Zero To A Hundred – Episode 18: Dr. Kent Wessinger And The Key To Unlocking Millennial & Gen Z Retention & Business Growth!

Hey Accelerators! 🚀 Today, we’re diving into a hot topic with Dr. Kent Wessinger, a people scientist and cross-generational expert who has conducted the largest study of over 100,000 employees, mainly millennials and Gen Zers.

If you’ve ever struggled with retaining younger employees or wondered how to create a culture that truly engages and motivates them, this episode is for you!

What’s on the Menu:

💼 How to retain millennials and Gen Zers for sustainable business growth.

🧠 The power of whole-life mentorship and why it matters.

🔑 Key strategies to create a culture of trust and accountability across generations.

Why Tune In?

Dr. Kent’s insights are backed by extensive research and implementation across Fortune 500 companies. Discover the key to unlocking millennial potential and transforming your company’s culture for long-term success!

💬 Gem from Dr. Kent:

“Retention starts with accountability—if you want to keep millennials and Gen Zs, you have to give them a voice and invest in their growth.”

Get in Touch with Dr. Kent:

📧 Connect with Dr. Kent Wessinger on LinkedIn to learn more about creating a culture that retains top talent.

Don’t miss out—hit that subscribe button and let’s take your business from zero to a hundred! 💥

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Watch the episode here

Listen to the podcast here

Zero To A Hundred – Episode 18: Dr. Kent Wessinger And The Key To Unlocking Millennial & Gen Z Retention & Business Growth!

On this episode of Zero to a Hundred, I’m very happy to welcome Dr. Kent Wessinger. He is a people scientist and a cross-generational expert, CEO of Retention Partners, and he advises Fortune 500 companies across the US, helping them build a better culture around those younger employees. He’s done something cool, which is conducting the largest study of over 100,000 employees, mostly Millennials and Gen Z-ers, to understand the culture, what they want, and how we collaborate and build bigger businesses together, making sure that everyone’s needs are met.

One of the topics that we’re going to cover is the workforce crisis. We’re also going to talk about how we create a better culture by holding everyone accountable. One of the things I want you to tune into is whole-life mentorship. This is something that could change your business. For those of you who do not know me, my name is Jarrod Guy Randolph. I am the founder of BoxFi. We are the nation’s leading payment consultant.

We provide business growth solutions for all types of businesses. I’m very excited to share my relationships, friendships, and mentors that I’ve met over my 25-year entrepreneurial career to help you grow your business and become more profitable. Ladies and gentlemen, let’s accelerate together. Dr. Kent, thank you for joining us on Zero to a Hundred.

You’re welcome. It’s my great honor to be a part of this.

Millennial-Fit Business

We’re going to have an interesting conversation, and we are going to talk about Millennials and the job force and the impact that they have on businesses and their potential for growth. Full disclosure, I am technically an elder Millennial because I am 41. I’m a Millennial, so I’m going to fall into some of these categories of what you’re talking about. What I would love to first start the conversation with is how business owners approach building a culture that is welcoming to Millennials.

I will issue something in full disclosure. I am a Baby Boomer by one year. I know there are a lot of leaders tuning in to this show who have a lot of pent-up opinions about Millennials. It directly impacts their leadership. To answer your question, to solve or position Millennials, and we’ll even go Gen Z, for sustainable growth in your company or organization moving forward, there is one gate. There is one structure that we have to pass through or modify to secure that growth and fortify that revenue with that employee base. That gate is accountability.

One of the things that I know from all the keynotes, Vistage Talks, EO Talks, and working with leaders all over the world that I know right now is that leaders are drowning in information. A lot of leaders who are looking to solve this problem with the younger workforce are looking to position this younger workforce for sustainable growth. They are pulling nuggets of information from a lot of different places. They’re formulating a path or a pile of nuggets, hoping that the collective develops a continuum moving forward to help them solve their problems with the younger workforce.

Even though that desire is there and it’s a raging desire for information to solve this problem, we all are fully aware that there is so much misinformation or tainted information out there. Leaders are calling me greatly frustrated because the outcomes aren’t looking like they had expected or anticipated. This is what we know. Leaders are drowning in information, but they are longing for wisdom. They want the wisdom to be able to solve this problem, put this behind them, and be able to move forward, knowing with confidence that their younger workforce is positioned for sustainable growth.

