Attracting and Keeping Talent Without Just Paying More

Mark Blocker joins Richard Lowe (The Writing King) on Leaders and Their Stories to answer a question every leader wrestles with: how do you attract top talent and keep it?

Mark’s answer runs against the reflex to simply pay more. Purpose, brand, integrity, and transparency, he argues, are what draw the right people and keep them, and it starts with being your authentic self.

Mark Blocker is the founder and CEO of Bitblock Athletics, a sports and healthy-living company, and founder of the Mark Blocker Foundation, which helps young people in Detroit. He is also a success coach and angel investor.

For more conversations like this one, see the Leaders Hub, and on how a book builds a founder’s brand, how a book builds your personal brand.

DISCUSS YOUR BOOK

Full transcript of the interview follows.

Richard Lowe: Hello, I’m Richard Lowe, the owner of The Writing King, and this is the Leaders End Their Stories podcast. I’m here with Mark Blocker, and he’s going to talk to you about how you get top talent and how you retain it. So Mark, take it away.

Building a Company Worth Believing In

Mark Blocker: All right, so first and foremost, to introduce myself to all of you out there. You got my name, Mark Blocker. I’m founder and CEO of Bibliogaletics. Bibliogaletics is a sports company where we provide active work for people who like to be active, weight loss products, want to live healthy lives, and sponsor athletes.

I’m also founder of Mark Blocker Foundation, my own foundation, where I help kids in Detroit, Michigan become productive adults and promote mental health. I am a success coach where I entrepreneurs multiply the growth in big numbers so they can actually perform well. I’m also an angel investor with an assistant portfolio companies and everything like that.

So I have a lot of companies I’ve invested in and it’s been great. So track your top talent. Man, this is what we’re

Richard: Yeah. How do you, how do you attract top talent? I mean, I was, I was a tech in tech for 33 years as a leader, you know, VP and stuff. And that was always a pain in the butt. So how do you get them?

Purpose Over a Paycheck

Mark: First and foremost, You’ve got to have something for them to believe in. When you work with your team, you can’t just pour money down their throat and think they’re going to stay. That works only short term. The long term effects, they wanna have something that they believe in. They wanna have a company that they know that they’re doing something that’s bigger than themselves.

So the first and foremost thing is make sure that you are, that you’re selling your company in a way that attracts. and one way to do that is By making it seem bigger than You are like give them a purpose for why they work why they want to work with you.

You don’t just work You don’t just work with somebody like somebody’s gonna just work with you because you have a business and You got money you can pay them. They want to do something that’s bigger than themselves. So yes first and foremost try to actually go out there and work with that.

Also be authentic, be yourself. Authenticity sells and it actually is, and it sells big. When you’re authentic, you’re being yourself, you will actually be a person.

Richard: All right, can you give me an example of what you’re talking about? How do you make the company seem very attractive to people?

Mark: So for my company Bitblock Athletics, a lot of people want to work for me because they feel like the mission, the core mission, the core values, the mission behind it, and ultimately what we stand for is why they want to actually be a part of Bitblock Athletics. we stand for our core values makes our business attractive to…

to those, this is attractive to those who want to be a part of something. They want to be a part of something like they’re making an input pack. I believe.

Richard: So do you offer, do you offer money? Do you offer time? do you, do you make the company go into some kind of charitable thing? What do do to make it so that people say, yeah, I want to work here no matter what.

Mark: Wha- I- I- I wish could say out for money, with the way they… But money doesn’t work long-term. So, I have employees that have been working for me. Yeah, some of them don’t like their pay, but they stay around anyway because they feel like they were respected. They’re working with a leader who understands them and they’re working for somebody.

who can, who they can believe in. Like when you attract a client, gotta, your leadership skills gotta be top notch in order to attract these people because one of the things, like they say, people don’t quit a bad company, they quit a bad boss. So you gotta be willing to.

Level up your leadership skills in order to have a have have employees that are willing to work with you because they see that you are a person that has the capabilities of leading them well, they will follow you and they will want to

Your Brand Is What Attracts Talent

Richard: Yeah. Yeah, I understand that they will follow you. But the question I have is, so somebody comes in to talk to you about employment. How do they know that your company offers these things? I mean, besides you telling them, is it you have to create a brand, don’t you? That gets the word out.

