How to Serve Your Team Well As a Small Business Owner with Donte Wilburn of Premier Auto Detailing

As a small business owner, serving your team well should be one of your top priorities. After all, a strong and motivated team is crucial for the success of any business.

But how exactly can you serve your team well and create a positive work environment?

To answer this question, I spoke with Donte Wilburn, the owner of Premier Auto Detailing. Donte has an inspiring story of turning his life around after a near-death experience and an eventual arrest for dealing drugs. After these life-changing events, Donte turned to Jesus and dedicated his life to serving others. This newfound faith has played a significant role in his business practices, as he strives to treat everyone he encounters with the same love and respect that he believes Jesus would show.

Donte now owns several multimillion-dollar businesses, and he's known for his exceptional customer service and the way he treats his team. He's won several distinguished awards, including the Indiana Entrepreneur of the Year Award and the Small Business Person of the Year award. He’s also a mentor, an associate pastor, and an author and speaker, all while running his successful businesses. 

His story is a testament to the power of redemption and the importance of serving others, both in business and in life. So If you're searching for valuable insights on how to cultivate a positive and supportive work culture that inspires your team to give their all, then this episode is an absolute must-listen! 

Specifically, this episode highlights the following themes:

• How Donte’s life experiences shaped his business philosophy
• Importance of making core values alive in the organization
• Making an impact beyond profit

Other Mentioned Links & Resources

Know more about Donte:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dontewilburn

Visit Donte’s website
https://dontewilburn.com

Add Donte on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/donte.wilburn.58

Learn more about Premier Auto Detailing:
https://premierdetailingandwash.com

Get a copy of his book, Born Hungry: You Were Made for More
https://www.amazon.com/Born-Hungry-Were-Made-More-ebook/dp/B0C2VWFM7Q

Connect via email:
dwilburn@premierindiana.com

Learn more about Treefrog services:
https://www.treefrogmarketing.com

Save $20 on your first order from InstaCart
https://www.treefrogmarketing.com/instacart-coupon-code

Join the Priority Pursuit Podcast Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/179106264013426

Follow Treefrog on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/treefroggers

Follow or DM Victoria on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/victorialrayburn

Transcript

Donte Wilburn 00:00
The love of money is the root of all evil. And we don't want a love for money. We want to do something greater than just money. Money should be the byproduct of us serving well.

Victoria Rayburn  00:06
Hey there and welcome to another episode of the Priority Pursuit Podcast. I'm your host Victoria Rayburn and guys, I have to tell you, when I started partnering with treefrog on the podcast, I asked Kelly and the team if there were any guests they wanted to have on the show, and immediately without even a pause, multiple people said, we have to have Donte Wilburn on the show to talk about how he serves both his team and his customers. So ever lovin Well, today, Donte is a serial entrepreneur, but a few decades ago, dancy was a young man tired of living in poverty, he turned to dealing drugs as a quick way to build the life of luxury he thought he wanted the after a near death experience and an eventual arrest, Donte chose the difficult task of turning his life around. Donte now owns several multimillion dollar businesses. He's a true serial entrepreneur guys, he mentors at risk youth and is an associate pastor, author and speaker. He has also won several distinguished awards, including the Indiana Entrepreneur of the Year Award and the Small Business Person of the Year award. Well, Donte has countless accomplishments, if you were to ask anyone who knows Donte, why they think he's successful, they would almost certainly say something like, it's because of the way he treats his customers, his team and just everybody he meets. And today, Donte has graciously agreed to come on the show, and share some tangible ways that we, as small business owners can better serve our customers and teams. Donte, thank you so so much for your time this morning. And thank you for coming on the show.

Donte Wilburn  01:42
No, I am so excited to be here today with the tree frog team and especially you Victoria, we kind of go way back from the early days of tree frog. So I appreciate being able to be on this podcast with you. And I'm really, really excited to dive in and I'm very truly thankful for you.

Victoria Rayburn  02:00
It's gonna be a great conversation. And guys, if you are listening, in case, it's not clear. Donte is a tree frog clients, he has worked with tree for a long time since like my round one with tree frog, which is was more than five years ago. So it's been a while. But Donte, you just have so much going on that there's no way I could possibly give you a proper introduction. So before we dive into today's topic, would you mind introducing yourself telling us all about the many, many businesses that you have? And just all the things that you think people should know?