The difference between wisdom and information is that wisdom is simply information that’s been tested and has a practical solution that anyone can follow. I’m saying that right at the beginning because I want everyone tuning in to this show to know that my objective is to impart wisdom. It’s not because I’m the old lost sage speaking to any young apprentices. That is not it at all.

The wisdom is coming from my research project that was developed, open-ended, largest of its kind in the world, focused on the relationship between Millennials, Gen Zs, and organizational structures to provide leaders with practical solutions. The research has been implemented in companies and organizations with over 100,000 employees down to 10.

When you ask me questions, Jarrod, about how we solve this, I want people to know that I’m not speaking from a position of I did a good Google search or I talked to a couple of people or I observed my three children. I’m coming at this from the perspective of the largest research project of its kind in the world with a lot of implementation experience. The combination of those two is wisdom.

What we also know is this. No metric in my research has increased more since January 2020 than this particular question. Are you concerned about the future of your company or organization with the younger workforce? In January 2020, 48% of leaders said they were concerned. That number has skyrocketed to 83% of leaders saying they are concerned about the future of their organization with a younger workforce.

Why is that? Why are they saying that they’re concerned? What is the concern?

The concern is rooted in observation. There are a lot of leaders who are making a lot of observations, and it comes down to two key concepts. The leaders are seeing it through a lens of productivity. I’m speaking on behalf of an older Baby Boomer leader. I’m trying to keep this younger workforce accountable for productivity. For some reason, the harder that I keep them accountable for productivity, the faster they’re leaving the building. That’s it.

They also are concerned because of the rate at which they see this younger workforce leaving companies. In January 2020, my research showed that the average Baby Boomer stayed on the job for 19.1 years. The average Gen X stayed on the job for 10.2 years. In January 2020, the average Millennial stayed on the job for 16 months. That number has dropped to 11 months when we factor in Gen Z.

When we talk about concern from a position of observation, leaders are concerned about trying to hold the younger workforce accountable for productivity. There doesn’t seem to be the response that there has been in the generations in the past, and they’re seeing a turnover cycle as far as retention like they’ve never seen before. In their minds, they’re going, “How can I build a company or organization of sustainable growth with the largest block of the workforce today that’s turning over in such a rapid manner?” That’s at the heart of their concern. It’s retention and accountability.

Sense Of Entitlement

I get all this. As an elder Millennial, I’m watching some of the Millennial employees. I struggle with what I see on the surface as a sense of entitlement by the Millennials. I know a lot of business owners from my conversations seem to suffer the same affliction. Is it misguided on our part as business leaders? Do we need to be looking at it from a different perspective or do they feel entitled?

I 100% believe that after the implementation experience and after all the research projects and the outcomes of a research project, there is a communication breakdown between the generations. Here is the divide. Your question gets right to the heart of the matter. The first question in the research project that was asked to Baby Boomers and Gen X leaders says, “What is the first word that comes to your mind when you think of a Millennial or Gen Z?”

For ten years, this research project has been open-ended and has grown to over 50,000 participants all over the world. For ten years, the top three answers have remained static. What’s the first word that comes to your mind when you think of Millennial? Entitled, lazy, and selfish are the first three terms that come up. When you ask that same question to Millennials or Gen Z, the top three answers that have also remained static since the inception of the project are creative, innovative, and smart.

If we pause for a moment and go which one of these people groups are we going to build an organization of sustainable growth with, entitled, lazy, and selfish or creative, innovative, and smart? The answer is easy. It’s with the creative, innovative, and smart. How do we then tap into it? If those generations truly are creative, innovative, and smart, why do we have entitled, lazy, selfish perspectives coming from older leaders? That question is huge.

Here’s what my experience has been. When I was 22, 27, 31, and 34, I thought I was creative, innovative, and smart until I hit my late 30s and I realized I don’t know a damn thing. I still have a lot more to learn. I had to go through that learning curve to get to the point where I am now, but you don’t get a seat at the table when you’re 22 because you don’t know how to run a Fortune 500 business.

