Why Continuing Education? - PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Jon Gardner from Owens Corning. You can read the interview below or watch the webinar.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Hello, and welcome to RoofersCoffeeShop Lunch & Learn. This is the program for you. Everyone in the office, in the company, whether it doesn't matter where you're at, we are bringing continuing education to you over your lunch hour. But this week we're really excited. Because this week we're going to be talking about continuing education, and how important it is for your company. So we have invited our very dear friend, Jon Gardner from Owens Corning, to talk to us today about continuing education, and the esteemed and leading Owens Corning University. Jon, welcome to our Lunch & Learn.

Jon Gardner: Thank you, Heidi. So great to see you. And thanks again for the opportunity to connect with you and all the folks that utilize RoofersCoffeeShop for so many great things, including continuing education. And it is funny that it's Lunch & Learn, and we're talking about Owens Corning University. So I love it. And thank you so much.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And how important it is. I know, well-

Jon Gardner: Yeah, exactly.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I want to remind everyone, get that discussion sheet, take notes as you go along, so that you can have a great conversation with your team when this Lunch & Learn is over. Jon, if you could, please introduce yourself. Tell us about Owens Corning and Owens Corning University.

Jon Gardner: So yes, my name is Jon Gardner, and I'm here with Owens Corning, and I work on the roofing side of our business. And specifically, I head up our training and development platform. It's our educational platform for our contractors and for our distributors. And then I also head up our strategic partnerships, and they have a lot to do with the trainings, and the education and the resources we bring to our contractors within our program here, the Owens Corning Contractor Network Program. So yeah, that's me. I've been with Owens Corning for just over 12 years now. And I've been in the industry, as I've shared with you before. And it seems like we're kind of on parallel paths here, Heidi, but I've been in the industry for many years, since the '90s.

So, listen, there's such great perspective when you've been in any industry for as many years as I have, and certainly as you have, and so many of the folks that are listening. And the perspective in part gives us the opportunity to reflect on, just how this industry has moved forward over the last 5, 10, even 15 years. And how dramatically it's changed with regard to what the needs are for contractors to scale and to win in their markets. And at the end of the day, it's all about learning, right? Learning new things, learning new opportunities, learning new technologies. So we are in the right place at the right time to help contractors.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: It is, it's nonstop. If you're not learning, you're not growing. So let's get to that in this Lunch & Learn for everyone out there as you have your discussion sheets out. We have three learning objectives. The first learning objective for today is why continuing education, and second one, improving your business through continuing education. And third, what to expect from an online learning system. And actually today we're going to have a fourth where we're going to learn about the Owens Corning University and how you can make it work for your business. So, let's get started with our first learning objective, Jon, which is why continuing education? And that's my question to you. Why should roofing companies be focused on continuing education for their employees?

Jon Gardner: Yeah. You know, we kind of just touched on this a little bit, Heidi. But at the end of the day the roofing industry and small business is not excluded from what it takes to scale and to grow. And that really all of that is by unpacking and learning in the areas where you might need to focus your energies to take your business to the next level. So, learning from an ownership standpoint, and learning how to utilize in some cases new technologies, is very much part of the DNA of small business owners. But as we unpack the small business, you think about, why is continuing education so important? One of the first things, and this is really coming from feedback from our contractors is, priority number one for our contractors is to stand up training and development for their employees.

And so, I share that with you, because there's two reasons, and one of them may not be as obvious to the folks, and that is, to actually get the attention of prospects or potential employees for the business. Many of them are looking for roadmaps to be able to take themselves from somebody who's just smack dab in the beginning of their career in the roofing industry, and helping them grow. And that could be on the application side, it could be on the sales side, it could be on the marketing side, it could be on any part of the business. But the reality of it is, is that owners can have a much larger return on their investment in terms of the energy that they're taking to bring in the strong employee, and secondly to retain the employees does require commitment, to help that employee continue on their growth journey with the business.

Number two is thinking about those same employees. So many times small businesses work through the challenges of how to connect the dots between A and B. And the reality of it is, is it's really all based on procedures and process. And part of the learning and development that we provide within Owens Courtney University is, helping contractors to build efficiencies in the business. And that can be translated into efficiencies with those employees. And efficiencies keep those employees at full speed. Number two, it helps the business to avoid those pitfalls that cost, are very costly in time and in money. Number three is, when you think about education, and on the roofing side, the reality of it is, is you first start thinking about how do I apply a shingle? How do I apply a roofing system? And things like ventilation.