Donte Wilburn  02:32
Yeah, so I guess I'll start kind of from now and kind of go backwards. So currently, I own seven different companies, you know, I read a lot of different books. And so all of my success, I would just give all of it to first the Bible or even that. And then secondly, all the books I've read from these great mentors, and I just kind of followed their path of what they said, and you know, everything kind of turned up the right way should be so the seven different companies kind of give you a couple of them. Premier auto detailing is my baby where I was founded. And we do auto detailing. We do window tinting accessories, mobile pressure washing, and we have a store here in Lafayette and one in Kokomo. And between the two stores we do about $2.1 million. And that's the where God has really caused me to play. So I would say 60 to 70% of my time and focus. A couple of data companies I have is one is legacy courts. That's a big 40,000 square foot basketball facility. Me and a couple partners own that. It's just a great thing because my kids all play basketball. I got three kids, it's Titus, which is 11 years old, he loves basketball Trinity. He's 14 years old, she loves basketball. And then I got a little guy, little true at that's five years old, and he loves basketball. So we bought into this basketball facility. And it has just been so good to be able to give back to the community and see these young kids get raised up in sports. And that's been awesome. And then last year, we just purchased two large 40,000 square foot soccer bill. And so after we had the legacy courts see an opportunity to buy into the soccer buildings. And so now we have something that I'm trying to establish there. It's called Legacy Sports Park. So it'd be a big park full of a bunch of activities for you to be able to come in and play sports. And it goes right in line with my core values of being able to serve people. And that's what I feel like sports does it. It teaches our kids to have good character, you know, being told when run, jump, obey authority or coaches and different things. So those are the kinds of businesses I'm in. The other ones are more like real estate, different types of companies. So buying and selling real estate and renting houses and different things like that. So that's kind of where I'm at Right now, do you kind of want to give me Do you want to give me time to give like a five minute backstory of how I got to this place?

Victoria Rayburn  05:07
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I do have to ask though Donte just because you have so many things going on. We've mentioned your kids. I'm just curious, like when your kids are asked, like, what is your dad do for work? What do they say? Because how would they possibly break it down?

Donte Wilburn  05:24
So it's real simple. They say two businesses, they say auto detailing, they talk about premier because I'm making them go to the carwash and wash the cars, right? Like so. Even my little five year old, he gets out there and wash his car. So they know that went very well. And then they talked about the ownership, a legacy course because they always go in there and play basketball. So that's what they think I do all day. And then they think money grows on trees, so I have to make them work for everything that they have. You know, so it's a great thing. And I got a wife. My wife's name is Tisha Woburn. We've been married going on 17 years coming up. So really excited for our anniversary coming up. But yeah, so kind of backtracking. I was born and raised here in Lafayette, I went to Klondike Harrison and Purdue, my parents are from Gary, Indiana, they moved down here in the 80s. And they could only afford a trailer. So we grew up as the only African American family growing up in a trailer park. And so I fought through a lot of racism. And I say to everyone, that's kind of where I got my fighting spirit. And then my sophomore year, in Harrison high school, I seen a guy, you know, we didn't have a lot of money. And he was counting all these 20s in the back of study hall. And I was like, Man, how did you get all of that money. And so he took me up to school taught me how to sell drugs, junior year, you know, I just really started to sell more drugs. But I'm still going to school, I graduate, I go to Ivy Tech for a little bit and transferred to Purdue because I knew I couldn't sell drugs for the rest of my life. And I realized I could sell even more drugs while I was at Purdue University. So leading up to my, I would say, my junior year in college, still selling drugs. And it's often on, off and on. I made a deal saying this last time I'm doing it. Well, that last deal. I was set up to be killed by some guys, my friend was shot three times. But it came out later that I was the target to be killed that night because I could I beat them and they owed me money. So after my friend went to the hospital, my life changed forever. Basically, two groups were out to kill me, that I seen because my friend that I had purchased and the drugs from he thought I set him up because he was shot three times and I wasn't touched. And then on the other side, the guys that did the shooting, they knew that I could IDM. So these two groups were after me, and I just was living in anxiety, and extreme fear. And that's when I gave my life to God. So big transition in my life, I started going to church, learn who he is, you know what my purpose is in life. And at that time, when I changed when I gave my life to God, that's when I got a call from my mom saying there's this carwash that will hire you for minimum wage. So I go up there, they give me a job, I make a minimum wage at a carwash. I didn't like the car, the people were treated. And God started to minister to my heart on how I can grow in this place. And I can eventually take it over and treat people better than the way I was treated at the carwash. So long story short, in my case, people got 60 years, 40 years, 20 years, I was the last of the sentence. My senior year, I got straight A's while at Purdue University. And so when I went to be sentenced before the judge, he said, Hey, you know, you're bringing all these bad people to my community, but then you're getting straight A's at Purdue University. What do I do with you, I literally beg crying Victoria, crying for one chance. I mean, I'm just tears falling down. So he granted me three years community corrections. I went into community corrections. And basically it's work release where they you're like in jail, but they let you out for work and school. And I graduated from Purdue while in community corrections, and still going to church trying to change my life around. And when I graduated, I had the like, under my cap and gown, I literally had the badge to get back into jail. And that was a rough time. But you know, instead of quitting, I chose to really really dig in. And I said, you know, I'm not gonna let this time define my life forever. So then I serve two and a half years on house arrest, and then in 2008 So this all happened in 2004 to 2008. And then 2008 Mike razor, a local business owner of many different dealerships here. He let me run his cleanup department with five employees. And then in 2011, after three years of serving him well, he gave me the opportunity to build premiere. And once he saw what I built, and the budget that I use to build it, he came down. And he said to me, Donte, I'm gonna let you buy this business from me. And I cried like a baby, because God showed me a vision of how I could change and help this auto detailing industry. Even though I was making minimum wage, he says, I can take you there. And so when Mr. Razor came down and told me, I'm gonna let you buy this business, I cried. Because God was real. And he was really speaking to me, not just because of the opportunity. So I ended up buying the business, I took off well, and then in 2020, we opened up second store in Kokomo, we have about little over 40 employees between the two, and we're looking to add more locations. So that's kind of kind of a backdrop of how I got into purchasing the auto detailing company. And then from there, I just kept finding new investments to invest in.

