58: Breaking Barriers in a Male-Dominated Industry- with Stacia Hobson

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Like I've been experimenting with new stuff when I'm cooking and I've discovered white pepper. You guys familiar with it? Oh yeah. Great. I just love it. I was wondering, do you guys have any like spices that you love? Also any that you're not a huge fan of? I'll share mine after you guys go.

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[00:01:34] Kris Harrington: That's a no go? Really?

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[00:01:37] Lori Highby: Don't come to my house then.

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[00:01:42] Lori Highby: Yeah, that and like garlic powder and garlic salt I have.

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[00:01:48] Lori Highby: Those are staples, but yeah. Yeah. Kris?

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So give me some cilantro, parsley, anything over the top, fresh cut right at the end of a meal. It's wonderful. But we do eat a lot of paprika, which I just love. And then you guys, Lori already mentioned the other ones that we also love. We buy our garlic salt from Trader Joe's. So if anybody's looking for a good place, they have the where you can what do you call it?

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[00:02:42] Kris Harrington: It's a nice little, yeah. Oh, okay. All right, Erin, what's your?

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So the Mexican food that I grew up with in Southern New Mexico is light on cumin. But if you go just across the border over to Texas, they really are big fans. So, for me, it's, that's why I'm not so into the, it's regional, I don't know. But my favorite is Nutmeg. Oh my god, I could just simmer in nutmeg.

I just love that stuff. And you're so right. Like, Penzey's just has amazing spices. So yeah good tips. Keep them coming in folks. If you want to pop on a LinkedIn, if you're listening to this from a connection and tell us some of your favorite spices, I'm always looking for new fun things to try out.

So awesome. Speaking of new fun things, we have a wonderful new fun guest today. Joining us is a Stacia Hobson. She's a co owner of Image Industries Inc. And she began her career in the family business upon graduating from college. Although her plan was never to work for the business, let alone own it, she was the key driver in transforming the business from 100 percent distribution to 100 percent manufacturing. That's so incredible. Can't wait to learn about that journey today.

She's running operations for her family's multi million dollar manufacturing business, serving nine distinct vertical markets. Stacia's acutely aware of what it takes to succeed as a woman in a male dominated blue collar industry.

More cool things to talk about today. She's passionate and proud to be in manufacturing as she feels that it is the backbone of the USA. Agree. Agree. Awesome. Welcome Stacia. So happy to have you here today.

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[00:04:32] Erin Courtenay: Oh, it's our pleasure. It's our pleasure.

So let's just get right down to it. What did you find to be the most difficult thing to overcome as a woman in manufacturing?

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So I graduated college in 1987, and the world then is very different than the world today. So in 87, I was 22 years old, and it was, very chauvinistic, especially, in the white collar world, but very much so in the blue collar world. Women really had not embarked there. And I did not have any village built. I had no mentorship. There was zero support. And my father, who was also a big chauvinist, and he did not coddle me at all, and good and bad. And he was tough on me that actually the other people that work for him felt bad for me. She's daddy's little girl. We have to be kind.

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[00:05:47] Stacia Hobson: Like I said, I joined when I was 22. And at 24 I, as a receptionist and learning the business from the ground up. And at 24 one of my hats was procurement and I couldn't get parts in. And I was in sales and I had a customer base and living on commission.

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[00:06:10] Stacia Hobson: And I couldn't get parts in to sell, so therefore I couldn't pay my bills. So I said to him in my worldly knowledge at 24, we should be making this stuff.

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[00:06:23] Stacia Hobson: And he looked at me and he's okay, now you've been in manufacturing. He was a manufacturer's sales rep, but never hit the manufacturing floor.

So he went out to his credit, went out and found a guy to head up a cold heading division and got machinery in and so on and so forth, and I still couldn't get parts. Months go by, and we still couldn't get parts and it's extraordinarily expensive.

And we were, you know, much smaller than, and he wanted to shut it down. And I begged my bosses, begged them to not let him do that. And I said, give me a month. If I cannot figure this out in four weeks time. I will concede. I will shut my mouth. You'll never hear from me again. They went to bat for me. And he agreed to keep it open for another four weeks.

And every day I traveled down to the south side of Chicago. Cause that's where the guy that he found was located. So that's where they set up shop and I would travel and it was an hour and a half drive. And then I still had to maintain my real world other duties and whatnot, and went down and just observe what was going on.