And all those are so important, because they're foundational to the excellence of the business. But part of what we bring within Owens Corning University is looking at the holistic part of the contractor's business. And this is providing ongoing education for all areas of the business. And as I mentioned to you Heidi, part of that is giving employees opportunity to expand, and reach to new opportunities with the business. But it's also to help the owners and those folks that are leading the businesses, to stack up those efficiencies, stack up those best practices, and stack up those processes, resources, and tools to ensure that the entire business is running as efficiently as possible. And then I just mentioned this to you, but it's similar here is, providing a roadmap for the employees is absolutely essential.

And it's essential in a couple ways. One, is that it makes sure you as the owner have some sort of process in place to be able to track the progress of your employee. Or, if you're an employee in the business, it helps you be self-aware of where you're at within your scope of what you're doing in the business. But number two is, that roadmap for the owners allows them to think a year, 5 years in advance as they begin to think about, where I might want to position my business today, to enable me to scale and reach those goals that I want. And then finally, when you look at it in the business, we said this in the front end is, this industry is absolutely turned itself upside down in terms of just how technically advanced it is becoming.

So at the core, it really does start out with fantastic product, fantastic application, fantastic understanding of the principles of roofing and roofing system. But because the roofing industry, just like every other industry, is really taking on technology as the next opportunity to scale, scale faster, and be better in the business, because those things are changing at lightning pace. Part of the teachings that we bring into Owens Courting University is about that, about technology, about standing up the right tech stack, about introducing different resources that help you to build out a better business, and a better framework in the business.

So, when we think about all things and why continuing education is important, is it leads our businesses, and leads small businesses, leads our contractors into a very scalable, predictable process to continue to grow, both as a business, and as business owners, helping our employees continue to grow. Because you reap the rewards 10 to 1, 100 to 1, when you provide this to employees, they return that to you in a big time way. Which is, I'm more excited, I'm more invested in the business, I love where I might be going with this company. And they begin to bring that extra energy that helps drive and grow that business, helps them in a major way, the owners of the business, scale.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That is spot on. I mean, I love recruitment, retention, ongoing success for the business. Obviously the technology, there's so much technology when it comes to software and to running the business, and being more successful. But there's also the technology of the products that I have seen come out from, and I'm just going to say, Owens Corning, with the technology that's been put into the products to make them perform better, to protect, reduce risk. I think that continuing education, if you open that up to your employees, they will find these things and actually bring them to ownership to say, "Hey, have you seen these products? These are great. We need to make some changes."

Jon Gardner: Everything happens at the kitchen table. And to the degree that that salesperson, the representative of that company, can effectively just truly communicate the complexity of the roofing system. The reasons why those elements and those parts of the roofing system were selected for that particular homeowner. And giving the homeowner some additional knowledge as to why these particular products and systems are being applied, just absolutely help that homeowner to do a few things. One is, they begin to rest, get into their seat, and they get this thing called trust. They begin to trust you because you're providing them with the valuable information to help them, and guide them through the process of selecting who they're going to use, what they're going to use, and most importantly, why they might be using you.

So yeah, the technology of roofing products is as advanced as the technology of the businesses themselves. And for Owens Corning, it starts right there, excellence in the products, excellence in the systems. And then as we talked about, Heidi, in the beginning of this is, our objective, our commitment to our contractors is, be great there. But also be great at all of the elements of the business, and where and when we can help our contractors with that. That's what gives us energy throughout our entire sales organization, and through the business.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That leads us right into the second learning objective. Because, this is what we're talking about, improving your business through continuing education. So, when you really take the time to put this money back into your company, how does it improve and grow your business? So Jon, let's talk about that, starting with business development. How important is continuing education to business development for roofing companies?

Jon Gardner: I don't think there's anything as important than continuing education. All things considered, you're standing up the business, you put the infrastructure in place for success. But continuing education principally is the key element to continue the growth. Because without it, you don't have insight as to where I might be doing things with inefficiencies, or where I might be able to supercharge a certain part of my business that I know is going to bring me. That comes through education. And a couple of quick examples of this is, as I was mentioning before, but we measure success of the business in a couple of ways. But at the end of the day it's, how much revenue is my company providing? And on the efficiency side, or on the return is like, how much profit am I getting from the business?