I’m speaking because these are some things that I’ve experienced. You’re also not entitled when you walk out of college to a $70,000 or $100,000 salary. That’s not how life works. From what I have experienced, I find that there has been a culture in the younger generation that has this expectation that they get a seat at the table and they get a big fat paycheck. I could be wrong. I’m not the one who has done over 100,000 participants in a case study. I would love your insights on that.

I have to tell you this so that you know with confidence that you’re not some rare anomaly. The number one question that I get when leaders call me, and let’s not forget the context, most leaders call me very frustrated or angry. The number one question or comment that I get is, “How could somebody be working in my company, and they’re 25 years old, and they’ve been here for six months, and they’re asking me for $100,000 salary a year?” That’s the number one comment, question, and statement of frustration that I get when people call me.

What is the response? Why do we see this? Why are leaders frustrated? Leaders should legitimately be frustrated by that statement or that comment. I don’t disagree with it, but here’s where the communication breakdown is. I have never met anyone who went to work for a company or organization who said, “When I’m there for 16 months, 11 months, 24 months, or whatever it is, I’m going to quit and move on to another company.” When they’re going through the interview process or when they’re trying to get the job, no one is going, “I can’t wait to quit this company or organization,”

The question becomes, why is that happening? Why is there this drive to have a seat at the table? Those are legitimately right at the heart of this generational conflict that exists in our organizational structures. Here is the gate. Here is the subject. It all comes back to accountability. The older seasoned leaders see or define accountability as hierarchical. One layer holds the next layer to the next layer to the next layer of accounting.

The younger workforce is saying this, “We want you to hold us accountable for productivity.” Here is where it separates this generation from the ones before. This generation is now saying, “We are going to hold you accountable for structures of growth and success for us.” I want to pause right here for one second and clarify something. Those younger employees who are coming to work for your company may demand $70,000 or $100,000 after six months. By the way, don’t pay them. Don’t let that happen.

What they’re also saying to you is this, “We came to work for your company or organization because we believe in your products and services. We believe in your mission. We believe in your core values. We believe in what you’ve accomplished, where you are, and where you’re going. We’ve been here for six months, and we recognize something critical. What we recognize is that you’re not doing a good job at holding on to my generation as an employee, and you’re not doing a good job at attracting my generation as a client into your company.”

When this younger workforce or younger employees say, “We want a seat at the table,” or “We want a louder voice,” or “We want a respected voice,” they’re not saying, “We want to take over your position. We want to take your role. We want to step into where you are,” nor are they saying, “We know more than you about your company or organization.”

What they’re saying is, “We understand our generation like no other, and because we understand our generation and I love this company or organization, let me help you solve our retention rates. Let me help you attract good top talent for my generation into this company. Let me help you develop some kind of strategy that will attract my generation as a client inside the company.” That’s the voice that they’re asking for.

Attracting Talents

Let’s talk about the “attract.” I think that’s important. The thing that we focus on in the show, because most of our audience are entrepreneurs and business owners, is what can we do within our business with the resources that we have to create more profitability. At the end of the day, we’re running our companies for them to be profitable. Otherwise, we shouldn’t be in business if it’s not. How do you attract that talent and get that talent to stay over a longer period of time so you’re extrapolating the value out of them? They’re extrapolating value out of you, and you can continue to grow your company. What systems do you need to have in place as a business owner to attract that Millennial employee?

I can tell you unequivocally, it’s not going to come through the HR department. I’m not slamming any HR representative or figure or anybody by saying that. We are functioning in a little bit of a different paradigm now. I want to go back to where I was. What is going to attract them? Activate the voice of those younger employees in your company. Bring them together. Let them formulate a strategy. The number one reason why the younger employees leave companies and organizations at the rate that they do is not because of pay.

Pay matters. Pay is number two. The number one reason is the respected voice. They’re not looking for a voice to reorder or reconstitute the company. They’re looking for a voice to help the company do better with that younger workforce by not only attracting them into the building but also attracting them as a client. Back to your question, how do we attract talent? Moving forward, our best recruiters are not going to be HR reps. Moving forward, our best recruiters are going to be our younger workforce.

