Noob School - Episode 86: Closing the Skill Gap with Tina Zwolinski

Episode Date: November 6, 2023

On this episode of Noob School, John sits down with Tina Zwolinski, creator of Skillionaire Games and skillsgapp, an app designed to give the next generation a head start on finding career paths that align with their passions. Tune in to learn more about a powerful tool that can help many industries across the country. I'm going to be sharing my secrets on all my social channels, but if you want them all at your fingertips, start with my book, Sales for Noobs: https://amzn.to/3tiaxsL Subscribe to our newsletter today: https://bit.ly/3Ned5kL #noobschool #salestraining #sales #training #entrepreneur #salestips #salesadvice

News School. All right, well, welcome back to the Noobcast. Today, I've got a good friend from right here in Greenville, Tina Zolensky. Welcome, Tina. Thanks for having me. It's good to be in a comfy chair next to you. Well, thank you. I'm glad to have you here.

And her company that she and her husband, John, started and run, is called Skills Gap. I'm going to let her explain that in the minute. But I'll tell a quick story about Tina, the reason I liked her immediately. was many years ago, many, I say maybe eight or nine years, maybe 10 years ago. I was helping a little startup company in town and had made a small, like, angel investment in them. And Tina and her husband had a real successful marketing company at the time that they have subsequently sold called Zwo. But I just asked them, or maybe my investment partner asked them if they would take them. a look at it. And boy, did they. They had the whole conference room table set up. They were both in there.

They looked at everything that they were doing and made recommendations and just without charging us the thing that kind of gave us their professional advice. And I knew at that moment that Tina was a giver and that she would help other people. And then, you know, it was my opportunity to help her that I would do the same. So anyway, remember that, Tina? I do. Absolutely. Absolutely, that was so much fun. It's just diving in and looking at the challenges and working together in a solution. It was me and Yost. Yes.

And Charlie, right? Yes, it was Charlie, yes. Charlie, yeah. Yeah, Tiff Hive. That thing has moved into a couple of different iterations. They hadn't quite, but he's still at it. Yeah. He's still at it.

And Greenville for Technology, it's a good thing to be a part of here. Mm-hmm. I agree. So I really like skills gap in what you're doing. And let me try to explain what it is. Okay. And then I'm going to let you. I'm all yours.

Then you take over. But my understanding is that a lot of high school students in America, you used to have this thing either, you know, go to college and get a degree and then go get some professional job. or dig ditches. And now there's not as many of these kind of, let's call it, white collar professional jobs as there used to be. But there's great jobs working in manufacturing or in pharmaceutical or in some of these professions that require people. I would call them, you know, people who can work with machinery of various nature or work in a lab to make things happen.

So you're actually having to do something. You know, you're not just moving paper around. But what are those jobs? How can you get into them? How do you even know what they are? And your product is an app called Skills Gap or Skills App. Skills Gap. Skills Gap.

That lets them figure out what might match up with them and then play, like if they wanted to work in a lab, play a game that would show them what that was like. Is that about right? That is. Yes. And the games are actually called skillionary games. So the B to B side is the skills gap, which is the problem and the solution in one name. There's this large gap where manufacturers can't find the talent they need. And so that's called the skills gap, which is large and growing globally. And then our solution was the app, the gaming app. So we've just made that the play on skills gap. So you You're right on.

So the challenge, and this is what we saw back in the Zwell marketing days, this is where this idea was born. We had workforce and economic development partners as clients, and we saw every year where they needed talent. So the topic, what are we going to do this year was, well, let's think about our workforce strategy. How are we going to get talent today and ongoing? And so every year we'd come up with a marketing strategy or think about new programs that

can be implemented across the state or other regions. states we worked with. Where the real moment came into, so we are learning these new jobs like you were describing are called in-demand careers. And these are jobs where you do not need a four-year degree. You can come in at a high school or through a community college, technical school, vocational pathway certifications right into a job in manufacturing, aerospace, automotive, electric vehicle has a lot of opportunities now, cyber, healthcare, life science, and science, and Those are the areas that we focus on. They are paying salaries starting at $60,000, $80,000 coming in out of Hecicle.