And the reason why I say it that way is because, I might be meeting my revenue goals, but my profit goals are way down, because I've had to absorb a lot of inefficiencies and it's costing me on the backend. So when we think about the improving business through continuing education, you don't have to think any farther than right there at the kitchen table. Where somebody is speaking on behalf of your company about who you are, what you're going to do, and why you should be the person that should be selected, or a company that should be selected to put this roof down. I mean, this is a huge decision for homeowners. And if we bring that decision, meaning, if we lower the value of the decision, then the homeowners are going to drive price.

But if we work with that homeowner to help them understand the value of the roofing system, and why this business is the right business to choose to apply this fantastic roofing system, then the homeowner is now in a whole different sphere to be able to say, number one, "Yes." But number two is, "I appreciate your price, I understand why you have that price, and I'm ready to move forward." So thinking about sales performance with regard to improving your business is one I would walk away from in this conversation. Two is, I mentioned it to you before, is recruitment. There's nothing that drives great potential employees to a business more so than the energy that that business is providing.

That potential employee when they walk into that office and they talk to you, they talk to leaders, and they get that sense of like, "Boy, I can be part of the growth of this business." Business development is continuing to be one of those hot buttons for contractors. And when I think about business development, I think about what processes has that business put in place? Are the owners and all the employees bought into a singular way to drive success? And we utilize and partner with some of the best out there to help contractors in this space, which is help me stand up a really strong functioning healthy business. And that's through our friends at Sue Hawkes and yes, practicing EOS, teaching EOS where hundreds of our contractors have been invested at.

So that's another great example. At the end of the day, you're minimizing your risks, you're putting yourself in a position for scalable growth, and you've unearthed some of those nuisance issues in the business that you might not be aware of. And that's part of the onboarding with our area sales managers going through our business solutions, going through the resources that we have at Owens Corning University, to help you unpack areas of where you may not even be familiar with in terms of what we're providing, but marrying up those most significant issues that you're feeling in your business with what we have available.

I can assure you that there's probably not one area of the business that Owens Corning University can't help contractors stand up in a better way. We do this through our resources online, and we do it through live trainings, and we do it through the ability of our sales organization to help our contractors. And we also do it with some fantastic partners who are exclusive to Owens Corning, that are bringing some of this training to the market.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: You don't know what you don't know, right?

Jon Gardner: Right.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And so, until you actually dive in and start listening to programs, continuing education, webinars, things where all of a sudden you come away with those nuggets of, "This can really change my business. This can help me retain my employees. This can help me be more profitable." Sometimes you think, "Well, this is the way we've always done it, so it's okay," but it's not. I think you were so spot on with inefficiencies. How much money is that losing you, and how many employees is that losing you?

Jon Gardner: Well, Heidi, you have a small business.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I do.

Jon Gardner: With RoofersCoffeeShop, so you can feel all this stuff, right?

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Oh, yeah.

Jon Gardner: You know full well what we're talking about here. Our contractors who are having these interactions with homeowners, kind of go up at a whole nother level with regard to, "Look, you have one shot when you're at the kitchen table." Everything that you've built behind the scenes are supporting that salesperson, making that presentation, and providing that valuable information to the homeowner. Like every aspect of the business is right behind that salesperson. And if they're not all aligned, somewhere during that whole process, the homeowner's going to find it. And that's part of what we're trying to provide with our contractors through Owens Corning University, and through our business solutions platform, is to be able to plug those areas, or enhance those areas where the contractors, together with our sales organization decide like, "Hey, that's our point and where we want to start."

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Right. Where they can see success. Again, that leads us right into our next learning objective. And I think this is a really important one. Because sometimes, like I said, you don't know what you don't know. You don't even know what to expect from online learning systems. So, our third learning objective is, what to expect from an online learning system. Because there are good ones, and there are ones that are not so good. And so Jon, walk us through, as an employer and as an employee who's watching this, when they start doing continuing education through a platform like OCU, what are some of the things that they should expect?

Jon Gardner: Yeah. You brought up a few great things there, Heidi. And so, when we look at what contractors, owners, employees should look for from a learning management system, a learning management system is in a real way, is a place where you go to learn. And the more that you can have an experience where it's self-paced, guided, and you have a plan in place to build out your own learning experience, that stacks up an amazing opportunity for anybody who wants to get into next level learning. But let me drop back a second here because it is worth noting is, there is a tremendous amount of information out there with regard to contractors and looking on places like YouTube, for example, on the internet. Wherever you go, you're going to find something that somebody said about something to help you with your business.

