Welcome back to the Christianity and Business Podcast, an initiative of the RTW Dunham College of Business at Houston Christian University. I'm your host, Darren Shear, and this is a show that helps Christian business leaders to integrate biblical values into business. On today's episode, we're joined by Peter Goodwin. Peter is a former Alaskan hunting and adventure guide who now owns and is CEO of Groove Life, which is an active outdoor brand selling silicone rings, belts, wallets, and other everyday accessories. Peter, welcome to the Christianity and Business Podcast.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_01I was curious. Um, and and my when I tell my uh my nine-year-old son that you you were an Alaskan hunting and adventure guide, he's gonna be super jealous. And probably he's gonna he might shift his uh you know plans when he's 18 to go from Australia to Alaska. But what did you learn about um I guess what did you learn about business and and and just a life that you took and applied to your company um as a result of that experience?
SPEAKER_00Hmm, I you know, I kind of grew up in the tourism business in Alaska. My my family moved there in the 60s, and then I grew up, um, I was born in Alaska and um grew up, you know, basically with my family doing tourism up there. So I don't, you know, that's a hard question because that's all I knew until I was 35 when we started Groove on as a side business. But we, you know, I've done everything from fishing guiding to bear hunting, uh, moose hunting guide for many, many, many years, and then um transitioned into tourism when when we started having children. Um, not tourism, but eco-tourism, I'm sorry. So more hiking and kayaking and stuff like that to a little less intense trips. But as far as what I learned in business, um I don't know. I I learned to take risks, of course. And um, you know, we tourism in Alaska is a little bit like farming. You um you get into a lot of debt typically, you have a lot of capital expenditures, like airplanes and boats. Um, and you know, season to season, you can be in the red or black. So I think I learned to take risks and to fail small, you know, take smaller risk and fail more, maybe more often, but smaller. And that really primed me to um to start groove because that was the mindset I had is failure is actually the tutor. That is failure is the goal. Um, that is the only way you actually learn. Uh rarely do you learn from other people's mistakes, you kind of have to make your own. Um, but make those small and make those often learn from them course correct and pivot um very quickly daily when you're starting a new business. So that that would probably be the biggest thing I learned.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, taking risks. I mean, that's that's something that I didn't really grow up with when it comes to business. You know, I had parents that were in um education, my dad's a pastor, and so taking financial risks was not something that I grew up with, and to this day is still just a very difficult, um, difficult thing for me. So I I can definitely appreciate uh growing up with, you know, your you said it was a the family business. Um, your your parents were doing um the tourism, and then you kind of followed in their footsteps for a time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, unless my parents, um, my dad was in the radio business, but my uncles and cousins and grandparents all the were all in that business. So I kind of skipped a generation from my mom, but um, but yeah.
SPEAKER_01Gotcha. And so at what point did you realize God wanted to be involved in your work in the marketplace?
SPEAKER_00Um, pretty early on, I was saved when I was a young kid, and then God blessed me with depression when I was 19, which actually I say blessed, and and I don't I don't say that lightly. I I it was really bad for about six years, but I wouldn't go back and trade it for anything. I think in that time, that's when he, you know, I I always delineate between being saved, like the identity change, and then also and then being becoming him becoming a Lord, right? In my mind, I don't know theologically, but that that happened at two different times. Um and so that lordship submission um came in my early 20s. So that's that's when I just, you know, my whole life was his. And I I kind of got to the point where I was, it was either his or I was, you know, I didn't have a reason to live. And so, so naturally I applied it to my business because um it kind of goes back to the my life chapter, which is said in Corinthians five, that I'm an ambassador for Christ in a foreign land. I don't, I'm not a citizen of the United States, I'm not a citizen of the world, I'm a citizen of heaven, uh, representing him here for a short time before I die. And so naturally, whatever I do as an ambassador, whether you know I'm hunting bears or selling wallets and belts, um, that is that is just my temporary tent-making job, as Paul would say, um, to uh reconcile people to Christ. So that I don't my identity is not in my work, so to speak. My identity is in as an ambassador. So so you say how, you know, when did the kind of light bulb went off? It kind of went off when when God taught me that lesson that whatever I do, it doesn't matter. I have one goal, and that is to represent him to the people he's given me in my influence, circles of influence.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So in terms of the way you conducted business, what what changed as a result?