My experience has shown me over and over again that when we activate the voice of that younger generation and allow them to participate in the process of attracting talent into the building, we make a shift from recruiting to attracting. That shift is monumental inside of organizations because this is what we know. Eighty-six percent of all resources allocated to human resources departments are going toward recruiting. Only 4% are going to employee engagement, and only 10% are going toward retention.

There’s a vast amount of resources that are going out there to recruit. I can tell you it’s a wasted resource. I’m speaking to every entrepreneur here. Stop wasting your resources on recruiting. Have a mindset to attract because the structure of recruiting that we have established is a structure that is broken. We can prove it. How we prove it is that the average Millennial and Gen Z always stay on the job for eleven months. We might be going out there and filling positions, but if they’re only staying for eleven months, it’s a broken structure that’s not working.

The question then becomes, how do we repair this? How do we repair this dam of employees that are walking out of our building? I cannot encourage you enough to activate the voice of the younger employees to help them help you solve this problem. There are two sides to that coin. Not only will you begin to attract employees and retain them, but when you activate the voice of that younger employee base, we know that the retention rates increase on average 63% in two years. That structure and one more.

What you’re saying is the recruiting system is broken, especially when it comes to Millennial and Gen Z talent. You have to give them a voice within the organization and let them be your number one promoter if you want to bring in a team that you’re going to be able to retain, that is engaged, and you’re going to continue to grow that team with great talent.

That’s correct.

Growth And Success

In terms of retaining them, I thought the statistics which were awesome show that in HR, they’re spending most of their funds towards recruiting, which is about 86%, and then 4% around employee engagement. If you think about it, it’s how we talk about the importance of referrals in any business. Your customers refer other customers, your employees refer other potential employees. That’s going to be the key to success. My business, especially in payment consulting, is all based on referrals because otherwise, I’m against everybody else in the market. We’re the big guys. The only way to stand apart is if someone says, “We got great service from this company. This is who you want to work with.”

The same thing goes for businesses, “We love working for the management. What we’re learning, we’re aligned with the core values. This is a company I see where I could grow.” That’s one of the things I keep hearing from you. They want that opportunity to grow. What does that look like when you’re building out your management levels? What does it look like when you’re trying to integrate that Millennial or Gen Z into the organization and give them opportunities for growth?

Jarrod, you could not be more spot on. Just because we have an activated voice of our younger employees, and they’re going out there as recruiting or whatever they’re doing, attracting that talent in there, just because they have a great sales pitch doesn’t necessarily make it work. We all know that. There has to be something that they’re attracting them to. It’s not only something they’re attracting them to but the employee base has to have the substance of something to say, “This is what separates us from everyone else, this structure.”

To your point, the two most important things to this younger workforce are growth and success. I want to work for an organization that is going to have an outcome of growth and success, not only personally but through the organization itself. Everyone goes after that.

What we know about this younger workforce is they define growth and success a little bit differently than the generations that preceded them. When we can have structures of growth and success, what happens with the activation of structures of growth and success is those younger employees are going out there and they’re saying, “We have structures of growth and success that are proving themselves. Look at my life, look who I am, look at the fruit on my tree.”

What we know is there are very few companies or organizations that have those structures of growth and success. I want to point out one because it’s so ridiculously easy to have this one structure of growth and success. It is mentorship. Eighty-three percent of all Millennials say, “We want success modeled for us.” Eighty-one percent of Millennials in my proprietary research say that mentorship is essential to my success. The next two metrics are ones that completely confound the leaders who see Millennials and Gen Z as entitled, lazy, and selfish.

Seventy-nine percent of Millennials say, “We want the leadership wisdom from the generation that precedes us.” Seventy-three percent say, “We want the core values from the generation that precedes us.” Here we have this generation saying, “Teach us, guide us, grow us, and think this through.” What I come to conclude is that there are very few companies or organizations that have a mentorship structure that is sustainable and that’s producing the outcomes of a leadership pipeline, success, and growth for this younger generation.

It’s easy to say, “Do a mentorship structure.” Jarrod, I’m not sure we’ve ever talked about this, but when I first started seeing this theme come about in the research project, I thought this was a no-brainer. We’re going to develop this mentorship structure. One of my biggest clients is a financial services company that’s one of the biggest in this country.

