Ep. 63 Making Gen Z Your Competitive Advantage With Hannah Williams

Welcome to the Next Level Income show where it's our goal to raise your income, investments and your life to the next level. I'm your host Chris Larsen. Get your free copy of our book@nextlevelincome.com, just click on the book link. Also, if you're an accredited investor, check out our Invest link to learn how to gain access to our Self storage fund as well as other institutional quality real estate opportunities. You're not going to want to miss today's show with Hannah Williams. She is going to teach you how Gen Z is different than the millennial generation and how you can use her information to not only find and recruit the best talent, but ultimately add value to your organization. On today's show we have Hannah Williams. Hannah Williams story began in a blue pickup truck when her father handed 12 year old Hannah the phone and asked her to close a deal on an investment property. After this unexpected introduction to the world of entrepreneurship, she she found herself thrust into a climate of innovation, challenge and opportunity. And she enrolled in college at the age of 14, graduated with a degree in international business at 18. And now as a 23 year old Gen Z', er, she has consulted businesses from startups to Fortune 500 companies and is on a mission to help leaders leverage Gen Z talent as a competitive advantage and build radical empathy in the workplace. Today's show is sponsored by Money Insights and their investment optimizer strategy. In my book, I share how I use the same strategy starting over a decade ago to invest my money in two places at one time. This strategy has been used by the wealthiest for generations for estate planning, minimizing taxes, preserving wealth and increasing stability for their investments. Now you can do the same thing. In addition, you can build a plan to build an emergency fund, pay for college, fund a business plan for retirement, and ultimately optimize your total financial picture. To find out more information, check us out at the banking link@nextlevelincome.com Hannah Williams, welcome to the show.

Thanks Chris. I'm excited to be here on this beautiful day, cooped up in the studio. Hey, it's cooler in here.

Yeah, and normally we would be doing this live. We've met in our office in our studio in downtown Asheville. But over the past year, we've totally revamped what we've done. My wife and I, my family moved into a new house and we were talking about how I built out a studio here in my office.

It looks beautiful. Hey, I hope to see it sometime.

Yeah, absolutely. But man, the audience is in For a treat today, as I was saying in the introduction, Hannah, you and I got introduced through the real estate investing world in Asheville. And I had no idea how young you were. And when we met, I remember asking you, which you're not supposed to ask women. But then when you told me your age and what you did, I was like, you have got to come on our podcast and share your story and what you're doing with our audience. We've got some exciting news about your new book that's coming out later this month. We're going to tell the audience all about that, too. But before we get into that, please share with the audience a little bit more about your background, your story, how you got to the point where you are today.

Absolutely. Well, my story, as you know, Chris, is my family background's a little untraditional, but as you mentioned, I am a 23 year old gen Z. And if we look back at what I consider the beginning of my story, it was when I was 12. And my dad, as as many investors here know in the, in the Asheville north community, has been in real estate for, oh, gosh, 22, 23 years, pretty much ever since I can remember. And I remember one day, 12 years old, and back in, you know, that time period, you still went door to door to collect rent from your tenants, right? So I was in the back of his blue pickup truck and we're bouncing down the highway. It's a hot day. I'm a studious student, you know, sitting in the back of the truck, trying my homework done. And my dad, out of the blue, just randomly hands me his cell phone and he says, hey, Hannah, phone's ringing. The guy at the end of the wants to sell his house and you're going to close the deal. And I just remember being freaked out of my mind. Right. I mean, you have kids, can, you know, I'm sure you've really pondered this crazy idea that my dad had for me. But he handed me that phone. I had no clue what I was doing, and I took it just because I trusted him. And I fumbled through this call, but sure enough, two weeks later, we had the house under contract and parents actually still own it. It's a duplex. Yeah. So that was kind of my first introduction to the world of business and entrepreneurship. And really ever since then, you know, fast forward two years from, from that experience, I ended up enrolled in online college when I was 14 and graduating. Yeah. Yes. Well, here, Chris, I'm sure you're not thinking maybe along the same lines but you're probably considering, like, what are some alternate options for my kids besides, you know, traditional.