You can take a four-year degree pathway into marketing and start around 50. Right. And then you have college debt. Oh, money, yeah. But really our moment was on our consumer side of our company, we worked with youth brands. We worked with for-profit and nonprofit. And it became that journey in our South Carolina nonprofit work. Allendale, South Carolina, rural region, right around them are all these large manufacturers

in Charleston nearby, along with community colleges, technical colleges that were offering free programs. But the challenge was the K-12 weren't aware of what the industry was offering, and then the students weren't aware of those jobs or even what to do beyond K-12 when they graduate. Then we were downtown Greenville, the Sterling Center after school program. And it was the same students, the same challenge. They're right around BMW. Greenville Tech is right up the street. There's access through bus transportation to get to all of these resources and starting

salaries of $50,000. And so it became that moment of there's the ability. They've all got the ability. But there is lack of awareness and access to that. opportunity. And so that's really what got us spinning our minds of is it's a marketing campaign. What is it that this other half of seniors that graduate that fall off and we lose them in the workforce? If we were to capture them, there wouldn't be a skills gap. So 65 million students will go through middle high school graduate over the next seven years. Half of them, which are

mostly minority will fall off into low-wage jobs because they didn't know about these opportunities or the access. Yet there are 65 million unfilled jobs by that same time frame that pay 60 to 80. So it was that moment of what can we do to really fight for the underserved, those that weren't hearing about it, that we were losing while supporting these great companies that are innovating, developing products that keep us alive, that support our animals that we love, that grow the food that we need. And that's where this journey began. It was, what is it?

So you got hired to look into this for these organizations, and this is, you started to learn about this gap and trying to figure out ways to solve it and installed your business to do so. Yeah, for 20 years we've been working on that problem. And that problem still comes up to this day globally. And so it was, you know, my whole life with my children. I have been saying, get off the games and get outside. You know, go play outside. And then it became that moment when we were trying to solve, what is the way that we connect the students to these careers?

And then it was like, wait a minute. Everybody at that age, you're looking at them, I don't have my phone with me, but this is your view of them, right? Is the phone blocking their face? It's like, okay, they're on their phones. Well, they're on their phones seven plus hours a day. top of work. I don't know if you ever check your screen time, but sometimes it's horrific.

It's bad. I mean, how much we're all on it. So it was really that moment if they're on their phones and then the research of mobile gaming, and this is not console Xbox, you know, this is more quick, lighter, engaging games that they play for 10, 15 minutes in a car ride, whatever. And so that data and it's equal gender. It's really 49 female, 51 male. So it's pretty equal.

Well, 97% of them have access to a smartphone, which is where you play the games. And then 95% of them are like that mobile gaming play. And so it was, you know, in gaming, we can actually create these environments that they can get in and try on these jobs. But it's fun. And it's the real world. So in our games, in these in-demand, you know, in these in-demand, you know, we're going to be in-demand careers. We have focused on those 10 in demand careers. So I'm going to use life science

that's deployed in South Carolina, Rad Lab. There's three environments. You go through the lab, which you learn about every job that has to deal with innovation, learning how to fail forward. What do you do with the FDA? So you're building products and what that's like. And as you play that, you learn, well, what you just did there, John, is called this, lab tech. And in your state, you could be making $40,000 in year. To get into this career, you could go work for this company, insert company name directly. Or you could go to Greenville Tech, which is right in your area. So it really starts to see that if you're interested,

here's what that could be, so you're learning the terms, and here's where you could work, and here's where you could go to get into that. Now fast forward, then you go into the manufacturing. So now, how do we mass produce what's been created? And so they learn about how to work with robots, what happens when the systems do. happens when the system's down, clean rooms, all of those things that happen in manufacturing. And then you go to logistics. Same thing. You're learning all the job descriptions, salaries.

Be careful of something that's fragile or needs to be temperature controlled. And so they earn, you know, they're learning as they play. The avatars are gender race neutral. So you can be who you are in these environments. See yourself in them. And then as you're playing, you're earning badges from what you're doing, which signify. industry acceptance to what you just learned. Those badges can be shared through a digital wallet out for employment opportunities so it shows, hey, I know what your industry is doing. So could that impact turnover and attrition? It's a good, you know, we're studying that now as we go into that. We can bring a more vetted talent source. And then we get all these

players in the game that now you've got a state or a region that's implementing one of these games builds a source of talent pipeline that understands those industries that either decides they like it or jumps out of the play and discover something else or at least they know what's happening you know and so it's been really we launched our games last year we're in California South Carolina going into Boston right now Massachusetts and just signed at Oregon heading to Oregon, so heading out west. And it's really exciting to see the momentum of hearing students, a couple testimonies of, you know, when you asked students before, what is life science? Sometimes even people in the industry don't even know what life science term is. But now you're

hearing some of the students that have been exposed to, you know, it's a, it's a platform. It's not just the game. There's an initiative around it that helps support the teachers with toolkits that help support industry use it in their in school, after school, nonprofit organization work. So just this past year, a student came up and was, I'm interested in going into life science. Nice. Yeah. You just said life science. Yeah. How do they know to download the app? So with the partners that we work with to deploy the games into regions, our games are free for all students. So there's never a barrier, never a cost, never a manipulation to play more. And for the schools, it's free to play as well.