Victoria Rayburn  11:05
Wow, you just have such a testimony such the business story. Sorry for going so long. No, not at all. I mean, they're all just such important things. And I mean, I just think it's so, so cool. How, you know, God showed you like at a really young age, just how important it was, you know, how employers treated other people. And it's just always, I don't feel like it happens very often in our lifetimes, like we always as Christians, like we know God is at work, but sometimes you can't see it. And sometimes it takes even generations past you to like, figure out like, why something happened. And maybe you don't even get to see it in your lifetime. But it's just so cool that you can see God's hand in your story in so many ways. And I mean, it's been a while, but it hasn't been that long. You had a crazy couple decades.

Donte Wilburn  11:49
Oh, for sure. I mean, from 2004 to 2020, that 16 year stint was just all over the place, but but I wouldn't trade it for the world. So you mentioned I was 2020, one's Entrepreneur of the Year and then 2022, Small Business Person of the Year designated by the Small Business Administration, which was just huge. So but after those accolades, and I'm like, you know, what happened, Victoria? Like, everyone was like, What did you do? How did you do it? I want to do it. And I was just like, literally, it was 16 years in the making, there's no way I can explain it to you like in 10 minutes. So Victoria wrote a book. Alright, so the book hasn't come out yet. So it's called Born hungry. You were made for more. So Victoria, this book that I wrote is literally, when I'm sitting down writing it, my mentality was, what would I tell my 17 year old self? Before I got in all the trouble? What could I have done to tell my 17 year old self, to get me to take a path of success from the start, rather than going through all the mud I had to go through. So I wrote this book for 17 to 25 year olds, to really kickstart their career on the right path with a lot of different understandings and wisdoms that I gained over all of this experience that I went through. So really, really excited for that to come out. Oh,

Victoria Rayburn  13:20
so are we and Donte, we typically don't ask people about their personal priorities and their business priorities. But I know that you discuss these in your book, and people have to read it. So just to give them a little bit of a tease, we're going to bypass those typical questions. And guys, this episode will air when Donte's book is available, we will be sure to include it in the link in the show notes. But as you can clearly tell that he has an amazing story. And businesses don't grow like this unless you know exactly where to prioritize your time and your resources. So be sure to check out his book. Again, it's available at the link in the show notes. But Donte I am so excited to get into today's conversation. There are so many things we could talk about with you. But like the treefrog team says like anybody ever in Lafayette who's ever like we've been like mutual acquaintances of they always talk about how well you treat everybody you come in contact with. So let's work today. I mean, we could talk about you know, how well you treat your wife and your kids and so many other things. But today, we're just going to focus on your customers and your team. So let's start on the customer side of things. In your many, many businesses love us. Let's start with the why first, but in your many businesses, why do you prioritize customer service above almost all else? So I'm