And we've heard from many of our contractors that, "Look, to the extent that I know what I'm clicking on, is to the extent where I might get something out of it or I might not." My point here, Heidi is, is that, when you think about what to expect from an LMS, particularly with owners who are having their employees go into it, you really need to understand and know that it's coming from a known provider, number one, a trusted provider, number two. And in this case from the roofing industry, listen, Owen's Corning is in the roofing industry, very much in the roofing industry, and we invest a ton of energy in partnering with folks, and some of the smartest folks in the business in our organization to create the content.

So, unpacking this, Heidi, I would say number one, you want a platform that's going to give you that one-on-one self-paced process to allow you some inherent feedback on how you're doing as you walk through the journey during your training. And that's through Owens Corning, Owens Corning University on our LMS. And number two, when you're looking at any kind of provider that's giving you information to learn from, make sure it's from a trusted source, make sure it's from a place where you can lean on it as an owner, you can lean on it as an employee to know that it's trusted. And when I walk into the home or if I'm talking to anybody, I'm talking from the truth. And that is where we invest a lot of energy as well is, making sure that our contractors have a very safe, predictable, trusted place to go for advanced education and continuing learning.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. So, let's talk just a little bit about it. So, there are some new technology within online learning that is coming out, including the ability to assign content. So as a employer, you may be, "Hey, my HR department, we'd like you to check out these classes because there's a lot of great HR recruitment information." And also then to be able to track the engagement of your employees. So talk a little bit about how that works.

Jon Gardner: Yeah. And this is direct feedback from our network of contractors, which by the way, are the best in the industry, our preferred and our platinum contractors represent the best, period. And, our contractors have shared with us that, the deeper that you can allow us, or the deeper that Owens Corning University can get into our business is a direct impact on how much we can do with our employees, using your Owens Corning University. So, when we're looking at that, we wanted to provide, and we do provide, a system that allows both the owners and the users to have an immersive experience. So let's unpack it for the owners. As an owner of the company, you want to have full visibility of the content itself. You want a full visibility of all of your employees. You want a full visibility of where those employees are on their learning journey.

You want to be able to track the progress of how your employees are doing in any particular course. And then secondly, you may want to be a little bit more proactive and say, "As an owner of X, Y, Z roofing company, I actually want to put together a curriculum on my own, selected from the various courses that are available in Owens Corning University. So I can create a curriculum that works for me, works for my business, and provides the information and the training to our salespeople, and the rest of the folks in the business, that is really most important to me." And so, our owners can actually have the opportunity to assign content, deliver it to their employees, see how those employees are doing, provide good feedback, and continue that education from the very first day that they start, all the way through as they progress.

And so you think about that, Heidi, in terms of, somebody coming in new, fresh out of the roofing industry, they may have been selling carpet or appliances or something else, they know nothing. And so, part of what we've built here is, "Hey, as an extension, as a partner with our contractor's business, utilize Owens Corning University." Because one of the biggest buckets that we see return on the investment for our contractors in training is onboarding new employees. Getting them in a place where they could be as productive as possible, as fast as possible, providing that owner with a great employee on a quicker basis, who's starting to bring business into the business.

So they're starting to do what they were hired for. And many, many times owners don't have the resources to tee up and to stand up a solid new employee. And that's part of what we're trying to help our contractors out with because listen, if you start with something that's not quite right, and I'm going to say it, if you start with something that's a bit broken, it's just going to kind of continue to work out there a bit broken. And so, we're doing what we can in a big way with Owens Corning University, to help take away that big friction point. Which is one of the biggest when it comes to like, "Where am I going to invest my time," right there in the beginning when that employee starts.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. Wow. And you know what? I think this all leads to the expectations that the business owner should have, the roofing company owner. Really is it to become not just online watching something with your phones in, but to really become part of that community of learning, community of success. And that is kind of complemented with these live events for networking. So I think that has to be a huge expectation.