So our partners are very connected with school systems, after-school programs from the work they're already doing. And so they immediately make the introductions. Our games check all the boxes for security with protecting the student data, the player data. So that's a big plus. And we align with the school standards for some of the in-game messaging, the assessments that we do in-game. so that we support their career readiness programs for students. So it quickly gets the word, word of mouth, has really been meaningful in those relationships to get deployed quickly. How about in South Carolina, is it throughout the Greenville County School System?

It's all throughout the state of South Carolina that our life science game is currently deployed. We're hoping to bring cyber, advanced manufacturing, health care to South Carolina as well. Okay. And so the schools are now, so our games are mobile. We wanted to be sure that the students could play wherever they are and to engage where they are on their phones. Our games are also built to deploy on Chromebooks, tablets, and we're working on the web-based play right now too so that data can stay true to wherever you're playing.

So the schools love the fact that they can put it on the Chromebooks and get it through the approval because of our data protection. So that's happening now. It does take a little while to get through all the different silos to get to the right groups that can push it through the tech, the IT departments. But that's happening now, and it's really exciting to see. So what's been your biggest obstacle so far to making this idea a reality? You and I have had many talks about this early on. So when you're bringing, you're taking an existing technology.

into a new way to use it with students. And so you kind of, you get those early adopters that have to say, I understand what you're solving, and it's a new way to solve it, and I'm willing to jump in and try it. So you need that early adopter mindset. But sometimes you get on the call, and it definitely is gaming, in manufacturing? Yeah.

And then, you know, you know, you try. try and bring the conversation back to their pain, their needs, what they're paying, what keeps them up at night. And then here's what your audience is using. And so you've been very helpful jumping into a new industry after being, you know, in marketing and branding for 20 plus years, you get used to those relationships and how you tell the story of how you can help them solve the problems and scale. And now I'm on the flip side where you're...

scaling our own product this time around and it's not that there aren't other things like it out there but we truly are the only ones that are using the geolocation to connect locally and and how you bring get to the outcome quickly so if the challenge is something new to solve a problem that's been around forever and it there is an investment to do that and just getting quickly to what you're spending already, and then the turnover. And so is this investment actually meaningful in what it can solve? And so that's the conversation of try something new.

Yeah. So you're talking about the challenge of getting some big, let's say, manufacturer in the state, like getting Michelin degree to sponsor, putting skills gap out the manufacturing app to the South Carolina schools. That's correct. They're going to get something on the app that says Michelin? Yeah.

Is it sponsored by? So their brand is, you know, and brand awareness is critical when there's competition for workforce. And so their brand for those that decide, we put all, as many companies in that industry in as possible because we want the students to be aware of, here's what's around. But what elevates their exposure is that investment to help deploy it for free for the students. And so what they get is brand in the game, even a whole room, like the manufacturing room, could be branded for that partner.

And all the marketing materials and the tool kits, their brand is in that. And then because it's such a topic that is a challenge globally, media loves the story of who's innovating in a space. And so we've had a lot of media outreach and stories to be able to tell the impact that we're having with students, how we're supporting industry and schools. And so they become part of that interview process of tell us about what it's doing for you as a partner. So there's a lot of little perks for that partner, sponsor in the game, as well as now you've got this recruitment side that you can reach these players and say pull the ones that are seniors. for this opportunity or let them know what we're doing here. So also that opportunity of reaching the talent before their competition.

And then just so I understand it, to roll it out, to roll the app out, let's just say to South Carolina, they don't just download it and go. You have to do some work as a company currently to make that happen. So you have some costs. We do. Yeah. Amazon is the number one cost when you get the data for gameplay because you've got all that game storage. Yeah.

As well as you think of when a player is playing and they're recording, like, where did they get? Did they earn that bad? So all that has to be saved. So your data costs are a little more significant in this. But what is great is that you can track and report on it. So that's you're actually, here's your return on investment, what's happening. The other question you were asking, I just lost my train of the thought of what you were asking on that question. It's really just your company costs to roll out the app.

Oh, the customization. So our games are the same in any region across the U.S. But what we do in one area is we have multiple fields that are custom to that region. We found that where a lot of the loss of students was that I didn't know what to do or what options were there. And so for us, it was critically important to be able to include the local education. educational pathways, the companies, and job descriptions and salaries. So we go into a region, we do the research on the salaries in that location, the companies, and the educational pathways.