Came back and I think two or three weeks and said, if you want this to go, you absolutely must replace the person who you hired. I said this man, he may know cold heading, but he cannot find his way out of a paper bag with both ends open. And I said, he cannot get focused enough to do anything. He's like here and there and just, I'm like, do one thing. Just pick one thing and do . And he just couldn't. So my dad said to me then you find a replacement. I'm 24. I have no idea how to do this right now. I don't even know. I, and so I believe and have always believed in universal alignment, universal health, divine intervention. And within a few days of him telling me this, a resume comes to my desk.

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[00:08:43] Stacia Hobson: And I open it up and it is the exact right person. I looked at it, I knew it, I felt it. Right? Called him in for an interview. and hired him, right? And my dad says to me, okay, now you go and you fire Mel.

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[00:09:05] Stacia Hobson: Paper bag man. Yeah. You go and fire him. And to make things a little bit more interesting, his daughter works for us.

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[00:09:12] Stacia Hobson: I had no experience in anything. I barely had experience in life.

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[00:09:18] Kris Harrington: There you go.

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[00:09:22] Stacia Hobson: Yeah. In a moment of five minutes. And I'm like, oh my god. And it was at that moment that I realized that I am changing the trajectory of this man's life that I have to let go. Yeah. Potentially changing the trajectory of his daughter if she does not handle it well. Or if he forces her to quit, because that would not have been an uncommon thing to have happen back in the early nineties. That is, have all that control still. And then I have to deal with Steve. And so that all goes and now it's Steve and I, and we ended up moving that company or that division to closer to the, to our other location because it was just too much of a drive back and forth. I'm like, I can't do this. And so we did that move and Steve came with obviously. And Steve, Steve was a chauvinist. He went, he was just, he did not give me any slack either. And that's fine, but I was in charge of procurement, and I had to buy his wire. And so then we had this argument all the time, and I was like, we need these parts, not those parts. Can you just run on a schedule? And we had that argument all the time. And he would repeatedly call me sweetheart.

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[00:10:42] Stacia Hobson: And I repeatedly asked him to not do that and to please call me by my name.

. And you know how you just, women have a tolerance and then we just don't. Like it just there's that line. And when you cross that line, you're just done. Nobody knows a forest like an unhappy woman. . . Right. . .And one day he said to me he, he said, sure, sweetheart, whatever you want. And good and bad. I was having one of those days and there were multiple people, his employees his direct reports in the room.

And I just said to him, Steve, my name is Stacia. And he smiled and, shrugged his shoulders and said I don't know what your problem is. I call my wife sweetheart.

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[00:11:43] Stacia Hobson: And I looked at him and everybody in the room knew, Oh, this is not good. And I looked at him and I said, Steve, that is exactly my point.

You and I, we don't And that word began with an F. I'm trying to keep the show clean. And I tell you, from that day forward, it was a game changer. I never heard that word, sweetheart, again, except for from the other guys joking around with me. And the way they treated me changed in that second. The way Steve treated me changed in that second, and the lesson was a hard lesson to learn but I was like, Oh my God, in order to get what I need, it's not, people call it being bitchy. It's not about being bitchy. It is about seriously stepping into your power,

staying in that power, embracing that power and moving forward without a thought of what anybody else thinks of you. And just coming to terms with that. And that, you know, I think now it's easier for women because we have support. We have mentorship. We have role models and that's not just even women. It's a lot of men are really mentoring young women today versus before. But it is a challenge to, I think for anyone, really, I do believe it's still easier for men to do that. But for women to really step in and own it.

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[00:13:28] Lori Highby: It's impressive what you've done with regards to just taking, building a department basically without knowing anything about it. And I've been in the role numerous times of leading individuals who are older than me have more life experience than me.

But I'm curious, how have you successfully promoted women, other women, and advocated for them on the platform overall as well?

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[00:14:07] Lori Highby: Love that.

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And the name of the game is to get people doing what they like to do. And I'm fortunate to have been able to successfully tap into that market. And I think part of that is because I am female. But what I have found over my years is that the women aren't really interested in being promoted.

Okay, that's fine. And there's a level of acceptance there. And even when I've tried to promote, you know, no dice. So I've actually only had three women that I have worked on promoting. And one, I have to say that the first one wasn't a complete failure, but it was a failure at some level.

The second one was a complete failure. And I'm working on my third right now. And so what have I learned is that the minute that you think that you want to promote this person because she is amazing and you can see the vision, you can see what her talent is and where she can go with that talent. You need to start working on her mindset right then.

Far long before it becomes a promotion. And, and to get a good plan together, which, you know, most companies know this is nothing new, but that plan has to include the mindset piece. It has to include the mentoring piece. Otherwise it's just otherwise it's going to fail. And the other thing that I have realized is I need to promote prior to promoting.

