Martin Glenday is the Founder and President of Moxie Media, a full-service media design and production company. He received his Bachelor of Arts in mass communication from the University of Vermont in 1982 and earned a Master of Science in film production and business from Boston University in 1984. When he was just 25 years old, he founded Moxie Media to provide employee training materials for the oil and gas industry. In the 35 years since then, Moxie Media has expanded to include around 20 employees and over 500 training courses, serving more than 50,000 learners across industries.

• CEO Hack: Learning by doing research
• CEO Nugget: Take more risks especially when you're young
• CEO Defined: To be a leader and put employees in positions where they can achieve success for the company

Website: http://moxielearning.com/

Moxie Media’s workforce safety LMS: https://moxielearning.com/lms/
Moxie Media’s maritime security and safety training: https://moxielearning.com/elearning-courses/?fwp_categories=maritime
Moxie Media’s oilfield training videos and eLearning programs: https://moxielearning.com/elearning-courses/?fwp_categories=oil-gas
Moxie Media’s OSHA eLearning programs: https://moxielearning.com/elearning-courses/?fwp_categories=osha
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/MoxieMediaInc
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Moxie-Learning-1025081337583780/
Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/moxie-media-inc./
Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/moxiemedia/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MoxieLearning

FULL INTERVIEW

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Transcription

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[00:00:02.20] – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

[00:00:30.39] – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Martin Glenday of Moxie Media. Martin, it's awesome to have you on the show.

[00:00:40.20] – Martin Glenday

Oh, thanks. Glad to glad to be here.

[00:00:43.20] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Super excited to have you on, Martin. And what I wanted to do before we jumped in is to read a little bit more about him so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. Martin is the founder and president of Moxie Media, a full-service media design and production company. He received his bachelor's of arts in mass communication from the University of Vermont in nineteen eighty-two and earned a master's in science and film production and business from Boston University in nineteen eighty-four.

When he was just twenty-five years old, he founded Moxie Media to provide employee training materials for the oil and gas industry. In the thirty-five years since then, Moxie Media has expanded to include around twenty employees in over five hundred training courses, serving more than fifty thousand learners across different industries. Martin, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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[00:01:29.59] – Martin Glenday

Oh, yeah. Sure. Glad to be here.

[00:01:31.79] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Super excited to have you on. So, I guess before we jumped in or when we jumped in, I wanted to jump in. I guess, we're winding the clock back, so I wanted to hear a little bit more about your, what I call your CEO story. We'll let you get started with your business.

[00:01:44.90] – Martin Glenday

Sure. Again, as you reiterated, I started the company, you know, now it's almost thirty-five years ago. And, back then, it was more I had, graduated, and I was gonna be the next Steven Spielberg, but we all have to make a living. We can't all be there. So, I had an opportunity to work for my uncle, who had a heavy equipment company in New Orleans. And, I didn't really wanna be doing construction or whatever, but he sort of supported me and, I did his marketing for a year. And then I said, hey, why don't we start now, a video production company? Because I saw a number of his big customers, which were some of the big major oil companies, you know, required training on he had big cranes and excavators and all that, and they all needed training on those. So we started making training videos for those particular clients, and then basically grew.

We also, because we're in the New Orleans, the Gulf Coast region, there is a great number of, maritime assets. So we started doing training for the inland waterways, the offshore supply vessels, and then continuing into both the offshore oil and gas, and the land, gas I mean, land, oil, and gas, in Texas, out west. And over time, one of the biggest things that I've learned especially in this industry is that you've gotta move along with the technology just because we started doing VHS tapes, then moved to DVDs, and then, you know, CD ROMs, and now we're into mainly all of our programs and delivered via the web, with e-learning, being the mainstay, and then we've created our own software to create what we call a learning management system for companies. So companies subscribe basically a software as a service to our platform and we are kind of sort of de facto consultant.