And we have these fields that we go into and those are put in with the new data for that region, and then it deploys. So anybody in that region can deploy and get all of that data. If their geolocation is turned off, we still have a drop down that they pick their region, so they still get fed that information if they choose not to have that. on. So if you put the app out there for free to Greenville County and they started using the app, then you would start getting charged for data from Amazon. Yes, exactly. And we are. What does that roughly cost like per user per year?

Well, I'll say for gain, like if you're going across the states where you're, you know, you're reaching, there's 400,000, you get 40,000 in our main age group. That data can run you, depending on how much they're playing. We run contest, which are really fun and keep the engagement up. And that's when you kind of keep that activity going, which is good. But in a region, it can be anywhere from $1,000 to $2,500 a month for the data cost. Yeah, okay. I wouldn't think about that. Okay. But so far, you're in three or four states. That's correct. You obviously want to push out to all 50 and then around the world, I would think, eventually.

And you're starting to look for your first sales rep, right? We are. Yeah. So you and John have done most of the work so far. Yeah. Cynthia Jenkins is my co-founder. She's on the West Coast. So we definitely have both coast advantage there, which is nice.

But all of us, Cynthia and I are the co-founders. John was with us at the Zwo, at the branding and marketing firm. So we all have, we know each other well and where. strengths and weaknesses are but it really has been we had those relationships in manufacturing in the industries in the states we were working in but now you're going into you're at the top of the state level or an enterprise that's operating at a global level for their manufacturing is who we're talking to now so we you know it's it takes it you know where you're going to get that

person but it does take a while to get through that level and to kind of get to the decision maker or to the workforce director, sometimes in HR, to cut through that. And then you've got to look at, you need a couple of partners for each game. You want to have that to be able to pay for the contest. What about, you know, I'm just trying to size up what the sales job looks like. The sales rep would be, I would say, entering an opportunity, right, something that could really explode and be a really nice company. So it could be a good way to get in.

Plus, it's for the good, right? We're trying to help the world get better. So this rep would be calling on anybody who'd be willing to sponsor an area or a state, a part of a state, a region, or even a national sponsor. Any sponsor who would take that on. So if Coca-Cola said, we want to sponsor. it nationally, want to come work at our Coke bottling facilities or whatever they do, then they could have a room in every gang.

Yeah, they could. Yeah, and somebody else might say, we just want to do Florida. Local, right? We're local, we want to support the local. Coca-Cola always, and Florida would be local for that area. So they'd be calling these companies saying, you know, you've got this gap, we want to support the gap, or to get this in front of these people. if you pass, they're going to see what's it like to work for Coke.

You're going to get more people. And we can track all that because they'll be hitting buttons and stuff. Yeah. So you're right. Enterprise, manufacturers, and within those different industries, that opens the door for those different companies, as well as industry organizations. So if you think of a national manufacturing association

and then all the state partners along with that or a life science, you know, like the SCBIO, organization that has those relationships in place really helps to quickly connect with those partners. And they're doing things already so they get that. But it's the ones that are willing to say, I'll try gaming. And that's what I loved about life science in South Carolina. The second you said, because they're innovators, creators when it comes to drugs and devices.

And so when they heard gamification, knew, it was like, well, try it. Let's try it. Yeah. Let's see what it does. And so that was exciting. That's great. And so for sales too, it is, you know, you talked about the opportunity to change the world. And for us, you know, culture is everything in our company.

It is how we treat each other, how we treat our partners, and how we treat the players. And so for someone coming into the sales role, there is tremendous opportunity with being able to support the partners, their renewable opportunities. and then there's other things within the game that offer add-on opportunities within regions. So for a salesperson that loves to go after that yes or, you know, whatever, there's a tremendous opportunity there, but also knowing that the ultimate impact, and this is what excites us, is that underserved half of America, that otherwise would have never known and maybe thought they couldn't. But they discover now they can, and they can,

advocate all day long for themselves because they know they can share with their career counselor, parent, guardian. Here's what I'm learning and here's what it tells me to do will you help me. So it really opens that door. So someone that cares deeply about having that impact with workforce and the youth would be the right person for this. Yes, there's the driver of you can do really well, but also you're going to help millions of kids do really well and change their future and break generational poverty.

Yeah. Well, that's wonderful. So the salesperson would be looking at deal sizes per year of about what's the range? What's like the minimum deal you've seen in the biggest deal? Yeah. So it could be anywhere from just opportunities within game, plus there's multiple opportunities in with game at 60,000 and down. and then when you look at what that game's potential is in that area, it could be $350,000 to $400,000 for a game to be deployed. If you think of the impact and how big the reach is, is where we play those numbers. So the rep ought to be comfortable getting decisions at the $100,000 to a million-dollar level.