Donte Wilburn  14:38
gonna be honest, going back to the Bible. So one of the first things that when I was going through all of my pain, I read this verse, and it's Ephesians 428 And Ephesians 420 A says, Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him work with his hands. That He may be able to have to give to those in need. Okay? So, in the very, very beginning, God told me, you need to work extremely hard, so that you may be able to give to others. So that really, when he instilled that in my heart, I realized that customers are what people? And then I realized that employees are what people? And I said, How can I serve these two groups with all my heart with Ephesians 428 in mind, and then another verse came to me, and it's key that is greatest among you will be servant of all. So every day I wake up, every day I go in, I relentlessly pursue two things. I say, okay, how can we grow the business so that our employees are happier, while they're at work, they get paid more. And the business can afford to, you know, do fun things, like send them on trips, and all these different things, to reward them for all their hard work. And then my other thing is, how can we continue to build an organization to give every customer that comes in a wow experience? So and leave with it, the smiles on their face? So those are the two main things that I'm telling you when I wake up in the morning. Those are my two driving factors, which all evolve around people.

Victoria Rayburn  16:36
Wow. I mean, I'm not even surprised that you wake up first thing in the morning already with your priorities in order and you know, exactly, well, that day is going to go. And so daunting, I do think that a lot of times just within you know, the small business owner world, we hear a lot about like, you know, it's important to prioritize your team, it's important to prioritize your employees. But I think for a lot of people, they don't really know, just tangible ways to do that, or how you actually do that on a day to day basis. So can you give us some, like practical ways that you at Premier or any of your other businesses that serve your customers? Well, and I mean, I have no doubt, you know, what you share can be added, adapted for other small businesses as well. So what are practical ways that small businesses can serve their customers? Well, like, Are there any good rules of thumb, anything like you're trying to, like always, under promise over deliver, like, how do you go about it?

Donte Wilburn  17:31
So the way that I focus on customer service is literally, I put myself in the customer shoes, and I say, what would be an awesome experience for me? And then if I had trouble because we always have trouble with ourselves, like, can we, because I'll take this, I'll take that. And I, we tend to undervalue ourselves initially, so then, if I can't see clearly on how to make something better for my customers, by putting myself in their shoes, then I go on to step two, which I put my mom and dad as the customer. And I say to myself, my mom and dad came in here to spend money with me. And I wanted to wow them for raising me for all these years. And that was a, I was a heathen, right? Like, what what I do to wow them so that they leave with these extreme smiles on their face. And so from that, a lot of array of ideas come, right. Like it'd be as the customers leave and bring them up front, show them around their vehicle. And then don't let them pay until they're happy with their vehicle. And like, just all of these thoughts arise from when you put yourself in a scenario of where you're serving someone that you truly love. And you want to wow them, you almost want to say like, like Valentine's Day is coming up, and you want to do something amazing for your spouse. If your spouse was coming into your business for Valentine's Day, and you want them to wow them, what would you do? And then you just stick on that. And then you say, Okay, well, that's what I'm going to make the norm for every customer that comes in, right, like, that's kind of a trajectory I go through when I'm trying to create these great experiences for my customers.

Victoria Rayburn  19:16
That mean, that's such a good practice. And I love the simplicity of that. But you can really use that through every phase of the buyers journey, you know, whether it is like content development, you know, from a marketing standpoint, and if you're thinking about like, okay, like, what would be helpful to my mom, like, what's going to serve her well, is the communication like, okay, like, obviously, like, mom doesn't want to have to wait three days to hear back about when she can schedule her detail or whatever else. And so I just think that's such a good practical approach. Priority pursuit podcast is brought to you by treefrog marketing, a marketing agency for small businesses that takes the guesswork out of marketing. Most small business owners and leaders aren't sure where to start when it comes to their marketing and end up wasting time and money on marketing tactics that don't actually work at treefrog. We take the guesswork out of marketing so that you have the freedom to focus on other aspects of your business and to life outside the office. To learn more about our services, which include messaging and strategy development, website development, SEO management, content marketing, Google and social media advertising, social media management, sales, funnel development, consulting and more, visit tree frog marketing.com. On our website, you can also schedule a 30 minute consultation to discuss working with tree frog to build a marketing strategy for your small business that saves time increases profit and allows you to feel confident in your marketing.

