Guess No More: Employee Appreciation That Works for Every Person (with Nick Hoard)

If your team members aren't staying (or aren't fully showing up), the answer might not be compensation. It might be that they don't feel genuinely seen. I'm joined today by Nick Hoard, founder of Patient Care Marketing Pros and a business owner who has done the real work of building a culture where appreciation isn't a nice idea; it's a system.

Nick shares how he took the 5 Languages of Appreciation through his entire team, embedded appreciation profiles into their virtual workspace, and built intentional practices that span three countries. The result? Loyalty, trust, and team members who don't want to leave.

This isn't theory. It's employee appreciation that works, told by someone who failed forward with semicolon stickers, won big with an $8 TikTok pickle, and learned that the most powerful thing you can do for your people is pay attention to what actually fills their tank.

Books Mentioned
- The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace by Gary Chapman & Paul White

- Giftology by John Ruhlin

Connect with Nick on LinkedIn or visit NicktheMarketer.com to explore his work.

Transcript

Why People Leave Workplaces

Dr. William Attaway 0:00

People don't leave companies. They leave cultures where they don't feel valued. Welcome to the Appreciation at Work Podcast, where we share real stories from leaders building workplaces that teams don't want to leave. I'm your host, Dr. William Attaway. I'm excited today to have Nick Horde on the Appreciation at Work Podcast. Nick, thanks for being here, man.

Nick Hoard 0:28

Hey man, glad to be here. Dr. Attaway, always good to see you, always good to hang out with you, and excited to be on another podcast with you, man. Thanks. I appreciate it.

Nick’s Story And What He Builds

Dr. William Attaway 0:36

Absolutely. I'd love to start with you sharing a little bit of your story with our listeners, Nick. Tell us about you and what you do.

Nick Hoard 0:43

Me and what I do. Well, so we'll just keep it professional then and we'll talk about from that standpoint. I'm in digital marketing and advertising. Started my company. It'll be eight years in April, and it started as Nick the Marketer, and Nick the Marketer still exists in some degree, but it's kind of a housing unit for my other things that I do now. So I own a digital marketing agency called Patient Care Marketing Pros. It's a niche agency. We just serve uh urgent care and patient care type uh businesses. Um, I also am a pilot, and I bring that into the mix because I use it to fly to go visit pilots. We're about to launch a YouTube channel that's actually, I think we're gonna call it postcards from Preston. I have a special needs child and I'm trying to build out his future. So postcards from Preston, he's gonna go to work with dad. We're gonna go visit clients, but we're gonna talk all about him and what he's experiencing while we're out there. Um I like to invest in stuff. I mean, as you tell me, man, I don't call it just a pure entrepreneur because I feel like they jump from business to business to business, which is awesome. I like the focus method, follow one course until successful. So I dive in and then go for it. So that's so good.

Dr. William Attaway 1:48

There you go, man. Well, you know, you you already kind of gave me an answer to to this next one, but what's one thing most people don't know about you that might surprise them?

Nick Hoard 1:57

I mean, a lot of people may not know you're a pilot. Yeah, that's pretty big. Well, that's one of them. I think the one that surprises the most people, because you don't hear it on any of my resume, is uh my background is in studio music and jazz performance. So I'm a saxophone player. Now my son's a saxophone player and he's really good at it. He plays my horn that I used to go out and gig with. So it's really cool to watch. He's better than I am. So I love it. My goodness. Yeah, he's good.

Dr. William Attaway 2:21

That's a joy, man. I love that. Sure.

From Love Languages To Work Culture

Dr. William Attaway 2:24

So we're talking about the five languages of appreciation today. How did you first learn about this framework?