Absolutely.

That's a very Gen X parent thing to do, which I absolutely love. But my parents, you know, really encouraged me and my six younger siblings to think, what are some alternatives to traditional college? So I ended up enrolling in online college when I was 14 and graduated with my Bachelor in International Business at 18. So here I am. You know, I just flew through college because I just wanted to get, you know, a business degree, get it out. I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur, but I needed to get some experience in the corporate world first. So I actually did up working with a wonderful company here in Asheville, Biltmore Estate. And I.

A lot of people know that even if you're not from Asheville.

Yes. It's amazing how just the brand is brand is actually an international brand, which, you know, many of us locals take for granted. So because of the influence of the brand, you know, all these leaders would come to Biltmore, to the estate and the winery, and get the incredible guest experience. And then they would ask Biltmore's leaders, how do you do this? You know, how do you create such incredibly happy and engaged employees? So I actually joined a division of the company at 18, where I went out and with other Biltmore leaders and consulted healthcare companies, financial services companies, real estate companies in how to take that employee engagement from Biltmore and transfer their business. So, you know, here I am at 18. I found myself sitting at the bar, usually with my sparkling water because I couldn't drink. And I'm sitting there with my sparkling water, talking with all these incredible leaders from the boomer generation and from Gen X. They all asked me this question all the time of what is the problem with you millennials? I'm the only young person sitting in the room.

That's that question.

So they were asking me, why can't I retain you? You're so hard to find. Why do you want six month maternity leave the second you walk in the door? What is your problem? And what was interesting, Chris, is I didn't really find myself resonating with a lot of the challenges that these leaders were sharing with me. And I saw many of my fellow 20 to 25 year olds entering the workforce, and they didn't really exhibit the same habits either. So it begged the question, why am I so different from these millennials that all these leaders were speaking about? So I did my homework, I went back home and I started researching my generation. Why is Gen Z so very different. And so fast forward to the present day. I have had a wonderful journey of now five years of researching Generation Z and speaking with hundreds of leaders and Gen zers from across the country, actually also in the UK and Australia, so a little bit of international presence there. And really at the culmination of this, I realized, you know, leaders asking me so many questions about how do I recruit and attract, retain and engage the best and brightest Gen Z talent. I said, why not write a book? You know, why not put this out there and help more leaders gain access to this information? So I now have the privilege. My book is coming out and this month, later in the month, it's really exciting for me. It's called A Leader's Guide to Unlocking Gen Z and it will be out soon. But really, you know, my passion and my work is seeing companies take these principles and use them. Competitive advantage. You know, the companies right now who are getting ahead of the talent curve and understanding Gen Z are positioning themselves to be the greatest competition in 10 to 15 years.

Yeah. No, that's awesome. And what struck me, Hannah, and it was really interesting going back a little over a year ago, before the pandemic, actually, maybe it wasn't even that far, but I started getting phone calls, I started getting connected with all these individuals. And like I said, I asked you how old you were, and it was because I'm in this string. And I asked a couple people and they said, I'm 23. And then I hired somebody. He was 23. He's one of the best hires I've ever made. Another individual, he's 23. Another young lady, she's in the real estate business here in Nashville as well. 23. I'm thinking, what is going on? So when you told me you were 23, I was like, what is up with this? There really is a difference. So for people that are listening and they hear baby Boomers, they hear Gen X, which I'm a Gen Xer. What's interesting is my sister's only a few years younger. She for sure is a millennial. Do you mind telling the audience I'm thinking like Gen Xers, we're in our 40s right now. We're baby boomers. Most people know they're in their 50s and 60s. Right. Where's the cutoff between Gen X, millennials and Gen Z?

Yeah, let's break it down. So if you have an employee or child who Is between ages 9 and 25, they are likely a Gen Z. If you've is generally 2540, roughly. And then of course, there's the generation after Zers, which we're not yet talking about, but that's generation Alpha. So way to distinguish, if someone you know is on that bridge, maybe they're 24, 25, 26, something like that. But the real way to distinguish, if they're truly, you know, which category they're in, is to ask them, did 911 significantly influence your childhood?