Victoria Rayburn  20:44
Again, visit treefrogmarketing.com to learn more about our services and just schedule a free consultation. As a small business owner, you probably have a seemingly endless to do list. But I can almost promise that there are things on your list that can be outsourced, like grocery shopping. I mean, as a wedding photographer, the last thing I wanted to do after shooting a wedding on a Saturday was to spend my Sunday in a grocery store. So I am forever thankful that a friend told me about Instacart Instacart is a grocery delivery service. Basically, you use the Instacart app to make your shopping list, then a personal shopper goes to your preferred store selects your groceries for you and delivers them to you. Typically all within just a few hours, you can also schedule your delivery time, which is wonderful. Personally, I will sing Instacart praises forever, because one has saved me from countless hours and two Instacart employees, local personal shoppers, meaning with every Instacart purchase, you're putting money back directly into your local economy. Well Instacart does charge a delivery fee when you upgrade to Instacart. Plus for just $99 a year, you'll receive free unlimited deliveries for all orders over $35. Considering the time and frustration you'll save, that's $99 well invested. If you'd like to avoid going to the grocery store and save $20 On your first order from Instacart of $35 or more, visit treefrog marketing.com/instacart. Again, if you'd like $20 off your first Instacart order of $35 or more visit treefrog marketing.com/instacart. Okay, so then at 20, we also have to talk about ways to serve your team. Well. And I do think though, that this is just a really important piece of this conversation, just in that a lot of small business owners, you start as one person and then maybe you add somebody part time. And then you know as things as more and more business comes in more often than I feel like it's like small business owners like oh my goodness, like now we're a team of 10 I didn't take the time to develop my company culture. I don't really know what I'm doing. We're just hoping that we don't get in trouble tax wise. And they don't even take a deep breath to think about like, okay, how can I serve my team? Well, so Donte, what are practical ways that small business owners can serve their teams? Well, and then I would also add to that question, you know, why is that such a big priority for you and why it has making serving your team? Well, how has that benefited your business?

Donte Wilburn  23:15
Well, mine is we're in the labor industry, right, like so ours is, we can't get any work done without an actual person doing it. We don't have the robots we don't have on the assembly line with different mechanical devices that can do things. Ours literally is all people. So my started with the people in heart. And to be honest, like when I was in my early days, auto detailing, the customers would come and I had this one experience where one of the employee stole out of the cars when iPods first came out, they had to be cracked, 2004 2005. And back then it was like 400 bucks, which 400 bucks, and together 14,005 is a lot more money than now. So this customer drops off his Mercedes, he leaves. I seen the guys steal the iPod out of it. And I said, Dude, that's your problem. I'm just as cowork and I'm like, what? Why would you do that? And he said, Man, we don't get paid nothing here. And this guy has a lot of money. So I think I needed more than him, which is a horrible, horrible mentality. But in the horrible mentality, if you look through and transcend What is it really saying is I'm in poverty. And this is my only way that I can think of to at least get a little extra money. And I said to myself, Man, we do make minimum wage. We've worked so hard. This is an unjust this injustice that we can't get paid more in this profession. So my whole heart from the beginning was all about the employee, like how do I make this to where they can be successful in this industry. So my heart started there. So, what I do, which if you read in all the books, I just kind of took what they taught me to do. And I started with purpose. I said, Okay, so when the doors are closed, and my employees are talking about me, what do I want them to talk about? Right. And I started with servanthood. So our purpose is servanthood, creating joy and happiness through professional auto detailing, I would like them to talk about the joy and happiness of professional detailing. So I started with that foundational purpose, okay. And then from that purpose, I spawn in the core values, which we made five core values. And I said, Okay, these core values are what I want in the organization to live by. And I want everybody to know them. And I want to reward people based on how they live this way. So we made an acronym called lamps, la MPs. So it's love thy neighbor, a bill in effective detailing, move quick, but don't rush. So we want to move quick, but don't put out rush word P is professionalism, we want to be very professional in this industry. And the last one is a small details are big. So we wanted to focus on quality, that the small details are really big task. So with those five core values, we came up with an award system called the bright line award, where we basically showcase one employee from each location every month, that's living the core values. And that could be an array of things, he can help his co worker when he was down and out. And he loved his neighbor, and he helped him so he might get highlighted for that, that's an array of things that you can win the bright light award for, but just making core values actually alive in the organization, it's not easy, but it pays dividends because it gives all the employees something to live for greater than money, the love of money is the root of all evil. And, and we don't want to love for money, we want to do something greater than just money. Money should be the byproduct of us serving well. And so so those are the things that I would say for a team is have a lock down of what your purpose is, and then exactly know what your core values in it are, and then make sure you award based on those core values.

