“Jobs of the Future” is a series focusing on career paths, local job opportunities, programs, and tales of success that highlight North Bay's diverse job market.
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“It’s terrifying being a self-employed person but it's incredibly rewarding,” says Laurel Myers.
She is a financial advisor with Sun Life in North Bay and she says one of the most rewarding aspects for any independent business owner is the connection you make with other owners in your community. That’s why she is proud to be the Chapter President of the BNI (Business Networking International) North Bay Nipissing Network.
“This group has been such an amazing support system on a completely different level,” says Myers.
“I started to feel the heaviness of this pandemic a couple of months in. I thought I was doing well and then all of a sudden I realized I wasn’t doing ok, I wasn’t finding clients and I was essentially in charge of keeping the morale up of these 25 people around the table for BNI. I would panic and be in a funk all week and then Thursday morning would come around and I would think to myself ‘I can’t lead this meeting today’ but as soon as all these members would start coming in, their friendly faces would be smiling at me and it just completely changed my morale around and I could run on that energy for the next week.”
BNI is a business networking and referral organization that has chapters worldwide.
“I was part of a group in Sudbury when I was there and when I moved to North Bay two years ago, the only person I knew was my spouse and that was about it. He also works in the financial industry and I told him that I need to have a BNI group here as well,” says Myers.
“We need to connect to other professionals in a community where I know nobody. I put the idea to one of my directors who knew Paul Meyers beforehand. I was lucky to get connected to Paul. He is a dynamo and everyone knows him.”
Paul Meyers met with Laurel and they started to build this group from the ground up and today they have 26 members.
“It was a team effort though,” says Meyers. “It was just a matter of inviting people and showing them the opportunities. We are all worried about where the next bread and butter is going to come from and if you can have a reliable and predictable way to do that there are some advantages there.”
The group started meeting before the pandemic, but when COVID-19 shut everything down in March, Myers says the group became a beacon of hope for many around the table.
“At the start of the pandemic, we had 25 business owners around the table panicking,” she says.
“People were asking ‘what is going to happen to my business, we are closing our doors and I don’t know how I’m going to make any money.’ A few months later, because of the relationships we built and the support we provided each other we actually had the majority of those business owners saying they were too busy in the summer to take on more jobs. So when people come to us and ask us if their business is going to be able to stay viable in North Bay, we tell them they really can. North Bay needs all the services just as much as any of the other big cities, but you can run your business in a much more family-friendly environment in this city.”
That seems to be a factor that has led to an upswing in the real estate market over the past year.
“If you look at the real estate market you’ll see that it has been blowing up this year,” says Myers.
To which Meyers adds, “People just want out of the big cities. If they can find a way to do it, they are doing it. COVID has had an impact on a lot of people and has got people rethinking what they want out of life. I know North Bay is small but wow, what an amazing place this is for your work-life balance. People don’t want to spend hours upon hours in their cars just getting to and from work.”
Myers says the city should be looking to take advantage if they can in this uptick in population.
“You have two questions that pop up: why are these people coming here and how can we employ them? How does the city reach out and connect with all these new residents here and make sure that they are reaching those opportunities that are available to them? People can work virtually. We’ve all learned that we don’t need to do that drive anymore to make the same money and make the same contacts we used to.”
However, around the BNI table, it's not virtual workplaces that are the biggest in need of being filled.
“Our BNI Group has many business owners that need to hire people. We have businesses in town that have no more capacity because they can’t hire skilled tradespeople,” says Meyers.
“They just can’t find people. It’s as if some of the funding that’s come along like CERB is a better financial option. They are getting paid more to stay at home right now than they would if they were out earning a living. I get it; something had to be done to help people get through this pandemic financially, but there comes a point in time where something’s got to come off the table and get these people back working, especially in the trades sector. There are jobs to be had out there, all kinds of businesses are looking to hire. They can’t increase capacity so they can’t increase revenues. There’s a lot of opportunities in North Bay right now, a lot of businesses looking for good-paying people which they just can’t find.”
But there’s a catch-22 situation for those employers.
“I think one of the biggest fears for a lot of our local business people is saying ‘no’ to a job,” says Myers.
“They just can’t get to those jobs on time because they don’t have the bodies to complete the jobs fast enough, but they are worried that if they say no now they won’t get that second opportunity down the road as well.”
Meyers says he thinks more needs to be done to promote the skilled trades as a viable career option for young people.
“There’s almost like there is a process in the schools where they look down upon the trades’ people and yet tradespeople make six figures and can call their own shots. They have a lot of control over their own work no matter where they might be working. If you look at some of these trades, you could be making $100,000 a year, and with that kind of money, living in North Bay, you’ve set yourself up for a pretty nice lifestyle. You’re in a great community and a great place to raise your kids.”
Meyers continues, “It just feels like a lot of today’s youth are misguided when it comes to looking at career choices. Maybe they are just too young to know, but you can come out of high school while earning money and not have to go into debt when you finish college. You can get paid all the way through. We need to just put that education piece out there of how much money you could be making within this line of work. Look at plumbing. There is really good money in that, it’s a skill that’s needed. There aren’t a lot of people who have that skill and it will be something that you always have. Nobody can take that away from you, and you can find work in that field in any market. It’s as if we aren’t showing younger students this side of the employment field.”
And that’s the goal of BNI, to help those employers get those employees.
“Its super powerful when you think of it, when someone comes to the table and I can hand them my phone, open my contacts and I say, 'scroll through there and tell me who you want to be.' They pick one, I call them and introduce them and that’s how it rolls out. I know people that you might not know and vice versa. It’s a powerful system for generating business,” says Meyers.
“I think there were pockets like this in North Bay before the group started, but the difference here is, we want to know what business are you in and how we can drive you referrals so you can increase your sales. You take a new business owner who may not have the connections, but you put them in a room with 25 business owners and you don’t just look at what you can bring to the table but WHO you can bring to the table. We pile together all our contacts and next thing you know, you’re in a room with 25 people but collectively there’s probably 300 people involved because of all those contacts everyone brings.”
Meyers says they are helping both new and older businesses gain traction faster than ever before.
“People buy when they know, and like, and trust you. Because we meet every week and a half I can build a relationship that will go years into the future. Along the way, we’ll make some money but we’ll also create a relationship that will go further than any of that,” says Meyers.
“I’ve learned so much from so many people in this group and I’ve built great relationships with so many people who I could now call at any time and trust them to be able to get a job done, or find me someone who would be able to do that work. We really are building relationships on a different level.
If you have a story suggestion for the “Jobs of the Future” series, send Matt an email at [email protected].