Interesting.

And if they say yes, they're likely a millennial. You know, I was three when 911 happened. I don't remember anything about it. I don't remember where I was standing. I don't even remember my parents mentioning anything about it to me until much later. So what influenced me more, as you know, if you think about socioeconomic or political factors, was more domestic terrorism, it was school shootings or the economic instability from 2008, recession and Covid most recently. So if you're trying to decide, does my child fall which category? If they're kind of on that line, talk to them a little bit about what influenced you when you were growing up.

No, that's a great shortcut. So did 911 significantly affect your childhood? And it's interesting if you look at the generations and you look at the 60s, how they affected the baby boomers, you look at our generation and we talk about mtv, Gen X, the MTV generation. You look at millennials, and I look at my kids, my youngest boy's nine. So it looks like they're probably on the cusp of both my boys. So I'm really interested to seeing how that is. What's interesting, we were talking before the show and there's some stuff, and I'm not going to steal your thunder here, but there's some things that really, to me, were kind of counterintuitive when it comes to Gen Z. So I'd love for you to give the audience a bit of a sneak peek into your book and talk about how do you determine. First, we talked about some shortcuts. How do you determine who's a Gen Z versus millennial? And then really what traits separate them from millennials? And I'd love to talk about how business owners, how hiring managers like myself could have used these strategies in our businesses to really attract talent and help not only the employees, but also the businesses grow.

For sure. For sure. So let's get broad ranging for a second and talk about five key distinctions between the generations. And then we can, we can get into some actionable steps. Cause I bet that most readers and most listeners here are probably thinking, you know, oh gosh, I just, you know, modified for millennials. You know, we just got that going, that talent strategy and now there's another generation. You know, where do I start? I actually want to take a second before we jump into this and say I've actually developed a pulse check for anyone listening to this show that if you go to my website, you can basically take this short pulse check, this, you know, assessment to understand where are you right now in your talent strategy? You know, where do you need to focus? Because there's so many things, you know, you could talk about attracting Gen Z or recruiting or retaining or engaging. There's kind of, you know, those four broad categories. But you may be thinking as a business, where am I already doing well, you know, where, where's the team excelling and then where am I not? So if you're not driving right now, take a second and go to Hannah G. Williams.

And we'll put this in the show notes.

Hannah G. Williams.com Hannah G. Williams.com I put it up her name, Chris. So we'll just do Chris Larson. So just go there to the show notes and there'll be that pulse check and you can really gauge, you know, which of these areas are you doing well in and which ones are areas of focus you should be thinking about.

Awesome. I'm checking that out right after we're done.

Yeah, absolutely. So let's dive into these five areas because what I did in the book Karisa, this, this will be helpful for any leader. I did a lot of research upfront before writing this book to see, you know, what type of tool is the most helpful to a mid level manager or even a founder of a business who really wants to get practical with Gen Z. So I broke it into 29 critical areas. Each chapter is very short. You know, it's four or five pages and then at the end of every chapter there's an exercise where you can take what you learned in the chapter and immediately make steps in the positive direction.

So I like that.

I know a lot of teams who've called me about this are taking their entire team using it as like a 29 week study where they'll read a chapter a week and then take the action steps, you know, a Tuesday morning meeting or whatnot. That way we're not just talking theoretically right now about, you know, five key differences. It's nice to know about them, but what do you actually do with the information? And that's, that's what the book is for.

Awesome. Awesome. All right. So let's dive in. Five key distinctions.