Victoria Rayburn  27:25
Absolutely. And so I just gonna repeat this back to you. And you can tell me if it's accurate or not. But you know, I think as small business owners, there's a lot of pressure to determine like the why of your business, you need to determine your why you need to determine your wide need determine your why. And that is the driving force that will keeps you going when you know we have a project for you just got to be up super late to get it done. But I think you've done an amazing job of explaining your why to your team and getting them on board. With that Is that fair to say.

Donte Wilburn  27:54
And so literally, it's like a shepherd herding sheep, like always, someone's going to straight always like, and so I don't want to exemplify this, like I just got it all together and all my sheep are just marching like, it's a daily chore to bring them back into the middle of the core value. But if you don't have the purpose and the core value, there's nothing to bring them towards. Right. So if you have sheep that are strain, getting out over here, getting out over there, if you don't have a main thing to bring them back to they're just going to stay just kind of wandering. So it's really, really critical for the business to know those and and always keep those as the central focus.

Victoria Rayburn  28:38
Absolutely. This is not on the list of questions I sent you. But you know, I feel like that is such a good point. So when you have a sheep, who is a stray? How do you handle that? What does that process look like other than just pointing them back to the core values.

Donte Wilburn  28:51
So when I have a stray sheep, and you can always feel when they're going to stray? Typically, they start to get a little more quiet, a little more reserved, and then they start to kind of draw back a little bit. And you could just feel the energy from them. So I like to have great conversation. So usually, I sit down with him and I just say, Hey, so what's going on? And they kind of tell me a little bit of, it's always preliminary in the beginning. But if you keep asking questions, then it does start to develop the root cause of what it is. And then I just tried to attack that root cause. And I can tell you, I would literally say to every business owner out there 80% of it, is the way that they're thinking. That's simply what it is. It's usually now there's 20% that where it's actually rarely like my pay was messed up five times and I'm upset about it. And physically, this was messed up and you got to fix it and you can attack them. But I would say when she goes straight 80% of it is the way that they're thinking. And so thoughts produce these feelings, right? And then these feel liens produce these actions to where they're drawn back. And then these actions produce these results of where they're just not performing well. So when you trace that whole process back, it's all about the way that they're thinking. And so God has just gifted me to be able to be real with people. And I just sit down and talk with them. And I say, Hey, man, I think the way you're thinking about this is a little skewed. Do you not realize that you just got this, this and this? And I will say, Victoria, listen, it's so easy to let our thoughts roam, it's so easy to let our thoughts focus on the negative. And so when they sit down with me, all I'm doing is giving them the opposite side, like, Okay, I see that you're saying that's negative, and that's negative. But what about this? What about this, this, this and this? And they say, Oh, wow. And then I literally look at them, I see their eyes start to open, and they start to see the good versus the bad. And so that's usually how I handle my sheep as find the root cause attacking and trying to get them to think on a positive note, if they want a straight.

Victoria Rayburn  31:11
Man, that's so good. And I love that you're having your honest conversations with them. I think that a lot of people just innately want to avoid confrontation. And so they, a lot of times have employee issues, just because they don't address it as soon as they should. And that's not helpful for anybody, for sure. Okay, so Donte, we did talk about, you know, your light program. And so that is essentially like an employee of the month program, right?

Donte Wilburn  31:36
Yeah, technically,

Victoria Rayburn  31:38
yes. Technically, I like your acronym way better. I just in case anybody's like, wait, what, what are we talking about? So we talked about that. And so you definitely your employees have this incentive to work toward this. And then you know, they're also familiar with your core values. They know what the why is behind your business. But can we talk about company culture as a whole? Like, what are you guys doing on a day to day basis, that is making people like really feel committed to premiere, but then also helping them avoid those thoughts that could cause them to go astray? So basically, like making them feel valued, so that way, they never want to be stray in the first place?