We took the entire state of Florida and developed a mentorship structure. One year later, it was a monumental failure. I was like, “How could this fail? This is too emphatic.” Why did it fail? The number one reason it failed was that mentors failed in the process. Mentors said, “I don’t know what to read. I don’t know what to teach. This is weighty. This is taking 7 or 8 hours a day or a month to make this happen.” All of a sudden, a mentorship gathering that was scheduled for once a month became every other month, became once a quarter, and it faded away. That’s the number one reason. The weight of mentoring was the number one reason it failed.

The number two reason that perplexed me the most is that the younger generation defines mentorship differently than how we define mentorship. We typically define mentorship as the old wise sage speaking to the young apprentice. We also define mentorship the majority of the time as “This is about your career, this is about our company, this is about our core values.” The younger generation does not see it that way. They see mentorship as a small group process in groups of 3 to 5 people. Keep that in mind. I won’t get into the psychology of that, but groups of 3 to 5 people.

They also do not see mentorship as a career process. They see it more as whole-life growth and success. Collaboratively, in small groups, we’re going to meet once a month with an objective. That objective is whole life growth and success for everybody in our small group. Ultimately, we have a company of small groups collectively throughout the company because this is what we know, we know that the employees who are healthy at home are more productive and healthier in the building. We are at this crazy place of organizational behavior and structures inside the reality of where we are right now. Some leaders go, “You’re telling me that I’m responsible for the whole life growth and success of my employees?” The answer is, unequivocally, you are.

Whole-Life Mentorship Program

I want to ask a question about that. This gets a little bit deeper. Being able to engage and provide whole life experience is assuming that the manager or mentor has the ability to do that. They might excel at work, but they might not excel in any other places in their lives. How do you, as a leader of a company, create structure or processes around creating that whole life mentorship program if your staff isn’t equipped to do that because they were never taught that way? There’s an expectation, but you’re putting the onus on a group that might not be able to provide that, meaning the management or the leadership of the company.

I’m sorry to answer a question with a question, but why is it that your generation looks at the generations before them and, at some level, rejects the process or the trajectory or the pathway? Why is that? The answer is that this generation, Millennials and Gen Z, especially Millennials, had a front-row seat to some of the greatest dysfunction in the history of this country, highest divorce rates, highest crime rates, highest drug rates, I can go on and on.

Even though Baby Boomers and Gen X have accomplished a lot and positioned this country in a fabulous place, there was an incredible amount of dysfunction embedded in that growth strategy. All of a sudden, here comes a generation that’s bold enough to say, “We want that growth and success and we’re committed to it. We want to be held accountable to get there.”

With all of that dysfunction, there has to be another way. There has to be another way to create growth and success. The conclusion that they’ve come to is that life is not all about my career. Life is not all about my job. Life is about a healthy whole life. To your point about, do we have people in our company equipped for that? I would say that probably that’s a crapshoot. It’s 50-50. You have some that are and some that aren’t. That is the beauty of the small group because what is happening in the small groups is not necessarily a lesson. It’s a conversation.

I try my best when we develop these small groups to put people from all generations in these small groups so that they can help each other understand what’s going on in their lives, generationally and maturity-wise, and all of those things. They are helping each other get through life. They are helping each other overcome obstacles.

I get emails every day because we have over 100,000 people in the mentorship structure across the country. I get emails every day from people saying, “That mentorship lesson has saved my marriage,” or “That mentorship lesson made me understand my coworker like I’ve never understood,” or “That mentorship lesson healed my relationship with my brother or my sister or my parent.” I get crazy things that come in.

The whole life mentorship lessons are structured around not heavy subject matters, but simple subject matters like success through listening. You don’t have to have me write the questions or the lessons. Anybody can do it. Meet once a month, groups of 3 to 5 people, and make it whole life-based lessons that are focused on ordinary simple things.

What does it take to become not a good listener but a great listener? Why don’t we solve conflict? Take broad subject matters, open them up for discussion, and have an expectation that people will be vulnerable and transparent. People will go together, collectively working themselves through these situations and dilemmas in life. I’m not hypothesizing here. This is not a theory. This is not pie in the sky. I have groups of guys that are meeting on the top of cell phone towers, and hardcore guys that are building cell phone towers in Wyoming and Montana. I have groups where the whole group has PhDs or CEOs.

