Bailey Canning: Welcome back to the Business Talks podcast, everyone. My name is Bailey Canning. I am your host, and this week I am joined by Steven Semple.
Bailey Canning: Steven, welcome to the podcast.
Stephen Semple: I'm excited to be here, Bailey. Thank you for inviting
Bailey Canning: me. Yeah, I'm excited to have this chat with you because we talked before this and it's definitely a very interesting conversation to be had. So I've been looking forward to it all day, pretty much. Before we get into that though, why don't you just give the audience a brief background on your career to date, start wherever you would like to start.
Stephen Semple: Yeah, so I'm I'm a partner in an advertising agency right now called the wizard of Ads. And before that I sort of had kind of a securist. You know, rude. I worked as a portfolio manager for a period of time here in Canada on Bay Street, which is, you know, our version of our version of Wall Street, no.
Stephen Semple: Canadian. So it's, so, it's smaller. And before that, I, you know, I graduated from university with a degree in in business with a, with a major [00:01:00] in marketing. And, and while a lot of my focus is marketing, I, I really consider myself first and foremost, you know, a business strategist and business consultant.
Stephen Semple: Cause what we're gonna be talking about today is a little bit off the beaten track from a marketing perspective, but I actually believe is a bit of a marketing problem. .
Bailey Canning: Totally. Yeah, I agree a hundred percent as well. So before we get into all that, I think just to set the stage for this conversation, it would be beneficial to discuss kind of like these changing labor force and market dynamics that are kind of causing the shifts that I think we've all seen essentially since the pandemic started with two, three years ago.
Bailey Canning: People especially in Western countries, at least have different views of teams on. And kinda like the role of work in their life and in society. And so that's what we're gonna be talking about today. So why don't you just kind of to set the stage for this conversation, discuss kind of some of these changing dynamics in the labor force and people's changing views towards
Stephen Semple: work.
Stephen Semple: Yeah. And, and one of the things I wanna mention is, what got me thinking about this as a, as an [00:02:00] issue is I work with clients in all sorts of industries and I would hear them all say, Hey Steve, you don't understand we've got this problem because we're plumbers, or we have this problem because we're in the RV business, or we have this problem because we're a high tech company.
Stephen Semple: And where I, this really jumped out at me the most. A little over a year ago, I had the opportunity to, to go on a speaking tour in Europe and I was speaking at London Stock Exchange and Oxford and Cambridge University. And of course there was people from North America and also Europeans. And there's one point where I'm standing there and I'm, and there's a conversation where there's a couple of you know, Be a Canadian, an American, somebody from Denmark, somebody from France and all saying the same thing.
Stephen Semple: Hey, what's unique about our situation is we have this shortage of workers. And that got me thinking going, well, hold on a second. I'm hearing this from all industries and I'm now hearing this from all [00:03:00] countries. What the heck is up with this? So I started, I started to do some research and what I found that's really interesting, , there's something that has changed in the marketplace because we've been used to this 70 year trends for the last 70 years.
Stephen Semple: What has happened is that every year our workforce has grown. So when we go back to the 1950s, first thing happened was, you know, people returning from the war. So all of a sudden the labor force grew 1960s we had massive immigration cuz again, Europe was still rebuilding from the wartime efforts in the, in the fifties and sixties.
Stephen Semple: So we had a lot of, you know, a lot of positive I immigration into, into North America. And then, you know, we move into the seventies and what we started having happen was women. Entering the workforce and the front end of the baby boomers were now of [00:04:00] working age and they started entering, you know, the workforce.
Stephen Semple: And really when we take a look at this trend, decade by decade, by decade, what all of a sudden happened in 2020 due to, you know, women have now fully integrated into the workforce. Baby boomers are now actually the meaty part of the baby boom is starting to retire. That what actually has happened is our workforce stopped growing, workforce stopped growing, and when we look forward, our workforce is actually gonna start contracting in size due to this demographic tread look, the baby boomers have had an impact at every stage of the cycle.
Stephen Semple: We're gonna actually start seeing a, a, a decline in the size of the workforce, especially when you take a look at, we're not having as many babies as we used to have. Look, when I was a kid, it was not, you know, I, I have three [00:05:00] siblings, so there was four kids that was not an unusually sized family. Now somebody said, yeah, boy, we've got four kids.