Donte Wilburn  32:15
Yeah, so company culture, to me, all boils down to establishing a clear vision. So even when we talk about your why your purpose, your core values, all of that if you can put in a melting pot, and you boil it all down, all of that is framed inside a vision of where we're going, right, so. So I would say, establishing a clear vision is what makes a company's culture great. And that allows them to be able to get behind the vision. And the Bible even says, and I quote this everywhere I go, without vision, the people perish. So what it's saying is, without a vision, everyone that's following behind you will die that follows you. Now, I know that's a little morbid, but But it's, I think of it in that critical of terms, because it makes me focus more, that if I don't have my vision clear of where we're going, people literally can die behind me. And especially in a church setting, I'm Associate Pastor, if you can't clearly see the vision that God has given you could literally die and go to Hell, right. And so that's on the passive side. But then in business, if you don't have a clear vision for your company, and where you're going, and people can see where you're going, the people behind you will wither and die, and that die might be leave your company, but it still serves the same purpose, without vision that people will perish. And that's what frames a culture,

Victoria Rayburn  33:56
Sensei, I love how you look at pretty much every aspect of business just from this big picture, almost philosophical view, just in that I think that a lot of times we'll ask people about like, oh, like, how do you instill company culture? And they'll say things like, well, we make sure that we have lunch together once a week, or like, we send a happy birthday text message to the whole team or via slack when it's somebody's birthday. And it's like these little teeny tiny little things that it's like, it's nice, like, don't get me wrong, but like, yeah, like my great aunt, you know, also tells me happy birthday on Facebook. I haven't seen her in six years. Like it's the same thing. So I love though, that you just look at these range from just such a big perspective. But when you know what your values are, when you know how you want people to feel when you know how you want to love them. Well, then I just feel like in your case, especially just those little actions come naturally because you know what the overarching values are. Is that fair to say? That is

Donte Wilburn  34:53
it and so to be honest, it's funny because he just said that we do all those things. Right? We use Slack we said that happy birthdays, we do a Target gift card for every birthday there is employee anniversaries, they get apply. I mean, we do all of those things. But when you have these longer distance views, your people will naturally build those things in. Because they know, hey, how do we make people feel better here? Right? Like, that's part of our core value like we can they come up with these ideas and like that bright light thing. Like we just started that a couple months ago, right? Like, literally, one of the employees did such a phenomenal job. And we always acknowledge our core value. Anybody that did something amazing, we always blast it about. But we had an employee a couple of months ago, just do something so amazing. And my HR person calls me and was like, Hey, how do we establish something to where we could do something special, every single month for them, and not just when we see it, but make it into more of a process of I was like, Hey, this is what we do. This is how we do it. And, and she's like, super happy to do it like so. I mean, we have bowling parties. I mean, we do all kinds of little things for him. But but that all kind of feeds out of the long term view.

Victoria Rayburn  36:12
Absolutely. So Donte, if somebody's listening right now, and they're thinking like, Alright, I need to get it together. I really want to serve my customers. Well, I really want to serve my team. Well, you'll they'll form their core principles that you talked about, but then what would you recommend that they do next? So that they can put their best foot forward and start truly serving their customers and their team? Well,

Donte Wilburn  36:34
okay, so you're gonna laugh at me again? Probably.

Victoria Rayburn  36:37
I'm not laughing. This is all a you've been dropping wisdom left and right. Today, it's been great.

Donte Wilburn  36:43
So these, like you said, philosophical views. So a person that wants to know what to do right now, I would say you can't know what to do right now until you build a five year plan. Okay, so, so this is what I would do, I would challenge the person that wants to know, what do I need to do I want to go to the next level, I want to build a business. I want to serve my customers, I want them to be happy, I want my employees to be happy. I would say okay, in five years, what do you see it looking like? And when you start asking yourself that question, God will show you what that looks like, in five years. And you kind of get that picture of okay, in five years, I want to have this many employees, I want to be at this type of revenue, I want to have all of these things. Okay. So if you want to have that, what do you think you need to do to get there? What would it take for your employees to be happy for your customers to be happy to get to that five year picture. And so you kind of just work backwards from what you want, and then start to put in simple procedures of what you need to do to get to your five year plan. Right? So that's, that's kind of how I frame all my trajectory is that I want to change something right now, which we're going through a restructuring of our business, even right now. And that's what I did. I said, okay, in five years, what do I want this thing to look like? And then if I want it to look like that, in five years, what do I need to do today, to start heading in that direction. And then I come up with all these thoughts and ideas, and I'll start to place them in and headed towards that, that longer term goal.