Nick Hoard 2:31

Well, I have to say that it started back years and years and years ago when I was doing the five love languages, trying to figure out who the heck my wife was. And uh what what does she need? And why are you the way you are, and why am I the way I am? You know, that kind of stuff, right? And why the things that make me happy don't make her happy or feel loved or appreciated, all that kind of stuff. So that was the original introduction, probably 15 years ago, uh, with some entrepreneurs who just kind of poured into me and say, dude, I know you love your wife, but she has no clue because you're doing it wrong. So that's how that worked out. Love that. And then trying to figure out, okay, well, that works. If that works in marriage, it's got to work in probably most relationships. Why are my friends who my friends are? Why do I pick the team members that I pick? Or why do they pick the team members that they pick now that I have a bigger team, right? Yeah. Um, and and just starting to unpack that a little bit. I was like, well, if the five love languages work, my VP of operations, Michael, says, hey man, you know they make one for the workplace, right? I'm like, mm-mm. I do now. So what I did, uh, Dr. Attaway is I had my entire team. I bought the I bought the book, The Five Languages of Appreciation at Work. I bought it for everybody on my team, and we went together through it as a team. And I'm sure we'll dig into this a little bit, but now we've like we've put it into practice in our organization and we're intentional about it.

The Team Book Club And Assessment

Nick Hoard 3:52

I love that.

Dr. William Attaway 3:52

So when you first go through this book together as a team, and I love the idea of doing it as a kind of a book club, right? Or in the workplace. Like when you first were going through it, was there a moment when you realized as you were looking at the assessment results and looking around the table, was there a moment when you realized that explains a lot?

Nick Hoard 4:11

Yeah, absolutely. I I think I had already kind of discovered that just in understanding the five level languages. But to watch the team really see their eyes open and go, oh, that explains a lot the way you said it. Because I, you know, if you if if you if you understand once you know something, you can spot it. Does that make sense? Right. Absolutely. So now that I know it, I can spot it when I talk to somebody and and and unpack a little bit more about them. But they haven't haven't studied it yet or hadn't at the time. And to watch them go through it and be like, oh, that's what's wrong with me, or that's what's right with me. You know, however you want to look at it, right? It's not really the wrong thing. It's just that that's why I have one particular team member who is absolutely not physical touch. Absolutely not physical touch. And I'm like, I knew that, but she figured that out on her own, like through this process. So that was the high pop.

Leading With Your Own Default Style

Dr. William Attaway 5:02

That's awesome. Yeah. So before you did this together as a team, before you read this book, how did you typically try to show appreciation to the people that you work with?

Nick Hoard 5:14

Basically, my love language or my language of appreciation. Like ultimately, before I realized I I feel like the book kind of gave me permission to do it. If that makes sense. It's like I knew it, but I didn't have permission. So here's what I know for sure. Well, first of all, my language of appreciation, my love language is physical touch. That's my primary one. Well, that's a big fat Harry Nono being a man business owner in a workplace with half of us being ladies, right? Yeah. So I already kind of knew. So I just I knuckle bump people. I don't even, I don't hug, I don't put my arm around people, I don't do any of that kind of stuff. But that doesn't change the need. Yeah. You know? So that doesn't change the need of like I still physical touch. You could you can tell me how much you appreciate me. You can show me how much you appreciate me. But if you come up to me and give me a chest bump or a high five or something, like that means so much more to me, or really just give me a hug, that kind of thing. I care more about that kind of stuff than any of the other leveling or languages of appreciation. Sorry, I'm gonna get this right before the end of the day.

Dr. William Attaway 6:17

I'm with you, man. I'm with you. You're in, you're in it. That's really good. So that was before. Like now, what does it look like for you guys to execute on this? Like everybody's been through the book, everybody's done the assessment. We know our language of appreciation. Like, now what? What does it look like now?