SPEAKER_00Well, you know, I think I I learned it early enough that um, well, I I will say this, and just to not say I'm so kind of in the clouds, when you start a business, and this this was for guiding and then for groove, I there wasn't this grand plan to save the nations, right? I was trying to provide for my family. Um, and I had goals for that, right? I had I wanted to be able to go on vacation once a year. I wanted my kids to have an education one day. So I had these financial goals, which I think is your first ministry. So let's be clear, I think a lot of people get that wrong. Um, most pastors get that wrong, if you ask, ask me, is they put their church in their ministry by their family. The family is the first ministry. So when you start a business, probably the most, the holiest thing you can do is provide for your family. Outside after you become successful in business and you have excess, that's when it be because you are an ambassador to your, you know, for Christ to your children and wife first or your spouse. Um, and then secondarily, it's your probably your employees the second, and I have these kind of concentric circles, you know, it's like family employees or co-workers and then your your customers. So um I yeah, don't don't want to like you know, be like, oh, you know, business, God's gonna bless your business because you're an ambassador for him, you know. That's not how it works. Uh, you got to have a great product market fit, you got to fail, you got to learn just like all the pagans. But um but it but it's very holy to provide for your family. And then um, so so so I I always had this ideal of right of using my business as a ministry, but not until probably in the last three years have I had the opportunity to do that. Because until you provide for your family and you feel secure, which has has its own inner work, right? What is secure, that's different for everybody and definitely definitely different for my wife than it is for me. But once you find those, you know, set those goals up and God gives you those, or you work hard, both, it's both, and then you you really can't focus on the you know using your business as a ministry. In fact, it's detrimental. I will tell you that I meet a lot of people, several of them work for me now, they're failed business owners, and they were they started their their company to to serve uh and they gave 10% of all their not even profits, but like their gross revenue to charities, you know, and and and and and they're out of business. So they didn't really do any good for anybody because they didn't focus on the business first. So there's a lot there, we don't have time for all of it, but I will tell you being excellent in business is first providing for your family, um, and then and then reconciling the second uh your business to the the mission overall, which is an ambassador to the nations, second to your family. So uh that was a long answer to your question.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, no margin, no mission. Isn't that what you guys say in uh C12?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's um that came from that came from a um the um my C12 chair was a CEO of a of a hospital, and they always competed with he called them the the the sisters, which was a Catholic hospital. I can't remember which one it was, but they were he's like they were the sweetest, most most ruthless women you've ever met in your life. And that was their that was their tagline is no ministry without margin, which I love that. And I always say no profit, no, no party without a profit because we have a lot to prove, but I gotta keep people focused on the money.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I was looking at your uh your team page with all your all your folks. It looks like a a pretty fun bunch.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we have we have a lot of fun. I again I I can't stress enough, and I I have I have these rules around business is that everything comes down to margin. I don't care how great your product is, I don't care how great of a you know how much in demand it is. If you don't have massive gross margin, and I'm talking 80% plus, um, you're not gonna be able to scale and without debt. Now, now a lot of companies have 50% gross margin and they go and they go into debt. Uh, we just chose a different path, but um, margin is everything. Margin is you cannot be successful without a massive amount of margin. I don't care how good your intentions are. And so if you are serious about using your business as a platform, you have to be successful. And to be successful, you have to be very smart in business. Um, and again, I'll go back to this. When I talk to a lot of Christians, they're, you know, they they think that God's gonna give them a bunch of favors because He they've dedicated their coffee shop to Jesus, you know. And I'm like, hey, really great. That but that's not how it works. If you jump out of an airplane, you you fall to the ground, just like everybody else. There are laws in business and laws in this world that you do not break. And the sandbox that we play in is a sandbox of the marketplace. The marketplace is on supply and demand and margin. And if you don't play inside that, nope, God doesn't do you any favors, you have to play within. It's I mean, it's it sounds silly. You're like, but every Christian, most Christian business owners that I see start think that God's gonna give them a blessing because um, because they're Christians, and and he does bless you with your salvation and peace in your soul. But he doesn't do you any favors uh unless you play inside the sandbox of the marketplace, which he created, just like gravity. Like he doesn't do you any favors if you jump out of an airplane and you, you know, he's not gonna like magically bring you to the ground, right? Uh you're gonna hit the ground. So I just wanted I just wanted probably get that across to people um in your audience that that you have to be excellent at business, right?