Mark: Yes, you do. Yeah, your brand is actually something that people will pay attention to. So one of the ways to do that is to social media. Use social media. Put yourself out there. Do good things with social media. Make sure that you’re more self-identity self. Get attention. Get attention from people.

Let people know who you are. When you do that, people will actually want to… the right people will actually be attracted to you and they won’t want to work with you.

Richard: Okay. Okay. So to get your brand out there, you could do, Tik Toks. could do, Videos, you know, funny videos. could do a book, which is what I do. You could do, social, you know, particles. There’s all kinds of things that you can do to get the word out.

But if you don’t get the word out, something that I like to stress to people, people don’t know who you are. They’re going to make it up. If you don’t have a brand, you have a brand. It’s whatever people think it is. So you better put your, if you put your name, the word out that this is what I am, then you’re getting ahead of all that. Correct?

Mark: Right, right. You have to put yourself out there. You have to gain attention from people. If you don’t gain attention, with the internet nowadays and everyone has a platform. And everyone has a platform. It’s hard to get attention, but you got to make sure that you put in your, you being your authentic self, like by being your most authentic self on social media, people, the right people will be attracted to you.

Make your brand as honest and upfront as you can be with it. Don’t lie to people, just. I know, don’t lie to people, don’t try to be something that you’re not because people will sniff that out and no one will want to work with you, no one will want to work for you.

If you have a brand out there that is your most authentic self, the right people will be attracted to it. will launch it. They will latch onto it and they will actually go out there and they will make it happen. They will want to work with you and make your dreams come true.

Integrity Is Non-Negotiable

Richard: So integrity is a big part of this. You have to have the integrity and people have to be able to see that.

Mark: Yes, oh yes, yes. To attract talent, you have to have integrity. People like to work for an honest boss, an honest leader. If you’re not honest, then you get nowhere. Like eventually, might get somewhere, you get nowhere, because eventually you might feel like you’re getting ahead, but eventually you’ll be found out and you won’t be trusted by anybody.

And so you have to actually go out there. and show a great integrity because if you do, will have, you won’t attract everybody, but the right people will be attracted to you. Understand, you’re not gonna attract everybody. There are gonna be some people who are gonna repel, but the right people will be attracted to you.

You gotta understand that when you’re attracting the right people. They’ll be willing to work with you no matter what. So you gotta build your brand and ultimately you gotta go out there and you gotta be honest with people. Show your true self as much as you can. Of course be professional about it.

I’m not saying don’t be unprofessional. You gotta be professional about it, right? But don’t go out there showing yourself drinking and smoking, but like go out there and actually make yourself, go out there and actually… But be a true self, even in the midst of being professional. You can still be yourself. You don’t have to go out there and be somebody you’re not. But yeah, that’s what I’m

Retaining People Through Transparency

Richard: Well, that’s the, that’s the best way to do it. Now you also mentioned, that’s how to retain talent. So now you’ve got the talent. He’s been working there. He or she’s been working there for a while. How do keep them?

Mark: Be transparent with them. Be transparent with them. If something is going wrong, let them know. Don’t hide it from them. If you hide it from them, they find out about it, it’s gonna make them worry. And it’s gonna make them want to leave. Be transparent with them. Transparency goes far, far, far, far with retaining talent.

If you could like for like for an example that I’ve experienced so I wasn’t able to make payroll on time and I just let my team know I said I’m not gonna be able to make payroll on time. Is there a time but I’m gonna work to get to get that and they were they was understanding about it they continued to work anyway and and I was able and I was able to pay him but I got deported to David Pan, but at the point in time I was in middle of my payroll time and actually by being transparent with them, let them know that ahead of time, not when it happens, ahead of time, they were more prepared for it and then they actually respected that and I’d be able trust with them.

Richard: Yeah. Yeah. We had that happen when I worked for a company a long time ago, they missed two payrolls and they just kind of said, we’re to miss payroll. You the attitude was too bad. So sad, you know, you, you work here. So

Mark: you can’t have that kind of attitude because if you have that kind of attitude, you can’t have that kind of attitude with your team because like you said, you got mad. So you can’t have that kind of attitude. You got to care for these people. They’re working for you.

So you got to care for them. You got to be actually doing the work to care for your team because when you do that, they will actually want to… They’ll be careful and they’ll care for you and they’ll care about your mission.