So we look at the company, we get the list of their employees, we talk with their safety training, HR, and loss control people, and decide what type of training each one of their employees needs. And then we set those employees up with courses, e-learning courses, and then the employee can log in and basically, he sees a road map of what he or she needs to take, to move along, to meet compliance regulations for the company as well as move their career path along with the company. So that's, we keep expanding and you know, we have, so along with our learning management system when the company subscribes, they also get access to our close to a thousand courses now on every type of topic from human resources to health and safety, wellness.

And then we have all your basic OSHA safety type courses and then in those industries that are required for compliance, a lot of the oil and gas maritime licensing requirements with the that the government has to do. Requires Coast Guard, then we have API, American Petroleum Institute. So we create training programs that meet those requirements, and the employees go through them. And then they have what's important is the record-keeping for the administrators. They can go in and check to see who's in compliance, and who's not in compliance. The employees can look at their records, and that makes it simple because basically, the platform sends out emails with reports, whether it be on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. So we keep growing into other industries.

One of the areas we're looking at now is the hospitality industry, just because not so much that it's regulated, but there's lots of turnover in that industry. For a lot of people, the hospitality industry is like their first job. So we felt that it was a good one to be able to give them good instruction on how to be whether they're working in the front of the house or the back of the house or even in management controls. So we're always looking to basically take what leverage that we've already got and put it into new verticals whether that be, we're also in the construction industry, other highly regulated industries as well. Yeah. That's that's our story, and, we keep keep, moving along.

[00:06:36.19] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That's pretty awesome, especially, you know, with the different opportunities as you said, you know, kind of in your industry, but really in every industry, technology has definitely evolved and changed and continues to do that, and it's so important to be able to, to, you know, change with the times, evolve with the times, be ahead of the puck, so to speak. But I think too, what you talked about, like, especially related to, like, the hospitality industry, I think if you do or are in an industry that has so much turnover, you wanna be able to have that kind of, that those learning skills and that information there so that people can continue to learn if there are people that are coming and going. So it's, it's awesome that you have created that and help, you know, so many organizations, out with that. So, I was gonna ask you, for what I call your secret sauce. And this could be for you personally or your business, but what do you feel kinda sets you guys apart and makes you unique?

[00:07:30.80] – Martin Glenday

Our secret sauce is, it's a pretty simple one, is good customer service. I and I'm sure many people hate calling a company where you get a dial-by number of services and are on infinite hold to do it. I just really don't understand how the industry of this world survives in using that methodology. It's just so unfriendly, and I'm sure most people agree. So one of the stipulations that we have at our company is that the phone gets answered by a live person. If for some reason everybody is tied up, I have a mandate that the phone, after like four rings, rings at every single person's phone in the company. And if that phone is if they're hearing that, they're obligated to pick up the phone. I don't expect them to solve everybody's problem, but at least they can take a message, let the person know that, we're there for them, and that somebody will get back to answer their question.

It just drives me crazy to have to sit there on hold and, so that's a little bit of our secret sauce, but the other part is just we are very much, just because of the nature of the role that we play, we are sort of a de facto consultant. We, people, rely on us for our good customer service. With our learning management platform, not only do we provide a full, you know, So we have in a full, you know, tech, response department who answers and mans the phone. So if somebody calls in and, you know, they're and those guys are and gals are great at their job because, you know, many, many times it's human error.

People, you know, don't have the speaker on, or they don't know how to do this, or the Internet's not working. And they're very patient. They're always very kind. And, you know, I always tell them to treat, the person on the other end of the line just like they were them and how they would wanna be treated. So, you know, I would say that customer service is probably our number one mantra in keeping companies happy. And that is shown because most of our companies, most of our customers stay many, many years. Typically we only lose customers when they're either they either go out of business or they're being bought by another company. But I get all sorts of rave reviews from customers who give us very high marks on our employees and their engagement.

[00:10:17.39] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. I mean, I know you said it's simple, but that's something that goes so far. And so, kinda crazy that in so many different industries, customer service and being able to to get back to people to be able to answer the phone, I love that mandate as well too, go so far because I think so many times people are looking for that. You know, we talked about technology, but that human touch and to be able to just call and contact somebody, whether it be, you, a client reaching out to you, or, you know, somebody that's having some issues with the learning management system and might be having technological issues.