Stephen Semple: You go, holy smokes. That's a big family,
Bailey Canning: right? Totally. Yeah. So I just wanna kind of drill down into the problem. Cause I think it's central for people to understand the problem before we can talk about like solutions. So you kind of talk about right there demographics, like birth rate and now we're just essentially not.
Bailey Canning: Having enough kids people of age to have kids to replace the retiring people in the workforce. Is that correct? And is there anything else that's contributing to this problem other than just like demographics and birth rates? Well,
Stephen Semple: and that's what's making it a long-term problem. So not only is it a problem today, but it's also gonna be a problem for the next 20 or 30 years.
Stephen Semple: Cuz if you look at, if you look at the number of children coming in, like, you know, it takes, takes 25 years. Build a worker, right? So if we look forward, it, it, that birth rate is what's gonna perpetuate, perpetuate the problem. The other challenge that we have is a lot of people will say, well, we can [00:06:00] just ramp up immigration.
Stephen Semple: Well, the challenge with relying on immigration to solve this problem is that this shortage of workers is also existing in pretty much all of the industrialized countries. This is true for Japan, this is true for, for France, for Germany, for all of Eastern Europe. So where are those mysterious? Immigrants gonna come from.
Stephen Semple: We are now in a situation where the world is competing over a smaller pool of workers. So I think it's gonna become more and more difficult even to maintain immigration at the levels that we're looking at, at for immigration. Okay,
Bailey Canning: so like obviously like in the post-war boom, like you talked about, it was a lot of immigrants from like, you know, Ireland Italy, for example.
Bailey Canning: That's why like where I'm from in New Jersey, everyone's either like Italian American or Irish American pretty much. Right. So my first thought process would be like, obviously, you know, I would say because you know, the situation is better in those countries today in like [00:07:00] 2023, you know, Ireland. Yes. You know, Wealthy all things considered, especially where they were like a hundred years ago.
Bailey Canning: Absolutely. So there's no need for people to immigrate or immigrate from their country. But then my first thought is, well, if that's the case, can't we just go at least like the United States for example, could just pull people from like South American countries, Latin American countries. Is that like a potential solution you think?
Bailey Canning: Or it won't really solve the problem you're talking about?
Stephen Semple: Absolutely. So there are still a few countries that that ha are a good source of immigration, such as, and you're identifying it, central America, south America, Africa are still places where there are, but what I, what I feel is there's more competition for those workers than ever before because we're in this situation where, France, Italy, you know, Ireland you know, the uk all of these countries, Japan, all of these countries are saying, Hey, we need, we, we are, we are, we have a shortage of workers.
Stephen Semple: Consider this for a moment. The expectation [00:08:00] is China's population by the end of this century, is gonna be half of what it is today. So China's gonna start becoming. Competition for looking for workers like this is because it's now so much of the world. We're all competing over this shrinking pool, so I think it's gonna become more and more.
Stephen Semple: More and more difficult and, and what concerns me about it is what I keep hearing from business leaders in North America and political leaders as well is, oh, you know, it's, it's, people are staying home because they've given too much benefits. They, we all believe that there's this pool of people who are sitting at home not working.
Stephen Semple: And that's, and that's what's caused. Shortage of workers, and it's simply not true. It's the fact that people are retiring and we've accelerated it. What Covid did was accelerate it because a lot of people took early retirement, so we got it. We retired a lot of people early and that's what [00:09:00] exasperated the problem.
Stephen Semple: But the problem was still gonna happen cuz they were still eventually going to retire.
Bailey Canning: Totally. Yeah, I think you make a great point as well mentioning China, because for example, like you said, like it is crazy how like the birth or the population is, you know, projected to like be cut in half almost, I believe something like that in like the next hundred years.
Bailey Canning: Mm-hmm. . So, which is just wild for so many reasons. And on that hand, you could definitely see a situation in which the United States and China compete for labor for those like countries, which will have, you know, lots of potential immigrants to come over and. Just the fact that China's gonna be put in that necessity is going to, you know, put them in a place where they're going to be incentivizing, potentially we'll see you know, new labor to enter.