Let's do it. So the first and really a primary way of thinking that just that differentiates Millennials from Gen Zers is that millennials were raised to think about the world in a very ideal fashion versus Gen Z was raised to be pragmatic. So what I mean by that. And Chris, I know you're a testament as parent to this because if you think back to my story with my dad and him handing me this phone and closing a real estate deal, he really taught me. And many Gen X parents have taught their Gen Z' ers to be very pragmatic when it comes to how the world functions. So our thinking, you know, in our thought process as Gen Z', ers, we're kind of trained to see the world is our oyster. You know, we have a lot of opportunity, but it's going to take work and effort to get there. The world is challenging. We've seen, you know, I've seen myself as a business owner and other Gen Zers, I certainly seen this, that if you try to start an online business, it's competitive, you know, there. It's not like you can just start something up and it's, you know, subscribers in a month, you know, and the world doesn't work in an easy way. And I think that that's a very important distinction to know when you're, when you're coaching or mentoring. Gen Z is unlike millennials. And I know many listeners who managed millennials have probably run into this. The reason the stereotype about, you know, snowflaking or whatnot exists is as millennials were raised to be very idealistic. Right. Their boomer parents were very positive about the world saying, you know, you can do anything, find your happiness, find your bliss, which many, you know, many of those things are very positive ways to approach the world. But of course, when reality hits you, you're likely to be disappointed. And I think that's what happened with Millennials is many of them thought that the world would be easier than it, and now they're, they're seeking, you know, whatever it is, a job or relationship or whatnot that fits this perfect mold of what they think they should be, have or be entitled to have.

Yeah.

So I think that that distinction, the two is huge. You know, if you're, if you're managing a Gen Z er, they're likely going to approach work with a potentially their work ethic. I know you've seen that with the, you know, the 23 year olds that you've been Hiring, like you mentioned, there's just a different way of looking at the world that Gen Zers seem to have.

Yeah. And I've seen it. There's like a different work ethic there. It's like they're more apt, I've noticed, to put in the work up front and be more accepting of failures or be a little more patient as well. I agree 100% with what you say. I've seen millennials a little more idealistic, and if something doesn't work out, they say, ah, this isn't working out for me. I want to do something different. And you think, man, Simon Sinek has a great video talking about patience. He's talking about millennials. He's like, I'm talking to this young lady and she's really disappointed. She feel like she hasn't been making an impact in this organization and they're not recognizing her for the contributions, and she thinks she's going to leave. And Simon says to her, well, how long have you been there? And she says, three months.

Yep.

So it's, it's interesting, that small, that difference, and it comes with just a very, very subtle difference in years. So we're going to keep rolling through these. So that was the first key distinction. What is the second one, Hannah?

Yeah, so the second is that Gen Z. Gen Z. Although the assumption and the stereotype is already there. Gen Z is not tech lovers. We are tech natives, not tech lovers.

That blows my mind.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, what is the stereotype? You think of all the Gen Zers constantly on their phones, families sitting around the table, everyone's on their phones, no one's talking. And yes, those things exist for sure. But to draw the distinction between Gen Z and Millennials were kind of put into a position where they stumbled into technology. Right. So they grew. Social media came its way. They didn't really know what to do with it in a lot of ways, and they had to figure it out. Gen Z has been born into technology, but for us, even though, you know, yes, the teenagers exist and we use our phones all the time. You know, we're. We're constantly either connecting with people or on social media or networking or sending emails, whatever it might be, we don't love technology. We love what it does for us, but we view it as a means to an end. So, you know, if you think about, like, being. I don't know about your generation, Chris, but certainly my grandparents, for them, you know, walking down the street after school one day, you know, picking up a piece of pie from their neighbor, neighbor's house, sitting on the porch for a five minute conversation that was very typical for their generation. So if you can think about that type of mentality and apply it to technology for Gen Z, you're going to get a good grasp of how we view it. So it's something we take for granted, it's something spec. And if companies are behind the times in it, we notice, however, we don't love it. So here is how it flushes itself out in recruiting. As a specific example, when Gen Zers were surveyed and asked where you go to find jobs, like when you're thinking about looking at a company or at an industry, where are you going for your job search? What percent of them said they're looking on social media?

I'd say 90%, you think?

Right? Yeah, 32.3%.

That's why I said it's totally counterintuitive.

So it is so. And in fact, social advertising, at least for careers, for Gen Z is not effective.

So how about that?

Where they are going, and this is what 61.9% said, is they're going to friends and family and referrals. We would much prefer to have that face to face, high touch, personalized connection with someone in order to trust a company. So that is a huge distinction. We're also first generation, actually. Well, not the first generation, but since it's been happening. And this is in high contrast to millennials who is into career centers and job fairs in staggering numbers instead of clicking the apply button.