So I need to have her doing those jobs, those things that actually occur in her promotion before she gets promoted. And the reason is so that her team members accept her.

Because, she right, you know, she's younger. I mean, The one I'm working with right now is young, the youngest on her team and, she's like 25, I don't know, somewhere in there.

And the rest of her team is older and she's got 50 percent men and 50 percent women. And it's not a large team. I think it's six or seven people. But they're all older than she is. 50 percent of them are men, and so she mentally struggles, but so does the team. When there's a change, the team struggles, and the team struggles more when it is a female than a male, which I find fascinating because I've promoted many men, right? And I don't have that kind of pushback with men ever.

Every once in a while I'll get, I'll keep blah, blah, blah, but you know, the most part it's, it's not that, right? And here I have all this pushback and I'm like this is fascinating. Get them doing those responsibilities and those tasks so everybody gets comfortable with this pending change that nobody really knows about.

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And it's the reverse of what we're used to, right? Here's, here you get promoted. Now we're going to teach you all these things. You're responsible for all this stuff. And it's like you reverse engineered that, that we're going to teach you how to do all these things so you're confident in the ability to do them. And then we're going to give you the promotion so that everyone sees that you've earned it. And they trust and respect that you are indeed the right person to wear this hat.

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But that's, I have a strict rule about it because it's very difficult if you promote somebody in pay and then it doesn't work out well for whatever reason, right? And so I am promote and then it's followed with the pay. And she was okay with that, but interestingly enough, her team was not.

Her team was like, oh, you should be getting paid all this more money and blah, blah, blah. And so she came back to me and very respectfully said, I really think I should get an uptick in my pay now. I, listened to her, of course, and I said, I hear you and I understand what you're saying.

And this is the challenge that we have. And I explained to her the exact challenge. What if you don't like it? What if you decide that you want to do something else. What if? And I said we have all these skills that I need to still up level you to and so on and so forth. I said, so this is time intensive on everyone else's part who are working to uplevel you.

And she came back to me a few days later after she was having some challenging days. And she came back to me and she says, you know what? She's I am so grateful you did not increase my pay. I am not where I need to be to her credit. I am not where I need to be to earn the pay that I know you plan on giving me.

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[00:19:55] Stacia Hobson: Very much so. A nd the thing that was so brilliant about her is that it was an incredible movement on her part to get respect from her team. Whether she realized it or not, I don't know. But her team knows that she will get a pain crease, but that has not come through yet. And here she is doing all this extra responsibility first.

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What's the bigger struggle besides HR and people and promotions and compensation and so on and so forth. Such an interesting model that asks a lot of leadership, asks a lot of staff, but has a really clear end goal based on what you believe in your values of your company, not just standard this is the way we always do it.

And that is really cool. Thank you for sharing that with us.

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I think, you know, if we were to see if the audience could see all of the the faces we're making as you're telling your stories, we're in it because we don't hear people say these things that often. Just tell the truth, right? This is how it is sometimes. This is definitely how it was. It's getting better, but it's not there yet. And all of the transparency that you're even expressing about how you run your business, it's so... I'm curious if we can go even a little bit further and talk about race and the divide that is out there with respect to race and how are you handling that in your business? I'm curious if you would go there with us.

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And we came from, you've hired from within your community and up north, our community was Hispanic. And in the Delta, the community is black. And I did not have, or at least, I have learned that there was a lot back up north that I was not aware of, but I did not ever feel that there was an issue that I had, the majority, 85 percent were Hispanic, right? I never felt that there was a divide. And then I moved to the Delta. And. You know, And I knew that the population was 80 percent black, right? Like you do your research. And I don't view myself as a prejudiced person, so it didn't bother me, at all. You know, you hire from within the community. And I honestly, I do not care if you are white, black, purple, the pink polka dots, if you want a job and you come to work, I will support you.

It's pretty simple. But what I learned and rather harshly was that I was not trusted because I was white. And proving the people will, so I had an employee say to me one day, I went out and I, this is early on, I went out to the plant floor. I said, Hey, would you do XYZ? And it was nothing within the job realm. It was nothing outlandish. And he looked at me and he said with that snotty teenage voice, and he's no teenager, he said to me, why should I? And I looked at him and I said, because I'm paying you. And he shrugged his shoulders and made some kind of gaffe, turned and walked away. And I'm like, oh my god.