Bailey Canning: So yeah. And then also I think it is worth noting as well. Cause I was looking this morning and like the latest, at least in the United States, the like job market report came out and it showed that unemployment was at three and a half percent I believe. And like the labor force participation rate had increased to just about 63%, which I believe they were saying is like one of the highest rates.
Stephen Semple: At this point too, anybody who's sitting at home on the couch, is that really somebody you wanna [00:10:00] hire? Anyway, so, so the reality. Today, I believe one of our biggest challenges is actually gonna be finding good people as an employer. And just like at the beginning of a year or, or when we're doing our business planning, we create a marketing plan, right?
Stephen Semple: Smart businesses create a marketing plan. What is our plan for attracting customers? We have to attract new. I think we are gonna have to start putting in the same effort and the same concentration into how am I gonna attract employees? Because for me to be able to grow my business and for my customer to be able to grow his business, what, what he, what she has to do is become much more cognizant of how am I gonna attract, how am I gonna attract employees?
Stephen Semple: And I think a plan needs to be put together for that. Not just, oh, well, you know, when I need people I'm [00:11:00] gonna post my, my stuff on Indeed or whatever site and you know, we're gonna get resumes in and that's gonna be great. I actually think it's gonna be more difficult than that because the person that you wanna hire already has a job and is already working.
Stephen Semple: So now what I gotta sit there and say is, why should you work for me rather than work for Bailey? Totally. We are actually gonna be in that competition, which is no different than why should you hire, you know, me versus my competitor. It's really has become, I believe, a marketing exercise as much as it is anything else, and you need to put the same type of time and resources and effort into becoming a really attractive employer.
Bailey Canning: Yeah. And then also based on like the reports I was looking at this morning, to your point as well there, I think they still believe that there's about two open jobs for everyone looking for a job, essentially, which just goes to show you kinda like what we're talking about here. [00:12:00] So what exactly does a marketing plan look like to attract employees?
Bailey Canning: Because I think we can, you know, at least people in the marketing industry kind of understand, kinda like some general go-to marketing strategies for trying to acquire new business. But this is rarely talked about in the context. You know, hiring. So what are like some kinda like key specific things this would entail?
Stephen Semple: Yeah, I think one of the things that's gonna become really super important is gonna be social media. . You know what's really interesting is just about every company knows what his Google rankings are, but hardly anybody knows what its, you know rankings are on the hiring websites , right? Like there's a lot of hiring websites where people post, is this a good employer or not?
Stephen Semple: The other thing is what we also know, especially when we look at millennials, Them working at a place that feels like a good place to work is far more important to them than money. So what you've gotta do is look at your social media and ask yourself that, and look at it, not just from a standpoint of social media for [00:13:00] attracting customers, but social media for conveying to the world that this is a really great place to work.
Stephen Semple: Now, first of all, I'm assuming that you're a good employer. Like let's, first of all, make the assumption you're. , you're a good employer and if you're a good employer and you've created a great corporate culture, you need to share that culture. And one of the places you can share that actually is in social media and look at it from the perspective of, am I showing the world that this is a great place to work?
Stephen Semple: You know, am I showing, you know, on Wednesday morning, you know, we ha we, you know, we, we, or you know, we have, we do these odd corporate events where people have a good time post those things to the social media, show people in their day-to-day work in social media so that. When somebody sees your job posting us thinking, well, maybe I should go work for these place, and they go to check you out, they're going, you know what?
Stephen Semple: This looks like the type of place I would enjoy working. So first and [00:14:00] foremost, I think we can do a lot in social media around the whole idea of being a more attractive employer.
Bailey Canning: Okay. Got it. Yeah. I think it is cognitive for people to, to kinda like put themselves in employee's shoes because recently I was looking at like something online as well about this and it was talking about how like significant amounts of employees, I think it was something like 40 or 50% would rather not get a pay increase or take a pay cut to be able to like work from home continuing versus like coming into the office right full time, which just goes to show.
Bailey Canning: That, you know, cause I think a business's first, you know, answer to this would be like, all right, we'll we'll increase salaries and that'll take care of it, but it doesn't seem like that is going to be getting the job done anymore. So we can certainly talk about why that is. But other than social media, is there anything else you think companies should focus on to be able to attract talent?