Wow. And I love to hear that because I think that's one of the best things I learned when I was looking for a job was I give this advice today, go find somebody that knows somebody within that company and work with them. And maybe because I'm a pragmatist, so that's, that's really interesting. So tech native, pragmatic.

Native pragmatic. Number three is that Gen Z, unlike as many millennials, is open to non traditional education paths.

And I love that too.

I mean the world is changing, right? I mean we're talking now with, especially with the job market the way it is about how do we create talent instead of hire talent. Right? And Gen Z is the perfect generation to focus those efforts on because if you think about it, other generations are. There's this embedding mentally that you have to, you know, have a degree or at least you have to have a bachelor's and then you're pursuing your master's as a way to grow. Gen Z doesn't think that way, you know, if you think about my story is actually not very unsimilar to many, many, many Gen Zers out there who are learning from TikTok. You know, they're able. I mean, take real estate as an example. You've got people like Dan Isles, who's a Gen Z, or himself who's in Alaska investing in rental properties, using banks in the US and these other Gen Zers are. He's got, I believe it's almost 900,000 subscribers, and they're going and learning from him on TikTok. You know, I mean, it's fighting.

Yeah. What's crazy is my nine year old, you know what he wants to be? He's like, oh, I want to design cars. I want to be an engineer. I'm like, well, you probably have to get aerospace to design cars when you're my age. But then you know what his second career choice is, Hannah? He wants to be a YouTuber. And it's wild. It blows my mind. So I see that. And the things that they learn, my sons learn off of YouTube. They'll tell me stuff. I'm like. I was like, oh, did you learn that in school? No, I watched this guy on YouTube and they're learning about dinosaurs and history, and it's phenomenal. And in a lot of ways, it's better than school, which. That's another conversation which I know we've got into a little bit here. So we're more than halfway through these differences. And I mean, I feel like we could do a show on every one of these, but you said there's five, and we're only through number three so far.

Yes. So number four is that Gen Z is actually very similar to the Gen Z generation before Boomers, which was the silent generation in terms of our loyalty. So we're. And again, the. The oldest gen is 25. So we have yet to see exactly how this will play out. But if you think about the distinction between Gen Z and millennials, Gen Z is more loyal than millennials were. Millennials were job hoppers. Right.

You know, it's hard not to be more loyal than a millennial, though, to be fair.

Fair enough. Fair enough. Millennials held, on average 7 to 10 jobs by the time they were 30 versus Gen Z.

Really?

Yes. Yeah, it's. It's astounding. Gen Zers are showing that, well, at least 61% are saying that they would prefer to stay with a company for 10 or more years if the culture and the people they work with are in alignment with what they Need.

Wow. So there you go.

Yes. So you have basically a generation who think back to understand back to the economic influences of what we've grown up with. If we've had two economic recessions in our short lifetime already, they're so in need of stability in our life that if an employer can offer that stability in benefits or a salary or learning and development or mentorship, if we are offered those items in a workplace, then we are very likely going to pay. Because unlike Millennials, we didn't grow up with this idea that we had to find our bliss. We will instead want to grow with a team and actually learn things from them. So I would say, you know, and again, coming back to talent strategy, if you've built your talent strategy around Millennial job hoppers, then stop for a second and think about what this means for your company. Because on one hand, what it means is you have something to look forward to, but on the other hand, what it means is you have to do an exceptional job at creating a culture and management and leadership styles that resonate with Gen Z. Because Gen Z, while we're the most loyal, we're also much more picky and selective than even Millennials were. We expect, you know, personalization. We expect high standards.

Sounds like my wife. She's very picky, very selective, very loyal. Your wife's not Gen Z. I don't know. She's actually terrifically loyal. We've been together 20 years, so I'm kind of joking. But, no, I'm very fortunate in that. So that is fascinating. And let's pause for a second. So if you're a company and you've spent the last 10 years really trying to cater towards Millennials to attract that talent, and now how do you straddle the two? How do you balance that, Hannah?