Putting Appreciation Into Daily Practice

Nick Hoard 6:34

Yeah, so um, well, uh, so there's layers to that, okay? Because because, like I said, we were intentional about it. Well, one, get the book out of the way, go do the book, go read the book, go take the assessments. My whole team has taken the assessment. Much like, well, there's three things. Um, we all do a disc profile, D I S C. Most people are familiar with that. For me, I I I there's Colby index and and all these other things. And I'm like, I need four letters, not 12. You know what I mean? Like, just give me the four. So simple, right? Um, and then we do the work, well, then we do the languages of appreciation. And then the last thing we do is our working genius by Pat Lindsay. So what we do is we have a virtual workspace. We also have a physical workspace, but we have a virtual workspace called Kumo space, if you have heard of it. Okay. Yeah. So you can have a permanent description in your profile. And in that profile, we have your disk assessment. What are you ID? Are you IS, S C, whatever? So we have that. We have your language of appreciation, and we have your working genius. So that if I if I hover over your name, I'm gonna know how to communicate with you in in multiple different ways. Like we're we're gonna have multiple ways to do that. So, how has that allowed me to be more intentional? Well, I can just hover over someone's name when I'm about to go walk into the little Kumo space office. Like, okay, this person is a driver. They want me to get to the point. Okay, they are a gifts person and their working genius's tenacity, so they can get it over the finish line, right? Like I know about who I'm about to go talk with. Like, let's get it done and let's get it finished, right? Right. So knowing that they're let's just say that they're a gifts person, right? Yeah. Taking them something fun. Hey, I was thinking about you and I found this, right? I'll give you an example, Alyssa on our team. Yeah. She is exactly what I just described to you. Okay. And I knew that there was a time that I had to go have a conversation with her because she was having a rough time, not in the company, just in general, right? And I also know she likes pickles random. Okay. Okay. So I could know her a hand knitted on TikTok, I'm sure. A hand knitted emotional support pickle. Right? That's excellent. That was that was two and a half years ago, and it's still the first thing you see when you get to her desk. Wow. Right? Talking about being sealed seen and cared for, and it wasn't just bringing a gift. It was that thing was eight bucks plus twenty-five dollars shipping and handling. Yeah. TikTok, right? That's right. But you pay you. I half wonder at this point if like FedEx and UPS are like propagating this out there because they're the ones who win in all of this. There's no way they made money on the pickle. Anyway. So that that was that was like I said, eight bucks plus shipping and handling. But the fact that it was tied to a situation, and then on top of that, it was a gift, like physical something. Right. And then I can obviously it meant something because it's still on our desk today, two and a half years later, right? There's been failures at this, man. There's been yeah. So I I brought this and to get prepping for this because I just thought it was funny. And I hold a couple of them up to the to to the to the thing. So people are words of affirmation. This is almost a gift and an affirmation. So again, on TikTok, I found stickers, right? Right. That unless that's overstimulated, right? Yeah. Here's one that says you're beautiful, you're worthy, you are enough. Just uh let's see here. Pri I love this progress, not perfection, right? Yes. Things, and I and I will give these stickers out. But here's the thing when I bought this whole thing of stickers to give out, there's half of these are missing, and the reason why is because they had a semicolon in

Gifts That Land And Gifts That Flop

Nick Hoard 10:24

them. Any idea what that means? Yeah, me either. Okay, so here we're good. We're on the same page. You're about to learn some today. So I have a whole array of conservative, liberal, white, black, purple, age, everything. I've got everything on my team, and I love it. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. Strength and diversity. So a semicolon is a very mental health thing. Just not attuned to that. And it means don't kill yourself. So I'm hand yeah, I'm handing out stickers that say don't kill yourself by having the semicolon on there. So as you can imagine, my intention was a a bad, bad failure. Like, what do you think I'm gonna do, man? Like, stay another day. What does that mean? So anyway, I had no idea that a semicolon meant hang in there, your story's not over, I think is what it's meant. Like, don't kill yourself. Wow. Um I had no idea. Hey, you you and me, man. I had no idea either. And here I am giving out semicolon like little things and emojis and stay hanging there, you got this, that kind of stuff. And they're like, what does he think I'm gonna do? You know? So um you can you can you can have all the good intention in the world and you can still flub it up, man. I'm telling you.

Dr. William Attaway 11:38

Well, you know, here's here's the thing you don't swing, you don't hit the ball. Yeah. You know, I'm a I'm a big believer, and and I love how that sticker showed it a second ago. Progress, not perfection. That's right. If you wait until it's perfect, if you wait until you got everything right, you will never make progress. That's right. Because you'll never move. It's never gonna be perfect. Swing anyway. And I I'll give you kudos for that. Swing it, man. You're swinging, you're throwing spaghetti at the wall, you're seeing what sticks. I love it.