Stephen Semple: Yeah. I actually have been doing this with, with a, a few of my customers. We've actually created a marketing budget for [00:15:00] hiring, where we've sat there and said, okay, here's what, and, and we've looked at it. in exactly the same light as you look at it for attracting customers.
Stephen Semple: So what do we do? We have a, we have a 12 month advertising campaign, cuz here's what our belief is. We're always gonna be looking for people. So we've now taken on the tact of we're always gonna be looking for people. And if somebody came in through the door today, Who we didn't have a job for today, who would be a great person will put them on the bench.
Stephen Semple: In other words, we'll sit there and say, Hey, we don't have anything right now, but could we keep in touch with you? So in other words, looking at this as being an ongoing, everyday exercise. So I have customers where we've created a 12 month advertising campaign where we are actually using mass media to.
Stephen Semple: All the time about we are hiring. It may not even be, and many of the messages are not even about a specific job, but what it is like [00:16:00] to work at our place of business and what's actually incredible is the ones where we've not talked about specific job. We're still getting job applications in these people have.
Stephen Semple: I've heard this is a great place to work. I would like to work there and, and really viewing this as an ongoing every. Exercise as important as finding more customers is finding good employees, putting it on, you know, an equal footing and putting that type of of effort into it. So creating a budget and a messaging plan for rolling out there on a continual basis and not waiting for the day.
Stephen Semple: I need a receptionist. Talking to getting ahead of it and really building that, building that awareness that, that you're a great place to. And that you're, and that you're hiring, so that, that's, that's one of the things. The other thing is, is becoming even more strategic about who [00:17:00] are you reaching out to?
Stephen Semple: Because are there industries, are there industries that I, that. Produce people and have, people have the talent I want, but maybe because of their industry. There's certain disadvantages. Let me give you an example. So I work a lot with folks in the, in the home services space and one of the things that one of my customers has done is literally targeted the hospitality industry.
Stephen Semple: Cuz here's what they found. I can train you on how to become a technician in heating and air conditioning. And what I know is customer service is a really big deal, and what I know is they train customer service really well in, you know, the restaurant industry. But here's the problem with the restaurant industry.
Stephen Semple: You have to work evenings and [00:18:00] weekends. So now what I can do is I can reach out to the restaurant industry and say, I can pay you. I can give you a professional job with career advancement. Oh, and by the way, you don't have to work evenings and weekends come work for me as a technician in heating and air conditioning.
Bailey Canning: Okay. Yeah. I like that
Stephen Semple: strategy. Yeah. And what I don't have to do is pay you more than the competitor. I'm now actually giving you a path. I'll train you, I'll bring you in, I'll train you, I'll turn you into this tech, and I'll give you a better.
Bailey Canning: Okay. Yeah, I think it's very important just to kind of look at like the larger business picture because for example, you talk about this should be an ongoing thing.
Bailey Canning: The same way that I think most businesses already realize. Obviously, that like sales and new business development should be an ongoing thing, but really the sales, along with the stuff we're talking about here, which is, you know, hiring employees be able to execute the work that you bring in through sales.
Bailey Canning: If you. Fulfill the orders that you're able to place through sales, then you're [00:19:00] gonna have this like, you know, freeze in your pipeline even after the sale where you know, customers either aren't happy or projects become very long to get done cause you don't have the right talent, in which case like profitability, like shrinks.
Bailey Canning: So I think it's like a two-sided coin. Like you need to have an ongoing sales operation to be able to bring in new business, but then you also need to. This program that you're talking about to attract talent and we'll talk about it in a second as well, but retain talent as well so that you could have a really strong team able to execute the work and ultimately have a high functioning business.
Bailey Canning: So on that note, we've talked about attracting talent. How do you think about retaining talent in this new environment? Because, you know, as any business owner knows, you know, if you spend, say you hire, you find a great employee, you hire them and then six months later it just doesn't work out even though you invested all that time in training them that.
Bailey Canning: A huge, huge Just like burden and costs that the business essentially needs to eat because they spend all that time and resources that they can't get back trying to train someone. So how do you think about retaining talent? Cuz that's a, you know, not just for the reasons why I just said of like, you know, [00:20:00] lost like some costs essentially, but also just to, you know, build a really good culture and be able to have people that can do effective work.
