Good Neighbor Podcast: Auburn and Opelika

Ep.#83: Inside C12: Peer Boards For Faith-Driven CEOs

• Susannah Hodges at Village Centre Press

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We explore how C12 helps Christian business owners build strong companies with clear mission, healthy culture, and measurable results. Ben shares the model, the history, and why moving from technician to builder changes both businesses and families.

• What C12 peer advisory boards are and how they work
• Monthly full-day meetings with practical business tools
• Integrating ministry focus with profit and excellence
• History from Buck Jacobs to a global network
• Local Auburn–Opelika group structure and invite process
• Ben’s shift from real estate to chairing C12
• Results in companies, marriages and parenting
• Why the five-employee stage demands leadership
• Myths about Bible study vs business rigor
• Mission, vision and values to beat urgency
• Simple systems that scale culture and performance
• How to visit a board and get involved

To visit a group or learn more, email bin.com at C12groups, call 706-604-5098, or find C12 of West Georgia and East Alabama on the C12 forums web page


SPEAKER_02:

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Ben Hodges.

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome. With me is Ben Comiford with C12. And this is an organization that uh has some pretty interesting ways of helping business owners. So tell me, Ben, what is C12?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, thank you for having me on, Susanna. Uh C12 is a peer advisory board for Christian business owners and CEOs. And it's to help for-profit businesses operate their business with a ministry focus as well as profitably. Um, but it's it's to help leaders in the marketplace um be able to display the love of Christ through their everyday workings within their companies.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. Well, tell me a little bit more about that. What are some of the things that you guys do that that help facilitate that?

SPEAKER_03:

So the corpus of C12 is a one-day-a-month board meeting. We meet all day together. Um the C and the 12 originally just stood for the Christian 12. It's modeled after the 12 apostles, the 12 tribes. But there's a balance in 12. So what we have in is to work towards a group of 12 business owners who are from different industries, who all share the challenges of payroll and um you know running running excellent businesses, delivering goods and services in a way. We meet one day a month, all day together. Uh, and we will go through business topics, performance-based pay, um, you know, how do you manage, do change management, various uh employee services, things like that. Any anything a business would deal with, the ordinary advancements of every month. Um, we work through those things. And then we also have um, you know, how do you do that within the context of ministry? How do you how do you really do employee well care in a way that displays the gospel? Um, and then towards the end of the day, we have a little more relational approach, and one member of the group will present their business in full. Uh who they what their market is, um, you know, some of the challenges they're having with particular employees or how to promote the really well-performing employees and and what's what's fair and the right way of doing that. So um, we've seen it have tremendous success, uh, not only in the financial performance, but you know, for us more importantly, just king kingdom impact.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, well, that's that's a pretty interesting concept there. How long has C C12 been around? What's a little bit of the history?

SPEAKER_03:

That was a national organization. It was actually started by a gentleman named Buck Jacobs in Tampa in the early 90s, and he was a late comer to the faith, uh, but he made up for lost time. So he had run some larger corporations, and they're really at that point in time, there were some there were peer advisory boards like EEOM and Vistage and like roundtable groups, but there there weren't there wasn't really a mechanism for Christians um who had the same financial metrics, but their ultimate goals were a little different. Um he set out to um to provide that, and over the course of the last 30 years, that's grown into roughly 250 chairs and about 5,000 members across uh four continents.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow.

SPEAKER_03:

Having a monumental impact. Um we've seen a number of uh a quite a large number of people come to faith on the clock. So um it's it's really been something to behold.

SPEAKER_01:

And so the Auburn Opalika area has a um, I guess you would say this is a membership. Do you apply for it? And the Auburn Opelika area has a has a uh group?

SPEAKER_03:

So we have a group. Uh we're hoping to have more, but we have a group right now that meets at Saugahatchie Country Club on the uh third Tuesday. Um it is by invitation, so we're you know looking for uh business owners. We have a couple of seats in that group, um, but we're looking for individuals who um you know really want to steward their business well, and um you know we have a diverse group of industries, various forms of construction, real estate, uh banking, um, we've got some manufacturing, just a little bit of everything in there. And so um, yeah, we'd love to have a couple more, and then we'd love to establish some more groups in Auburn, but we're seeing a profound impact on the members that are in that group.

SPEAKER_01:

So excellent. Well, let's shift a little bit here and talk about you for a minute. How did you get involved in C12?

SPEAKER_03:

That's a good question. Um, so my historically, um, I was in the commercial real estate development space, um, built apartments, um, managed shopping centers. And about 10 years ago, I just gotten exasperated with um either seeing excellent market conditions and nominal culture within businesses or excellent culture and mediocre marketplace performance and and just really felt like this is not how this should be. So I went into a period of just fasting and praying and and thinking through and asking the Lord, I really wanted to be able to impact people. Uh and my giftings were in business. I knew he wasn't calling me into vocational ministry, but it was inescapable that all of us who are believers are called to discipleship and sort of walking out the Great Commission. And so I knew that it was in that era, and in his kindness, um, this kind of fell in fell in my lap, quote unquote. Um, it's been really the joy of my life to see transformation of the men and women that have been involved in that. Uh I didn't I was not looking for it, it kind of found me.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