Nick Hoard 12:08

Yep. We're gonna uh as a team, um, I've got some some uh people that like Lord of the Rings. And they are re-releasing it at the end of this month back into the theaters. So really we're gonna for the quality time. We're and and we're we're just I'm closing up shop here locally, and we're gonna all go watch uh the Lord of the Rings at the local theater together at like three o'clock or something like that. They shut down a little early, so there's your quality time. Love it. It it's you know, I learned this from Craig Grochelle, is what you know, you know, everybody says protect your yes, right? Protect your yes, protect your time, be careful what you say yes to. But when it comes to your team, when they come to you and say, hey, this would be a really good opportunity for us to spend time together, and it makes sense and it's not that expensive, you say yes to it.

Quality Time And Saying Yes

Nick Hoard 12:56

You know what I mean? So so yeah, protect your yes. But I think in the context of of showing appreciation thoughtfully, and even when they're saying, hey, this is how you can show me appreciation, like if it's feasible, say yes.

Dr. William Attaway 13:10

Great advice. So many people look at appreciation, they're like, oh, it's just one more thing. Oh, it's just uh it's expensive. I can't afford that. You know, and I think what you've illustrated here with these examples is it does not have to cost a fortune. If you pay shipping on TikTok, maybe it will. But you know, you buy it. For the most part, for the most part, you know, it doesn't have to be like trips and bonuses and here's your own plane. You know, that's that's not what we're talking about. You know, how gifts is not my love language. If you want to give me a plane, you're okay with that. Okay, keep going. You're okay with that. Right. Absolutely. Yeah, you know, a lot of companies really struggle with this because they're in the mindset of rewards and recognition, and it's gotta be a big deal, it's gotta be a trip, it's gotta be a big bonus, it's gotta be, you know, something like that. And they fall into the trap of thinking that's enough. When only 9% of people out of the 470,000 plus that have taken the languages of appreciation assessment, only 9% of them say the tangible gift is their language of appreciation.

Nick Hoard 14:13

Right. That's that's not the most.

Dr. William Attaway 14:15

No, it

Why Rewards Miss Most People

Dr. William Attaway 14:16

means 91% of the people are saying, I'm something else. You know? And I think what you're describing here in the things that you've talked about are the the variety of approaches you can take to help people see that they are valued and authentically appreciated.

Nick Hoard 14:33

Right. Kudos for that. There's, you know, there's some layers to some of the, thank you, by the way. There's some layers to this that that you know, over time you'll learn as well. And that's that's you know, I'd mentioned earlier disc and also working geniuses, in addition to languages of appreciation, understanding that somebody may be words of affirmation, but they don't like public affirmation. 100%. So so that was something that I learned, not the hard way, thank God. But, you know, I realize I have a team member who is words of affirmation. But if I call her out in public, she's not gonna like me or that at all. She doesn't want that. So I'll just send her, I'll pull her to the side, or I'll send her a private site message, hey, I see what you did. That was awesome. And for me, I always attach it to a core value or something so that I'm edifying like an action, not a personality, if that will. Yeah. You need to be careful with that as well. Absolutely. Celebrate wins, celebrate actions, don't celebrate who you are, because that's that's that that can become a challenge. But anyway, there

Layers That Make Appreciation Work

Nick Hoard 15:36

you go, man. Just the the layers. It isn't complicated, but it does take intentionality.

Dr. William Attaway 15:41

As anything good does.

Nick Hoard 15:43

For real. Yeah. Uh for example, my least, my least I don't get anything from it, and I genuinely don't like doing it is gifts. That's not my thing. Yeah. And so I'm going through the book Giftology, just to learn. Like I don't understand it. It makes no sense to me. I don't understand how people feel appreciated this way. I don't. Very bottom rung of my of my appreciation ladder. So that's another thing I would recommend is find out where you're where you're the weakest and figure out a way to get good at that.

Dr. William Attaway 16:14

Well, and and that's one of the things I like about the assessment is that it tells you your primary language of appreciation, your secondary language, and the language you least value. And so you can know, oh, okay, so for this person, this is the one to steer clear of. This is one that's not just gonna not fill their tank, this is gonna drain their tank. So are you guys fully in person?