Bailey Canning: You really need people in the same positions for like, you know, years at a time. You know, we both work in advertising. I used to work for a couple different agencies and it seemed. One year was like the benchmark where people really kind of started setting up . And if someone was like, yeah, if someone was there for like three years, you were like, wow.
Bailey Canning: And if someone was there for five years, you're like, this is unbelievable. And I don't think I saw, there was like very few people, cause I worked at like a big corporate agency and I worked at like a small, smaller type one as well. But there were, at both those places, there were very few people who were like 10 years plus at the same position.
Bailey Canning: So how do you think. Retaining talent because at least in my generation, I'm like at the borderline between Gen Z and the millennials. But it used to be back in the day, you know, you get like a job at IBM outta college. You'd be there for 50 years and then they would give you like the gold watch or whatever.
Stephen Semple: Yeah. It just doesn't that look, that just does not happen any longer and it's gonna become tougher because when there's two open positions, right, for every person applying for thing pl look, employees are gonna start [00:21:00] figuring. , they have choice. And when they figure out they have choice and there's lots of people knocking on their door saying, come work for me, retention is gonna become even harder.
Stephen Semple: And retention is really super important. Cuz if I've already trying to hire three people, cause I got three open positions, I can't afford to lose three. Cuz now I gotta hire. . So yes, retention is gonna be, is super important. Retention is gonna be more important, and retention is gonna be more difficult. So let's put our marketing hats on.
Stephen Semple: This is not much different than attracting a customer. The most expensive marketing effort is getting a customer to buy from you the first time. And really what we wanna do is we wanna attract a customer and we wanna retain a customer. It's no different in terms of, of employee retention. So how do you retain employees?
Stephen Semple: You know what, what first and foremost is, and, and I hate using this word cause it's thrown around so much, [00:22:00] but you gotta create a good, you, you have to create a good culture. And, and, and people have gotta feel appreciated. They have to feel wanted, they gotta feel like they're part of something. And that's essentially what you've gotta do.
Stephen Semple: You've gotta be, you know, first and foremost, you've gotta be a good employer and open to creating the environment that, that your employees want. Employee cuz at the same time, you know what employees don't wanna do is be constantly looking for another job. They wanna find a place to work for that appreciates them, that they enjoy coming into the job every day.
Stephen Semple: That they have an opportunity for advancement. That's what employees want. You gotta create, you've gotta work to create that for
Bailey Canning: them. Okay. Yeah, I remember like one of my large one of my jobs at a large advertis agency, like the HR team was like kind of in charge of like planning now with like these like events, like these happy hours, these volunteering activities people could sign up for.
Bailey Canning: So I do think. , that is one way you've seen a lot of companies as well start to hire like, you know, director of [00:23:00] community or like those types of positions, like someone who's like actively trying to foster this company culture. So I do think that is a key thing that people, that companies like really need to focus on and not just pay lip service to.
Bailey Canning: I would be curious though, to get your thoughts on how can companies do this in a world in which, you know, I think at least like half the companies, these. Seem to be adopting some sort of hybrid schedule where people are in the office maybe two or three times a week, and then they work remotely the rest.
Bailey Canning: And then also there's a lot of situations where a lot of companies have just gotten like fully remote as well. So how do you think about creating company culture in a environment in which all the work is remote? Sometimes people aren't even in like the same country or the same time zone. You know, it's just a very big challenge because, you know, everything kind of starts to blend in to be the same when like, you know, whether you're we're working with one company or another company, like it's the same Slack messages, it's the same Gmail emails, you gotta answer.
Bailey Canning: So kind of things look the same in a way, if you understand what I'm saying. So how do you think yeah, companies can try to navigate this [00:24:00] in a work like a remote work world? Cause I don't think, like the Zoom Happy hours, which were very popular when the pandemic first started, they're not, are gonna like continue to get the job.
Bailey Canning: No, and, and
Stephen Semple: you know, that's a great question. That's a fabulous question. So first and foremost, one of the things you have to look at is what do your employees want and what can you do in terms of how much is remote and how much is, is bring people together. So that's a challenge all on its own. But it really becomes a big challenge.