From every cut of life, I’m receiving emails saying, “This is what this structure is doing for us.” Let me add one thing to that. That is the optimum structure of growth and success. If we want to attract great employees and great talent, and we want to retain that great talent, we have to engage that great talent. That engagement piece comes from the opportunity to be able to get through life together and help each other through life cross-generationally. That’s why that mentorship structure works so well.

If it were 6 or 7 years ago and you said this to me, I’d think you were crazy, and I wouldn’t have the sense or capability to understand what you were saying. I’ve done so much personal development work that I’ve gotten to a place of balance in my life that I didn’t have twenty years ago, so I understand what you’re saying.

It’s important that if you want to create a culture within your business that provides that whole life mentorship, it’s about having those 3 to 5 people, in small groups, having real conversations about how to consciously listen, how to solve conflicts, how to manage stress, how to manage relationships, and talk about how it impacts the culture of your company. That’s what’s going to help you grow and retain a staff, not only your Millennial staff but your staff that is Gen X and beyond because they’re going to start to work together and understand who each one of them is more deeply.

I couldn’t agree more. To frame this conversation, 83% of all leaders are concerned about the future of their company with this younger workforce. How do we eradicate that concern or transform it or go from concern to confidence? The way we do it is through some core values of trust, vulnerability, and transparency. All of that happens inside those small groups.

When we can solve the retention issue, we may never be able to solve it 100%. What we know is that when we have that mentorship structure and that activated voice that we referred to, when we have those two structures alone that are active inside the company, we know that within two years, we can move that retention needle by 63%. Factor that into how it costs a year’s salary every time someone walks out of the company to replace them, not only from the recruiting or attracting perspective but also from the productivity perspective. All of that, we’re talking about a massive amount of money.

We want to be a confident leader because confidence is confidence throughout the entire organization. Confident leadership or a confident voice almost always meets their growth goals or exceeds them. Concerned leaders produce a pattern of behavior that is concerned. Rarely do they ever meet their growth goals, or even think about exceeding them. If we want a competent workforce, we must have a workforce that trusts one another, that is vulnerable and transparent. That happens in those small groups.

Let me throw out two last metrics to you. In my research, 61% of Millennials say they do not trust the leadership of their company. We go, “What?” Sixty-one percent say they don’t. Here is the kicker metric, 68% of Millennials say they do not trust their coworkers. Sixty-eight percent say, “I don’t trust my coworkers.” Sixty-one percent say, “I don’t trust the leadership.” How do we make that shift? The only way to make that shift is to have a structure that facilitates trust. The core values of trust are vulnerability and transparency. When we have those small groups, one of the outcomes, and I would say the major outcome, is trust.

All of a sudden, we begin to trust our employees, our colleagues, our coworkers, and our leadership because they have facilitated this structure. I track this constantly. We see productivity. We see retention rates. I can give you a whole list of things that almost at some level exponentially increase when we have these small groups of whole life-focused and active employees inside the companies or organizations.

Building trust in an organization is all about vulnerability and transparency, and that’s at all levels of the business. That becomes the case.

It is.

Rapid-Fire Questions

Before we let you go, first of all, this was amazing. An unexpected conversation from what I leaned into in the beginning, expecting that it was going to be strictly about attracting and retaining Millennials. It’s more so about creating a better culture for your business and the different elements of what you have to do there. This was exceptional. We’re going to jump into the rapid-fire section. Are you ready to go?

I’m ready.

Let’s do it. Rabbit or turtle?

Turtle.

Slow and steady. What is your favorite quote or phrase?

If I can be so arrogant and say that it’s my quote.

That’s awesome. Very good.

“Secure growth and fortify revenue with the greatest generation in organizational history, which are Millennials.” I know some people lost their minds.

I love it. Is there a book on leadership or management that you would recommend our audience read?

I purchased 30 copies of a book and sent it out to 30 leaders called The Carpenter. I have it right here.

It is going on my list. Dead or alive, if you had the opportunity to have dinner with anyone this evening, who would it be?

I know this sounds a little bit cheesy, but I would say probably Steve Jobs.

Why Steve Jobs?