Hybrid Teams And Remote Appreciation

Nick Hoard 16:39

No, we have a hybrid work environment. Uh so there's 18 members on the team, and we have three in Pakistan, we have three in Columbia, I have two in Memphis, Tennessee, and then everybody else is here locally. And that thus the the reason for Kumo space. So I do have a full staff in office, but also several remote, and they are team members. They're not I don't view them as contractors, they are on our team, so we treat them that way. And let me tell you what, it is not easy to get things to Pakistan. I would imagine. But we do. Wow. But we do. We do. We do give it you know our friend, uh mutual friend uh John, and now, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I've put things in his hand knowing he was gonna go to Columbia, South America to give to my team members that are through Ghost Appy. So, like, here, can you help me with this? Yeah. Our friends Azar and Athar, Sadiqi, right? Yeah. Hey, listen, I can't seem to get this stuff to Pakistan. Let me tell you something. Get into something other people are interested in and watch their loyalty go through the roof. That's not the reason you do it, by the way. But my Pakistan team are super into cricket. I have learned about it. We have team colors of Pakistan that we wear on our Zoom meetings when they're playing just to like build them up. And they're the byproduct, the win is that you're loving somebody well. The byproduct is the loyalty you get from.

Dr. William Attaway 18:09

Nick, that's so good and so intentional. And I and that word has really woven throughout this conversation today. And I think that that what you're describing, so many people look at this and they're like, oh, remote employees, that's hard to show appreciation. That's hard to make that work. Right. Choose your heart, man. Yeah, you want to build a culture that's healthy and sustainable, or do you want to look at that and say, man, that's the culture I wish I had?

Nick Hoard 18:33

Well, let me tell you the ultimate win is when you build that trust there. For a I don't know the audience of this podcast, and I can understand if you need to pull this out later, but but knowing that uh they have a Muslim culture over there, but I've built trust with them, for them to come into my Kumo space and say, Hey man, can you pray for me?

unknown 18:52

Yes.

Nick Hoard 18:52

I mean, you're opening up a door for my personal relationship and my Christian faith to enter in a completely different faith and for them to trust me with something like that because of the intentionality we've done from an ocean away. Are you kidding me?

Dr. William Attaway 19:09

That's so good. There's there are people listening, Nick, who hear this and they're like,

Trust Across Cultures And Faith

Dr. William Attaway 19:14

Yeah, appreciation, all that stuff's nice. But is it really necessary? If they were sitting across a table from you, how would you respond to that statement?

Nick Hoard 19:23

Uh no, it's not necessary. Uh you can have a revolving door business if you'd like.

Dr. William Attaway 19:28

So you see a direct line to this and retention is what you're saying.

Nick Hoard 19:33

Yes, exactly. You have choices. There's a first door, second door, there's a third door, and a fourth door. You can choose your own adventure here. Um, I just know that some paths are much harder than others. That's so well said. This you know, I love the statement, and I think it could apply here. I've heard it in other areas that you either live with the pain of discipline or you live with the pain of regret. Um, and if you're if you're disciplined enough to be intentional about loving people well or at least showing appreciation well, you won't deal with the pain of regret of trying to replace them to your competitor all the time. So there you go.

Dr. William Attaway 20:09

That's th those are your those are Well, that is a great way to land this episode. There you go. I'm so grateful to you, man, for sharing your experience, your insights from implementing and making this a part of your culture. Thanks so much for sharing this today.

Nick Hoard 20:23

Thanks for having me on the podcast. I really do appreciate uh you and the languages of appreciation uh and the workplace. It's it's a game changer for us, so thank you.

Dr. William Attaway 20:33

Absolutely. I know folks are going to want to continue to learn from you, Nick. Learn more about what you're doing. What's the best way for them to do that?

Nick Hoard 20:40

Best place to find me is on uh Facebook or on LinkedIn. Uh LinkedIn, it's Nick Horde, H O A R D. You can also go to Nick the Marketer if you want to look up that direction. And that's kind of a pathway to all of my things. Nice.

Appreciation As A Retention Decision

Nick Hoard 20:52

But there you go. That's how you find me. We'll put those links in the show notes. Love it, ma'am. Thank you so much. Thank you, Nick.