And they ought to want to be in this gamification world and calling on the people that are going to be the sponsors. And that's where you're going to make your money. Yeah. The opportunity to be able to talk to, even at the state level of you have all of these industry needs, you might not need all 10. But when it comes to companies choosing to locate, they're looking at what are you doing for workforce and do you have people in place for me to move my company there?

So it becomes a competitive play. Could that salesperson be able to go into a region and say, look, We know you have life science as a key industry, aerospace, cybersecurity. We know soft skills as a challenge. What about bringing the whole skillionaire skills games into your region? And let's look at what a line item might be in a workforce budget where there's data supporting. And looking at those opportunities, because states do have that in their budgets. And the way that funding is working, it used to really be tied to after high school,

but it's shifting to support, you know, especially post-COVID. So there are a lot of opportunities, both from support from the industry and industry organizations and states, as well as grant opportunities. And look, we're never going to say no to a grant that comes in to help kids, but also helps to help with product development and helps us deploy quickly to region. So there are kind of both sides to that. So we might find the person out there. You never know.

So if anyone's interested in this job and potentially joining this company, you could obviously contact me. But Tina, can you just tell them your contact information or email address? Yeah, absolutely. So email is Tina Z at skillsgap.com. K-I-L-S-G-A-P-P. Yeah. And John's going to be working with us on helping what that looks like.

I'll help as I can. Hunters. Hunters. Yeah, we do want people that want to go out there and hunt and get the new business. That's what, in a startup, that's what you need. Yeah. And for me, it's really someone that has that startup mentality of owning what we're doing and owning the mission of connect.

youth to life-changing careers through game-changing play. And we all celebrate the wins together, and each of us, you know, being successful in our own roles and how we all work together to achieve that. Yeah, well, that would be a great opportunity for any salesperson to join. So I highly recommend it. But a couple quick questions, and we can wrap up for today. It's a great story. Let's start with your favorite book.

My favorite book. I'm going to tell you that I don't have favorite books. It's more of a thread of I love business books, all business books, leadership, startups. And so for me, it's whatever I'm in that moment, that is the reason why I pick up that book. And there's always three or four key takeaways. And so in the moment, that's my favorite book. But over this past year with just the startup and that challenge of early adopters, crossing the chasm, was like that book of, oh, this is us. This book was written specifically for us. And so that's one during this process

and solving that that's been really impactful. I'm a big podcast. I mean, I love how I built this with Guy Raz and pitching podcast. So that's the fun world I'm in right now. Yeah, that's great. Most of the successful people, almost all of them that we talk to, they're listening to a lot of podcasts and reading a lot of business books and are always learning, always learning. So that's great. And then favorite movie? My favorite movie of all time is Goodwill Hunting. Oh, that's a great one. And that is Matt Damon and Ben Affleck produced that, and it's been many years since it came out. But what I loved about it is that you have this underserved community and these people that are in jobs that had the ability for, you know,

for different jobs but didn't know. Yeah. And he discovers, Matt Damon discovers it and goes on to be, you know, wicked smart. Wicked smart. They were Southeast, right? They were Southies. And you know what's really fun now, too, is I also love just the story of their families and foster care and just that journey and that movie too and that brotherhood.

But now one of our games is deploying in that region in Boston, and it means everything to Our team, because John loves that movie and all of us, just that story of that community and being able to launch cybersecurity specifically in those communities to reach the underserved youth with partnership with UMass Boston is so meaningful and it's going to be fun. That's correct. And then last question, favorite word. Favorite word is yes. There you go.

I'm sure you hear that all the time. That's a good one. Not as much as you would think, but that's a good word. But it just brings like joy and closure. Yeah, yes. So, like, that's like, let's go celebrate and have a hot fudge Sunday or a drink or anytime you hear that word. Well, we've already promoted the company and that we're looking for, the salesperson, with those qualifications. So that's our promotion for today.

But unless you have something else you want to promote. It would just be if you're in the inland empire of California and you're listening or South Carolina, Oregon or Massachusetts, to go to Scillionaire Game. on the app, Google Play or App Store, but just sharing it with the community that you're in because if it can spread faster, students hear about it, even adults that reskill or upskill, it's designed for all that age group. So share, tell others, and let's see if we can have impact.

We'd like to have you come back in about six months and give us an update. I'd love that. That'd be cool because we love what you're doing. Thank you. I'm proud of you. your support along the way. We've had a lot of years of friendship through different journeys and you've been a real help with clarity and just championing the get back on track.

Remember what you're saying. Yeah, well, it's, you're kind of listen. Well, thank you very much. Thanks so much. That was great. All right.