2258 - Transforming Local Government Challenges into Opportunities with Silsby Strategic Advisors' Shane Silsby

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1:05With us right now, it is Shane Silsby. Shane, you are the CEO and founder of Silsby Strategic Advisors. You are the author of the book, Managing for Meteors, Preparing Local Government Leaders Before the Impact. You are found on the web at managingformeteors.com. Shane, it's great to have you. Yeah, thanks, Josh. Thanks for being here. Thanks for everything you do in the industry. Appreciate it. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Listen, before we kind of get going in, you know, doing, you know, talking about doing business with local government, which I think is a fantastic topic, is what are you currently doing for fun outside of work?

1:43Yeah, thanks, Josh. I mean, we just got back from international travel, which I always like doing, which, you know, helps us learn more about what's going on and what we can bring back to our local communities. And then I have two teenage sons, so sports and keeping them engaged and active. That's kind of what I spend the rest of my time doing when I'm not helping my colleagues. Where did you travel? We traveled to France and Croatia. Wow. Why Croatia? Just a new spot to try to pick up on, and it's scenic and all of that stuff. And whenever I go around and talking about managing for meteors, I always look for things in those areas that are like that.

2:22Like I talked about the Eiffel Tower on one of my posts and things like that. Just just random things. When you do a little bit more research, you learn more about what's going on. And, you know, things have challenges or successes all over the world. So it's interesting to learn about that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and again, I would imagine hopefully you're gaining some ideas there. If you're doing research on, you know, how it works to do business with the government in Croatia, maybe a little bit different than the United States. And I suspect that there's things that we can learn from each other.

2:51Yeah, I mean, in Croatia, one of the things they ran into on a SWOT analysis they did on the country was one of their main threats was emigration, people leaving the country of working age and going and living somewhere else. And that was a threat to their economy. And so when we think about that back here in the U.S., from a workforce development standpoint, we're having some of the same challenges, not necessarily people leaving the country, but people leaving certain industries which are critical to the economy, things like that. All right. Well, Shane, let's talk about your superpowers. And, you know, again, for a SMB founder audience and others in leadership, let's talk about doing business with government.

3:31Sure. Yeah. What we're finding out is, especially since, so before the pandemic, we had the silver tsunami effort, everybody kind of heard about where people retiring, things like that. And then you have kind of this 20 year gap, where the next generation, so Gen X is the smallest generation after that, the millennials, Gen Z, they're, have the larger numbers to try to fill those gaps, they're having to fill them faster, right? So somebody gets into the same leadership position, 20 years, less experience, still motivated, smart, all those things, but just doesn't have that depth of experience.

4:02And that was happening at a pretty rapid rate leading into the pandemic. And then what happened with the pandemic was that exacerbated and accelerated all of that with people wanting to work from home or switching out of government or having different expectations. And so that is leaving larger and larger leadership gaps and knowledge capital gaps across the country in our cities and counties. And that's what I'm trying to help mitigate. Yeah. And, you know, when you think about how well served or underserved government may be, are there any trends there? I'm just wondering if it's sufficiently served by businesses that are looking to do business with municipalities and other local government entities, or are there opportunities there?

4:51Definitely opportunities. Some of the trends are, as I said, with the pandemic on the work from home element, a lot of the younger generations are wanting that for their lifestyle, work from home. And that doesn't always, it's not always compatible with what government needs, right? Taxpayers want their person providing them service at city hall or at their desk, generally speaking, to answer the phone and help them out, things like that. And so that trend has really put a strain on our local governments in addition to a different salary expectation, right? So with local governments, the promise is, well, you could have a better retirement and benefits for a lower salary in the private sector.

5:34Higher salary, maybe a little bit less on the benefit side and less on the retirement side. But what we're finding is the newer generations are choosing more of the lifestyle now pathways and wanting that higher salary and flexibility now. And that is hurting the workforce available to our local governments. So consultants, right, in the B2B world, they can try to step in and fill some of those gaps strategically. But I like some of your messaging, Josh, and I'm trying to be generous and authentic with that, because if you have a short term view of that, you might not have a long term relationship with that entity.