Stephen Semple: And you're absolutely right. It becomes a really big challenge when your, when your workforce is completely remote. Huge challenge and, and what's interesting is the organization that I work, that I'm a partner in, we are all remote. I'm in Canada. We got a bunch of partners in the United States. We have people in Central and South America.
Stephen Semple: Have got a person in Australia. So how do we make ourselves feel like we're part of something? Well, part of what we do, so this is just a suggestion that won't work for everyone, but [00:25:00] part of what we do is we have a budget that is set aside every year for hosting a big partner event. So twice a year, and not everybody gets together twice a year, but you know, We get most people at least once a year.
Stephen Semple: So twice a year we have a big event. And the purpose of that event is as much as anything else. Yes, there's some educational things go on, and yes, there's some partners make presentations, but the most important thing of that event is get together, sharing time, having dinner together, having some beers together, hanging out and creating.
Stephen Semple: Connections amongst people in person twice a year, and we have a pretty big budget that we set aside to pay for really good food, really good drinks, and a really good environment for people to get together and share. Twice a year to build that [00:26:00] culture. And you have to be really purposeful about it. Cuz I think too often these corporate retreats just end up becoming long days of here's our business plan, here's our objective.
Stephen Semple: No, this is actually about getting together as people and sharing and building those bonds that then take you through the six months of Zoom. Cuz you know what? when I've sat down and I've had some fun with you at the end. You know, that's what builds those bonds.
Bailey Canning: Right? Yeah, I totally agree. And I know like for example, those corporate retreats, like you're talking about, they were around before the pandemic of course, but I think even then a lot of companies didn't do them.
Bailey Canning: I'd say maybe only like, you know, 20% perhaps would like organize something to go to like six Flags or like Disney or something like that together. I'll leave. They're in the area. So I definitely think going. that's gonna become something essential because it does get weird over time with like, you've been, you know, maybe you have a manager at a job, you've known each other for a year, and like you've never met in person, becomes kinda
Stephen Semple: like strange.
Stephen Semple: You've never, [00:27:00] yeah. You've never sat down and broke bread together. Right. Yeah. Like that. It does become, it does become weird and you've never learned about their family or their interests or things like that. And that's the, that's, and, and so what you need to do is look at these corporate events, not as, as educational business planning things.
Stephen Semple: We still need those. Those are different. What you need to actually have as events where the purpose is. All these remote people are coming together, spending time together, getting to know each other, and becoming friends. Becoming friends and true colleagues.
Bailey Canning: Totally. And so my last question for you today as we start to wrap up the conversation is I'd be curious what you think, kind of like the role of entrepreneurship plays into this entire discussion we've been having.
Bailey Canning: I feel like that's the one thing we didn't mention, which makes sense to mention now. For example, where I'm, where I'm getting with at this is that I think for a long time people thought. [00:28:00] Entrepreneurship just generally as kind of inherently risky, and I think it is, but that's also why, you know, generally as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, that is also why these people get pay tend to get paid more over time because they are taking on the risk.
Bailey Canning: And by taking on the risk, they are going to eventually, if the business is, is successful, they're going to be able to like reap the rewards. I recently thought like a study that was showing, I think the number was 74% of self-made millionaires are entrepreneurs. So I think that kind of just goes to show you and these are people who are not starting out wealthy and they become wealthy.
Bailey Canning: through entrepreneurship. So I'd be curious to know what your thoughts are on this, because in my view, I think kind of what the Pandemic Illustrated, because we initially, like when it first started, like the US stock market had crashed and like people were getting laid off. I think what it kind of illustrated the people was that the job, the nine to five job, which they went to college for and obtained expensive degrees for.
Bailey Canning: It's actually not as secure as they might have thought. Because once it's very simple, I think once it becomes clear that a [00:29:00] business needs to cut staff or let go of employees, like once the equation is in like the negative, then the employee is gone pretty much every single time. Even if like they have a great relationship with their boss because the business, it's either that's gonna happen or the business is gonna go down and everyone's gonna lose their job.
Bailey Canning: So I think people kind of, I think people kind of realize. It's not even as like entrepreneurship now is not as risky as having a regular job, but I think people realize that like it's actually like, you know, 25% less risky, for example, than they had previously thought. And that's why yes. Even when in the United States in the pandemic was like kind of, you know, early on.