It has been really a remarkable experience. You know, the interesting thing, Susanna, is that within these groups, I mean, we have seen some really incredible results in companies two and three. But I would tell you, if you ask the members and their spouses really their marriages, their relationship with their children. Um a lot of very successful business people pay for it with their marriage and their relationship with their children. And so, you know, we have found that those two don't have to be in opposition. So a lot of what we help business owners with is how do you how do you build an organization? How do you how do you build and equip people? If you're the central processing unit and you're an employee, uh you don't you don't have a business, you have a job and you have work. So you you really need uh you know, a lot of people get into this because they could have draft. Um they have a trade that they've excelled in because of that. They didn't necessarily set out to own a business because they were 40 employees and um they're kind of the same business.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. All right. Well, you've been doing this for a while, right? Uh what are some of the misconceptions you've come across uh for groups like you know, with the mission that you have? Any myths or misconceptions out there you'd like to clear up?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I would say not so much about C12. The bigger challenge we have is that most people aren't aware that we exist. Okay, yes. What we typically overlap with, and rejoicefully so, because we're in, you know, uh generally a more um, I would say Christianized part of the country. We're not a really we're not a Bible study, although that happens, and then we're not really a networking group. This is this is in kind of an intentional business development group. Um and it is it is unapologetically uh fee-based for profit. Our our understanding though is that the best way to walk that out is biblical. The Bible holds the recipe for the best way to conduct business with integrity, with honor, and with excellence. And so we've seen um we're gonna study the Bible, but there is that happens, but that's not that's not the goal of what we're here to do. It's it's really about building great businesses for us.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. Well, tell me, you know, part of the reason I do this podcast is to encourage people in their desires to own their own businesses or to be an entrepreneur. Um, what are, you know, in in and in your involvement with C12, what are some, you know, as you well, as you, you know, are trying to start your business, or maybe you've gotten into business for yourself, everybody has hardships or obstacles that they've encountered along the way. What kind of challenges have you experienced that made you a better person and your business a better business?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, there's really two main stages of it for any entrepreneur. There's there's sort of a launch phase. Got some sort of proprietary product or or service that you do well. Um, and you're really just trying to create some awareness in the market of what you do, you know, how to get in front of the people that you can best serve. And so there's a certain stage of that, and that's inevitable for every business. And then there's a point where you hit about four or five employees. Well, it really stops being about um how well you do your individual trade or the element or industry you're involved in, and it really becomes a people. It really becomes about how do you get people involved? You know, how do you develop leadership qualities that cause your business to be the highest and best use of time for any individual that's out there coming to working with you, partnering with you, doing business with you, uh is a customer's best option and a prospective employee's best option. So uh that's not as simple as hanging a shingle. That's right. And what we tell you know, any prospective business owners, and uh it's really about five employees, is where it makes sense for somebody to be a part of C plus. Okay. So much of what we're doing is relational, it so much of it involves discipleship. And you know this, Suzanne. I mean, once you get to a certain number of employees, it really is about how you impart culture, um, and how you inspire, and how you really just create a robust and great place to work. Right. And we think that goes hand in hand with the gospel.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, is there one thing that you wish people knew about C12 that they may not uh realize?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I I would say C12 works because there's kind of a truth out there. Um you know, people have a tendency, sort of the e-myth of working in their business. They're not real good at working on their business. Yeah. And you just kind of keep you sort of become beholden to the the uh the the tyranny of urgency. Biggest challenge that most businesses, especially fresh businesses, have is they think, well, I'm not there yet. I really need to get lift. And because of that, they don't have a mission statement, they don't have a vision statement, you know, they don't have core values. And and honestly, as the scriptures say, without vision, the people perish. I mean, you really, if you're gonna invite people into what you're doing, you have to have a vision, and it has to be greater than well, we you know, we want to make money. Um, but you know, honestly, you're gonna serve customers better. You're gonna think more coherently about how do you how do you love your customers well, how do you love your your people well, if you have a sense greater than well, we just we want to be profitable. Well, that's not motivating necessarily.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So it's it's really gotta be, we think it's excellence as under the Lord. So I'm gonna dig a ditch clean, straight, and on time as under the Lord. Um and we believe that that done time after time produces, you know, best in class service, whatever industry.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, how would someone get in touch with you if they were interested in joining C12? Um, what are the ways you can get involved?

SPEAKER_03:

So we invite uh prospective business members to come visit, uh, visit for a day. It's one of those things, it's you know, we're not we're not providing widgets. It they really need to come, um, be a part of the group for the day, um, see what it's like, um, pray with their spouse about being involved with it. Uh, I think that's it's it's not a small commitment, but it is transformative. So they can either uh email me uh at bin.com at C12groups, um, or they can call me directly at uh on my uh cell at 706-604-5098, or they can go out on the uh C12 forums web page and and find a link to C12 of West Georgia and East Alabama.

SPEAKER_01:

All right, that sounds awesome. Well, I've enjoyed learning about C12, and that is uh something that I did not know existed. So I know that the people in Auburn and Opalica will be interested in learning more about what you guys do, and I just appreciate um having a conversation with you today.

SPEAKER_03:

I do as well, Susanna. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast Audit. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to dnpawder.com. That's dnpawder.com. Or call three three four or two thousand.