Control Your Own Messaging

Richard: Yep. Yep. That’s so retaining talent. It’s also about having integrity. You’ve got to be an integral leader boss, and you got internal branding as well. guess you have to get the message to these people of who you are and what you’re doing.

Mark: So. Right, yes you do. Definitely have to do that as well because when you do that, will, they’ll know who you are as well. So yes, internal branding is important too.

Richard: Yeah, because like a mentor told me, if you don’t define your brand, other people will. And that’s everybody. It’s everybody around you is looking for that brand and they’re looking for that judgment basically of you. And if you don’t define it, they’re going to judge you. It’s human nature. So get control of the message.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah, control your own messaging. Yes, I agree with that. Control your own messaging because when you do, other people won’t control it for you and you won’t be stuck with a brand that’s not part of who you are. Be yourself. Authenticity with your employees goes a long way too.

As long as you’re being you, people can sense fakeness from a mile away. So if you’re being your real self, you would definitely go far.

Richard: yeah. Yeah, that’s important. I think you’ve got some very important message here. So to kind of summarize to get top talent, you have to be transparent. You have to put a brand out there so they know you’re a good company. That can be whatever you want, whatever you think is important that they know.

And then you reinforce it in the initial interviews. And then I imagine once they come on board, you just keep going with that. You don’t want them to come on board and think, wow, they lied to me. you want them to, you want that brand to flow through so that they, and I’m calling it a brand, but it’s really the way you act and the way you talk and the way you present yourself to other people.

Mark: Right. You’re absolutely right. That’s a great summary of it. And that’s basically the main gist of where I’m getting at. hit the nail on the head. I’m passionate about stuff like this because I believe that entrepreneurs out there can need to learn these things so that way their companies grow and their teams get…

and they have great teams as well. So I believe that, be more self-evident itself. It’s biggest takeaway I could throw out there.

Fair and Tough

Richard: Well, I guess on the other hand, that doesn’t mean you need, you can be soft. You sometimes, if an employee is messing up, you go through the routine of trying to fix them, fix the situation, not fix them. And then you, you know, you have to do what you have to do to discipline them or get rid of them.

that’s important too, because people, I think the key off of which the way you act. if you don’t handle or let go of. an employee who’s, who’s basically slacking off, then everybody else goes, okay. I can get away with stuff too. So that’s part of your, part of your branding really is you’re fair, but tough.

Mark: That’s part of being a leader. Your leader’s gotta be fair and tough. If you don’t know how to do that, then you need to up your leadership skills. Simple as that. You need to know how to be a more effective leader. That’s because leadership 101. Right. Yeah. Right.

That does help. Yeah, that’s part of You gotta change your leadership skills. A lot of change. You gotta grow your leadership skills, because if you don’t, you’re gonna be attracted to the talent. If you’re not an effective leader, they’re gonna leave anyway, so.

The Bottom Line: Be Authentic

Richard: Yep. Yep. Well, it’s, it’s been very interesting talking with you. and I appreciate it. Could you summarize your message in, you know, a couple of sentences?

Mark: Yes, so for one, be the most authentic self because by being authentic self with the team and with everyone else, you will attract great talent and you will retain great talent. And also, your leadership skills. Because when you improve your leadership skills, you will also keep talent and you will also be a powerful leader.

Richard: Yep. So I’ve been with Mark Blocker and he is the founder and CEO of Big Block Athletics. How could people get hold of you?

Mark: They can get a hold of me through my social media platforms at MarkBlock, Mark, underscore block of 23 Instagram, BitBlock 49 on Twitter or X, Facebook Mark Block at 32. And then also my email BitBlock at letix at hotmail.com.

Richard: Did you have a website?

Mark: I do. My personal website is bigblocketaletics2.wixsite.com slash mark-blocker.

Richard: Okay, very cool. And this is thank you for the conversation. I’m Richard Lowe, the writing king and ghost writing guru. And what I do is write books for people to help them brand themselves, which is what we’ve been kind of talking about and get the message out. They can be short books, they can be long books, anything you want.

So if you want personal branding, reach out to me and I will be happy to talk to you about how we get your book done, whether I help you do it yourself or whether I do it for you. Thank you all for listening and be sure and stay tuned in for the next episode. Thank you very much.

Mark: Thank you and have a good night.

Quotable moments