Dan Negroni, CEO of LaunchBox365, discusses how businesses must adapt to rapid change. He highlights a $10 trillion wealth transfer coming to 4.5 million family businesses, and explains what millennials actually want at work: continuous learning, honest feedback, authenticity, and purpose.
Dan Negroni is the CEO of LaunchBox 365. LaunchBox365.com is the website. He got named as Inc. Magazine's top 100 leadership speakers of 2018, and of course he talks about the world of millennials, everything except for millennial investing. I gotta introduce you to Christina Guston from UBS. She's a millennial investment expert. You guys need to get together.
Yeah, UBS is a client. We trade with them.
Well, maybe that's where she's sending me all her information from. Um, let's talk about the book Chasing Relevance. Why the name Chasing Relevance and how does that intersect with what you're teaching people and corporations?
Um, relevance is connection currency. You talk about currency here on the show and being relevant is about providing value to other people. And the world is changing so rapidly and many of us, more seasoned people, are really trying to figure out what are the new rules of the game as well as all the young people. And so it's, Are you chasing it or are you finding it and giving it?
I like to be Mr. Silver Liner Guy, but I have to ask this question because you said something in the last segment that was significant. You said something like there's 90,000. We got a, we got a 73,000-page tax code. We're coming up on tax time. There's how many employees? 90,000.
90,000.
And 2%, you said?
4%. I think it's like 9.
What is the danger of, you know, a mass retirement coming with an untrained workforce? Not necessarily. Untrained in the skills of accounting per se for the IRS as an example, but unskilled with dealing with a labor force that's so technologically advanced in a world of 8-track tape players, because that's really what's happening here. You've got a bunch of iPhone X guys moving into the IRS, which is still working on a reel-to-reel tape deck. What is the danger there for us?
It's like explosive, I think. Worse than Donald Trump's mouth. So without getting political, but there's a big problem that's coming down the pike and we need to figure out what the answers are. If you ask any one of your listeners that has a business, what would be their challenge? Sure. If they left, or what would they do, and what's their succession plan? Like, you— I mean, even with wealth, if you look at the amount of wealth that's going to transfer in the next 10 years, I think it's like $10 trillion.
And that will— that— and will— that'll change the way we live our lives here.
4.5 million businesses will go from one generation to another generation. Wow. It's like, "Yikes, we better watch out." If—
so whether you love him or hate him, President Obama, who had maybe the worst economy in the history of any president, in fact, by the numbers, he was the worst economy. One thing he did do, which I applaud, is he deployed the youth. Not since the Nixon era was the youth deployed in politics as it has been in the last 8 years. My kids were— I wasn't interested in— I mean, I voted in 1980, but I wasn't interested in politics. I knew, "Hey, I got to vote. I was 18 years old. It's time for me to vote." With respect to the kids, my kids even were in debating in high school and in college, and that's a great thing. So the fact that they're deployed into politics also means they're deployed into things like listening to good podcasts and they're not getting their information on terrestrial television. In fact, our biggest consumer of the U2 America Club and the Biz TV Club, which are our digital platforms, are millennials. It's not 60-year-olds that are sitting on their butt on the couch watching us at night. So how do you translate that into the workplace? Is it just a technology question again?
Well, I think they consume information completely differently, as you said, the path at which they get it. I'm not, they were indoctrinated into the discussion on politics, but in the last election, kind of fell asleep. I think the statistics are most millennials did not vote. Right. 'Cause they were a little bit apathetic.
But they were pissed though.
And they got a big opinion about it, right? Yes, they sure did. We know that. And so marches and so on and so forth. And so I think they're learning to take it back. Especially with Parkland and what's going on. And I think they care a lot. They need us to guide them, to help them mature into the world and figure it out. Like Oprah said about the Parkland, they need to create a movement. So just voices, they need us to help them figure out what's the system. They don't get how to create systems, but they have a big voice and a big care about charity, philanthropy, all those things.
If I were to ask you as, a businessperson, you CEO at the top of even your business where you're hiring millennials, what do they want? Because you and I wanted $50,000 a year, we wanted a 4-bedroom house, we wanted to live in suburbia and wanted to go on vacation and retire at 55. I would argue that they don't want what we wanted back then.
No, they want experiences really. I mean, in life they want experiences. We see the way they consume things. They're not thing people, they're experience people. What they want in the workplace are 4 things. They want the number— do you know what the number 1 thing they want in the workplace is?
I'm going to say like my kids, they wanted more sleep. Food, money, and booze.
Okay, so no, no, no, no, no.
Okay.
The real thing they want in the workplace, in all seriousness, is to be able to learn and grow. They want to create mad skills to be able to do something.
That's opposite of the entitled lazy millennial.
It's not true.
Wow.
I'm just telling you it's not true.
Okay.
If you teach them, you will own them and they will stay longer than a boomer would stay for you because a boomer's out the door for the 4 bedrooms and the car.
Sure.
And they're there for the experience and the learning so they can give back. Number 2 thing they want is authenticity. They want to be told the real deal. They want to be coached the right way. Number 3 thing they want is feedback and communication and a dialogue. Many of us think it's too much, but hey, that's what life is and relationships are. And the 4th thing they want is purpose. Purpose and giving back and contribution.
Dan Negroni for president.
Did you hear that?
Don't chase relevance, find it. Chasing Relevance, buy the book. By 2025, all I know is we're going to make up 75% of our employees and customers. Launchbox365.com.
Dan Negroni will tell you how to get there.
Also buy his book, Chasing Elvis.
Dan, thank you, buddy.
I appreciate it.
It's great to have you in the studio.
All right, that does it for us for today. Chris Janickis, our director. Jared Coleman, our executive producer and our assistant director today. Curtis Matovich, our keeper of keys, our floor cameraman, our director of floor, uh, whatever, composer of music. Let's say hi to our guys back in Dallas, Texas, who handle all of our networks, including YouTube America. Chris Talker, Biz TV, American Force Radio Network, 9 Heartbeat. 'Til tomorrow!