SPEAKER_01And how do you do that when it comes to customer care? I know one of the things you guys offer is a 93-year warranty. Why do you why do you do that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I mean, it's it's uh it's a 94-year no BS warranty, and uh it stands for no bad service. So uh it's kind of a play on words there. Um, look, we again that that is um that's absolutely a business decision that we've made for two parts. One, it's kind of catchy, but two, how do we make products and have such good margin? That kind of keeps us honest, right? We can't make Me Too products from Alibaba and and not have the margin to to warranty them for three times, right? Um, so for us, it's it's what is if we can get a customer top of funnel, that's the most expensive customer you'll ever get. The second custom the second time they purchase is much better uh customer CAC, right? That's a much better LTV, all these lifetime customer value. So, how do we treat people so well that uh they want to come back and and and shop with us? So we put a lot of money and time and effort into customer service. We have all of our we have text, we have phone number you can call us, we you know, all the ways, and we we don't shy away from connecting with our customer because they're expecting a bad experience. And when you can wow them, so for instance, if you call our 800 number, uh typically it goes to voicemail because there's you know 10 people on the phone, but probably within five minutes, even if you don't leave a message, you'll get a phone call back. And so, and people are just shocked by that. They're like, I didn't even leave a message. Why are you calling me back? And we're like, Well, you you know, we want to help you. And they're just like, Man, this is the best company ever. So putting, but really, we bucket that into marketing. So you had front-end marketing customers and you back end customers. Um, but it's all kind of a marketing budget. So um, that is in a nutshell. Again, I'm we don't have a lot of time to go into it, but if you can provide great customer service and a great product, you'll have a long-term brand and margin.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because the the typical focus is on getting new customers, right? Getting when people think about marketing, they they don't generally think about the customers that you have, it's the customers that you don't have. Is that is that right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and that's that is absolutely the biggest mistake most people make. And and and we make it. I mean, I'm not gonna lie, I mean, we've been in business for six years now, and um, we make it. I mean, it's sexy to go after the new channel or the new this or that. Um, but it's and it's a lot harder to tie attribution. So, okay, a customer calls, he has got a broken ring. We, we, we um, you know, we we solve that problem for him, we send him a new ring, no cost. And he tells his three brothers, you know, it's just hard to attribute that cost to a sale down the line, but it's a soft attribution model, and you just have to kind of it it's super hard, especially for analytical marketing people or finance team. They're like, hey, we can put a dollar in here and get three dollars out. We put a dollar in customer service, we have no idea, right? Um, so it's it's a it's a more of an art than it is a science in a lot of ways, especially now Facebook changed all their algorithms.