Just somebody to talk to who knows that they can kinda get through that to get to what they ultimately wanna be. So I think it's something that's huge and it goes so far, so it's great that you do it and obviously remind us how important it is as well too. So, I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an Apple book or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

[00:11:13.70] – Martin Glenday

The biggest skill that I find is that you know, it's not really so much a hack as it is a practice of constantly learning by doing research. One of the things whenever I travel, you know, certainly have my iPhone and all to do research, but I will go to the magazine rack before I get on a flight and buy some of the, you know, some of the business magazines. I just wanna see what other industries are doing, what are the technologies that are out there, and what are some of the pressing issues that other companies have.

[00:11:52.39] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And that could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. Or if you hopped into a time machine, what might you tell your younger business self?

[00:12:04.89] – Martin Glenday

Well, I always tell, especially new employees and, I have interesting anecdotes of, how I would tell my younger self to take more risks. I mean, when you're young is the only time that you can take risks.

[00:12:17.00] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Definitely appreciate that, that nugget. And so now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO, and we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on this show. So Martin, what does being a CEO mean to you?

[00:12:31.20] – Martin Glenday

Well, again, and then, you know, again, it's a cliche, but obviously, to be a leader, you know, most CEOs, obviously, if you're a Fortune five hundred company, you're very concentrated on stocks and, you know, what the stock price is, keeping the value of the company going. You know, with us, with a smaller company, my role as in a private company is obviously to make sure the business succeeds, but also to be a leader to the employees who, you know, and I find that the greatest challenge is finding the qualities in employees, the talents that they have, and promoting that in them even though they often don't even recognize it themselves. So it's being able to put them in positions where they can, you know, achieve success, and value for the company. Also, the CEO's role is to, as I had said before, look for new opportunities, and see where trends are going. Business is evolving daily.

[00:13:31.50] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. I think as as you're talking about, you know, the times, that we're in as well too, there's gonna be a lot of shifts and changes and being able to be resilient, be able to see opportunities, be able to lead the team and help them to succeed so that the organization can succeed, are so, important and integral to being a great leader. So I appreciate you giving that that, holistic kind of, definition and perspective and and truly, you know, appreciate your time even more. And what I wanted to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know, and, of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome things that you're working on.

[00:14:09.20] – Martin Glenday

Well sure, again, they can get a hold of me at any time. We have a number of, websites, moxie media dot com, moxie learning dot com, moxie training dot com. We also have a sign division. We create signage to meet a company's regulatory requirements from maritime and oil and gas and any industry oil and safety and health is fine. So that's so as far as other information that I would suggest that your readers do is, you know, don't be afraid to, travel the world. That was one of the things that I find is, you know, looking from an international perspective, Companies within the US often become very US-centric, and it's a very big world now. And it's really hard to do business just in one market. You need to look at what the entire world is doing.

So get out there, travel, see other different companies in other countries, and look to see what other companies are doing around the world. Don't believe that just because we're in the US we're doing it better or greater than somewhere else because I can guarantee you there's somebody else on the planet who's doing what you're doing or wanting to do it and, they may be able to give you greater insight and, you know, be able to provide you you with a perspective that you would never have thought of otherwise.

[00:15:32.50] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. And we will have the links and information in the show notes so that everybody can follow up with you. But I truly appreciate that reminder because I think as you said, you know, in your nugget, that is so important, or your hack actually is so important to be able to kinda continue to sharpen a a saw. And you talked about magazines and things, but traveling as well provides an entirely different view of the world. And a lot of times, we can learn how maybe people are doing things differently.

And in that way, we can learn how to implement things, you know, here in the US or wherever we might be and improve, you know, know, what it is that we're doing. But I think if we don't travel if we don't get out of our comfort zone, figuratively and literally, you know, jumping on a plane that kind of resists our opportunity to be and continue to grow. So I truly appreciate that reminder, Martin. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

[00:16:21.89] – Martin Glenday

Thank you for having me.

[00:16:23.70] – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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