6:10Yeah, not really be helpful. Right. So so some might think, Shane, that doing business with the government is just completely black and white numbers, lowest bidder. There's not a lot of like there's not a lot of value in relationship and knowing people. It's pretty much just is is is there any truth to that or could I what's your opinion on that? Because that's a that's certainly a sentiment that I've heard. Yeah, at the federal level, it's pretty black and white, generally speaking. Fill out all the forms and pricing and all that stuff. At the local level, there are some projects like that in the construction world, for example.

6:52Sometimes you do the lowest bid for a road. And by the way, all of this work is being done by the private sector, generally speaking. The public sector is funding it. Private sector, the B2B world is providing that. But there are many opportunities for qualifications-based or strategic or intelligence-based services, which are not selected on the lowest price. You will submit a price proposal. Generally, it's sealed or comes later, but you're being selected on your qualification. So those more advanced, sophisticated agencies, they want the most qualified people to help them with their efforts, right?

7:25Because you're trying to improve your communities and better your services.

7:31Your book, Managing for Meteors, I can't help but like, as I'm kind of reading the description, Is it written for municipal leaders? Because I can't help but think about the episode in Parks and Rec where they have a disaster simulation. Do you know the episode I'm talking about? It's a mess. Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's really the book is really for local government leaders that are in their role trying to get prepared for whatever that disruptor is. I call those meteors. They're metaphoric and they're a disruptor, a major disruptor. And how I categorize that as something that is so big or so impactful that you can't do that thing and your job at the same time.

8:15You have to choose. And that's where I suggest getting help for those things, those disruptors. but so local government leaders trying to improve people new to leadership in government right because we have a short swing of people coming into governments without government experience which is not not a failure but you have to learn those things and you can't catch up on 20 years in 20 days so the book is that and then it's also the third tier is for people trying to work more closely with their government agencies so they kind of understand the challenges and where they might be able to fit in and provide their services or be a partner.

8:51Do you have any advice for business that wants to do business with local government in terms of networking, showing up, getting on the radar, building relationships? What would you recommend in that regard? It's a good question. My recommendation there is, and I think you would probably align with this is you don't come in selling in the beginning, right? You come in to be a partner. And what I, and I remember I was on the local government side for 20 years, working at the fifth largest city in the country and the sixth largest county in the country and two capital cities. So I have it from both sides.

9:29I recommend doing some research on that agency. If it's just your local city or county, that's good. Do some research on what's happening there. Try to find out what challenges they're experiencing. So you can have some relatability and some empathy, and then try to figure out which of those challenges they are struggling to overcome, right? And you might not have the answer directly, but if you go in to talk with a leader and you have those things in mind, you're going to start to develop that partnership earlier and you may end up selling something to them later that they need, or you may not.

10:03But the next time, right, they have a disruptor, something comes up and they need something, they might be more willing to reach out to you as kind of a trusted advisor, which is where I try to place myself is to be a trusted strategic advisor for local governments. Yeah, I like that. I mean, just showing up and offering to be of help, answering questions and then, you know, becoming an indispensable source. I used to participate a lot more in local, you know, kind of our local municipal stuff. And, you know, if you come in guns a blazing, Bodo, I got something to sell you. It's like, man, you are instantly putting yourself in that block.

10:41And it ain't the friend block. It's the, oh, gosh, here comes a vendor, just salesman of the year trying to win his trophy. And it's like, you know, as opposed to, oh, we like Shane. Shane's a good guy. Shane's very helpful. He's very knowledgeable. In fact, like our city managers called him up a couple of times with some questions or whatever. Guess what? When they're ready to do business, who they're going to ask? They're going to ask Shane. Yeah. And that happens, Josh. And so sometimes when they ask me, I have to be authentic and say, well, that's not exactly where I can best help you. But I know somebody that can do that.