SPEAKER_01Right. Peter, what's one of your favorite scriptures related to business and entrepreneurship?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so this one's really easy. Um it's it's pretty much the whole chapter of 2 Corinthians 5, but uh I'll narrow it down to these three scriptures. It's 5, 17 through 20. So therefore, if anyone is in Christ, uh the new creation has come, the old is gone and new is here. Um, so that that deals that deals with your identity before you can really be effective, right? Um, before you can represent your family or God or your company, you have to have a title, you have to have an identity. Um, so God, and there's lots of identity verses in the Bible, but this so this touches on it. So therefore, you're a new creation. The old is gone, new is come. So we are a new creation. All this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. So now we're sons of God, we are the we are all the old is gone and the new has come, we are a new creation, and now he has been given the ministry of reconciliation, which is that God was reconciling himself to uh in Christ, uh not counting people's sins against them. And now he has committed to us this message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors back to identity, as though God were making his appeal through us. We so we employ you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. So that that to me is, you know, I touched on it earlier. That's kind of that that is absolutely my life versus um, there's several others that talk about identity that I love, but these are if I'm ever unclear on why I'm here, which I always say I, you know, go to bed a Christian and wake up an atheist, every day is a new day, and you know, your body is aching in the morning and you forget all the lessons you learned yesterday, and by the midday, you're kind of getting back on the train. So I'm I'm human too, but I come back to these and realize, okay, as hard as it is or whatever's happening, because we have this very successful business, but that is lots of pain. Like there is a lot of pain in anything you do that's gonna be successful, whether it's raising kids or having a successful marriage or a successful business, like it is. We live in a fallen world. It is struggle. Now, it is it is there's massive purpose in it. So it gives you it gives you strength to move on. But whenever I'm down and out or I'm struggling, I remember these verses. And I and then I also remember that, hey, it's we do have I do have the ministry of reconciliation. I am an ambassador for Christ in a foreign land, but truly it is Christ doing the work through me. He's prepared the works in advance for me to do. Really comes back to John 15, which is just abiding in the vine and trusting that he's gonna do the work. Um, and you know, that's it. Like it's pretty simple. I mean, the gospel is pretty simple. You didn't, you know, you accepted the free gift, and then you he gave you the ministry of reconciliation, and he does that work as well, but you have to be willing to do it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. What is the evidence that you look for in your business day to day to know that that you are participating in that mission, that ministry of reconciliation?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so this is this is a dance as well, it's an art. Um so again, it people ask me all the time, is it people or prophets? Which one's first? And I'm like, yes, right. So sometimes when um like this last quarter of fourth quarter, you know, we were in austerity mode. We we we ended up having to lay some people off. Um, we had gotten a little fat, and we were kind of preparing for what we think is you know going to be a consumer destruction, continual consumer demand uh destruction. And so, you know, we were kind of accused of like putting money first. And of course we were putting money first because we have 210 people that work for us and we had to let 10 go so that 200 could could stay, right? So, I mean, there's this, it's um we we feed our people three times a week. Uh we have a chef that works for us, we do mandatory funding, we take whitewater rafting trips, and some of those so so profit is first, we and then people are second sometimes. And then sometimes people when when we have enough profit, we put people first and we spend more than than than we usually do on the people. So is this it's just a dance? We have a chaplain that works for us full-time. Um we have um we have a whole mandatory fund team. I have a basically a chief culture officer. He's an executive officer, um, and he basically manages all the people. So we have a we do weekly, monthly, and quarterly surveys, we call them poll surveys on how people are feeling, what are they doing? We have all these, you know, we have uh people at groove can give to a charity fund where that help other people at Groove. So we have all of these things going on and we measure them. So um I think in C12 I learned, I can't remember the exact quote, but it's like it doesn't matter if you don't measure it. So truly, so we measure all those things. So again, it's not a lot of times I'm in fear, just full disclosure. I wake up on panic. We have, you know, however much payroll to make the end of the month and sales are down or whatever. And sometimes I wake up in you know, in greed, right? Like, oh my gosh, there's this huge market opportunity. Let's crush it and make a ton of money. And then um, so and that's just humanity, I think. You wake up in greed or fear, but the at the end of the day, um, we kind of have these systems in place and measure them to keep us honest. Um, because it comes from me. Like, I have this desire, I have an ideal of what I want the business business to be and how I want it to impact people's lives and how I want to represent Christ as an ambassador. But but I'm also very human and I live in those, I have a monkey brain like everybody else that waffles back and forth.