Jon Gardner: Yeah, it is. And you brought up something really important which is, people learn in different places, they learn in different ways. And so, let's keep it with Owens Corning University online. And the online content for our contractors is designed to be most impactful, without taking up too much time of our contractor's business. People don't have two hours a day to spend on it. Some do, but many don't. My point here is, is that we built out the content in a way that people can absorb it quicker, faster, and still walk away with some fantastic pieces of information to start to implement into the business. So, shorter learnings for our contractors, so they can dive in quicker, get through their learnings a little bit more efficiently, and start to apply it. So, that's the way of the world these days, Heidi, is we want things fast, and we want things quicker, but we want it to be perfect, right?

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Right, right, right. Now let's talk a little bit just about how Owens Corning University works. So, talk to us about that. How can contractors, everyone listening to this, if they want to get more involved, how can they do that?

Jon Gardner: Yeah. So, great question. And when we think about Owens Corning University, Heidi, we think about it in terms of top of the food chain, Owens Corning University. But within Owens Corning University, there's different areas and places that our contractors can tap in to learn. We've been talking today about Owens Corning University online. This is our learning management system available 24/7, 7 days a week. Our contractors have tapped into it at midnight if they wanted to. So, when you think about that, Owens Corning University online is available to our contractors. They they simply have to go into OC Connect, which is their portal. Once they get into OC Connect, they can go right into Owens Corning University and start their education there online.

Secondly, as I mentioned to you, there's multiple ways of learning. Obviously, live training is super important, and Owens Corning stands up this year. We'll stand up close to 200 events across the United States, strategically located to help our contractors in those areas where they could use a full day of training, maybe even two days of training. Those trainings really encompass all aspects of the business. So it's a parallel to what we have available online, where our contractors can get into trainings like OC Craft, which is basically learning how to install a roof system and understand the fundamentals of roofing before you go any farther. And that's what OC Craft is all about.

And then as you unpack what we have available on Owens Corning University live, you'll see that we go from OC Craft all the way into sales training, marketing, business, and the list goes on. And we have a host of the best in class trainers that are partnered exclusively with Owens Corning. And I'm speaking about Rodney Webb, I'm speaking about John Senac, I'm speaking about Adam Bensman, I'm speaking about Sue Hawkes, I'm speaking about Anna Anderson. And there's many, many others that are exclusively part of Owens Corning University live. That these folks are the best of the best, that are bringing some super impactful content to our contractors to help them, one, augment their online training and two, to stand up very specific skills that they want for their future opportunities.

And sometimes live training is the preferred choice. And so when we deliver Owens Corning University content, we look at that from the perspective of our contractors. How do they want to learn? Where do they want to learn? What do they want to learn? And so, we're delivering it in multiple locations and facets, to make sure that our contractors can stand up their training platform the way they want it, with the content that makes their businesses most impactful.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: For contractors out there who maybe are not Owens Corning contractors right now, the few, how can they get involved?

Jon Gardner: Yeah. If you're not part of our network, then my first suggestion is to go to owenscorning.com, go to our contractors portion of our website, go right there for contractors. And then become a contractor rewards member that puts you into our program immediately. From there, you'll be connected with our area sales managers and you can learn more about Owens Corning, the products, the systems, the resources we have available to our contractors, and of course that would include Owens Corning University. You can also reach out to your local distributor. Or if you're familiar with your local area sales manager, just reach out directly with them. At the end of the day, we're all standing by to help you out. And I promise you, Heidi, with regard to that is, we do get so excited about helping contractors grow and scale. And so, if you're not part of our network, give it a shot, check it out, and see how we might be able to help you out with some of those most challenging parts of the business, to get you to the next place.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. I love it. I love it. This has been an excellent Lunch & Learn, Jon. Thank you so much for your wisdom, for your time, and to really share all this, the importance of continuing education. There's nothing better than continually learning, and just being able to apply that to your business and to just life in general, honestly. So thank you. Thank you again for all you do for the industry, for your wisdom, and for spending your time here on this Lunch & Learn. I so appreciate it.

Jon Gardner: You bet. Thanks, Heidi.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Thank you. And thank you all for listening, and being a part of this, and watching during your lunch hour. Pull out that discussion sheet, and talk about why continuing education, improving your business with continuing education, and what to expect from an online learning system. We want to hear your thoughts. Take a picture, send it to us, and you might be a lucky one to win a free lunch on us. Thank you so much for listening and watching this Lunch & Learn, and we'll see you on the next one from RoofersCoffeeShop.