Victoria Rayburn  38:21
Once again, very forward thinking I cannot imagine a better place to wrap up our interview today at Donte, you have dropped again, so much wisdom today, I am so excited for people to hear this episode, and start not just implementing some of the things that you talked about. But you know, also thinking ahead, what they want their businesses to look like, what they how they want to serve their customers in five years, how they want to be able to serve their employees and five years, this has been so so good. But that's it before we officially wrap up. I know people are going to want to hear more from you. So where can people find you connect with you learn more about the many, many things, you know, Daonte Wilburton has to offer and then also buy your book. We'll include all the links in the show notes, but for those who are driving right now and can't scroll through their show notes without crashing tell us all the places

Donte Wilburn  39:12
Yeah, so my website is being built. I mean, it's really close to being done. It's Donte wooburn.com.com This thing airs or be fully up and people have been on it from all over the world. So yeah, Donte woburn.com is my website. You'll be able to follow everything that I have going on on my speaking engagements, everywhere that I met all the businesses if you wanted to see what how you can partake or get in at all be on there. You can email me, my email is D Wilborn. DWI LPU, RN at Premier PR e mi, er, and then Indiana IMD A n a.com. So premier indiana.com You can jump on Facebook, look up Donte Wilburn. Find me like me there. And then, of course, LinkedIn. I'm also On LinkedIn quite a bit, too. So those are the places that you can find.

Victoria Rayburn  40:04
Awesome. I know people are going to want to connect to with you in as many ways as possible. Sanjay, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Thank you so much for sharing your testimony as it relates to your business. And also for you know, just being part of the tree frog tribe for so long now, we are just so thankful for you. And I know that Kelly is just feel so blessed to call you one of her closest friends.

Donte Wilburn  40:29
Oh, yes, I love Kelly. And can I say one more thing before we wrap up? Absolutely. So one thing that I just want to and this isn't my book, but I want to just drop it here, because knowledge is power. And I would just say live on purpose. And the only way that I found personally to live on purpose is establishing a morning routine. And my morning routine, I just tell you exactly what it is. When I first wake up, before we do anything else, I read the Bible, I read a chapter a day, or go through that chapter. And that time it is my fuel and kind of gives me my energy for the day that I hear directly from God, first thing in the morning. And then I prayed, I asked the Lord to bless my path as I go to serve you and anybody that I come in contact with. And then I sit down, and excuse me, and I go over my goals for the day. And I have long term goals that I back into daily goals. And I make sure before I jump out there, and I start my day that I know exactly what I need to do this important because life, life will fill your day with a bunch of unimportant things. And so it's super, super critical that we don't spend major time on minor things. You have to spend your major time on major things. So it's super critical. Get your list, what's major that's going to push me forward, and make sure you hit those before getting put in the office. And this thing happened, nothing happened and dealing with that and dealing with this and just your whole day. And you did all minor things, but you didn't hit your major thing. So make sure you focus on that first.

Victoria Rayburn  42:15
All right now I can't imagine a better way to wrap up the priority pursuit podcast. I mean, that is exactly what we are all about over here. So guys, if you haven't listened to me, if you haven't listened to Kelly, please listen to Donte and Donte. I'm like kind of cracking up a little bit because I think that we talked about you're pursuing your priorities from a bigger approach. And now as we're wrapping up your episode, where you talked about things from such a philosophical level, we're wrapping up and you're like, every day like, this is how we pursue the next most important thing like every day, like so. We've got macro, we've gotten micro, this has been such a great episode. Thank you so so much.

Donte Wilburn  42:51
Fun times. Thank you, Victoria. I appreciate you having such a pleasure, love Kelly webserie FrogTape. Love everybody listening to you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for giving me time in your day.

Victoria Rayburn  43:03
You're the best. Thank you. Thanks for tuning into the priority pursuit podcast. For access to all the links and resources mentioned in this episode, check out the show notes or go to prioritypursuit.com to ask questions, share your wins and connect with other priority driven small business owners join the priority pursuit podcast community on Facebook. Or don't be afraid to shoot us a DM on Instagram. You can find us at Tree Froggers at tree frog Kelly and at Victoria l Rayburn.

Victoria Rayburn  43:30
If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review. This will help other small business owners wanting to be present in their personal lives confident in their business choices and proud of the legacy they're building find priority pursuit. Thanks for tuning in. Be sure to join us next week for even more marketing, boundary and priority driven tactics you can use to build a life and small business you love.