The adversity that he had to overcome, the rejection that he had to overcome. I don’t think that people talk about their rejection enough. He was rejected from a company that technically he was one of the founders of and to be rejected, to be pushed out, but to have humility. I know a lot of people see him as arrogant, but to come back into the building and see the company through to the place it was, I would be interested in understanding how he managed that moment of rejection that he had, and then how he managed that moment of humility to be able to walk back into the building.

That would be an incredible conversation. Let’s say you are a small business owner. You’re doing $10 million in revenue on an annual basis. I walk through and hand you a $300,000 check. How would you suggest that business owner invest that $300,000 over the next twelve months to double their profits?

Moving forward, competitive and market leverage is not about products and services. Products and services matter. The stability of your younger workforce is your competitive and market leverage. Wherever there is and whatever city you go to in America, and I don’t want to get political about this, and please don’t taint it in that, but whatever city we have a Taco Bell, a Starbucks, a McDonald’s, and a Chick-fil-A, those four have to exist. If we take McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and Starbucks, and we combine their revenue and multiply them by two, we get the revenue for Chick-fil-A.

The reason goes, why? Because Starbucks is focused on coffee, McDonald’s is focused on hamburgers, and Taco Bell is focused on tacos. Chick-fil-A will tell you that they are about people first and chicken second. If we take our money and invest it in our people, our companies grow. That becomes our market leverage and competitive leverage moving forward. It’s about people.

One last question, because I think this is important. You’re such an intriguing individual. Give me two people in your life who helped you get to where you are in your career now and how they helped you.

My mother was an entrepreneur. My mother turned 80 this past weekend, and I threw her a surprise birthday party in Atlanta. The resolve that I saw in her and the obstacles that she overcame were beyond anything that I could have ever imagined. She inspires me every single day because she’s a voice of positivity, faith, prayer, and all of those things in my life.

Number two is Mr. Leon Drennan, He was the president of HCA Hospital and is my mentor to this day. Leon has guided me over the past 7 to 8 years. He has spoken so much to me. He has spoken so many noes into me, “No, that is the wrong thing to do,” or “No, don’t do that.” He has spoken so many hard things, and he is the one person or one of the few people who can look me in the face and say, “That is stupid. Do not do that.” My mother and Leon Drennan are the two people.

Episode Wrap-up

Dr. Kent Wessinger, please tell the audience where they can find you if they want to reach out or connect with you.

Just go to LinkedIn. Please friend me on LinkedIn. Please send me an Insta message. My mission in my life is very simple. It’s to help people grow and to help leaders grow. I know that I have a research project and implementation experience that can help you overcome some impediments. I am an open book. I practice vulnerability and transparency to meet the criteria of my mission, which is to help leaders grow. Please reach out to me. If you have any questions, comments, or anything, reach out to me on LinkedIn. That’s the easiest way to get me.

Dr. Kent, thank you for joining us on Zero to a Hundred.

Thank you, Jarrod. It was my honor.

Important Links

• Kent Wessinger – LinkedIn
• Retention Partners
• The Carpenter: A Story About the Greatest Success Strategies of All

About Kent Wessinger

Dr. Kent Wessinger is a People Scientist focused on sustainable solutions to cross-generational growth, with an emphasis on attraction, engagement and retention of millennial & Gen Z employees and clients.

In 2016, he launched and continues to manage what many C-suites have called the foremost proprietary data bank on growth and revenue with the younger workforce. He has successfully helped Fortune 500 financial services companies, engineering firms, manufacturing companies, nationwide real estate and insurance firms, governments in North and Central America, non profits, and many small businesses develop a relevant strategy to solve their workforce crisis.

Having spearheaded decades of focused research and data collection, he understands employee behavior intimately, and the surgical approach to winning in our current business environment. Utilizing his proprietary research and successful implementation experiences.

Dr. Wessinger will strategically help you achieve the following:

• Implement a tested accountability structure
• Shift from recruiting to attracting top talent
• Develop critical employee engagement structures
• Solve your employee retention crisis
• Capture the growth and revenue opportunity with millennial & Gen Z clients
• Develop a successful cross-generational mentoring structure
• Mitigate cross-generational conflict
• Create a leadership pipeline