Bailey Canning: You essentially every state across the board I was like at, saw like a rise of applications for like new businesses, LLCs, people starting new businesses. Even though the entrepreneur, the economic outlook was very uncertain. So I would just be curious what you make of this. Cause I think a lot of people have kind of just come to the conclusion, and this is especially true for the marketing industry which we work in, where if you're like a graphic designer or you run paid ads or.
Bailey Canning: You know, you can have, you can work for an agency, you work for a company [00:30:00] in-house, but you also have a skillset set that you can just take like directly to the market and you can get clients pretty easily. I think it's kind of similar to the way how a lot of brands, like, you know, starting like 10, 15 years ago just went direct to consumer, cut out the middleman, were able to have a superior product, or at least better product at a lower cost.
Bailey Canning: I think employees are now able, are realizing that because of the. They can essentially go direct to the client instead of working through an agency or all that type of stuff. So I'm just curious how you think about entrepreneurship playing a role in everything we've talked about today.
Stephen Semple: Well, I, I, I think all the things you said are, are, are correct that, that the, the risk of being an entrepreneur is comparative to being an employee is not as, is not as great as it has been in the past because you.
Stephen Semple: Of, of all the reasons that you've mentioned, but I think there's something else that's also interesting about the world we are in today. I also think there's another bunch of factors that makes it easier to be an entrepreneur than before. And let's take a look at the cost of being an entrepreneur. 30 [00:31:00] years ago, you were not taken seriously if you didn't have a good office.
Stephen Semple: Today we can all work from home and no one thinks that's weird. So right away that cost has disappeared. I remember 20 years ago, 30 years ago, when you went to set up a website, websites were expensive today, cheap and easy, right? Setting up phone systems was expensive. Taking payments over the web was expensive.
Stephen Semple: So the other part of all the things that it took to have a professional off a professional presence, Had a lot of additional, not only one-time costs, but ongoing costs to it. Where today, Most things are gone. It's, it's, it's, it's far easier to set up a website, a phone number, a presence, work outta your home.
Stephen Semple: All of those things are way easier and way [00:32:00] less expensive than it used to be for. So it also, that also makes it easier to be, to be entrepreneurial. And then, you know, you look at some of these, these Services that you can tie into to help sell your products and services is, is ma has made it easier, has made it easier as well.
Stephen Semple: So yeah, I think it is a, it, it is, there's never been a time in the history of mankind where, where it's, it has been easier to set up your own business than it is today.
Bailey Canning: Yeah, I agree. This is definitely like the golden age of entrepreneurship. Even if there are like, you know, certainly challenges with like the economic environment like we've been talking about
Stephen Semple: today.
Stephen Semple: And there's always gonna be challenges. Look, entrepreneurship is hard. It's not to say that entrepreneurship isn't hard. It's hard, it's challenging. You have to work hard at it. There's lots of things you need to do. It's not all, it's, you know, it's not all unicorns and rainbows, but at the same time, it's easier than it's ever been.
Bailey Canning: Totally. I agree. So Steven, I think this has been a great conversation. Is there any [00:33:00] final thoughts or any resources you wanna point people towards as we close out the interview here? Because if so, I will link those in the show notes for people to check out.
Stephen Semple: Yeah, so there's, there's a short little book that I, that i, I put together.
Stephen Semple: So I'll I'll, that, that, that people can certainly that I sent you a PDF of that they certainly can reach out to, to yourself or myself that really walks through this whole demographic. Paul walks through this whole demographic argument. So there, there's that resource, there's that, that resource for them.
Stephen Semple: But the other thing is, is, is if people are gonna go down the path of entrepreneurship, I, I, I think it's always really, really good to read a number of books and go attend courses and whatnot around. Marketing and advertising, whether it's, whether it's resources that you have, whether it's resources I have, it's because I think one of the mistakes that people make is just setting up the shingle is not enough.
Stephen Semple: You have to have a plan to become known one, [00:34:00] and there's lots of resources out there. Totally. For those things. Yeah.
Bailey Canning: Awesome. All right. Well, Steven, this has been a great conversation. I appreciate you taking the time out to make an appearance and we'll be sure to keep in.
Stephen Semple: Super. Thank you, Bailey. I've enjoyed it.