SPEAKER_01So yeah. So you mentioned the some of the things that you do, like you call people back immediately if if one of your 10 people aren't able to pick up the phone right when they call, the 94-year, uh no BS warranty, things like this. Like, I mean, you're you're selling things that you're aware are available are pretty uh widely available on Amazon and everywhere else. Like where is where is are all these customers coming from? Like, how do you how do you explain this?
SPEAKER_00Right. Um, so I think you know, I I ask myself the same question sometimes. I'm like, how in the world are we a brand? And you know, we so we did we did this Lyft study. Um, and you know, only 2% of the people on unaided awareness know who groove life is. Yet we are growing, compounding growth, and and continually. And I think it just goes back to we started with customer service in my mind first. We're always gonna take care of the customer. Again, margin. Uh our initial product, the groove ring, we could, we could warranty seven times before we lost money. So we just were very liberal with that. I think we've just built a reputation of doing what we say we're gonna do. Now, as we scale, that gets more challenging for sure. Just having people that you hire off the street that represent you to the customer, and they, you know, they got it, they got, they don't feel like something's justified, and so they're a jerk to the customer when the customer demands. A new ring or a new watch or whatever. So your question was where are all these customers coming from? You know, we are we we advertise heavily. We have a lot of ambassadors that work with us. I think, but I think at the end of the day, it just comes down to blocking and tackling. I I God gave me this revelation the other day because I'm I'm thinking, you know, how do we how do we how do we become like Yeti or Patagonia where people just think we're the coolest brand, you know? So we're thinking about this TV show, we're thinking about doing this YouTube series, and we're thinking about doing all these things. And I'm kind of stressed out about it because I don't have a clear direction. And we we tried to do a TV show three years ago and spent half a million dollars and didn't get anything back. So I'm I'm hesitant to do anything like that. And then I feel like God just spoke to me the other day and said, you know, it's the like a marriage, it's like with my son William. You know, I have big plans to have a great marriage, and I have great plans for my son and him to follow in my footsteps and blah, blah, blah. Uh, but you don't make in a relationship, you don't, it doesn't work off of a strategic plan, right? I mean, you can have a strategic plan for your family and for your marriage, and I think that's very, I mean, I we do. But at the end of the day, it comes down to me like listening to my wife every day. It comes down to me like playing on the floor with my son. And that's not in the strategic plan, right? I don't check the box every day. It's just blocking and tackling and doing the right thing consistently every day. That's how you have a good marriage, that's how you have to become a good father, and that's how you have a good business. It's like, what is the most important thing? People are the most important thing. How do we serve my family? How do I serve my employees? And how do I serve my customers in light of this mandate that I have to be an ambassador for Christ? And so let's be real clear, real quick. When I say, um, you know, when I say I'm an ambassador for Christ, I'm gonna have way more impact with my family than I ever will my employees, and I'm gonna have way more impact than my employees than I ever will my customers, right? So being clear about that, those are not equal. And the time associated with them are the is also not equal. They're they're skewed. So if I'm gonna spend 60% of my time with my family and invest in that, and I'm gonna spend 30% focusing on being an ambassador to my employees and whatever, you know, 10% on my on my customers. So I think that's something to be clear about as well. And I like I said, with pastors, I think they get those that skewed a little bit. Um, but measuring that, um, you know, Jesus talks about the kingdom of earth, uh the kingdom of heaven coming to earth. And I I I firmly believe he's talking about Christ came to bring order to chaos in every way. And I I use Chick-fil-A as an example of this. You know, why do you go to Chick-fil-A over McDonald's? I mean, it's kind of all fried food from, you know, you know, whatever. It's it's not great. But you know what you're gonna get when you go to Chick-fil-A, you have no idea what experience you're gonna get from one McDonald's to the other. So, what that does is bring anxiety to you, especially