So this comes down to what you're trying to accomplish, Right? So if you're talking about recruiting, then I would say you're going to need messaging that is different for each of these offices. You know, if you're targeting Gen Z, we need to get intentional about what that messaging looks like. One actually great example of this is if you look at military recruiting over the past several decades, you're going to notice that the advertisements change heavily between generations. So the type of messaging that resonated with Millennials was very team focused. Come join this greater mission of this team that accomplish xyz. But the messaging for Gen Z, and this actually brings us into point 5 of the distinctions, is very much focused on the individual. So Gen Z is very Individually minded, we are not team minded. This can come with a lot pros and a lot of cons, but it's important to note that. So back to your point, Chris. If you're looking at recruiting, I would highly suggest, if you are a business with recruiting resources, to separate the messaging when you're trying to reach Gen Z versus Millennials. But when it comes to, you know, communication in the workplace and engagement, having this awareness and this knowledge of what distinguishes the generations, I'm hopeful will give leaders a tool so that when you sit down that first week as a manager with your staff, you'll be have a different sort of conversation with your Gen Z than you would with your millennial hire and meeting those needs. I would strongly suggest to leaders that if you have the tools in your toolbox, whether it's the discussion today or hundreds of other resources that I include in the book from other phenomenal brains on this or on LinkedIn or on my website, you can take a look because there's many people who are talking about the different nuances of Gen Z versus Millennials in terms of how they consume goods. A lot of that applies to, you know, how you have better conversations with, with the two generations. So I would say all of this, of course, down to the fact that we're all human and we all have core needs and those don't change no matter what the generation is. You know, we all want to be seen, heard, and, you know, have a purpose. Those don't change. But what does change is that, you know, what we've grown up with and the political factors and the economic forces that have shaped us. So in talking about, you know, retention, I would say this comes down to the individual. So fill your with as many tools and resources as possible so that when you have that conversation with them and are mentoring these Gen Zers or millennials, you can mentally switch between the two and straddle those two, to use your words, straddle the two generations and meet them where they are.

I think that's great. And I was being in sales for almost 20 years, actually more than 20 years. If you kind of go back to my first job when I was 12, actually a little bit younger than that, if you count the trash I used to collect at our local beach. But we talked about different personality types. And it doesn't mean that you convey different information, it's just the way you convey that information. And I think that's the important thing. If you understand that this is a layer on top of the way you communicate with somebody treating them as an individual, who they are, where they came from, their background, but also what their generation is and what probably is important to them and resonates with them. This can be very valuable. Hannah. Like I said, I mean this is so fascinating to me. I know a lot of listeners are thinking like I want more. So your book is coming out here just in a couple of weeks. I was fortunate enough to check out your cover as you were selecting the COVID So I can't wait to get my own copy and read this. What's the best way for the audience to connect to you again? We're going to put your HannagWilliams.com page up in the show notes. What's the best way for audience to get your book and stay in touch with you?

Yes. So go to that unique link, the hannahgwilliams.com chrislarson and be a link to order or pre order the book depending on when you're listening to the episode. You'll also find links on there to my LinkedIn page where you can follow me. I post three tips a week for leaders on how to better attract, recruit, retain and engage Gen Z Talent and really become a community of people who are having better conversations about bringing radical empathy into the workforce between generations that the movement that I'm leading. So come be a part of it. Reach out to me personally. You can do that on my website. I am happy to help in any way that I can and you know, point you in in the direction of resources or software or whatever that can help you with the specific needs you have when it comes to Gen Z Talent.

Hannah, I've been waiting to have you on the show for over a year now. It's been awesome talking to you, awesome connecting again. I can't wait to read your book. Thank you so much for sharing all this with our audience.

Thank you for having me Chris.

Hey Chris, here again. I hope you found this episode valuable. Now I have one more thing to gift you. We have a page for my coaching clients where you can get a free copy of my book as well as much more from previous guests on the show. Just check out nextlevelincome.com coaching to get a free copy of my book, audiobook and much more. I'll send you a copy of my book and cover all the shipping costs as a thank you for listening to the podcast. Also please like share and take just 90 seconds to give us a rating on Apple Podcasts.