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Interviewer: Another question that really comes to mind, I think,
is the age old question of how much do you talk about the person's
disabilities when you are talking with the employer? If you could
speak to that for just a minute?
John Luna: We do not sell a person with a disability. What we are
selling is the individual's skills and abilities to do the job. We
have found employers do not want to hear about the disability. They
want to hear if the person can do the job. Will they show up on time?
Does he have the skills to produce, and can he be an asset to the
company? The thing is, no one is interested in the disability except,
usually, the CRPs or the Social Service Agencies. We have to go beyond
that into the business like world.
Interviewer: I really appreciate your sharing that based on the number
of years experience that you have. Because, I think that one of the
biggest barriers to marketing really is the human service agency getting
stuck on trying to "educate" the employer about disabilities.
John Luna: Yes. You can spend a lot of time with that and the employer
is going to be thinking about why you are talking about disabilities
and is going to be thinking about maybe some of the organizations
that he donated to. Whether it is the United Way, so therefore you
are going to lose in the first six or seven minutes of the conversation.
If you have lost the conversation with a businessperson, it is over.
You have to go from the business standpoint of employees. You have
good employees. You stick with that. You do not switch over to, "Well
this person has a disability and has an IQ of blah, blah, blah and
he has dexterity." The employer does not want to know the psychological
and medical terms for everything.
Interviewer: I would wholeheartedly agree with you. I just wanted
to make sure that we brought that point up, because I think it is
really critical. That might be one of the barriers that we perhaps
even bring to the situation that stops us from being successful.
John Luna: Sometimes our biggest obstacle is ourselves!
Interviewer: That is probably very true, don't you think?
John Luna: Yes.
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