if you're a soccer mom and your kids are screaming the back of the van, and you're like, if I go to McDonald's and I'm treated like crap, I'm gonna lose my mind. So I'm gonna go to Chick-fil-A where they'll be smile at me and be happy and they'll so it so it's less of the product and it's more of the experience of order to chaos in people's minds. So people, we can give people order in their lives, my family first by being present with them, my employees second, by giving them a great paying job and consistent love and affection and emotional uh security at work. And then I can bring a little bit of order to the chaos in people's minds in their checkout experience, and then also in their customer service journey after they have a problem or they reach out to us. Like that's that's but it's it's gonna be way more with my kids than it is my customers, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, that's that's well said that it's it's less about the product and more about the experience. Um, that's that's very well said. Uh Peter, what are you working on now that you want to share with our listeners? Groovelife.com is the website. Um, anything else you want to say about um what you're offering and and uh how people can get into that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so we'll we started with the silicone ring. We're still innovating that. Um, we went, then we moved to watch bands and belts. Belts, if you guys haven't tried our groove belt, it is the best belt in the world. Absolutely, hands down. Uh that that actually in the last two years has become the majority of our sales. Um, and we just launched our groove wallet. We have many other products coming in the pipeline. But yeah, we're always looking for great talent. We we hire, uh we don't hire all Christians by any means. We have lots of different faith backgrounds, different lifestyles. But one thing we say is we want the best people in the world and we want them, but they have to love people if they're gonna work at Groove. And then, you know, hopefully eventually they see Christ in us and and start asking questions. So if you guys need a job and you're excellent at what you do, we are always hiring. You can go to Groove Life. Uh, you can just groove life, groove life careers, groove life jobs, and uh apply. That'd be great.
SPEAKER_01Awesome. And what's one action you want people to take as a result of what they've heard today, Peter?
SPEAKER_00There's many. I think the it, you know, if you are an entrepreneur, if you're starting a business, look at those gross margins. And um, you know, I I I'm I'm sort of anti-debt. Um, it's challenging. It's much easier to to kind of jump on the bandwagon of whatever's selling, go into debt and buy a bunch of inventory and you know, buy your customers and all that. But I think it's more of a challenge to say, hey, we are gonna work within these confines of gross margin. And that if that means you have to raise the price of your product, it's a challenge. But if you really want to make an impact, you have to have high gross margins, you have to have a successful company, and you have to have um, you know, again, back to debt. Be careful who you go in debt with. We have we've been able to avoid it, but I know a lot of good Christian companies that have took taking on private equity, and they private equity has no soul. They are looking for the bottom line, and they they they they miss the opportunity to use their business as as uh a ministry. And I'll say this too grow slow, grow slow. If you focus just on doing the right things, just let growth happen. And that might be 10% a year, it might be 50% sometimes, it might be five, might be negative one year, but just stay focused on what you're doing and block and tackle, treat your customers well, and you will build a brand 100%.
SPEAKER_01Awesome. No margin, no mission. Uh, it's it's less about product, more about experience, and and let's use our roles and the influence we have in our companies as ambassadors for Christ. Um, and so many more nuggets you shared with us, Peter. Thank you for your time and um and the great work you're doing for the kingdom. Uh, we're all better for it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, thanks, Darren. Appreciate you having me.
SPEAKER_01We hope you've enjoyed this episode. And if so, we would greatly appreciate it if you'd leave us a quick rating and review for the Christianity and Business Podcast on iTunes. You can get more information about HCU's Center for Christianity and Business and sign up to receive free access to all issues of the Christian Business Review Journal by visiting our website at Christianityandbusiness.com. Thanks for listening, and remember to keep integrating biblical values into your business.