But after having some more time and thinking about that, what he was really translating to me was, I don't know you, I don't like you, therefore I don't trust you. And so I have found that the key to at least my situation, I can't say that this speaks for any other kind of race or any other kind of company or any other location, right? But I found that my biggest driving force here to recruit. I mean, I have people working for me, but to really recruit their engagement, I have to make sure they know me. That they like me at least to a certain degree like nobody's, I mean to the degree of work and that they trust that I have their back.

So I find myself really doing things to support our folks in a far different way than I did up north. And it's not major things. It's bringing candy out to the floor, just surprise. Oh, let's celebrate National Donuts Day, just things. Oh, you're having a problem at home. How can we solve this problem? What do we need to do to get you to work. Do we need to set up a carpool? Things that that are unique to this community, not necessarily unique to a, to, I wouldn't say to a black culture, but just unique to this community, and really letting people know that you are there, that they can make mistakes, and you are there.

And that's what's gotten me the furthest traction.

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And you also called out, you're in a very specific location. You have a very specific dynamic. So everybody has to look at their own situation and understand it for what it is. But trust is key to really conquering and being able to work together. I would, I would agree that that's true everywhere.

So thank you for sharing that.

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You trusted that gentleman who had a little bit of an attitude with you, he's going to get there. He can do this. And that is one thing that I don't think any of us in any difficult relationship recognize enough that it's us. When we don't trust others, where that tension begins to get, become friction becomes conflict and so forth.

And to be a leader that actually trusts your staff is, it seems job one. And I think that's also goes back to your compensation model a little bit as well. I trust you to get there. I do. You're going to get there, but I need to see it before we compensate you at that level. So I think that's really interesting.

I thank you once again for sharing your story with us.

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And the promotion piece. This person, I just am not getting a good vibe from, or I really wish this person would step up into their God given talent. And it's really interesting that you stated it in that way. Because it is incredibly true.

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So I'm going to start today with Lori.

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[00:29:58] Erin Courtenay: What? They laugh? They can laugh.

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[00:30:05] Erin Courtenay: What does a rat laugh sound like?

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[00:30:16] Erin Courtenay: But where are they ticklish?

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Dogs and cats and cute, fuzzy, cuddly, whatever. So anyways. Yeah, rats can laugh. So that's what I just learned.

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[00:30:51] Kris Harrington: I was listening to a podcast this morning on my walk and I learned that Master B2B has a forum for practitioners where it's just for practitioners. So this would be manufacturing companies who are looking for assistance with technology advice, hiring advice resources to fill.

I'm not sure if our audience is familiar with Master B2B. It's Andy Hoar and Brian Beck that run that. But this practitioners forum doesn't include any consultants, doesn't include any vendors. I would encourage you to look at it, check it out. Apparently there are about 315 practitioners that are already involved in the forum and they are communicating.

There are a lot of questions about AI in there. So I know we talk a lot about AI. Again, it wouldn't be a place where Erin, myself and Lori are there, but Stacia could be there as a practitioner seeking help from other practitioners. So I thought that was pretty cool. And I wanted to share it with everybody.

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[00:31:57] Erin Courtenay: Yeah. Thank you. Those resources are golden, right? Yes. So if you can find those practitioner based ones. Okay. Mine is a little bit of a more deeper, but it's fine. It's good. I just learned that so children, so the fight or flight impulse when that goes haywire, that's what we call anxiety.

And in children, they fight or flight's not an option, right? They're little. They, where are they going to run to? They're not going to outrun the bear. And they are not going to fight, clearly, the bear. They look to their parents. When a kid has anxiety and they're fight or flight, is going kind of bonkers. That just it's really important for parents to be that grounding point for them because that's the only resource that they have. And so I just that's important to me as I think about my kids. And I, it also helped me understand anxiety and more of a sort of like a biochemical respect rather than just it's all in your head.

It's it's your natural born instinct to to figure out how to deal with a fear. So that's what I just learned. Yeah. So Stacia, what about you?

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[00:34:09] Erin Courtenay: Oh, that's cool. Does that need to be conducted in person? Or is that like an online experience?

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[00:34:32] Lori Highby: Cool. Thank you. I was so curious to check that out.

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And it wasn't until the next day that I was like, Oh, all these things just coming up and coming up and I'm like, Oh my gosh, this is freaking amazing.

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[00:35:20] Stacia Hobson: So Stacia Hobson, www. staciahobson. com. I'm on LinkedIn as Stacia Hobson. I'm Instagram as Stacia Hobson. Facebook is Stacia Hobson.

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[00:35:45] Stacia Hobson: Thank you so much.

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[00:35:47] Lori Highby: This was great. Thanks everyone.