to not take advantage of the national associations. And also, to even take it a step further, Jenny, almost every association has local chapters, too. We all want to invite you to join our national associations, and I think that's really important. But if you can't, or just don't want to for whatever reason at the point, get involved with your local associations or the local chapters because they're closer to the issue, number one, right? It's local, it's a state or two or three or whatever the case may be. But not only do they do stuff on their own with their board and staff people to help with all kinds of issues from safety to recruitment to training and those kind of things, but also they have the resources from the national association that they're attached to. So you can find a lot of information, again, like I said, regardless of its safety or if it's engineering-wise, if it's legal, if it's trying to recruit people. I think the information's there if you just take advantage of it and reach out.

Because if you just put an ad out or tell your crew there's a great job here and tell your friends, well, how's that work so far? Not so well, right? So, if you're not getting anywhere with what you've done, the old statement, "the more you do what you always did, the more you get what you always got," right? And that's exactly what'll happen. If it's not working, take advantage of the associations, and believe me, I'm involved with several. There's all kinds of people that are willing to help and help you with that exact information. So, you just have to develop that mindset: I'm gonna get involved. That's probably the very first key.

Jenny Yu: Excellent. Thank you so much, Randy.

Randy Chaffee: Absolutely. Join it!