11:18Right. And so it's also my job to have strategic partnerships on the private side in the B2B world so I can help recommend people that are good, qualified, things like that. And remember, this is what people, I think, forget. that those government leaders are, every decision they have has a risk. It has a financial risk. It has a political risk. It has a community-based risk. They are trying to minimize their risks when they're making decisions. So the more they know about somebody, a person or a business, and what their ultimate goal is, like if it's to help the community or whatever, that reduces their risk because you have shared ownership in that issue instead of just it's one-sided ownership, like the government owns all the risk and I just want to get paid on the private side.

11:59That's not usually going to work for them unless it's just the lowest price opportunity. Yeah. Well, Shane, talk about how you work with folks. Like what are your services? And my services are twofold. One is for local governments to be a fractional government executive and come in and help them with things that my 25 years of experience might offer that they might not know, right? They don't know what they don't know sometimes or they don't know an advancement of that. Or if it's a mid-sized to smaller government agency, they just may have never had to deal with that thing. And because of the agencies I worked at, I have that experience typically or I have a Jason experience, which I can help them with.

12:41So that's my job with the local government agencies to be a partner, to be a resource, to help them with big initiatives. Sometimes I'm a project manager, program manager. Sometimes I'm dealing with federal legislation, state legislation, policies, whatever it takes to get their thing done. Then on the private side, I help entities in the B2B world try to have good strategies to help work with local governments because there's a whole market, right, based on, you know, helping local governments, whether it's design services, architectural services, infrastructure, construction services, other vendor services, things like that.

13:18And then I'm usually working with the larger agencies on that front. So, you know, they need a way to try to be more strategic and have a longer term relationship. And normally these businesses, because they're looking at, you know, quarterly estimates and what their employee resources are and things like that, they don't always have the intelligence or the, I mean, the market intelligence or the strategic approach necessary to be successful in engaging with those government clients. So it's kind of twofold. It's one working directly, and then it's supporting from the private side. Yeah. And Shane, of course, your book, Managing for Meteors, it sounds like that's primarily for those in government?

14:02Yeah, the target for that is local leaders in government or, Josh, people wanting to know more about how to work with government agencies. Because if it's a strategic initiative, that a government should look at, they don't, you know, most of our governments are running at like a 15 % vacancy rate and people are earlier in their careers. So they might want to do that strategy, but they might not know how, have the resources, the capacity. That's when our partners from the private sector can come in and be of service. Yeah. So your website, Managing for Meteors, and then that just kind of redirects to Silsby-SA.

14:41Okay. Do you have resources available to our friend that's listening right now? Where do they go from here? Yeah, there's a few different things they can do. One is I have a full page of free resources on the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. That's the Federal Infrastructure Bill and turned into a law, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, that's been working its way through the federal government for the last four plus years. The largest investment in the history of the federal government in many infrastructure areas. And when we look at the grade of the nation's infrastructure, it's like a C or C plus, depending on where you're at.

15:17And so that continued investment is good. And that's helpful to local governments to have that knowledge, but also on the B2B side, people trying to provide services to support that infrastructure investment. So I have a full page on that with some resources you can download for free or read about it. We're in our fourth of the fifth year. Congress is right now talking about that fifth year of infrastructure funding. So when I go to D.C., I'm engaged in talking about that. So that's the free resources, and that's kind of what's happening, trending with the federal government. The other side is helping with the projects because of workforce development issues in our local governments, generally speaking in the industry in general, but letting me help them with that because of maybe a lack of workforce that can help with those things.

16:07And then the newest thing that I'm trying to help my clients with is trying to prep for a pending recession, right? We don't want it to happen, but the factors are going up and up every month. And so part of my book is being prepared before it happens. Because once that thing happens, once that disruptor happens, it's too late to get prepared. Now you're just in reactive mode. And when you're in reactive mode, you can make mistakes. You can spend more money. You might do things that don't have a long-term benefit. So that's what I'm helping some of my clients with right now is prepping with more efficiency and revenue initiatives, things like that.

16:41Yeah. All right. Silsby-SA.com or you could just go to managingformeteers.com. Shane Silsby, founder and CEO, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks, Josh, for having me. Appreciate all of your efforts and your podcasting, hosting. It's a great job and I appreciate watching you.

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